Two hours into his journey, he came to a dusty footpath and followed it. Thirty minutes later he spotted a man sitting astride a horse beside the trail. Pitt walked up to the man and held up a hand in greeting. The rider gazed back through eyes worn and tired from the sun. His stern face looked like weathered sandstone.
Pitt studied the stranger, who wore a straw cowboy hat with a large brim turned up on the sides, a long-sleeved cotton shirt, worn denim pants, and scuffed cowboy boots. The black hair under the hat showed no tendency toward gray. He was small and lean and could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy. His skin was burnt bronze with a washboard of wrinkles. The hands that held the reins were leathery and creased with many years of labor. This was a hardy soul, Pitt observed, who survived in an intolerant land with incredible tenacity.
"Good afternoon," Pitt said pleasantly.
Like most of his people Billy was bilingual, speaking native Montolan among his friends and family and Spanish to outsiders. But he knew a fair amount of English, picked up from his frequent trips over the border to sell his cattle and purchase supplies. "You know you trespass on private Indian land?" he replied stoically.
"No, sorry. I was cast ashore on the Gulf. I'm trying to reach the highway and a telephone."
"You lose your boat?"
"Yes," Pitt acknowledged. "You could say that."
"We have telephone at our meeting house. Glad to take you there."
"I'd be most grateful."
Billy reached down a hand. "My village not far. You can ride on back of my horse."
Pitt hesitated. He definitely preferred mechanical means of transportation. To his way of thinking four wheels were better than four hooves any day. The only useful purpose for horses was as background in Western movies. But he wasn't about to look one with a gift in the mouth. He took Billy's hand and was amazed at the strength displayed by the wiry little man as he hoisted Pitt's 82 kilograms (181 pounds) up behind him without the slightest grunt of exertion.
"By the way, my name is Dirk Pitt."
"Billy Yuma," said the horseman without offering his hand.
They rode in silence for half an hour before cresting a butte overgrown with yucca. They dropped into a small valley with a shallow stream running through it and passed the ruins of a Spanish mission, destroyed by religion-resistant Indians three centuries ago. Crumbling adobe walls and a small graveyard were all that remained. The graves of the old Spaniards near the top of a knoll were long since grown over and forgotten. Lower down were the more recent burials of the townspeople. One tombstone in particular caught Pitt's eye. He slipped to the ground over the rump of the horse and walked over to it.
The carved letters on the weathered stone were distinct and quite readable.
Patty Lou Cutting
2/11/24-2/3/34
The sun be warm and kind to you.
The darkest night
some star shines through.
The dullest morn a radiance brew.
and where dusk comes,
God's hand to you.
"Who was she?" asked Pitt.
Billy Yuma shook his head. "The old ones do not know. They say the grave was made by strangers in the night."
Pitt stood and looked over the sweeping vista of the Sonoran Desert. A light breeze gently caressed the back of his neck. A red-tailed hawk circled the sky, surveying its domain. The land of mountains and sand, jackrabbits, coyotes, and canyons could intimidate as well as inspire. This is the place to die and be buried, he thought. Finally, he turned from Patty Lou's last resting place and waved Yuma on. "I'll walk the rest of the way."
Yuma nodded silently and rode ahead, the hooves of the buckskin kicking up little clouds of dust.
Pitt followed down the hill to a modest farming and ranching community. They traveled along the streambed where three young girls were washing clothes under the shade of a cottonwood tree. They stopped and stared at him with adolescent curiosity. He waved, but they ignored the greeting and, almost solemnly it seemed to Pitt, returned to their wash.
The heart of the Montolo community consisted of several houses and buildings. Some were built from mesquite branches that were coated with mud, one or two from wood, but most were constructed of cement blocks. The only apparent influence of modern living was weathered poles supporting electrical and phone lines, a few battered pickup trucks that looked as if they'd barely escaped a salvage yard crusher, and one satellite dish.
Yuma reined in his horse in front of a small building that was open on three sides. "Our meeting house," he said. "A phone inside. You have to pay."
