"Stay close behind me," Raoul said. "Don't wander off."
"Wouldn't think of it," Indy said as they passed a channel branching off to the right, then another to the left. The tunnel forked again and Raoul headed down the arm on the right. Indy tried to pay close attention to every turn, memorizing the route.
A short distance later, light filtered from a room to one side of the corridor, and Indy knew they'd arrived. They entered a rectangular chamber that was more than thirty feet long and nearly half that wide. The roof rose at least twenty feet. They stopped near the center of the room and it took a moment before he saw the others sitting in near darkness along the wall.
"Manuel," Raoul said.
One of the seated figures immediately stood and moved toward them. Indy recognized the kid he'd fought at Orongo. He held something in both of his arms. It was covered with a colored cloth that bore the now familiar birdman design on it.
"Swell to see you again, kid." Indy's cynicism spiked his voice.
Manuel met his gaze. If he was afraid of Indy, he didn't show it.
Raoul pulled back the cloth, revealing a stack of inscribed tablets, six or seven, Indy figured, more than the total known to exist.
"Are they authentic?" he asked.
"Of course they are," Davina answered. "You will have plenty of time to examine them, but only in private and only with the Matuans present."
Indy reached toward the pile and felt Manuel's muscles tighten.
"It's okay," Davina said, then nodded to Indy. Carefully, he picked up the top one, and balanced the tablet on the palm of his hand. Davina held the torch over it, revealing an irregular, flat wooden board with rounded edges. The surface was covered with row after row of neatly engraved Rongo-rongo symbols, the same stylized plants and birds, four-legged creatures and odd figures that he had been studying.
"How many do you have?" he asked.
"Dozens. Maybe two hundred," Raoul said. "All well hidden."
"Two hundred?"
"It will take you months, even years of work just to catalog them," Davina said, "and even longer to comprehend what they mean. But we will help you."
Indy nodded, fighting an urge to laugh, to shout, to slap Raoul on the back. He couldn't believe his luck.
"There's just one thing," Raoul said.
Indy handed the tablet back to Manuel. He knew there had to be some catch. "What's that?"
"You can't begin your work yet."
"Why not?"
"We don't want the others you are here with to be involved. You will have to wait until they have gone."
"I see."
No problem there, Indy thought gleefully. That was only a few days away. He'd have to stay behind, of course, but with a discovery like this one, extending his leave shouldn't be any problem. That is, as long as his work was not a secret.
"I assume I can publish my findings when I'm finished, or even before."
"Of course," Davina said. "But you must be discreet about how you came upon the tablets. Most of them must remain hidden, but you can photograph all of them."
It was almost too good to be true. Then another thought occurred to him. "Why haven't you done this yourself?" he asked Davina. "You're in a perfect position. You're not only an islander, but you've been educated in the outside world."
She shook her head. "I am also a Matuan, like Raoul and Manuel," she explained. "The Rongo-rongo tablets are sacred to us. I could never use them for academic purposes." She glanced at her husband. "Yet, we understand it is time to make the world aware of who we are, and where we came from."
"And you will be surprised," Raoul said. "You can count on that."
"But what do you expect to gain?"
"Many people will come here when they find out about your discovery. Rapa Nui needs visitors, people who will come here on our terms and respect us while enjoying our island. There is great potential for our future. We are a poor people, and barely know how to accommodate visitors. But we will learn and prosper."
So that was it. It seemed like a long shot to Indy. But airplanes were getting larger and faster, and more and more people would be flying them for pleasure. Even though Easter Island was never going to be around the corner from anywhere, it might someday be reached in a few hours from the South American mainland. "You might have something there."
"Then you'll extend your stay?" she asked.
"I need to talk with Marcus Brody. But I don't see any big problem."
As he stepped outside again a few minutes later, he took a deep breath. Incredible, he thought. Just incredible. He gazed up at the star-filled sky, and smiled broadly. "Thank you, Makemake," he whispered.
