by PJ Skinner
Sam couldn’t help smiling at the possibility.
‘So, Wilson’s a complete bastard?’
Gloria smiled. ‘Absolutely, chica. And that’s not all. I heard he frequents brothels and beats up the girls. He has a reputation as a violent drunk. There are rumours that he owes a lot of money around town.’
‘Does Mike know?’ asked Sam.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Gloria, ‘but I promise to tell him as soon as I get the chance. I think Wilson has designs on Marta, and that poor girl has no chance against his persistence and brand of full-on charm.’
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Are you sure I didn’t do anything provocative?’
‘Ha!’ said Gloria. ‘Dressed like that? There isn’t a man in Sierramar who would think you were trying to attract him.’
Sam took the verdict on her dress sense on the chin. Glamour was not her forte. Gloria had the ability to make her laugh at almost anything. Sam trusted her and she knew she could count on her. Vindicated by Gloria’s reaction, she hoped that she could make Mike see sense. She would also make sure she never slept anywhere near Wilson again.
***
Sam and Gloria finally collected the photographs of the trip. Sam gave the shop assistants her brightest smile as she left, having learned something from Gloria about how to make friends and influence people in Calderon. Sam ripped the envelope open in the car and devoured the contents, squeaking with delight at the best ones and shoving them in front of Gloria who drove even more erratically than usual. They went to meet Alfredo and Mike for lunch. The two men had formed a close friendship after their trip to the beach. They were both obsessed with the treasure and rarely spoke of anything else. She found herself in charge of the geology projects that came in to the office and, as her Spanish continued to improve, she took owner meetings with Marta.
If Mike got bored with Alfredo and his hunt for the elusive treasure, Sam was determined to be ready with some good prospects. There was no point in going home. She didn’t want to be a secretary and the job market had not improved. Besides, she found that reviewing projects was very educational and increased her understanding of what was out there. A spell in Sierramar would look good on her resumé whatever she did there and fluent Spanish would be even better.
Sam had not been able to get Alfredo alone again since the beach, but she got to know him a little better due to his constant presence in the office. The archetypal Byronic hero, he rebelled against convention, was self-destructive, passionate, arrogant and charismatic. Although he claimed to loathe the English, it was obvious that it was a love/hate relationship for him as he dressed his compact frame in the clothes of a Devon country farmer. A charming man with a history of bad luck that was almost always self-inflicted, he loved to tell tall tales. He ripped his shirt open in the office one afternoon, making the buttons fly in all directions. He had a large, livid scar on his left shoulder. The flesh was all shrivelled, purple and pulled around a central hole, like a large pair of pursed lips or as Mike remarked, an arsehole.
‘Do you see this scar?’ he asked. ‘Do you know how I got it?’
‘Whoa! That’s some scar,’ said Sam, who had a few herself from playing hockey. ‘How did you get it? Did someone stab you with a poker?’
Alfredo laughed. ‘Ha! Nothing that exciting. I once fell into a drunken sleep under a poisonous tree in the Galapagos. While I was asleep, the sap of the tree dripped onto my shoulder and started to eat away at it. My friends found me with a large hole in my flesh, still sound asleep under the deadly tree. I was rushed to hospital, and my arm was saved by an emergency operation to cut out the poisoned flesh.’
‘The moral of the story is not to sleep under a poison tree?’ said Sam.
‘Or not to get so drunk you don’t wake up when your flesh is melting?’ said Mike.
In case Sam was in any doubt about the truth of this story, Alfredo made her touch it. She shivered with horror as her finger slipped into the puckered hole.
Once they were all seated at the table in the restaurant, Mike and Alfredo started up on the subject of the treasure. Sam had heard it all before and opened the envelope of photographs. She was pleased at how they had come out and shared them with Gloria, who having ignored them in the car, examined them without much enthusiasm. She was more interested in looking at Alfredo from under her fat eyelashes. Sam got to the photograph of the snake with the frog in its mouth. It wasn’t great, but you could see what it was if you looked closely.
‘Mike,’ she said, ‘you must look at this photograph. Can you see what it is?’
