Chasing El Dorado

by P.S. Linscott

CHAPTER 3

  Hundreds of birds of all shapes, colors, and sizes could be seen flying above the jungle stretching out below them. Looking east toward the mountains the green jungle canopy rose to meet the gray, red, and amber colored rocks ascending to meet the clouds. Here great Harpy eagles could be seen riding the air currents and circling high above all the other creatures. The Rio Kuluseu flowed South East, and the Kuluene North East, both cutting a winding path through the green carpet and then meeting at the base of the mountains where they converged and disappeared into a sheer canyon that looked like a knife wound in the mountain range.

  The panoramic vista was mesmerizing. The men sat, backs against the Kapok tree, for some time making sketches and entry's in their journals before Jack finally broke the spell when his stomach began to growl loudly.

  "Let's get a meal together and discuss our travel plan over dinner." The Colonel said.

  That evening over a hot meal of reconstituted dried soup and canned sardines the men made plans to continue their journey.

  "The ruins are said to be at the confluence of the two rivers at the base of the mountains, was there, however, any mention of the Kuluseu running through that nasty looking gorge?" Jack asked his father.

  "No, but of course it was legend and not a firsthand report and the fact that the mountain range is here is encouraging wouldn’t you agree?" Forster replied.

  "It appeared the chasm walls are sheer to the river’s edge." Walter offered. "We will be in need of canoes."

  “The jungle appears impenetrable” Jack said, “it will be difficult traveling.”

  “We will rest here for a day or two then, to regain our strength and reinforce our resolve.” The colonel said with an excited smile.

  The men spent the next two days at Hill Top Camp, as they had so declared it, allowing the Colonel and Jack to continue to heal and rejuvenate from the snake attack. On the fourth morning as the sun rose before them they set forth toward the Kuluseu River and the gorge through which it flowed.

  The east side of the hill was covered by small trees and low bushes so that the men had a clear view of the jungle rising up to meet them. An eerie mist moved across the jungle canopy like a spectral being. Small flocks of multicolored parrots burst out of the mist and then disappeared again as suddenly as they had appeared. A cacophony of animal whistles screams and yells echoed up the slope to meet them. Mounted on their horses the men descended from Hill Top Camp toward the thick jungle below.

  Entering the canopy ceiling was entering another world. Temperature, air pressure, humidity all instantly changed as the men broke through the tree tops. Bright sunlight faded to deep shadow as the dense jungle absorbed the light like a great sponge. The men continued descending the slope moving through the layers and tiers of the jungle. Each layer held a multitude of different life forms. Fascinated by the strange monkeys and insects the party unanimously agreed that they could stop and spend weeks observing and recording. A great roe suddenly arose in the trees just to the right of the men. Startled they turned reaching for their rifles as thirty or more Howler monkeys yelled an alarm and scurried up and away from the riders setting dozens of brightly feathered birds to wing.

  Reaching the forest floor they continued riding east toward the mountains. Having barely conversed with one another over the past three months the three travelers were attempting to make up for that time in one day. The men discussed everything from longing for missed loved ones to cravings for favorite pastries. Laughter was heard again in the ranks of the Forster expedition serving to further raise the spirits of the men, something that seemed impossible following the giddiness of the mountain range discovery.

  "Walter" Colonel Forster called over his shoulder, "what will you name the range?"

  "Sir?" Walter asked incredulously.

  "Father and I agreed" Jack said "You saved both our lives, you deserve this honor."

  Walter was silent, unsure how to respond. After a few moments of thought he said “Affliction! Affliction Mountains!”

  The Forster men let out a hearty laugh accompanied by nods of approval.

  The expedition made their way winding through the undergrowth. Trees and vines choked the way making travel slow. Jack was in the lead rounding a large tree when he was suddenly confronted by a large, stone idol. The totem stood twenty feet tall and weighed at least twenty five tons and appeared to be carved from solid granite. Its feet were buried under the jungle floor; it had a wide torso with two arms close to its side holding a large stone knife in the left hand and a small shield in the right. The face and head appeared human however they were covered by what appeared to be a helmet atop of which were decorative pieces. Upon the idols breast appeared to be some kind of decorative plate or armor piece with a familiar design in its center.