The raising of the moai had won the hearts of the islanders, and it seemed that everyone wanted to participate. The work was continuing around the clock with the mayor, Davina, Beaudroux, and Maxwell putting in six-hour shifts to supervise the work crews. The monument now stood at a sixty-degree incline, and was rising several inches an hour as the islanders continued working with pebbles and poles. Only two days remained before the boat would leave with the archaeologists for the mainland, but everyone agreed that the monument would be standing upright before they were gone.
Maxwell was in charge at the moment, and he was dancing around, shouting orders and waving his hands. At breakfast this morning, Maxwell had held up a round stone, as if it were a talisman, and boasted about the paper he would write describing his theory on how the islanders moved and erected the moais. He was certain that they had dragged the massive carved stones on wooden planks, which had been rolled over smooth round stones. Even though Indy had overheard the mayor explaining the same ideas to Maxwell, the archaeologist claimed it was his own theory. Beaudroux had responded that Maxwell could have the theory, because it was wrong. That, of course, had set off another argument.
"He's certainly in his glory," Indy said as he and Brody stood back from the crowded ahu and watched.
But Brody wasn't listening to Indy. "You mean to tell me that you saw hundreds of Rongo-rongo tablets and you didn't tell me about it?"
Indy shook his head. "I only saw a few of them, and I am telling you about it. They looked authentic from what I could see."
"I'm just flabbergasted. And they know how to read them?"
"So they say."
"Why aren't you in the cave now working with these Matunos?"
"Matuans," Indy corrected him. Then he explained the reason for the delay.
"Well, you've got to stay and see this thing through. I'm sure you won't have any problem getting a leave for the semester, or even a year. Why, you're on the verge of single-handedly cracking the mystery of Easter Island. You will end all the speculation about where the islanders came from, and why they created the moais." He glanced toward Maxwell, and added conspiratorially: "And even how they moved them."
Indy watched as one of the poles wedged under the moai snapped under the weight of several islanders. It was immediately replaced by another pole, and the islanders went right back to work. "Well, I figure that at the very least I should be able to crack the riddle of the script. It may reveal the history of the island, and it may not."
Brody had a mischievous glint in his eye. "Maxwell is going to be so miffed when he finds out that you've outdone him."
"I'm not worried about him, Marcus. But I was concerned about our plans to go to Chiloe."
"Oh, dear." Brody touched a finger to his chin and frowned. "It completely slipped my mind. This does put something of a crimp in things. I was so hoping you'd come to the island with me."
Indy gazed toward the moai as Maxwell frantically waved for more men to hang on the poles. He hated to disappoint Brody, but he didn't fully understand why the museum director wanted Indy to accompany him. "Tell me about this friend of yours. Who is he?"
"You mean I haven't told you that Hans Beitelheimer married the daughter of a dear friend of mine from college days?"
"No, you haven't."
"Loraine was my
goddaughter. She died several years ago in a skiing accident," Brody explained. "She met Hans at art school in Switzerland. They'd been married six years when she was killed. Buried in a landslide. They never found her body. Hans felt he couldn't go on without her, but rather than take his own life, he decided to go to the end of the world and stay there. Chiloe is where he ended up."
Too bad Beitelheimer hadn't come here, Indy thought. "And he's still on Chiloe?"
"Well, that's a good question. I've kept in touch with him over the years. We usually exchanged a letter or two a year, and I've promised more than once that I'd visit him. But then about two months ago, just before we left New York, I received a most peculiar message from him. He sent me a telegram and said he needed my help."
"What kind of help?"
"That's the odd thing. He said that he was trapped in a legend, and didn't know if he could get out alive."
"What's that mean?"
Brody shrugged. "I don't know. But I thought you'd be interested in looking into it with me. I wrote him a note that I was about to leave for Easter Island, and that I'd visit him as soon as I could."
