Valley of Skulls (Fargo Book 6)

by John Benteen

  “I know why the Maya are here and ready for war,” Fargo said. “There have been evil things done to the Maya by the man, Stoneman.”

  “Yes. We have come for him. Two families are fatherless because of him. Blood seeks blood ...”

  “I will deal with Stoneman,” Fargo said. “I am a Norteamericano who will see that Stoneman is punished. I have in the North a friend who is a great chief, who loved the Indian and who hates the man who does injustice to them. He will see that Stoneman is punished in the ways of his own people.”

  Sabino stared at him impassively. Then he spat. “That puts no food in the mouths of crying children.”

  “Neither does a Maya knife in Stoneman’s belly. But this will.” Fargo unslung the money belt. He opened one compartment, took out a handful of gold, held it high, let the coins dribble through his fingers in a yellow shower, fall to the earth in a pile.

  Even Sabino, despite his Indian impassiveness, gasped at the sight of so much wealth. Two hundred dollars in gold, probably, Fargo guessed; and that would be more cash than an entire Indian village saw in a decade.

  “This will feed the hungry children. It will buy new guns for the village with which to hunt. New tools with which to till your milpas. And if you have sons or brothers enslaved in the monterias, this will buy them free.”

  It was a good bet that they did; few Indian villages were without those unfortunates who had borrowed from moneylenders and were doomed to work themselves to death in the logging camps in repayment of the debt. Five or ten dollars American were the enormous sums they owed—and which they could never earn back to buy their freedom.

  Sabino made a sound in his throat. “The Maya,” Fargo went on, “are entitled to this for their dead men.” He unsnapped another compartment. “And this,” he added, as a second stream of gold as large as the first trickled through his fingers.

  “So much,” he said. “And my promise that Stoneman will face my great chief’s justice in his own homeland.”

  Sabino licked his lips, stared down at the gold.

  “This is something strange. That a white man should come before us unarmed when there are so many guns in camp. That he should give us gold, which white men hate to part with ...”

  “The Gods so want it,” Fargo said. He searched his memory for a word, a Mayan word he’d heard somewhere in his travels, the single random name of a Mayan God. Somehow it had something to do with that temple back there. Then it came to him. “The ancient ones desire it. Especially Multuntzekil!”

  Sabino jerked up his head at the name. “Multuntzekil? Lord of the Heaps of Skulls? What know you of him?”

  Fargo pointed. “His temple is there.”

  “Yes. But …”

  “In a moment, he will speak.”

  “Speak?” Their eyes widened, they looked at each other in the torch light, open-mouthed.

  “Yes. In flame and thunder Multuntzekil speaks. To tell you I speak truth. We want only to leave this place, to leave the sacred Mayan temple and the sacred skulls. To go in peace. Multuntzekil will say that to you ...” Fargo thumbed out his watch, stole another glance. Four minutes, if Darnley followed schedule. “Will you take the money and let us go?

  Sabino hesitated. He seemed on the verge of consent; and then another Indian shoved into the torchlight; and suddenly Fargo realized that here was trouble. This one was younger, his black eyes sharp, glittering, his mouth a wide, bitter, impatient slit. “The old gods are dead!” he snapped. “The white men have killed them! They no longer speak!” He held a machete high, as if ready to slash. “The white man Stoneman has beaten me with his whip. He will not do that to me or anyone again!” He spat. “We take the money. But we take the white men, too. I, Chan Ka, say that.”

  “The white men have guns,” he said. “Many guns. More will die.”

  “This one has no guns!” Chan Ka rasped. He took another step forward, drew back the machete. “And as for the others—are we women?” A second more and that blade was coming down ... Fargo tensed.

  “Wait!” Sabino’s voice halted it. “I am still headman here.” He touched the gold with his foot. “We have no quarrel with this one, he came unarmed, in peace—and this is fair payment for our wrongs. You shall have your share. Enough to buy your brother back from the monteria at Agua Azul. Why should more women weep?” He stared at Fargo. “We will hear the voice of Multuntzekil, Lord of the Heaps of Skulls. You say he will speak. Never in my knowledge has he done so before. But, now—prove what you say, white man. Prove it to Chan Ka and to me and the others.”

