Valley of Lost Time.

by Robert Turnbull Jr.

  Spider swore, and then shouted again.

  “Scar’s following me as I swung out of the way.” He looked at the rock column as it fell slowly outward from the cliff. Spider swore one more time, and pushed himself toward the falling column of rock. Scar followed and from the ledge all the remaining five could see was Spider’s rope tighten, and then go slack as the column fell downward.

  Sure enough Scar had followed Spider back to where the huge column was falling. The men were scrambling as they tried to stay on the ledge. They had been stacked up behind the stone column that no longer was there to hold them. They all finally managed to find a place on the ledge as the column crashed to the rocky ground below. One man looked over the ledge and cheered as the rest peered over to see the massive column crumpled on the rocks below... and under it laid a crushed Scar in an ever-spreading pool of blood.

  “Spider got Scar!” Amal shouted, and then slowly looked at the others sadly.

  “He gave his life for us...” Jesus sadly replied.

  “ONLY IF YOU FUCKERS DONT” PULL ME UP!” came a shout from below the ledge.

  All eyes darted back to the area where the column had been attached to the cliff face and as the dust cleared... Spider hung on with one hand still attached to the one remaining piton that was still embedded into the cliff face. He had jumped, used his very short sleeping rope and clipped it onto the piton, released his safety rope and let the column fall outward and over him. The huge cloud of dust that blasted upward had obscured him from the rest of his party...until now.

  Will and Jesus slid over and tossed him the safety rope and slowly pulled him to the narrow ledge. The guys patted Spider on his head and back, hugged him... then Jim glared at him.

  “Do some stupid stunt like that again and I’ll personally kill you!” Jim couldn’t contain the straight face any longer and gave him a wink... “Well done my friend.”

  Spider had been the miners hunter and jungle scout for years and was well respected. So when Spider told the guys, ‘it was time to get going’, they did. Everyone realized old Scars blood would no doubt bring the hungry meat eaters that Scar had scared away the night before.

  Quickly the men packed up and repelled down the cliff face to the rocky surface below and as they skirted the bloody mess that used to be their stalker, Rocky’s closest friend, Amal, flipped Scar off, and kicked his crushed head. He softly muttered, “That’s for Rocky!”

  As luck would have it this part of the western edge of the valley was slightly higher and although they traveled on a rocky debris covered slope, it afforded them a clear view in all directions and this debris field continued for two more days.

  On the third day since Scar’s demise, Spider found a rocky outcropping that had been forced upward several hundred feet into the air a millennia ago. It rose nearly a mile to the east in the midst of the jungle. Barely large enough for the six men to sleep upon for the night it was still safer than anywhere else they saw and they were now quite a ways from the swamps. This meant no curious long-necks.

  Jim told them they’d stop early and make camp, so they slowly picked their way to the top. Towering well away from the swamps northern edge they looked northward...and their hearts sank. From their vantage point they could see most of the unexplored mountains to the west and north as they curved around to meet the eastern cliffs they had entered this valley from. They were high and very steep and just like the rest of the mountains they had seen... Were un-scalable!

  “Maybe there is a cave or cavern down.” Jim muttered hopefully.

  “No senor Jim...” Jesus slowly sat and looked at the rest in despair. “Senorita Marti has taught me enough to know those are the same kind of mountains we had found all around this valley... There will be no caves.” He hung his head wearily.

  Jim frantically searched using the one pair of binoculars they had and after several minutes, his shoulders slumped as he lowered the field glasses and sat on the rocky top.

  “I’m afraid he’s right guys. I couldn’t see all the cliffs, but enough to know it’s not worth the risk of checking out what little I couldn’t see.”

  Will reached down and took the binoculars from Jim and looked eastward.

  “Damn guys it sure is going to be a long way back and we have to go directly back through...” he fell silent. As Will continued to look through the swamp they would have to go through, the men noticed he wasn’t scanning any more. Will’s gaze was frozen to one spot.

