Cynthia shot a glance at Dani, who hunched her shoulders in response. Cynthia realized she had no choice. Bowing, she thanked the woman, but as the pair of settlers turned away, she called out, “Why? Why do you give this to me?”
The woman who had handed her the knife replied, “La selva took our brother many years ago. We tried to give it to your friends to protect them, but they would not accept it. Now we give it you since we do not want la selva to hurt anyone else.”
Both she and Dani expressed their gratitude once more, and when the women had gone, Cynthia examined the knife, wondering at its age.
“It’s handmade, but beautifully so. See the almost invisible chisel marks along the top edge of the blade,” she advised and pointed out the very faint nicks to Dani.
The handle on the knife was wrapped with leather strips that had been carefully oiled and bore a smooth finish that came with age and meticulous maintenance.
“Why do you think Rafe wouldn’t take it?” Dani asked and danced her fingers along the blade.
Cynthia shrugged. “Maybe its age? Or maybe he didn’t believe their warnings about a demon.”
“And you do?” Dani asked almost incredulously.
“I’m not willing to take a chance that they’re right,” Cynthia replied and tucked the obsidian knife into her waistband, close to the handgun. After, she sat down on the logs by the fire to share the atole with Dani, Hernandez and the others who were awake.
Booth and Rogers finally straggled from their tents a short time later, but made quick work of readying their gear. When they were packed, they joined the rest of the group by the fire for a quick bite before they finished cleaning up and returned the cast-iron pot to the women.
The first streaks of a pink-gray dawn were coloring the sky when they set off along with two of their guides down the path through the far mouth of the valley and into the Devil’s Jungle.
The vegetation was manageable at first but grew ever thicker and more tangled underfoot the farther they went, evidence of the fact that few traveled along the jungle route. All around them broadleaf vegetation blanketed the ground beneath large piñon pines, mangroves and fig trees. Here and there, nestled in advantageous places, were bromeliads and orchids, some of them in bright colorful bloom. From not too far away came the screeches of howler monkeys and the rustle of the trees as a group of them swung through the branches and in turn scared up a flock of hundreds of neon green parakeets that took noisy flight.
As the team cut through one swath of thick growth along the path, they startled a raccoonlike coatimundi that had been rooting through the nearby foliage and dirt below in search of insects. In a flash of red-brown fur, the animal scurried deeper into the underbrush.
In other circumstances Cynthia might have enjoyed the stunning flora and fauna she was seeing during the trek. She had delighted in that aspect of the travels with her parents, who had always taken the time to explain to her about the different locales they were researching for their primate studies.
For the first hour of their trek, the guides took turns at the lead, hacking at the thick growth and verdant tangle of vines with a sharp machete. They were replaced by Hernandez, then Booth and Rogers and then finally Dani, while Cynthia carefully kept an eye on her compass and the copies of the two maps to make sure they were heading in the right direction.
By noon they settled down for a short break next to a large waterfall and pool—one indicated on both maps as a key landmark. They drank from the clear, crisp spring water and refilled their canteens. Splashed the cool liquid on themselves and ate a nourishing lunch to provide the energy they would need for the rest of that day’s journey. They supplemented their lunch and supplies with some fresh mangoes from a tree growing close to the spring.
As Cynthia munched on the sweet orangey flesh of the fruit and reviewed the maps, she calculated that they were within a few hours of the edge of the city wall surrounding the temple. When she advised the team, she could detect the nervous excitement that rose up in all of them. She quelled her own emotions, afraid her own determination would make her act in haste. Sitting back on a fallen tree trunk by the pool, she attempted to rest during the worst heat of the day when what she wanted to do more than anything was to keep on trudging along until they reached the supposed location of the temple.
Dani sat beside her, equally eager until a loud inhuman howl filled the air, startling all of them from their rest.
The scream was eerily louder and scarier than that of any of the howler monkeys that they had passed along the trail.
The sound was followed by an unnatural silence, as if all life in the jungle had held its collective breath. A minute or so after that came the slow rise of the jungle noises again. The assorted chirps and clacks of birds and insects. The occasional clatter and screech of monkeys in the surrounding trees.
“What was that?” Booth asked, rose and grabbed his binoculars, scanning the treetops in their proximity and then farther away as the sound had definitely come from somewhere above them and at a distance.
“Hopefully not the demon goddess,” Hernandez said, but there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice. He was deadly serious as he swung his rifle around to cradle it in his arms. Tension was evident in every line of his body as he did a slow circle to check the jungle all around them. With a quick bob of his head, he turned to them and suggested, “Maybe we should get going.”
Cynthia wasn’t about to disagree with him. The spine-chilling sound had shaken her also. “Maybe we should.”
Unfortunately the two guides, who had been reluctant at the onset of their entry into the Devil’s Jungle, refused to go any farther despite the exhortations of Hernandez that they had agreed to accompany them and would not be paid if they abandoned them. Nothing could convince the two men to linger any longer in the Devil’s Jungle, leaving Cynthia and the others to proceed along the trail on their own.