  Fargo licked dry lips. He turned slowly. The pyramid bulked black against the sky. Atop it, the ruined temple and its tower was a jumble of silent stone, deeply shadowed. Damn it, Darnley, he thought, aware of that machete poised for the swing. Damn it, you’d better be quick …

  “Watch,” he said steadily. “Watch and listen. From his temple, the Lord of the Heaps of Skulls will speak in flame and thunder.” He raised his voice. Now, he thought. “Cry out, oh, Multuntzekil!” he roared.

  And, as if in answer, from the temple on the pyramid a huge tongue of flame belched white into the darkness, and just behind it came a clap of thunder. In the silence of the night, the sound was terrific, echoing and re-echoing in the hushed jungle. Then the jungle was no longer silent, but a wild cacophony of frightened birds and animals shrieking and gibbering at the tops of their lungs.

  Sabino gasped. He clapped a hand to his open mouth. “He speaks!” he whispered.

  “Yes,” said Fargo. “He says take the gold and go; leave the white man to the white man’s justice.”

  Chan Ka made a contemptuous sound in his throat, but he was, nevertheless, trembling slightly. Fargo sensed what went on inside him: common sense warring with superstition. As a worker in the camp, he had heard blasting, knew the sound of blasting powder. But at night, with such a tongue of flame, coming from the sacred temple at Fargo’s command …

  “I do not believe it,” he rasped in Spanish.

  “Speak again, Lord of the Heaps of Skulls!” Fargo yelled that across the clearing. You’d better have that damned gun turned, reloaded, by now, Darnley—

  “Speak—!”

  Up there in the ruined temple, flame cleft the darkness once again with brilliant orange-white. Once more, deep and rolling, thunder boomed across the clearing, jarring the very air. The shrieking in the jungle heightened. All that howling and screaming in the brush was eerie, spooky, even to one used to the night noises of the tropics; it was like the scream of souls in torment, the gibbering of demons. All around the clearing now, Fargo saw that Indians had appeared in the open, staring, awe-filled, at the pyramid. Then—Darnley was a quick man with a cannon—the gun roared again.

  Fargo turned. Chan Ka had lowered the machete. He stood there trembling, biting his lip. One more time, thought Fargo. By turning the gun, Indians on all sides would have a clear look at that white tongue of flame, hear the thunder directed toward them.

  The gun fired its final charge. The thunder rolled and died. Fargo let out a long breath. “You have heard Multuntzekil,” he said.

  “It’s only—” Chan Ka began, but his voice was empty of defiance, now; feeble. “It’s only—”

  “It is the voice of the ancient ones,” Sabino whispered. “I never thought to live to hear it.” Suddenly he fell to his knees. For a moment, Fargo thought that he was praying. But he was scooping up the gold, cramming it into his pockets.

  Chan Ka watched for an instant. Then he was on his knees, too, the machete thrown aside. He seized gold, crammed it in his loin cloth.

  “It must be divided!” Sabino snapped. “It must be divided fairly.”

  “Yes,” Fargo said. “The God has said that.” His voice was stern, full of authority.

  His pockets loaded, Sabino scrambled to his feet.

  “We have our justice,” he said, staring at Fargo. “The lives of the dead men have brought riches to the rest of us.

  That must
have been the plan of the ancient Gods for them. In the old days, men were killed here for the same reason, so that the gods would send us wealth. And now, with my own ears, I have heard the God of the Temple of the Skulls speak in thunder and have seen with my own eyes his tongue of fire. And—” He hesitated. “You will leave this sacred place? All of you?”

  “By tomorrow night we’ll be gone, if you will let us pass safely.”

  “So be it. Chan Ka?”

  The younger one looked at him. As he turned, Fargo could see the half-healed ridges and welts across his back, some of them still infected. Stoneman, Fargo thought tautly, had given him a devil of a beating. In Chan Ka’s place, he would have wanted Stoneman’s blood and got it, God or no God.

  Chan Ka, however, only nodded: “Let them go,” he said harshly. “I am content.” But he turned, looked toward the temple, and his face was hard.