  "Father" Jack called out, "The breast plate bears the same design as the medallion!"

  Jack instinctively prodded his horse forward toward the huge stone idol for a closer look. A loud crack and then a snap echoed through the forest. Jack was thrown back and out of his saddle as his mount reared up unexpectedly.

  Jack hit the ground flat on his back forcing all the air from his lungs. The thud reverberated through the dense jungle air. Walter was off his horse and at Jacks side in a second. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath and when he did he almost lost it again when he espied the grisly scene before him.

  His horse was still rearing up on its hind legs, suspended there like a photograph of a bronco in a Wild West show, the poor beast impaled on a wooden stake that had sprung up from the ground in front of the statue. Passing up and through the poor animals thick neck, was a sharpened pole three inches in diameter. The booby trap had been meant to catch a man walking up to investigate the totem and the fact that Jack was on horseback is the only reason he was still alive.

  "Boy's" the Colonel said motioning with his head for them to look both left and right. “Do not move!”

  Like silent sentry’s blocking any further advance, identical statues stretched out to the left and right of the explorer’s as far as the eye could see standing approximately twenty feet apart. Most were obscured by trees, leaves and vines but now that the men knew what to look for they could clearly be seen.

  Walter reached under Jack’s arms and lifted him to his feet then the two backed up retracing their steps. Colonel Forster caught up Walter’s horse and the mule’s moving them away from the dead horse and any further danger.

  “Dear God!” Walter exclaimed. “If you had walked forward to investigate… Dear God!

  Jack put his backside against a tree hanging his head and resting his hands on his knees. The only words he could muster were something about his mouth being very dry. Walter handed him a canteen. Colonel Forster had dismounted and was crouching down assaying the scene before them.

  Jack’s horse hung in mid-air like some bizarre, grotesque museum exhibit. It appeared to be frozen in a moment of sheer terror, eyes bulging in an expression of shock and alarm, mouth agape as if on the verge of releasing a wail of panic.

  Jack took a long drink from the canteen and then said “What now father. What if each of these totems is similarly booby trapped? What if there are more traps around each one?”

  “Obviously the idols and trap were put here to frighten trespassers” the Colonel replied.

  “If that is the purpose then I find them compellingly adequate.” Walter quipped.

  “We will need to gather the gear from the horse before we move back. I suggest we return to Hill Top Camp, perhaps we may be able to spy out an alternate route… “. Jack stopped speaking midsentence as Colonel Forster stood up and walked forward toward the dead horse.

  “Father come back, I will retrieve the equipment, you are still injured” Jack called after him.

  Colonel Forester ignored his son and continued moving forward toward the gruesome scene. Upon reaching Jack’s dead horse he removed a long leather map case and Jack’s food pack. However he did
not return but continued advancing forward slowly.

  “Father!” Jack shouted and attempted to chase after the man. Walter caught hold of him holding him back.

  “It is the only way son.” Colonel Forster called over his shoulder. ”We are too close to be hindered by fear. You must pay close attention to where I walk. If I can make it through safely you will need to retrace my steps exactly.”

  Forster moved slowly forward passed the dead horse. He assumed that because the idols were spaced evenly any other traps would be spaced similarly. He also assumed the idols and the traps were placed here to incite superstitious fear and therefore the number of booby traps should correspond to the number of totems. He was half right.

  Colonel Forester advanced to the idol directly in front of Jack’s horse. Stopping here he took the opportunity to examine it more closely. Retrieving the medallion from his pack he compared it to the similar image on the statues chest. It had the same four crescent shapes around the circumference and a hole in its center however this was filled with a round stone of different color granite. Also the stone medallion was turned so that the obverse side was outward showing not the image of a whale but that of a jaguar.

  Colonel Forster had speculated that the breast plate was that of a priest or Holy Man however, now that he was closer, Forster felt it was more indicative of a warrior or soldiers armor. Looking down at the legs what had appeared as scales now looked more like chain male. The head and head covering were much too high to examine and so he started to move around the statue to observe the back side.

  Colonel Forster’s foot struck a hard object and at the same moment six sharp bursts of air sent six twelve inch long barbed darts sailing toward him from the direction of the next statue. The Colonel had no time to react and was struck by two of the arrows. He lurched heavily to the left from the force of the impact yet he was able to keep his feet under him.