Mike looked cross to be interrupted. He gave the photograph a cursory glance and passed it to Alfredo. Alfredo glanced at it and was about to give it back to Sam when he went pale. He brought the photograph up to his face and screwed up his eyes.
‘Mike,’ he said. ‘Lend me your glasses.’
Mike gave him the reading glasses and Alfredo put them on. He peered at the photograph muttering ‘oh my God’ a couple of times. Mike examined his friend closely. ‘Do you feel all right, Alfredo? You have gone a funny colour.’
Alfredo stared fixedly at the photograph.
‘Oh, my God,’ he muttered. ‘Holy crap and all the saints.’
He stood up letting the photograph fall to the floor. He ran to the door of the restaurant, pushing his way past the waiters and out into the street. He got straight into a taxi and it drove away at high speed.
There was silence at the table for a moment.
‘What the fuck happened?’ said Mike.
‘Search me,’ said Sam. ‘Maybe he forgot something.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t feeling well,’ said Gloria. ‘He could be afraid of snakes.’
Sam picked up the photograph from the floor. She gently blew on it to remove any dirt and looked again at the snake. Great photograph! She wasn’t sure what had prompted Alfredo’s weird behaviour. Surely it wasn’t the snake? Perhaps he had been drinking before he came to lunch? It wouldn’t have been unusual.
‘Shall we order?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure we’ll find out what’s the matter one way or another.’
‘Yes, I’m starving,’ said Mike. He signalled to the waiter to come over to the table, and they ordered their food. When it arrived, they all ate with gusto and forgot all about the strange incident with Alfredo. Sam and Gloria shared a crème caramel for pudding, and they asked for a pot of filter coffee.
They contemplated their coffees and were basking in after-lunch contentment when Alfredo appeared in the door of the restaurant as suddenly as he had left. He had with him a great sheaf of papers and documents in various stages of repair and a plastic bag full of similar materials and books hanging from his arm. The plastic bag was old and greying and looked likely to split any minute. Alfredo was sweating, a strange fanatical look on his face. He didn’t notice that his appearance was drawing comments from the other customers. He staggered over to the table, and a waiter, who had been watching his progress, leaped forward to remove the various plates, glasses and empty cups from the table. Alfredo dropped his documents on the not-very-clean tablecloth, illustrating how they came to be so stained and torn.
‘Alfredo, are you okay?’ asked Mike. ‘What is all this stuff?’
‘Treasure,’ mumbled Alfredo. ‘It’s the treasure, Mike.’
‘What do you mean, treasure? I don’t understand. I thought it was in the mountains.’
‘It’s the photograph. The one of the snake.’
‘What has a photograph of a snake got to do with treasure?’
‘The cipher. The cipher,’ said Alfredo, addressing Sam. ‘You found the cipher.’
He was bright-eyed with excitement. Gloria called the waiter over.
‘Can you bring us a bowl of pig trotter soup, please? And a large pot of strong coffee?’
The waiter, who had been hovering at the table, set off for the kitchen and returned almost immediately with the soup. Gloria moved the documents into a pile and made room for hi
m to place the bowl. Alfredo was now dumbstruck with what appeared to be shock.
‘Okay, Alfredo try a little soup. It’ll do you good.’
‘I’m not hungry. What is it?’
‘Wake the Dead soup.’
‘Oh, that’s my favourite. I might try a bit.’
Soon he was eating as if he had not seen food for days. The soup disappeared, and Gloria poured Alfredo a large cup of coffee.
‘Sugar?’
‘Yes, lots.’
‘Lots it is, then.’
Sam and Mike sat in silence. It was torture waiting for Alfredo to eat his soup and drink his coffee. After an age, he breathed deeply and sat back in his chair. He looked around the restaurant. Most people had left to go back to work, and the few remaining occupied tables were out of earshot. Now, he leaned forward and asked Sam to give him the photo again. She handed it over, glancing at it again still unable to understand what the excitement was about. He started speaking in a conspiratorial manner. They leaned in to hear what he had to say.
‘The steps - they’re the key,’ he said, ‘the key to the lost treasure of the Incas. Sam, where did you take this photo?’