With their number diminished, they split up the supplies and equipment that the guides had been carting among their various backpacks and the burros, gathered their gear, and checked the packs on the burros. Once all appeared in order, they set off again, Booth starting off in the lead this time, his motions strong as he used the machete to cut a swath through the underbrush and vines ahead of them. As before, it was tiresome work and they all took their turns.
Once more the sights and sounds of the jungle accompanied them, although there was a new alertness given the unnatural scream from before. But the howl was not repeated during their travels.
Nearly three hours into their journey, they hit a major stumbling block.
Cynthia stared at the imposing hillside before them that was nearly twenty feet high and stretched in an east-west direction for as far as she could see. Low grasses, tangled vines and small bushes covered its sloping surface while a trail of calf-high scrub brush ran along its base.
Hernandez stood beside her as she compared the location of the hillside to the two maps in her possession. Neither Rafe’s nor Cordero’s maps indicated the presence of any natural land masses at this position. If anything, by now they should have reached the outer protective wall of the Aztec city that had surrounded the temple.
“Are we in the right place?” Dani asked, squatting to review the laminated copies of the maps that Cynthia had laid on the ground while Cynthia double-checked their coordinates with her compass and GPS device. Both instruments confirmed that they were at the correct location.
“We are, but the hillside is not on the map, unless…”
She rose, peered at the sloped incline of earth and scanned the top of it in either direction. The uppermost edge was relatively level as was the east-west line of the tall mound. Too straight and too regular for it to be anything other than manmade.
Jamming her hands onto her hips, she looked at her team leader. “In Cholula they built a church at the top of what they thought was a hillside.”
“But it was really an Aztec temple that had been covered by cent
uries of growth and earth buildup,” Hernandez confirmed.
She nodded and gestured to the incline leading to the top of what she suspected was the earth-covered outer wall of the temple city. “If this is the outer wall of the city, it means we have one of two choices—lose the burros and scale this incline—”
“Or find another way past this big pile of dirt,” Dani finished.
“If we leave the burros, we lose a lot of equipment and food that’s too heavy to carry on foot,” Hernandez commented, shooting a fleeting glance at the packs on the animals.
“We also lose time if we try to find an alternate route but can’t,” Booth offered for consideration.
Cynthia surveyed the tall and daunting hillside of tangled brush and dense vegetation. Given the slant of the earth, they would also waste a good deal of time trying to scale it in addition to the loss of the valuable supplies and equipment.
Kneeling down next to the maps, she once again considered their location on the two versus what would be the most probable place for an entrance. The Aztecs regularly placed large avenues through their cities to allow for the easy transport of goods and people. By her calculations, the opening to one of those thoroughfares might be just a few miles away in an easterly direction.
Grabbing the maps, she explained her theory to Hernandez. With a satisfied nod, her team leader pointed in the direction she had suggested and said, “We go that way with the burros.”
A muffled grumble came from Booth, who seemed more inclined to ditch the animals and make the arduous climb over the hillside, but then he fell into place silently behind her. It left Dani and Rogers to handle the burros, with Hernandez in the lead, his rifle cradled in his arms once again. Despite his seemingly at-ease pose, Cynthia knew that with just a quick move he would be ready to shoot.
For good measure, she undid the safety strap securing the handgun in place on her holster. As she did so, the smooth leather on the handle of the obsidian dagger brushed against her hand, reminding her of the Aztec women’s concerns about the Devil’s Jungle.
The detour would eat up time, especially if she was wrong and the hillside was just that and not the buried walls of an ancient Aztec city. If they had to double back, they might find themselves having to make camp overnight in the jungle rather than in a more protected location. She didn’t relish the possibility of being out all alone where it would be more difficult to defend their camp.
Hernandez must have been thinking the same thing since he set a brisk and determined pace as they skirted the bottom of the hillside and pushed toward the spot where Cynthia believed the city entrance to be. Thankfully, the brush along the perimeter of the slope was low and easier to traverse than the copious growth in the jungle just a few feet away. Every now and then, however, a vine would tangle around her ankles, making her stumble. She did not let that daunt her and plowed on behind the team leader, eager to reach safety and, although she didn’t want to dwell on it too much, anxious to reach the village where Rafe may have stopped.
Unlike the swath of jungle through which they had traveled, the area around the hillside seemed devoid of much animal life, although the earthen berm was alive with thick vegetation and wildflowers in a riot of bloom. Here and there a beautiful monarch butterfly would flit by a colorful patch of blossoms, one of the few signs of life. Because of the lack of fauna, it was decidedly quieter with only the sounds of their booted feet and the occasional rustle of something in the brush as they marched.
With the faster pace set by their team leader, they reached a break in the hillside in a little over an hour. At the breach was a lower mound of grasses and shrubs no more than about six feet high and twice as wide. In the middle of the opening, a three-foot-wide path had been cleared of vegetation.
Booth rushed past her and Hernandez and scrambled up the path to the top of the berm where he stood, arms akimbo, and let out a low whistle. “Holy shit. You are not going to believe this.”