  Both Jack and Walter abandoned all caution and ran to his side. Looking him over they discovered that one arrow had harmlessly pierced the leather map case. The second arrow however had entered the Colonel’s upper leg behind his thigh bone.

  “Let’s move him back to the horses Jack.” Walter said.

  “No” Forster insisted, “keep moving forward, we must move forward.”

  Walter and Jack looked at each other accepting that their leader would not be convinced to change his mind.

  “I will go first.” Jack said. “Let’s go back and get the animals.”

  Jack and Walter retrieved the remaining equipment from Jack’s dead horse and redistributed it among the pack mules. Returning to Colonel Forster, Jack held his leg while Walter snapped off the barbed head protruding out one side and then quickly pulled out the shaft. The Colonel tensed from the pain but made no sound. After dressing and bandaging the wound they helped him mount his horse.

  Jack moved forward on foot to the point where his father had fallen, pausing for a moment he sighed heavily and looked over his shoulder at Walter who was climbing up in his saddle. He did not look happy.

  “Take your time Jack and look around for signs of any other traps before you move.” Jack gave him a wry grin and a nod. Jack used a long tree branch to scrape away the undergrowth and debris from around the stone activator his father had stepped on. To the right of this he could see another stone and beyond that another and so on, stretching to the next statue. Jack used the branch to check the ground beyond these. He also was sure to continually look to the trees above him, and it was good that he did.

  After moving about fifty feet he was beginning to think all threats were behind them when he noticed a narrow beam of sunlight breaking through the canopy from above. On a whim Jack reached out with the tree branch and passed it through the light. Two distinct popping sounds were heard followed by a rush of air as two great tree trunks suspended by vines swung down from some hidden place above coming together with a thunderous clap. Jack fell to the ground landing hard on his backside. Two steps further and he would have been crushed between the massive trunks.

  “Holy Christ!” Jack exclaimed.

  Walter shifted uneasily in his seat as Jack regained his feet. The party continued to move forward slowly.

  It was early afternoon when the men reached the Kuluseu River just one hundred feet from the gorge. It had been impressive from Hill Top Camp however now that the men had reached its entrance they were both awe struck and intimidated.

  The black walls of the chasm were as smooth as polished glass, at least a thousand feet high and separated by only thirty or forty feet. Very little sunlight reached the bottom of the gorge because it was so narrow. The river itself narrowed before entering the chasm thus increasing the waters speed however no whitewater could be seen indicating no hidden rocks and a good depth. The men could see about two hundred yards into the chasm before the river disappeared around a bend.

  Jack and Walter set to work making camp, cooking a meal and tending the Colonel’s wound. Jack was the first to notice that the older man looked pale and was having difficulty staying awake. Jack inspected the arrow that had been removed from his father’s leg immediately noticing that the stone arrowhead was oddly colored. Passing it through his fingers left an oily residue behind.

  “Oh my God” Jack walked to where Walter was building a fire. “The arrow was tipped with poison.”

  Walter was speechless looking up at Jack in shock at the realization of what this news meant for the Colonel.

  “Jack, I am so sorry.” Walter said with genuine compassion.

  “Jack” the two heard Colonel Forester call out. They both moved to his side.

  “Something is wrong isn’t it? Yes, I can see it in your faces. Don’t you dare consider going back, we must keep moving forward.” He insisted.

  Jack and Walter made him as comfortable as possible and then moved back to the fire to talk.

  “What shall we do Jack?” Walter asked, seeing the pain in his friend’s eyes.

  Jack looked back at his father lying on the ground twenty feet away. “He is a dead man, isn’t he Walter?”

  “Given the lethality of the other traps Jack, no, I do not think there is much hope.” Walter replied softly.

  “Then we keep moving forward, with him for as long as he last’s, and then without him after he is gone.” Jack said resigning himself to the inevitable.

  Jack’s father had told him stories of expeditions where members of the party had contracted an untreatable disease or had been afflicted with a lethal wound. It was always the same. The man was made as comfortable as possible and then, he was left to die. Any other course of action would jeopardize the life and safety of the other members of the expedition. Jack knew his father would expect the same treatment and accept no other destiny.