Sam was flummoxed. ‘I’ve no idea. Upriver from Riccuarte. Wilson would know, or Don Moises,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we could find them again.’
‘What’s so special about the steps?’ said Mike.
‘We can’t talk here,’ Alfredo whispered. ‘Let’s go back to the flat in Avenida Miranda. We can spread the material out on the floor, and I’ll lead you all through the story.’
‘Okay,’ Mike said. ‘I’ll pay the bill, and let’s go.’
The bill was paid and a large tip was left for the surprised waiter. Alfredo’s papers safely stuffed into a less old plastic bag, they left the restaurant and piled into the car. Gloria took the wheel and set out for Mike’s flat. No one spoke. Sam tried to remember if she had noticed anything special about the steps. The problem was that she had been so focussed on the snake carrying away the frog that she hadn’t looked at them.
There was a grim determination in Gloria’s driving. She swung the car into its space in the underground parking garage so close to the wall that they had to squeeze out past the pillars. They trooped into the lift. Marta was surprised when the four of them appeared in the doorway of the apartment, as she had been planning to slip away for the afternoon and do some shopping, but she recovered.
‘What’s up, Mike? You look very mysterious.’
‘Marta, we’re going to need to use the floor of the sitting room as a large display area. Can you ask Tati to give it a good sweep?’
‘Yes, of course. Give me a minute.’
Marta went to the kitchen where Tati was doing a large pile of ironing and put on the kettle.
‘Tati, please can you sweep the floor and make a large pot of tea? I think we’ll need the big cups.’
The floor was quickly swept, and the tea poured. Everyone stood back as Alfredo laid his documents out in order on the parquet flooring.
‘What’s this about, Mike? What are those documents?’ asked Marta.
‘Tell Tati to go home please, Marta. We won’t need her again today. You should go home, too. This is confidential.’
‘Oh, Mr. Mike, please don’t send me home. I love secrets. I promise not to tell.’
‘You swear it?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ she said.
‘This is top secret. You can’t tell anyone,’ said Mike.
‘Okay, boss. I promise.’
Tati did not look at all happy to be sent home. Mike shooed her out and shut the door.
Once they had all had a cup of tea and were perched on the low windowsills along the picture window of the sitting room, Alfredo was ready to talk.
‘I’m sorry about lunch. I was so amazed I didn’t know how to react. I’ve spent twenty years looking for this.’
‘Looking for what? The snake? I don’t understand,’ said a bewildered Mike.
‘I’m going to fill you in on the background before I tell you. Is that okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘So, as you may already know, there’s always been a lot of talk of El Dorado and ancient treasure troves in Latin America, but one that is historical rather than mythical is the one about Atahualpa’s ransom. When the Spanish commander Pizarro captured Atahualpa, the great Inca chief in 1532, he demanded a huge ransom for his release. A great convoy of Atahualpa’s people, led by his half-brother Rumiñahui, set off carrying the gold to pay for his freedom. However, the Spanish reneged on their deal and executed Atahualpa before the convoy could arrive. The news reached the convoy when they were high up in the mountains of Sierramar. Rumiñahui decided to hide the riches where the Spanish would never find them. The legend says that the treasure was taken up secret pathways and hidden deep in the mountains. Then all the bearers committed suicide.’
‘Suicide? That’s horrible,’ Marta said. ‘Why did they do that?’
‘To prevent them telling anyone where it was hidden, of course. Decades later, a Spanish adventurer called Valverde married an Inca princess, a descendant of Rumiñahui. The story goes that she led him to the treasure and he made a secret map of the route. He was said to have removed a part of it and returned to Spain a wealthy man. Upon his death, he left the map, describing the landmarks on the way in great detail. This route had been the blueprint used by all of the treasure hunters since then, but no one else has found their way back to it.’
‘But how did the princess know where the treasure was, if everyone committed suicide?’ said Sam.
‘Nobody knows.’
‘Has nobody else come close?’ said Marta.