"I'll tell you what, Marcus. I'll talk to Davina and tell her I'm going to the mainland for a couple of weeks, and I'll be back as soon as I can."
Brody perked up. "Do you think that'll be all right with the Matuans? I don't want to cause any problems."
Indy shrugged. "They weren't in any particular hurry to show me the tablets. I've got the feeling it'll work out just fine."
"That's great, Indy. We'll find Hans in Chiloe and play it by ear from there. If it's really nothing much, you can leave in a few days, and head right back here. And I'll take care of all the details concerning your leave. You don't have to worry about a thing."
Indy grinned. "It's a deal."
4
Trapped in a Legend
June 1929
Isle of Chiloe
Summer in New England was winter at the bottom of South America. In Santiago, the temperature had been mild, but now they were more than five hundred miles to the south of Chile's capital and the weather definitely fit the country's name.
Indy zipped his leather jacket to the neck and tugged his fedora low over his eyes, a shield against the frigid breeze. The sun was hovering above the lapis sea, varnishing the surface with an orange glow as he and Brody walked onto the main pier of the town of Ancud.
Boats were docked two and three deep, and fishermen were busy unloading their catches. Chiloe literally meant 'land of sea gulls,' and hundreds of gulls swept across the sky, crying raucously, diving into the icy waters for discarded bits of fish.
Indy and Brody had spent a total of seventeen hours on the train from Santiago to Puerto Montt, the end of the line. From there, they'd ridden a carriage to the dock and ferried out to Chiloe. The island was about one hundred and seventy-five miles long and thirty-five miles wide. Its two main towns were Ancud and Castro, and there were numerous fishing villages. Potatoes and wheat were grown there, but much of the island remained thickly forested.
"Excuse me, sir," Brody said, interrupting a fisherman. "Do you know a man, an artist, named Hans Beitelheimer who lives here?"
The grizzled man looked up, studied Brody a moment, then shook his head.
"This is strange," Brody muttered as they moved on. "Beitelheimer has clearly been living here. I haven't been writing to a ghost, for God's sake, and he sent the telegram from here."
Their first stop had been the post office, but they'd found out that Beitelheimer's postal box didn't exist, and no one at the post office had ever heard of him. "And you said he's been writing letters to you?" Indy asked.
Brody stepped carefully around several salmons spread out on the pier. "Actually, come to think of it, there haven't been any letters from him for two or three years."
Indy glanced up at the careening gulls. "But you've been writing him all along?"
"Well, I sent him a card every Christmas. I guess I hadn't realized it had been so long since I'd heard from him. But then I got the telegram, as I said."
"Maybe you should've come here sooner."
"I thought of that. But you have to understand that Hans is a very dramatic man. He has a tendency to overstate things and overreact to situations."
Moving to Chiloe no doubt was a good example, Indy thought.
Brody peered into a pail and made a face. "What in the world... Do people eat those things?"
A fisherman on the nearby boat laughed and responded in heavily accented English. "Of course. You try one. You'll like it."
Before Brody could refuse, the man reached into the pail, picked out a spiny black sea urchin, and set it on the pier. With several swift and proficient slashes of his knife, he cut off the sharp spines, then sliced the creature in two, revealing a glistening, jellylike substance the color of a cantaloupe. The man then pulled a lime from his pocket, cut it open, squeezed it over the halves, then handed one half to Brody and the other to Indy.
Brody made a face. "What do I do with it?"
The fisherman made a motion with his hand. "Eat. There. Look at your friend."
Indy swallowed the sea urchin in two gulps. "Go ahead, Marcus. It's not bad."
Brody hesitated, then daintily tipped up the urchin shell as if he were drinking from a shot glass. He cleared his throat, touched his lips. "Yes, quite tasty, if I do say so."
"It looks like a good catch today," Indy commented to the fisherman.