  The men set to work building a dugout canoe large enough to accommodate three men. By the following evening the canoe was ready and they had reduced their packs and equipment to the bare essentials. The next morning after a fast breakfast they released the two horses and the mules and loaded the Colonel into the dugout. Without hesitation the two pushed out into the fast moving water and moved off once again into the unknown.

  The swift moving current carried them off and within seconds they found themselves closed in by the sheer black chasm walls. The rushing water pushed the canoe first against one wall and then the other before Jack and Walter were able to gain the skill of maneuvering the big hollowed out tree. The men had fashioned both paddles and long push poles to use when manipulating the big dugout however due to the depth and the speed of the water both proved to be almost useless. They were however able to avoid any further contact with the cliff walls and they were able to keep the canoe pointed straight downstream, but other than that they were at the mercy of the Kuluseu.

  The river continued to flow rapidly, in some places dropping and picking up so much speed that the men were forced to lay down the paddles and simply hold on and hope for the best. No white water appeared
at these drops in altitude, some of which were forty or fifty feet, indicating that the river was still deep.

  The chasm walls were narrowing noticeably making it difficult for Jack and Walter to keep the canoe from slamming against them. With each drop the ambient temperature dropped as well, however the thing that made the men most uncomfortable was that, as the chasm walls drew closer and closer together, and they sank deeper and deeper within, the less light that reached them, so that it was now to the point that they could not recognize a bend or a drop in the river until the boat fell out from underneath them.

  The three men had been on the river for almost an hour. Jack reckoned they had traveled at least five miles and, in that time, the chasm walls had not changed. The surface remained flat and smooth as if it had been polished by a machine. They had not seen or felt a handhold or protrusion of any kind in its surface. No crevice or fracture in the stone at any height or of any size had been observed.

  Jack and Walter agreed that this wild crucible could not continue much further before the chasm walls opened again. They were however concerned that when the Rio Kuluseu finally did issue forth from this great fissure, would it do so gently, flowing slowly across the jungle floor or, would it erupt from the side of a mountain, cascading a thousand feet to jagged rocks waiting below?

  The two were correct and it was not long before the question was answered. The big dugout canoe impacted the cliff wall again hard enough to force a groan from the unconscious Colonel Forster lying in the center of the boat and knocking the other two men off their makeshift seats. Both Jack and Walter reached out and grabbed the sides of the dugout. As they did so gravity suddenly vanished as the canoe pitched over the edge of some unseen fall. Both men leaned back and sucked in great gulps of air as the boat descended into the darkness. As they plummeted, and awaited the inevitable crash, they became aware that there was no thunderous sound of falling water.

  The canoe gradually, but quickly leveled off bringing a sudden and generous return of gravity throwing two large curtains of water in the air to the port and starboard sides. Jack and Walter found themselves lying in the bottom of the boat with the Colonel.

  “Walter” Jack called out, “are you all right?”

  “What the hell was that?” Walter returned.

  “I don’t know” Jack answered. “We do not seem to be moving in the current of the river any longer. How is Father?”

  Walter put his hand on Colonel Forster’s forehead. “He’s burning up Jack”

  Sitting up the men could see that they had dropped down a two hundred foot man made water chute that gradually leveled off at the bottom ending in a four acre subterranean lake. Looking up they could see that the chasm had disappeared, closing over them to be replaced by a domed ceiling of black rock hundreds of feet above spotted with hundreds of thousands of bioluminescent glow-worms spread out like bizarre constellations.

  To their right, which would be the South, they could see only blackness. Looking to the North Jack and Walter discovered that the source of illumination for the vast underground chamber was not only the small creatures hanging from the ceiling above.

  Fifty feet from where the men floated the lake ended at a low embankment with a wide set of polished stone steps leading up to a vast grotto. At either end of the stairs were two decorative carved columns atop which rested glowing white orbs emitting a substantial amount of light. These same columns and lights continued beyond the stairs up and into the grotto, and beyond, following a pattern like street lamps vanishing off into the distance.

  The scene before them was astounding, mesmerizing the men and leaving them breathless. The great underground lake reflecting the star like light from above and the strange lights in the grotto were enough themselves to hold the men spellbound. However, these things were not the focus of their attention.

  Standing on the stairs, staring back at them, stood a woman and a small girl.