  “Jim...have a look...” Will’s voice was soft and had a distinct puzzled tone to it.

  Jim stood, took the binoculars, and looked in the direction Will was pointing. Will leaned next to Jim, “See?”

  “What those rows of boulders?” Jim replied in a puzzled tone.

  “When have you ever seen boulders in a row...flat and stacked?”

  Jim lowered the glasses and slowly turned to Will. Almost to suggest what was on his mind, Jim muttered softly... “Ruins of some kind?”

  “Yeah and the walls seem to surround that really tall hill at this end of the walls.” Will looked at Jim and grinned, “Well it is on our way back... Well it could be something or at best a place to sleep it appears to be about half way to the eastern cliffs.”

  Jim grinned, “Tomorrow, we’ll find out!”

  Chapter 10.

  Sleeping safely upon the outcropping it was the first night they had in days where they had felt safe. If the giant bats had flown, they never detected the tarp-covered men. And as the dawn once again approached, Will tried once again to radio the cave to no avail and the guys became worried until Will checked the batteries.

  “Sure why the hell not.” Will chuckled, “Nothing else has gone right....they need to be recharged. They might charge a bit on their own, but not a lot.”

  Bill grinned, “Well you can always recharge them when we get back.” He winked at the others, “Guess he’s just pissed ‘cuz he can’t chat with his hiney... Oops, I mean honey.”

  A quick breakfast of cold dino-jerky and the men began to repel down to the jungle. Both Jim and Bill had taken bearings on what appeared to be stone ruins. Everyone knew that trekking through the jungle it would take the better part of the day and seriously hoped ruins would provide some cover for the night. They knew there would be little light left to hunt for more shelter by the time they arrived.

  Upon arriving at the strange wall, the tired men saw tall, vine-covered walls made of huge precisely cut boulders. The walls were nearly ten feet thick and nearly twice as high. Vines and trees sprouted from them and if they hadn’t seen them from their lofty evening perch, they might have walked right by them and never seen them. Jim shook his head in disbelief.

  “Well guys, this explains why it took us so long to get here. Their size gave the illusion they were closer...” he glanced back toward the west, “...and not much longer to dusk... A few hours at best.”

  “I agree, let’s do a quick explore of the joint and find us some shelter for the night.” Will grinned nervously. It seemed all the sounds in the swamp to the south and the jungle that now surrounded them, were aimed directly at them.

  The six men followed the wall for nearly a three quarters of a mile. The size of this wall staggered their imaginations. How could something this size exist here in this place of huge beasts and death?

  Finally arriving at what appeared to be a huge, thick wooden gate that had long since fallen inward and now laid skewed against the walls to either side.

  Peering inside the massive walls was even more staggering. It was a city of sorts! There were at least a dozen Mayan like structures they could see from the gate and wide spacious areas that mimicked old Aztec ruins they had seen... but obviously much older. All the building were covered in lush growth of various species.

  There lying at their feet was an old rusted conquistador helmet, beyond old armor breastplates and swords were strewn over the ground. Scattered along the walls and some structures, were unusual pictographs and hieroglyphics
that were barely discernible.

  The armor was obviously bent and torn apart and there were no bones of any kind. No doubt there had been some sort of a battle here and as they explored, it became clear there had been no survivors...or at least their skeletons.

  In the center of the city was a wide, five-story high pyramid that had become completely overgrown with lush vegetation and if it wasn’t for the huge double door on one side, they might have thought it a tiered hill. The massive, intact doors were made of the same teak-like wood the gates were made from and refused all their efforts to gain entry. With dark fast approaching the men scrambled to the top of the hill to get a good lay of the land. If nothing else, it was the highest place around. And it appeared that once again they would have to spend the hot night under their large tarp.

  The entire city must have encompassed at least a square mile or more, and contained twenty structures. Some lay in ruins, others had coverings of plant material. Most had fallen inward from the weight of their massive stone roofs, but this temple of sorts had withstood the ravages of time... and dinosaurs.