  “Then I will pass the word,” said Sabino. He wheeled, snapped something in a soft, liquid dialect like running water—probably Quiche-Maya, Fargo thought. The others nodded, loped off in opposite directions as runners.

  “You are free to go,” said Sabino. “You will not be harmed. But when the sun has risen twice, you must no longer be in this place.”

  “We’ll not be,” Fargo said. “I have brought another present. Tobacco.” He handed over the drawstringed sack full of pipe mixture.

  Sabino took it gravely, nodded thanks. “We will smoke it to the ancient gods.” He turned away. Then, almost magically, he disappeared into the jungle, musket and all, and Chan Ka melted after him.

  Fargo let out a long breath. The torch had burned down, was burning his fingers. He dropped it, stamped it out. Then, in darkness, relying on the word of the old Maya, he turned his back and strode, defenseless, away.

  Ten minutes later, he had reached the ruined palace.

  Darnley was there. He looked at Fargo in the firelight. “You could use a drink,” he said, and found a bottle in the supply pile and passed it over. “Did it work?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t,” Fargo said thinly. He took a long drink—one he needed as badly as any he had ever swallowed. He passed the bottle to Darnley, turned to Stoneman, Telford and the others. “There’ll be no trouble with the Indians if we’re out of here in twenty-four hours.” Then he threw Stoneman’s money belt to the man. “It cost you about four hundred bucks in gold.”

  “Four hundred dollars?” Stoneman’s eyes flared. “Damn you—”

  “Shut up,” Fargo said quietly, and he reached and got the shotgun. “Just shut up. One more word out of you and I’ll give you to them. You understand?”

  His eyes bored into Stoneman’s, and Stoneman turned away. “All I can say,” he grated, “is that you’d better get that cannon out of here and to Belize safe and sound.”

  “I’ll do what I’ve been paid for,” Fargo said.

  Chapter Eight

  Darnley kept a heavy guard posted all night with orders to fire only if fired upon. Thus, since there were no more alarms, Fargo got seven hours badly needed sleep in a hammock beneath a jury-rigged mosquito bar. He and the whole camp were up long before dawn. There was much to be done and it was vital that they keep their promise to the Maya and clear this place before the next day’s sunrise.

  He was finishing his coffee when Darnley came to stand beside him. “You haven’t seen it yet, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Come and look at it. It’s a sweet artillery piece. Those old Spaniards knew their business. And that temple—Jove! Something to raise the short hair on your neck.”

  Fargo drained the cup, set it aside.

  “Let’s go.” He looked around. “Where’re the Telfords and Stoneman?”

  “Up there.” Darnley gestured to the top of the pyramid.

  A stair of ancient stone led up its long, sloping side. It was a steep, hard climb. Darnley chuckled. “Damned good thing for you I’m in top shape. Not many men could have made a fast run up this with a can of gunpowder under each arm. And to turn that thing around the way you wanted ... It took ten of us with iron bars!” He lowered his voice, suddenly serious, nudged Fargo. “You’ve never seen anything like it, believe me,” he whispered. “Fargo, this will be the biggest score anybody’s made down here since the days of Sir Francis Drake!”

  Then they had reached the top of the pyramid. Above them, the roofless temple hulked. Darnley led him between great piles of stone. Then he stopped short. “There,” he said.

  Fargo stared.

  At the base of the square, stone tower, the skulls were piled. Hundreds of skulls, thousands of them—tribute to Multuntzekil. A vast heap, a great mound, they stared at Fargo with crazy, eyeless, tilted sockets, grinning jaws—almost as if mocking the living, full of knowledge denied to those not yet dead. Some were caked with dirt, others cracked and splintered. Dwarfed by that great heap of bone, Fargo could not help a shiver.

  “That’s not all,” said Darnley. “Over here.” He led Fargo to a deep hole in the top of the pyramid. “Telford said they found the cannon down here under all those skulls, lying on the rest of them. Look.” Fargo stared down into a vast pit. There was no telling how far into the pyramid it extended. It, also, was jammed with skulls. They looked up at him coldly in the gray light of dawn.

