Spider pushed the smaller table over to the opening they had dropped through the night before and with a leap, caught the ledge, and pulled himself up into the vent. He laid flat and reached out just in time to grab Will’s arm and pull him into the ventilation shaft. Behind Jim grasped their supplies and tossed them to the guys above.
Will grabbed three of the six backpacks as he began to crawl outside along the long winding shaft. Spider tossed two behind him and shouted to ‘forget the last pack’ as Jim went back for it, but flames shot through the floor in front of him. A second later the floor dropped and a huge blast of flame filled a quarter of the room.
Jim turned and with one smooth move he never dreamed he had in him, hit the table, and leapt into Spider’s awaiting grasp as the floor and table fell into the raging inferno below. Quickly Jim was pulled to safety, as he grabbed one of the packs and scrambled on his belly in the smoke filled shaft. Behind him he could hear Spider dragging the last pack and coughing in the smoke filled shaft.
Arriving on the outside he felt Will’s hands pulling him off to one side as smoke billowed from the vent and filled the skies above them.
“I have to go back for Spider...”
From out of the dense smoke came... “Why? I’m here.”
Jim reached and grasped Spider just before he scrambled off the stone ledge they were on. The three men sat on the ledge gasping for air. Will reached over and tugged Jim’s shirt.
“We...have to get....down. This...may...”
“Yeah, collapse.” Jim grunted as he struggled to his feet and looked around.
“I don’t see any bats... Bill...Amal...Jesus...”
Spider nodded sadly, and with a proud tone added, “But they made sure they got all the bats.” The men nodded and jumped to the next lower ledge. From inside they could feel the shuddering of walls falling inside and as they jumped to the ground several parts of the outer temple began to tumble inward. The three survivors ran to the structure across the vegetation covered mall and looked back as more of the temple fell inward. Searing red flame and black smoke boiled toward the sky. The entire swamp had became quiet as the sound of falling stone slabs echoed throughout the valley.
The men climbed the structure and scanned for bats... To their relief there were none.
Looking over the burning temple and the sun getting low in the west, Jim looked at Will.
“This seems to be the highest building next to the temple. See if you can reach the cave and...”
Will looked at the temple. “They were in the last backpack.”
Spider half grinned, “Man when you two get back, your girlfriends are going to kill you both. You know they’ll see the smoke and...”
Jim snorted, “Yeah and wonder if we’re alive or dead...and when we get back and they see we’re alive... We’re dead!”
Will nodded, “What...another week...two, to get back?” Spider climbed to the top of the building and looked toward the cave.
“Guys...I can’t see for sure, but remember the Spaniard said they camped on that smaller structure on the small cliff east of here? You know he said a day’s march, but that was for his army. If we leave first thing in the morning, we should arrive much sooner, there are just three of us. We can move much faster than an army...right?”
All three got to the ground and looked inside. There were three large rooms and a heavy wooden outer door to bar for the night. Jim grinned, “Close the door, Will.”
“Why?” Will asked. “Why worry about the door?”
“There could be more bats elsewhere...” Spider noted. “Not to mention all those big scaly things with sharp teeth, Will... Have you forgotten about them already?”
Will smiled half-heartedly and slowly closed the thick wooden door with a satisfying ‘thud’ and after a busy and sad day...the guys called it a night.
Chapter 12.
Light from the morning sun burst through the holes on the east stonewall. The guys lit a small fire and used up the very last of the coffee they had sparingly rationed out from the mining camp’s supplies in the plane. They sorted through all the packs and put everything into just three and within the hour were hiking back to the east and the cave they had begun to look at as home. The only thing other than being eaten that could stop them was the high cliff that separated them from the cave’s valley.
A brief cloudburst during the night had quelled most of the temple’s raging fire and now what was left just smoldered. The ruins belched a puff of smoke now and then as the three survivors left the walled city behind. Once again the rains fell upon the jungle as if to wash away the intrusion of man upon this ancient place.
But the rains also covered their sounds as they thrashed through the dense jungle and they left the swamps behind.
Several hours of following a path eastward, they came upon a clearing. As the tall canopy of trees parted the faint glow in the clouds verified they had indeed been traveling to the east. But now the sun’s glow showed it was nearly overhead as the rains finally broke and the dark clouds parted.
“Jim... Will...” The two turned to see Spider pointing slightly to the left of their heading.
“There is the cliff... and...” he lowered his finger a bit. There between two huge trees in the distance, as the two men followed his finger, they saw a massive stone arch sticking out of the undergrowth.
“Jim, that thing must be thirty feet tall.” There was a pause and then in a stunned voice Will added, “Why that thing isn’t an arch...it’s a arced wall.” Sure enough as they approached the massive stone arch, they found what they thought to be an arch was just the top row of curving stone blocks that covered part of the cliff face. Vines and long hanging Spanish moss covered many of the blocks.
They broke out of the undergrowth and into a clearing to see more huge cut stones forming another curved arc that laid on the ground, that went from end to end of the huge arc that towered above it. The base was six rows high, of much smaller stone blocks that appeared to be about eighteen inches thick. Each row was staggered inward forming steps just high enough for the men to step up upon without having to use their hands.