Pitt smiled, investigated his still soggy wallet, and produced an AT&T card. "No problem."
Yuma nodded and led him into a small office equipped with a wooden table and four folding chairs. The telephone sat on a very thin phone book that was lying on the tile floor.
The operator answered after seventeen rings. "Si, por favor?"
"I wish to make a credit card call."
"Yes, sir, your card number and the number you're calling," the operator replied in fluent English.
"At least my day hasn't been all bad," Pitt sighed at hearing an understanding voice.
The Mexican operator connected him to an American operator. She transferred him to information to obtain the number for the Customs offices in Calexico and then put his call through. A male voice answered.
"Customs Service, how can I help you?"
"I'm trying to reach Albert Giordino of the National Underwater and Marine Agency."
"One moment, I'll transfer you. He's in Agent Starger's office."
Two clicks and a voice that seemed to come from a basement said, "Starger here."
"This is Dirk Pitt. Is Al Giordino handy?"
"Pitt, is that you?" Curtis Starger said incredulously. "Where have you been? We've been going through hell trying to get the Mexican navy to search for you."
"Don't bother, their local commandant was probably bought off by the Zolars."
"One moment. Giordino is standing right here. I'll put him on an extension."
"Al," said Pitt, "are you there?"
"Good to hear your voice, pal. I take it something went wrong."
In a nutshell, our friends from Peru have Loren and Rudi. I helped the crew escape on a life raft. I managed to swim to shore. I'm calling from an Indian village in the desert north of San Felipe and about thirty kilometers west of where the Alhambra lies half-sunk in the muck."
"I'll dispatch one of our helicopters," said Starger. "I'll need the name of the village for the pilot."
Pitt turned to Billy Yuma. "What do you call your community?"
Yuma nodded. "Canyon Ometepec."
Pitt repeated the name, gave a more in-depth report on the events of the last eighteen hours and hung up. "My friends are coming after me," he said to Yuma.
"By car?"
"Helicopter."
"You be an important man?"
Pitt laughed. "No more than the mayor of your village."
"No mayor. Our elders meet and talk on tribal business."
Two men walked past, leading a burro that was buried under a load of manzanita limbs. The men and Yuma merely exchanged brief stares. There were no salutations, no smiles.
"You look tired and thirsty," said Yuma to Pitt. "Come to my house. My wife make you something to eat while you wait for friends."
It was the best offer Pitt had all day and he gratefully accepted.
Billy Yuma's wife, Polly, was a large woman who carried her weight better than any man. Her face was round and wrinkled with enormous dark brown eyes. Despite being middle aged, her hair was as black as raven's feathers. She hustled around a wood stove that sat under a ramada next to their cement brick house. The Indians of the Southwest deserts preferred the shade and openness of a ramada for their kitchen and dining areas to the confining and draftless interior of their houses. Pitt noticed that the ramada's roof was constructed from the skeletal ribs of the saguaro cactu
s tree and was supported by mesquite poles surrounded by a wall of standing barbed ocotillo stems.
After he drank five cups of water from a big olla, or pot, whose porous walls let it sweat and keep its contents cool, Polly fed him shredded pork and refried beans with fried cholla buds that reminded him of okra. The tortillas were made from mesquite beans she had pounded into a sweet-tasting flour. The late lunch was accompanied by wine fermented from fruit of the saguaro.
Pitt couldn't recall eating a more delightful meal.
Polly seldom spoke, and when she did utter a few words they were addressed to Billy in Spanish. Pitt thought he detected a hint of humor in her big brown eyes, but she acted serious and remote.
"I do not see a happy community," said Pitt, making conversation.
Yuma shook his head sadly. "Sorrow fell over my people and the people of our other tribal villages when our most sacred religious idols were stolen. Without them our sons and daughters cannot go through the initiation of adulthood. Since their disappearance, we have suffered much misfortune."
"Good God," Pitt breathed. "Not the Zolars."
"What, senor?"