‘A British botanist named Richard Spruce (after whom the tree is named), arrived in Sierramar in 1860. His book, Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes, gave further details of the treasure hunt that took place after the death of Valverde. Various adventurers came close or even claimed to have found the treasure over the years, but all perished before returning to claim the booty.’
‘Do we know what sort of treasure it is?’ asked Mike.
‘The last person who claimed to have found the treasure died on a ship carrying an expedition force that was returning to Sierramar to remove the treasure. His name was Barth Blake. He had described the treasure as being in a cave: ‘“There are thousands of gold and silver pieces of Inca and pre-Inca handicraft... life-sized human figures made out of beaten gold and silver, birds, animals, cornstalks, gold and silver flowers. Golden vases full of jewellery”.’
‘Wow, that sounds amazing,’ said Sam. ‘What happened to Blake?’
‘Blake died before he could give anyone information on its whereabouts. He’d talked about ascending some steps cut into the rock. He had not mentioned any mountains, although it had been assumed that he had used the Valverde map to get to the treasure. But no one has seen it since. Everyone assumed that the treasure was lost.’
‘What has this got to do with the snake in Sam’s photo, Alfredo?’
‘I spent twenty years researching the mystery of the treasure’s whereabouts with Jorge Vasquez but we never got close.’ Alfredo paused as if considering this. ‘But what if the map is no longer valid? Maybe the treasure was moved after Valverde found it. Had Blake stumbled across it somewhere else?’
‘You mean in the jungle where Sam was?’ said Mike.
‘Blake’s description of the steps exactly matched those in the photograph that Sam took. They had a serpent cipher on them not usually seen on Inca monuments. The cipher represents a king or leader.’
Alfredo stopped talking and fumbled through his papers, producing a line drawing of an Incan design showing the cipher, which he held up.
‘Where’s the cipher?’ Mike was breathless with excitement.
‘Sam, can you have a look at the photograph of the snake again, please?’
Sam opened her handbag and took out the photograph again. Sure enough, in the background behind th
e bushes, she saw the same cipher carved into the steps, only visible because the late afternoon sunshine had hit the rock at an angle. She was astonished.
‘I-it’s identical,’ she stuttered. ‘Identical.’
Everyone took turns comparing the drawing of the cipher to the photograph, and they all agreed that it was remarkably similar.
‘Does this mean what I think it does?’ said Mike.
‘Yes, I hope so. Sam might have discovered the resting place of the lost treasure of the Incas. Imagine the historical value of a treasure like that,’ said Alfredo.
‘We’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams. I can’t even guess how much something like that would be worth,’ said Mike.
‘Are we going to search for it?’ said Sam, her excitement rising. A real treasure hunt. Surely she would go?
‘What do you think?’ said Mike. ‘Alfredo, we have some discussing to do. The rest of you, go home and please do not talk about this with anyone.’
‘Not even our families?’ asked Marta.
‘Not even with the Pope.’
‘What about Wilson?’ said Sam, crossing her fingers under the table.
‘I don’t think you should use Wilson. He’s a bit shifty,’ said Gloria, unwilling to elaborate with Marta in the room.
‘That may be true but we will need his help to get us set up in Riccuarte,’ said Alfredo. ‘I don’t know anyone around there.’
‘We don’t have to tell him about the treasure,’ said Mike. ‘I’ll tell him that we are mounting an archaeological investigation and that we won’t need him after he gets us to the river. The fewer people involved, the better, as far as I am concerned. People can be very odd about money.’
Chapter XII
When the meeting was over, Marta went home on the bus. She buzzed with suppressed excitement but she managed to keep her secret all through the evening and into the next morning because there was no one at home old enough to understand the significance of the serpent cipher or the trials of Atahualpa, and her telephone had been cut off because she had forgotten to pay her bill that month. Marta lived with her three-year-old son, who was obsessed with cartoons on the television and always wanted to see ‘just one more, Mummy’. He was a wilful child who took after his mother in character and after his father in looks. Sometimes Marta couldn’t bear to look at her son because it brought back all those feelings of shame and humiliation she associated with her ex-boyfriend. He had left her pregnant at nineteen and run off with another girl who lived one street away and had a green card for the USA.