Spider stood at the top and looked down at the steps.
“It seems the steps are too high to be useful. Maybe a ceremonial...” he looked over the huge semi-circle of flat granite slabs, “...It’s completely flat and no altar. I have no idea what this is.”
They walked around what looked like a huge stage. Suddenly Jim held out his hand and motioned the guys back toward the edge of the unknown structure. He looked around toward the steps up and the curved sides a bit closer.
“Wow, guys... Those vines and small trees growing all over have done the same thing to this thing as they did to the temple and walls back where we were at the old ones city.”
Spider looked over the edge and noticed that many of the once precise cut blocks were no longer aligned with the other blocks.
“Jim’s right Will. Over the years as the vines and trees grew, they have pushed the stones away from one another... In some places it looks like the roots are all that are keeping the blocks together.”
Will took out his flashlight to find it was dead and asked Jim for his. He flicked it on and got to his hands and knees, He peered through one of the larger cracks.
“More stones underneath...” he crawled a bit more, “...same here...” he laid on his stomach and crawled to the next stone near the center of the curved floor and looked through where the nearly foot wide vine had spread the stones. A second later Will was scurrying back to the others.
“Crap! My light couldn’t reach the bottom.”
Jim cocked his head as he frowned. He was at a loss for ideas and frustrated at the fact.
“Ok, so if there is a pit there, why cover it? Didn’t they do that cut out the heart and toss maidens into a pit thing?”
Spider grinned, “Not all of the old civilizations did. These old ones might not have done it at all...” Spider looked at the stone c
over and nodded in agreement with Jim. “Then why cover a hole?”
Will shuddered, “Maybe that’s where the bats came from originally.”
Spider grasped Jim’s arm. “Maybe that’s where the Spaniards got up here from below. I’ve heard of cave systems here in the Andes that have gone on for miles.”
“Or maybe that was the mine for their gold... No large gold mine has ever been found...” Will slowly turned his gaze to the stone block floor. “Maybe the old ones mined gold for all the peoples of South and Central America.”
“Well...” Jim muttered half-heartedly, “...the only way we’ll know, is to open it up. If it was bats, with no way out, they’d be dead by now. Or at least moved on to an area where they could get out. That could mean another way out of this valley. Seeing as there has never been reports of giant bats in the Amazon, I vote dead... But if there is a chance of another way out...”
Will grinned, “So how do we pull a three or four ton stone out of rest? If we try to slide one from the edge, then another until we get to the hole, it would take us weeks, of prying.”
Jim pulled his machete Marti had made and fingered the keen edge of the blade. He looked at the ‘foot in diameter’ vines that grew through the blocks of the stone floor.
“Guys what if we tie ourselves off the trees near the edge of this platform, and cut the vines level to the floor?”
The two men began to nod slowly as they began to pick up on Jim’s idea. Taking the last three ropes, the men tied one end around their waists, and then slowly walked out onto the area Will had indicated as ‘the hole’... they began to cut away the vines and pull them off into the jungle. Finally all the vines had been whittled flush with the stone slab surface all around the one slab that looked the weakest and had been separated from the rest by vines...
“Now what Jim? Nothing happened.” Will noted as if he expected more.
With a grin, Jim nodded to the vine stalks wedged between the slabs.
“Now guys we whittle away at the vines between these slabs to loosen the middle one.” And without hesitation they began, over an hour later they were reaching between the slabs to try to strike down at the rest of the vines.
Will looked at the arch against the cliff. “Hey guys these stone slabs look newer than the arch.”
Spider never looked up and began chopping faster. “Then perhaps this was a way in and out of here. Maybe the old ones covered it up after the attack.”
“Not if all the old ones were dead from plague.” Will muttered and let it drop, even if enough Indians survived to create this ‘stage’...why were there no signs they even existed back at the city?”
Jim rolled off his knees and sat. “Well so much for my plan. These vines are as hard as teak and having to swing down through a foot wide gap just isn’t giving us the leverage we need.”
The three sat there staring down between the gaps in the slabs when suddenly Spider jumped to his feet and ran to the jungle, slashed a few times at a six-inch bamboo stalk and came back carrying a five foot pole. He started slamming the pole downward into the gap upon the vine remains. “Maybe I can drive the vine down...” he slammed the pole downward again...and again.
Will and Jim ran and cut their own poles and each ran to another vine and began slamming their poles as well.
“I got one!” Will shouted, “It fell through!”
“Me too!” shouted Spider.
Now on each end of the rectangular stone slab they slammed their poles downward in a frenzied pace. Sweat soaked their bodies and flooded from their brows as it dripped upon the stone floor. One huge vine that had wedged itself in at an angle now slid into the darkness of the hole below the slab and when it did, there was a slight pause then the entire stone slab tilted at one end fell nearly through.
Jim pulled back as the others stepped back. He raised his pole above his head...and stopped. He glanced back at his pals.
“Uhh, guys... run back to the tree and take up all the slack.” He grinned nervously.