  “The Maya, of course, had heard the legend of it,” Darnley continued. “But they wouldn’t touch these skulls; they were too scared, and they ran away before the gun was uncovered. Stoneman and the others lifted it out with a block and tackle. You were lucky last night. If they’d suspected the cannon was up here, they might have guessed what your voice of the Lord of the Heap of Skulls was.”

  They walked around the rim of the great pit, staring at its gruesome contents. Nelson Telford stood on its far edge, staring moodily down. As they approached he shook his head sadly.

  “What’s the matter, Telford?” Fargo asked.

  “It hurts me,” Telford said, “to leave all this unexcavated. Who knows what’s down there? Oh, God, if we just had time to move the rest of the skulls. The things we might find in the bottom of that pit—”

  “Maybe you can come back someday,” Fargo said.

  “No.” Telford shook his head. “I doubt I ever will. I have a feeling it’ll be a long time before Mexico’s quiet enough for any other expedition to return here, and I’m too old. Well ...” He sighed, turned. “If only we can get those stelae out …”

  “The Golden Gun is over here, other side of the tower,” Darnley said.

  They rounded the pile of stone. There Nancy Telford and Ned Stoneman were in low, intense, angry conversation. “I told you last night,” she snapped. “It’s off.”

  “Listen—” Stoneman seized her arm, squeezed. She cried out in pain. Fargo stepped forward.

  “Stoneman,” he said.

  The man turned, still holding Nancy.

  “Let her go,” said Fargo.

  Stoneman stared at him. Then, slowly, he released his hold.

  “Don’t lay a hand on her again, you understand?” Fargo said.

  Something flared in Stoneman’s eyes, then died.

  “You go on down to camp, Nancy,” Fargo ordered, “and get the cooking outfit together, you and Norris.”

  “Yes,” she said, shot a look of disgust and hatred at Stoneman. She rounded the tower rubbing her arm.

  “Where’s the gun?” Fargo asked.

  “There,” said Darnley, leading him further around the tower and pointing.

  Fargo stopped short, sucking in breath as if someone had hit him in the stomach. He had never seen, never even dreamed of such a thing. The reality of it was awesome.

  There it sat, on pinless trunions—a perfect Spanish cannon of pure, soft gold: bell-breeched, bell-mouthed, perhaps twelve feet long and gleaming dully in the light of the sun just rising over the jungle. Two thousand pounds or maybe double that—a weapon and a fortune simultaneously. Now he knew why the legend of it had haunted old Stoneman for decades.


  Fargo looked at it in fascination, greed and awe for a long moment. Almost, he was tempted, now—tempted to join with Darnley and take this thing for his own. Then he came back to earth. He had made a bargain with Stoneman. Now the job was to get this golden monster across hundreds of miles of jungle without losing or ruining it.

  He lit a cigarette thoughtfully. He did not think the Indians would try to take it from them. It was more than they could cope with, more than they could comprehend. But as it was being transported through the jungle, the Indians would be watching them and were bound to see it. In this land news traveled on the air—seemingly like pollen. The word would reach every monteria, every trading village and pueblo, every town of any size: an army of gringos was transporting through the jungle a gun of solid gold, valuable beyond imagining. Melted down, it could finance an army or buy a man a huge ranch and many women. And they would come … the buscaderos, revolutionaries, pistoleros … they would have to be outrun, out-fought. Fargo ran his hand over the golden cannon. Its long, sleek, soft tube was flawless, devoid of crack or weakness. And this, he thought, would help fight them off. And it must be mounted and ready for action as soon as possible, for the first band could come at any time.

  “Let’s get this thing down off the pyramid,” he said, “and on its carriage. Telford, I have bad news for you.”

  Telford stared at him. “What?”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to lose another mule.”

  “No!” the man exploded.

  “Yes. We need it to haul all the gunpowder you’ve got. And as many round rocks as we can pick up.”

  Darnley comprehended, grinned. “Going to let it fight its own way out?”

  “Wait a minute!” Stoneman snapped. “You mean you’re going to use it as artillery?”

  “If we have to,” Fargo said. “And likely we’ll have to.”

  “No!” Stoneman’s face was red. “You can’t load and fire it! The heat will melt the gold, ruin the bore: it’ll blow up! It wasn’t designed for that!”