  All the ruins, including this large mound had trees and vines growing from them, that throughout the ages had slowly begun to push the vast stones apart as their roots grew.

  “Senors!” Jesus shouted, “A hole!” he knelt on the stone ledge and held an arm full of heavy vines away from the structure.

  The men ran over to see a dark vent like opening that measured four foot by four foot about one third of the way down from the top. Will smiled, “Damn guys, I’ll bet it’s a vent of some kind. There is a stone missing, not just pushed open... It has to be a vent, or light?”

  They pulled out the small LED flashlights and looked inside. Spider dropped to his knees and looked back at Jim.

  “Senor?”

  Little had they noticed night had fallen and now there was a strange sound of rushing air and a strange feeling in Jim’s ear...or was it a sound?

  “DUCK!” he shouted and as the four standing men ducked something swooped over their heads.

  “Damn...it’s those bats.”

  Every one of the men scrambled into the long black passageway of the vent. Spider reached up and pulled several heavy vines back down over the opening. The five sat with their backs against the stonewalls of the horizontal ventilation shaft as several more bats swooped by the vines and left.

  Spider came crawling up to the men and nodded in the direction of the darker unknown part of the shaft. “Well guys, do we stay here or...”

  Jim flipped his light forward and began to crawl. As the rest followed suit, several rustles could be heard behind them as several more huge wings soared past the vines.

  Bill chuckled, “Good call pulling those vines back down Spider... Spider?”

  All eyes turned to the Latin hunter and guide. He knelt there looking at his hand, then sniffed it. “I don’t know now Senors’... I smell the faint smell of guano.”

  “Bat shit?” Bill asked, “Here? Why we haven’t seen any bats other thannn...oh shit!”

  “Hopefully they’ve all gone outside by now.” Spider muttered, “We’re probably safer in here than out there.”

  Jim shrugged and nodded, he flipped his light back in the direction they were headed and began to crawl. Ten more feet and the shaft split and became much smaller so they had to crawl and push their packs in front of them. To the parties relief that meant the bats did not fly out or in this way. Even realizing the bats could have crawled out, the dense vines Jesus had pulled away from the entrance meant there was another way out... They hoped!

  Once the men got to the end of the passage they had taken, they came out into a room twenty-five feet square and thankfully another heavy wooden door that was sealed shut. This time the door was normal sized and barred from the inside. To one wall lay a dusty skeleton dressed in native garb, the rest of the room was empty of other bones.

  Scanning the room the men found several old pitch-like torches and after several attempts, managed to get them all lit.

  The room was ablaze in the reddish glow of the torches and as expected, the smoke arose and traveled out the vent they had just crawled through.

  Jim nodded and grinned, “Looks like they did a good job of designing this place. The smokes going out the way we came in. Wonder why bones over there didn’t leave?”

  Will whistled a slow steady whistle. “Damn, look at the furniture, wooden not stone, and its cut and carved wood. These people sure seem more advanced than the other South and Central American races.” As Will pulled out a large wooden chair and carefully sat so did the others.

  “Looks like some sort of a small meeting room. Lots of chairs and this big table, no bed or...” Jim stopped as his scanning hit a table on the far side of the room. There upon the table was an old leather tome of some kind.

  “Have any of you ever read about the old races writing things down on vellum and binding it in leather?”

  Jesus looked strangely at Jim. “No I haven’t...” As his gaze followed Jim’s he grinned, “Until now that is.” He got up and walked across the room, carefully picked up the book that was the size of a ship’s logbook but thicker. He walked back to the larger table and opened the tome as Spider grasped a torch and held it closer to the book. He gasped as he fingered the partially crumbled first page... “Senors...this is paper and it’s written in old world Spanish. It must have come from the same place all that old armor did.”

  Bill looked over to the skeleton lying against the wall.