The slack was removed from all their ropes and Spider gently walked out to help Jim. Will cut a twenty-foot bamboo pole from the thickest stalk he could find. He passed it under the two ropes of the guys out on the platform and pushed it out as far as he could making sure the ends of the pole were on solid stone that would not fall into any abyss they might fall into.
Spider and Jim looked at each other and with a nod, pulled the poles over their heads, and aimed at the lowest end of the slab.
Down swung the poles and with a loud crack of splintering bamboo, the huge stone slab fell away into the blackness of the hole. They stood adjacent to each other and grinned as the slab vanished into the abyss.
“Will ya look at that?” Jim muttered, “God knows how deep that thing is. Christ to swallow a slab that sized and...” from below there were distance crashing sounds.
Spider gawked downward. “Madre Mia! It must be thousands of feet...” there was a slight tremor and the block next to the one that fell, dropped into the black maw, then another.
The two men looked at each other... “RUN!!!” but the warning came too late as the entire floor over the pit dropped instantly and the two men on it, dropped from sight.
Will laid down and reached as far as he could reach. He got a death grip on the long bamboo pole he had put under the ropes and instantly both ropes went taut as the bamboo brace crackled under the weight...but it held.
Will looked into the blackness and shouted, “You two ok?”
To his relief, two voices replied ‘yes’. There was a horrible splintering sound as the large bamboo pole began to bend under the strain of the two ropes.
“Guys, the pole is going.” Will shouted.
“No problem Will, my feet are against the wall.” Replied Spider calmly.
“Me too.” Jim answered from the shadows.
“Well hold what you have guys. I have to cut this pole out so the splinters don’t cut through your lines as you climb up... Watch out below!”
From above the two could see Will hacking at the bamboo and a few hacks later, there was a slight drop on their ropes and the two halves of the pole slipped by the men and vanished into the darkness below. Spider began to climb as Jim paused.
Within a few minutes, Spider vanished over the top and Jim who had just began to climb, found he was being pulled up. Upon reaching the top both men grabbed onto his shirt and pulled him over and Jim twisted to a sitting position with both feet dangling over the edge.
The other two joined him as Will pointed toward the cliff. Not only had the entire stone floor fallen into the pit, so had all but the top two rows of the arch. Beyond where the arch stones were, lay a crevasse that went back into the cliff face. Will looked back down into the hole and then to his friends.
“Judging from the shape and walls...this thing at one time was a volcanic vent. I’d guess it most likely was cut off from the lava below thousands of years ago.”
“My ancestors believed in many gods guys, including gods of the Earth and underworld. The old ones probably thought this was an entrance to the underworld.” Spider informed his friends.
“Well the vines and trees here were much smaller than back at the city. I’m guessing this was a much newer structure, but why I have no idea. Wouldn’t the old ones cover this hole up a long time ago if they feared the gods?”
Spider shrugged, “Who the hell knows? I never knew about the ancient gods... I’m Catholic...” he grinned sheepishly, “...a non active one, but still a Catholic.”
Jim laughed, “Not with that mouth...” he laughed as Spider flipped him off.
Will looked into the maw as a few faint columns of dust wafted from the hole.
“The Captain said the tribes all brought their treasures back to the old ones. The old ones gave the treasures back to the gods...” the men all turned their gazes to the volcanic vent. Will smirked as he added, “...and that ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the legend of El Dorado!”
C
hapter 13.
The three sat on the ledge mulling over the vast riches that had been tossed down a black hole in the ground in hopes of saving many of the South and Central American civilizations. An overwhelming sadness overcame them, as the thoughts of how many had died throughout the ages, either defending or seeking the riches of the Americas. How many lives of the natives, the conquers and the centuries of fools that had died seeking El Dorado. Then there were the multitudes of Europeans that brought the various diseases as they sought the riches.
Those riches all ended here in this black pit.
From the sounds of the slabs falling Jim had guessed the black maw was around one thousand feet or more deep and from what they could see with the flashlights, the walls were smooth and completely vertical. Add the fact that they had just dumped several hundred tons of stone slabs into the bottom of it, there was no question... If there had been a way out at the bottom, there wasn’t now.
Knowing they needed to get over the cliff soon, Spider stood and looked over at the stone arch. Just as quickly he looked down the black maw that opened below the arch.
“Jim, Will... If you two can belay me, I think I can climb the arch. If I can get to the top, it looks like I might be able to ‘free style’ the last twenty or so feet to the top. Thank God the cliff is so much lower here. The arch is still firmly against the cliff face...yeah, it’s a good plan.”
Jim agreed, knowing both Will and he were able to climb, going this way would cut their time hunting for another route by hours. About then, Will hit on a great idea.
“Hey Spider, how about I go over to the other side of the arch I’ll take Jim’s rope with me and tie our ropes together. If I tie a rock on one end I should be able to toss it over the top and hopefully gravity will do the rest. If it’s too short we can tie some of these vines to our end.”
It sounded good as Will followed his idea, but throwing a five-pound rock that pulled about one hundred feet of rope proved to be quite a challenge. After about the fifth try the rock either reached the top or bounced off the stone arch and fell down into the black maw and the rope had to be coiled back up again.
Valley of Lost Time. Page 12