The gray-haired man raised his weathered face. "Sometimes, the pier is piled with fish. Other times, not so many. We have a story here." He pointed out to sea. "We say that when we spot a mermaid in the morning, we can tell whether it will be a good day at sea or a bad one by the direction she is looking. If she is facing the shore, it will be a good day. If she looks out to sea, it won't be so good."
"Have you seen any mermaids?" Indy asked.
The man adjusted the rope that moored his boat to the pier. "I've seen many things around here. But I don't talk about them."
He turned away, but Brody called after him. "One moment. Do you know of a man named Hans Beitelheimer? He is a tall blond man, an artist. He paints pictures, I believe."
The fisherman stopped in the doorway of the rustic, wooden cabin on his boat. "I don't know that name, but there was a man who used to live here, a painter who looked as you said. He was foreign, and spoke with an accent."
"Do you know where we can find him?"
"He's gone now for maybe three years."
"Where did he go?" Indy asked.
The fisherman slowly shook his head.
"Who would know?" Indy asked.
"Talk to Jorge. He owns the Caleuche, a restaurant." He pointed up the hill toward the main street of Ancud. "He knew the man you are talking about. But he was called Juan. Juan Barrios, I think."
"That explains it," Indy said as they picked their way through a growing crowd of shoppers and fishermen on the pier. "He changed his name."
"It's possible," Brody answered. "At least we have a lead. We'll soon find out if this Juan and Hans are the same. The only thing that bothers me is that he isn't here any longer."
"Maybe he moved to another village," Indy said, wondering if Brody would mind if he left tomorrow for Santiago. There was a boat leaving for Easter Island in three days.
Brody smiled as they crossed the street and headed up the hill. "I hope so. I'm just a worrier. I can tell you're still thinking about Easter Island and all those Rongo-rongo tablets."
Indy shrugged. "The tablets aren't going anywhere, and Davina assured me that we could begin work as soon as I returned."
"It is an incredible opportunity," Brody said. "Ah, here we are."
A sign on the front of the restaurant pictured a sailing ship; beneath it was the name, Caleuche. They walked inside. A large table surrounded by eight or nine men was the only one occupied. They all turned and stared as Indy and Brody sat down. "I guess they're not used to strangers here," Brody muttered.
"Maybe not in the dead of winter." Indy looked up at a painting on the wall above their table. It depicted an old sailing ship like the one on the sign, but this one looked like a mirage, with the background visible through the ship. He was about to comment on it when a mustached man with a soiled white apron wrapped around his expansive girth approached them from the bar and greeted them.
"What do you suggest for dinner?" Brody asked. "I know it's early, but we've had a long journey from Santiago."
The waiter, who Indy hoped was also the owner, waved a hand. "It is no problem. I suggest our seafood platter. It is our specialty any time of the day."
"Sounds good to me," Indy said.
"And a bottle of your best white wine," Brody added.
"All of our wines in Chile are very good, but I will select a favorite of my own for you. You are English?"
"I hail from England, but I live in New York now. I'm a museum curator, and my friend here is an American, an archaeologist."
"Very interesting." The waiter pointed at Indy. "He digs into the past, and you put it on display."
"That's one way of looking at it," Brody responded. "Are you the owner?"
"Yes, I am. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Jorge Fernandez, at your service. Let me get your wine, and if you have any questions about Ancud or the island, I will do my best to help you."
"Congenial fellow," Indy said when Fernandez walked away.
"So it seems. I was hoping that by telling him about us he will be more willing to talk about Hans."
Indy pointed at the painting. "It's initialed J.B., as in Juan Barrios?"
"You're right."
Fernandez returned to the table, and poured two glasses of wine. "We were noticing this interesting painting here," Brody said in a casual voice after they had tasted and approved the wine. "Can you tell us anything about it?"
Fernandez laughed. "I can tell you all about it. That is the Caleuche. It is a ghost ship many people say they have seen."
Indiana Jones and the Interior World Page 3