"An international family of thieves who have stolen half the ancient artifacts ever discovered."
"Mexican police told us our idols were stolen by American pothunters who search sacred Indian grounds for our heritage to sell for profit."
"Very possible," said Pitt. "What do your sacred idols look like?"
Yuma stretched out his hand and held it about a meter above the floor. "They stand about this high and their faces were carved many centuries ago by my ancestors from the roots of cottonwood trees."
"The chances are better than good that your idols were bought from the pothunters by the Zolars for peanuts, and then resold to a wealthy collector for a fat price."
"These people are called Zolars?"
"Their family name. They operate under a shadowy organization called Solpemachaco."
"I do not know the word," said Yuma. "What does it mean?"
"A mythical Inca serpent with several heads that takes up housekeeping in a cave."
"Never heard of him."
"I think he may be related to another legendary monster the Peruvians called the Demonio del Muertos, who guards their underworld."
Yuma gazed thoughtfully at his work-worn hands. "We too have a legendary demon of the underworld who keeps the dead from escaping and the living from entering. He also passes judgment on our dead, allowing the good to pass and devouring the bad."
"A Judgment Day demon," said Pitt.
Yuma nodded solemnly. "He lives on a mountain not far from here."
"Cerro el Capirote," Pitt said softly.
"How could a stranger know that?" Yuma asked, looking deeply into Pitt's green eyes.
"I've been to the peak. I have seen the winged jaguar with the serpent's head, and I guarantee you he wasn't put there to secure the underworld or judge the dead."
"You seem to know much about this land."
"No, actually very little. But I'd be most interested in hearing any other legends about the demon."
"There is one other," Yuma conceded. "Enrique Juarez, our oldest tribal elder, is one of the few remaining Montolos who remember the old stories and ancient ways. He tells of golden gods who came from the south on great birds with white wings that moved over the surface of the water. They rested on an island in the old sea for a long time. When the gods finally sailed away, they left behind the stone demon. A few of our brave and curious ancestors went across the water to the island and never returned. The old people were frightened and believed the mountain was sacred and all intruders would be devoured by the demon." Yuma paused and gazed into the desert. "The story has been told and retold from the days of my ancestors. Our younger children, who are schooled in modern ways, think of it simply as an old people's fairy tale."
"A fairy tale mixed with historical fact," Pitt assured Yuma. "Believe me when I tell you a vast hoard of gold lies inside Cerro el Capirote. Put there not by golden gods from the south, but Incas from Peru, who played on your ancestors' reverence of the supernatural by carving the stone monster to instill fear and keep them off the island. As added insurance, they left a few guards behind to kill the curious until the Spanish were driven from their homeland, and they could come back and reclaim the treasure for their new king. It goes without saying, history took a different turn. The Spaniards were there to stay and no one ever returned."
Billy Yuma was not a man given to extreme emotion. His wrinkled face remained fixed, only his dark eyes widened. "A great treasure lies under Cerro el Capirote?"
Pitt nodded. "Very soon men with evil intentions are coming to force their way inside the mountain to steal the Inca riches."
"They cannot do that," Yuma protested. "Cerro el Capirote is magic. It is on our land, Montolo land. The dead who did not pass judgment live outside its walls."
"That won't stop these men, believe me," said Pitt seriously.
My people will make a protest to our local police authorities."
"If the Zolars run true to form, they've already bribed your law enforcement officials."
"These evil men you speak of. They are the same ones who sold our sacred idols?"
"As I suggested, it's very possible."
Billy Yuma studied him for a moment. "Then we do not have to trouble ourselves with their trespass onto our sacred ground."
Pitt did not understand. "May I ask why?"
Reality slowly faded from Billy's face and he seemed to enter a dreamlike state. "Because those who have taken the idols of the sun, moon, earth, and water are cursed and will suffer a terrible death."
"You really believe that, don't you?"
"I do," Yuma answered somberly. "In my dreams I see the thieves drowning."
"Drowning?"
"Yes, in the water that will make the desert into the garden it was for my ancestors."