  “That poor old boy probably grabbed the book during the attack and locked himself in here.”

  Spider frowned, “From the bats?”

  Bill snorted, “Most likely from the Spanish.”

  Jesus slowly turned the first page and it crumbled to dusty chunks of unreadable paper. Using two hands he strained to read the next page and could not. Will handed him one of the flashlights with the hope this one wouldn’t fail as several of them had during their trip.

  Jesus clicked on the light and tried to read the faint ink scratched in crumbling pages. He looked up at Jim.

  “Senor Jim, if I continue, I will destroy this book.”

  “Go ahead Jesus. Hopefully it will tell us some way out of this mess.” Jim chuckled.

  Will snorted playfully, “What this temple or this valley?”

  Jim laughed and sat next to Jesus, pulled out another light and shined it on the book... “Both!” he replied.

  “Well, the man that wrote this....uhh... was named... something, Delgre... Can’t read the rest, too faded. He was the Captain of the ship... San... something.” Jesus looked up as he turned the page and it disintegrated as well. Jim and the rest nodded for him to continue. Jesus rubbed his eyes and grinned at his friends.

  “You all get some sleep, Spider and I will try to read some and maybe between us we can make out a bit more with two pairs of eyes.”

  Jim looked at Amal, who tossed up his hands and laughed, “I can read and write four Arabic languages, but not Spanish.” He waved at the two Latino’s and laid on the floor.

  “Give us a good story in the morning... ‘Night amigos.”

  The guys all had a few laughs, ate, and then curled up for the night. Even after being repeatedly told not to stay up too long, the two did... and into the morning when the others had awakened, Jesus and Spider were still at it.

  They even read as they ate their dino-jerky breakfast. Finally the duo gently closed what was left of the old book. They shook their heads in disgust at the lost words that had faded with the centuries or had crumbled to dust in their hands.

  Spider nodded for Jesus to start the tale as Jesus turned and faced the rest of the party.

  “We never found any more mention of the author’s name or his ship’s name. It started after Cortez fought with the many tribes of natives. Most of you know how wide and varied the ancient races of Central and South America were. After Cortez left, Montezuma sent word to all the nations that the ‘men of the
cloud ships’ wanted gold and would kill for it and no doubt would return.

  Even as the European sicknesses ravaged the natives they sent word throughout the native’s world as far as the southern tip of Peru. Chiefs of all nations agreed to send the gold they had to the city of the ‘old ones’. This place where they believed all the people had originated from...we think, the book was vague on that part. They honestly thought that if the returning conquistadors found no more gold they would leave.”

  Will looked at Jim and snorted, “Yeah right!”

  Spider sat next to Jesus and leaned in toward the rest.

  “So when they did return and found no gold, things got really bad. One woman told of an old priest that knew where the old ones lived and Cortez sent three ships of his fleet, the girl, the old man and his granddaughter, who was their hostage and leverage to force the old priest to show them where the ‘old city’ was.” Spider shook his head in dismay.

  “The old man said he had to cross a river that was said to be so wide at its end, that it took a man a day to row across.”

  Bill chirped, “The Amazon?”

  Jesus laughed, “Well that’s what the Captain thought. He had been one of the three ships that stayed behind to map the coast and rivers. He knew of such a wide river and when they sailed to it, the old priest took them up one of the tributaries... The only way he knew how to proceed.”

  Spider chimed in, “Si! The three ships made anchor when the river became too shallow and it took nearly six months for the three hundred and seventy six men to get to the southernmost tributary by long boats. By that time the woman had died and ninety-three of the sailors and soldiers. It took another five months to move the column to the native village that guarded the way to the old ones.”

  Jesus now completely lost in their narrative, jumped in.

  “After passing through three of the five tribal lands of the ‘people that stole heads’ and a brief fight with the people that protected the gateway of the old ones, the Spanish had barely one hundred and sixty men left. The old priest and his granddaughter had both died, but they had the chief of the protector tribe.