Hernandez helped Dani and Rogers to tether the burros to some small trees along the edge of the jungle. With the animals secured, they all made the short climb to the uppermost edge of the mound and paused as the enormity of what lay before them left them breathless.
From this vantage point, Cynthia was able to confirm her earlier hypothesis that the hillside they had just circumnavigated was too regular and large to be anything other than manmade. The earthen-covered walls formed a nearly perfectly square, although there were occasional gaps that hinted at other entrances along the perimeter. She had no doubt that beneath the dirt berm they would find the walls of an ancient pre-Colombian city.
The center of the hillside directly across from them rose up at least five times as high as any of the surrounding walls and extended well beyond the outer edge of the barrier. Based on the notations on the maps, she knew she was staring at what was likely the temple. Like the walls of the city, it had also been overtaken over the centuries by a buildup of dirt and vegetation.
“That should be the temple across the way,” she said and pointed at the immense mound that jutted up from the ground. Like the protective borders surrounding it, its shape was regular and clearly in the pyramidal shape in which the Aztecs and other Meso-American tribes had built their sacred structures.
Before that towering edifice and all within the area surrounded by the ancient fortifications was more jungle except for an area a mile or so away from the entrance, where there appeared to be a clearing of some sort. From this height and distance, it was difficult to tell what it was, although Cynthia assumed it was a settlement, as a smoky haze rose above the tree line, hinting at possible human life nearby.
“Over there, Booth,” she instructed, and he turned the binoculars in that direction.
“Hard to tell, but it could be a village.”
A village that was halfway to the temple across from them, she thought. Glancing up at the afternoon sky, she realized they still had a few hours until dusk and she shot a glance at Hernandez.
“We’ve got enough time to make it to the village before nightfall so we can make camp.”
“If they’re friendly, remember. We have no idea if Dr. Santiago and his team reached the village, and if they did, what kind of reception they received,” the team leader replied and shaded his eyes with his hand as he scoped out the area before them.
“Considering that Santiago and his group went missing somewhere in this area, that’s a big if,” Rogers added, pulling his own binoculars from his equipment belt and scanning the large area enclosed within the walls of the temple city.
“We go in cautiously and with a smaller group at first. If there’s trouble, the others who remain behind can call for help and return to the other village if need be,” Hernandez directed.
He glanced at her, his gaze narrowing as he considered her for only a split second. “Cynthia and I go in first since I may need her language abilities to communicate.” After he said it he waited, as if expecting her to refuse.
Just a few days ago, she might have dissented, still a captive to her fear. But now others were depending on her and she had to bank whatever concerns she had for the good of the group.
For the possibility of finding out what had happened to Rafe.
She nodded her agreement and then Hernandez addressed the others. “The rest of you can remain in the jungle until we judge the kind of reception we’re getting.”
With Hernandez directing, the team went into action.
The burros that Dani and Booth untethered balked at first about going up and over the mound and pawed the ground skittishly. Booth got his animal to proceed with a quick slap on the backside and Dani’s tagged along docilely. Rogers unslung his rifle as he went up the path, his features giving little away, although his eyes had a wary cast and his gaze constantly darted around the area around them.
Hernandez took the lead down the path on the other side of the walls, Cynthia immediately behind him.
A short distance away from the berm, at the
edge of the jungle, was another path that appeared to be regularly traveled. Rather than machete their way through unknown terrain, Hernandez decided to follow the road more traveled.
Cynthia wondered if it was a wise choice, thinking that if the natives weren’t friendly, they might encounter dangerous discouragements along the well-worn trail, recalling a trap or two that her parents had avoided when she had been with them. Or maybe she had watched one too many Indiana Jones movies lately, she thought as she walked with her gaze shifting from the ground in front of her to the trail ahead, on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. Hoping there weren’t any booby traps to deter would-be intruders.
Nothing happened. No snares underfoot or traps from above. Nothing but a fairly smooth trail that made their trip much quicker than the earlier passage through the dense jungle. Barely twenty minutes later, they neared the clearing they had pinpointed from the top edge of the walls and heard the sounds of human habitation not far ahead.
They split up as they had agreed earlier, Cynthia and Hernandez proceeding up the path toward the village while Dani and the others melded into the underbrush of the jungle, vigilant for any signs of trouble. They had their weapons ready as well as the satellite phones in case they needed to call for help, although with their distance from any major metropolis, assistance would take at least a day or more to reach them.
As she and Hernandez exited from the dense foliage of the jungle trail and slowly walked down the central path to the village, the people stopped what they were doing to watch them pass.
They were dressed much like the Mexica settlers in the village they had just left, in lightweight, loose-fitting clothes, although the colors were not as bright. Cynthia wondered if this might possibly be due to a lack of access to modern dyes. However, much as with the other villagers, their faces showed a combination of curiosity and fear.
If Cynthia had to take a guess, the fear took precedence, increasing her own anxiety. Could they be so fearful as to attack them? Was that what had happened to Rafe and his expedition? she thought, but corralled her worries as she trudged beside her team leader.
Aztec Gold Page 4