Pitt considered making a contrary reply. He was not one to deposit his money in the bank of dreams. He was a confirmed skeptic of the metaphysical. But the intractable gaze in Yuma's eyes, the case-hardened tone of his voice, moved something inside Pitt.
He began to feel glad that he wasn't related to the Zolars.
Amaru stepped down into the main sala of the hacienda. One wall of the great room was filled by a large stone fireplace removed from an old Jesuit mission. The high ceiling was decorated with intricate precast plaster panels. "Please excuse me for keeping you waiting, gentlemen."
"Quite all right," said Zolar. "Now that the fools from NUMA have led us directly to Huascar's gold, we made good use of your tardiness by discussing methods of bringing it to the surface."
Amaru nodded and looked around the room. There were four men there besides himself. Seated on sofas around the fireplace were Zolar, Oxley, Sarason, and Moore. Their faces were expressionless, but there was no concealing the feeling of triumph in the air.
"Any word of Dr. Kelsey, the photographer Rodgers, and Albert Giordino?" Sarason inquired.
"My contacts over the border believe Pitt told you the truth on the ferry when he said he dropped them off at the U.S. Customs compound in Calexico," answered Amaru.
"He must have smelled a trap," said Moore.
"That was obvious when he returned to the ferryboat alone," Samson said sharply to Amaru. "You had him in your hands and you let him escape."
"Not forgetting the crew," added Oxley.
"I promise you, Pitt did not escape. He was killed when my men and I threw concussion grenades into the water around him. As to the ferryboat's crew, the Mexican police officials you've paid to cooperate will ensure their silence for as long as necessary."
"Still not good," said Oxley. "With Pitt, Gunn, and Congresswoman Smith gone missing, every federal agent between San Diego and Denver will come nosing around."
Zolar shook his head. "They have no legal authority down here. And our friends in the local government would never permit their entry."
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Samson looked angrily at Amaru. "You say Pitt's dead. Then where is the body?"
Amaru stared back nastily. "Pitt is feeding the fishes. Take my word for it."
"Forgive me if I'm not convinced."
"There is no way he could have survived the underwater detonations."
"The man has survived far worse." Sarason walked across the room to a bar and poured himself a drink. "I won't be satisfied until I see the remains."
"You also botched the scuttling of the ferryboat," Oxley said to Amaru. "You should have sailed her into deep water before opening the seacocks."
"Or better yet, set her on fire, along with Congresswoman Smith and the deputy director of NUMA," said Zolar, lighting a cigar.
"Police Comandante Cortina will conduct an investigation and announce that the ferryboat along with Congresswoman Smith and Rudi Gunn was lost in an unfortunate accident," said Sarason.
Zolar glared at him. "That won't solve the problem of interference from American law enforcement officials. Their Justice Department will demand more than a local investigation if Pitt survives to expose the blundering actions of your friend here."
"Forget Pitt," Amaru said flatly. "Nobody had a stronger reason for seeing him dead than me."
Oxley glanced from Amaru to Zolar. "We can't gamble on speculation. No way Cortina can hold off a joint investigation by the Mexican and American governments for more than a few days."
Sarason shrugged. "Time enough to remove the treasure and be gone."
Even if Pitt walks out of the sea to tell the truth," said Henry Moore, "it's your word against his. He can't prove your connection with the torture and disappearance of Smith and Gunn. Who would believe a family of respected art dealers was involved with such things? You might arrange for Cortina to accuse Pitt of committing these crimes so he could grab the treasure for himself."
"I approve of the professor's concept," said Zolar. "Our influential friends in the police and military can easily be persuaded to arrest Pitt if he shows his face in Mexico."
"So far so good," said Sarason. "But what about our prisoners? Do we eliminate them now or later?"
"Why not throw them in the river that runs through the treasure cavern?" suggested Amaru. "Eventually, what's left of their bodies will probably turn up in the Gulf. By the time the fish get through with them, about all a coroner will be able to determine is that they died from drowning."
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