The sky cleared. The views were astonishing. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Texas but it is surely God’s own country. I don’t think you can appreciate the sheer bigness of the place until you see it from the sky. Wide open spaces - you ain’t seen squat.
We flew over the Gulf of Mexico, over water flatter than any pancake I ever saw. We got lucky with the weather. There was no hint of a squall. I pointed out, yelling over the sound of the engines, that it wouldn’t always be such plain sailing. My employer smiled rather mysteriously and held a finger aloft.
“The gods smile on our ventures,” he said. Or I think he said. It was a peculiar thing to say. Gods not God. Maybe it was just an expression - or so I thought.
The gold and green shores of Mexico hurried to greet us. We set down on a plain or prairie. Here Mexico and Texas are very similar, topographically speaking but what I was to witness was unlike anything I had ever encountered.
There is a city that has lain undiscovered and untouched for centuries. It is intact - can you imagine the importance of the find. At first, I thought Trask was assembling a workforce to catalogue and chart the place with a view to revealing the existence of this remarkable location to the world.
How wrong I proved to be!
I was kept apart from the young men - propriety, I thought - but this was solely to conceal from me the true purpose of their presence. One night, I could not sleep; I was eager to get home and file my patent. I had made my inaugural flight and I was frustrated to be so far from home. So I went for a walk in the moonlight. The city is still beautiful - I found it hard to imagine the horrors that were perpetrated there as a matter of course. I did not have to exercise my imagination because I saw those horrors for myself.
The light of torches drew me to the temple at the heart of the city. There was some kind of party going on - that was my first impression. I felt a little put out, uninvited as I was, so I decided to gate-crash.
It was not a party - despite the drumming and the dancing.
My backer was at the top of the pyramid. His boys were waiting in a line. One by one, they lay on the altar stone and - and –
He murdered them.
He plunged a knife into their bellies and then reached in to pull out their beating hearts. When this was done, he threw the heart into a fire and shoved the body from the altar so that the next boy could step up and assume the position.
Oh, I’d read about the Aztecs but to see their vile practices before my very eyes was the most sickening thing.
What makes it worse is that it was only practice - by which I mean rehearsal. He was killing those boys just to get his hand in - a poor choice of words!
I screamed. I could not help it.
A pair of henchmen seized me and I was taken up to the altar. My backer, elbow deep in blood, laughed in my face. “Oh, Miss Pepper, this is unfortunate.”
I called him a few names, I can tell you. I believed my end was upon me but to my surprise, he ordered his heavies to take me away. I was tied up in a hut. Later, he came to me and said I could not be permitted to live. He hadn’t wanted to sully his precious ceremony with my inferior female blood - he was no gentleman! No, a special ceremony was to be my fate. Come the morning, the dawn would be greeted with my heart.
Well, I wasn’t going to sit tight and let that happen. I have plans for my life. I spent the night rubbing the ropes at my wrists against the leg of a chair. The instant I was free I climbed from the window and hurtled into the jungle.
I was mad with panic and kept moving for days.
I circled my way back to the aeroplane. My backer and his men were there, dismantling it. There was no escape!
I stowed away on a steamship to get me back to the States. I was desperate to expose that evil man and his crimes but he declared to the newspapers that I was missing. He had ‘stumbled across’ the wreck of my flying machine, he said. The nerve! He wrecked it! It would make a splendid addition to a museum, he said, a fitting memorial!
Hah!
And that was when I saw you were in town, Mr Mortlake. I knew from your book you were a man of action. It was I who broke into your hotel room and stole your invitation. I had to get into the museum, you see, and I had to enlist your help.
Chapter Seven
I stared at the darkness. My face was burning with embarrassment as I recalled the incident in my hotel room. She had seen me naked! A woman!
I squirmed where I lay. How would I face her come the morning?
Miss Pepper’s account - if one is disposed to believe a bally word of it - stirred something within Cuthbert at any rate. He demanded to know more about the four drugged young men, what were their names, their descriptions. Miss Pepper confessed she had not taken that much notice of that quartet of unfortunates.
“Was one about this tall and blond?”
“Sorry, buddy; I can’t see your gestures in the dark.”
I told my agitated valet that such things would have to wait until dawn, which, thanks to the inordinate length of Miss Pepper’s history, could not be far off.
I heard Cuthbert lie back and harrumph. I could easily imagine his frustrated expression; I had seen it many times.
“Wait a minute!” I heard Miss Pepper sit up. “The boy you describe - isn’t he the one who toppled out of the sarcophagus?”
“Yes!” Cuthbert sat up again. “That’s Bobby!”
“Do you know, I thought he looked familiar...”
“So, he was one of the four then, Miss?”
“Why, yes! Now I think of it.”
I made an appeal for calm and what Cuthbert called shuteye. I may as well have held my tongue.
“So...” Rustling signalled that Cuthbert had stood up. “Bobby flies down to Mexico, somehow escapes the antiquated death cult, but ends up on stage at the Johnsonian, flat on his face dead like a trick of the Great Fantoni gone wrong...”
“Yes... But why wasn’t your friend sacrificed like the others...”
“I dunno, Miss; that’s why I’m asking.”
I let out a grunt, which they chose not to interpret in any way at all.
“Bobby was a good boy, Miss. He wouldn’t want no part in nothing dodgy. Top of the class, he was. Bright as a button. It was him what taught me to read and write.”
I refrained from making a disparaging remark; as far as I knew Cuthbert never exercised his literacy skills on my works.
“Wait!” cried Miss Pepper. “What did you just say?”
“What about?”
“About Bobby?”
“Give me strength!” That one was me.
“That he was bright as a spaniel, Miss.”
“No, not that. You said he taught you to read and write.”
“Well, it’s true, Miss.”
“Bloody hellfire!” Yours truly, again.
“That must be it...” Miss Pepper was now off the mattress; she paced around the dirt-packed, straw-strewn floor. “Your friend was spared because he wasn’t illiterate.”
“Oh, he was, Miss! He never knew his dad. Don’t think his mum did neither.”
“That evil man must have singled Bobby out. For secretarial purposes.”
“Hah!” escaped from my lips.
“Then why did Bobby end up dead, Miss? In that fancy coffin?”
“Xolotl!” she cried, using the infernal American pronunciation.
“Are you choking, Miss?”
“No, I’m real serious. He’s the key. If we find the body of the king, we shall find Bobby’s murderer. That’s for sure.”
“I believe you’re right, Miss.”
I gave up all hope of sleep. Dawn’s rosy fingers were poking between the roof planks. I got off the makeshift mattress and dusted myself down - a task that is customarily Cuthbert
’s duty.
“You two can jolly well go on playing amateur detectives if you wish,” I announced, “but I have an appointment to keep in Boston.”
“That’s just bully,” said Miss Pepper. “From Boston we can catch the train.”
“Where to, Miss?”
“West!” She struck a decisive pose.
“Sounds a bit vague,” I observed. “Cuthbert, we must exchange clothes. I had rather continue my tour dressed as a servant than an old witch.”
Cuthbert never needs to be asked twice to disrobe. Rather unexpectedly, Miss Pepper also proceeded to undress. I asked her what the bloody hell she thought she was doing. She explained that it would be less obtrusive if she were to don One-Eyed Helen’s weeds.
Quite the motley trio stepped from that barn early that morning. Cuthbert’s livery fitted me rather well, although he is broader than I am across the shoulders. He looked rather dashing in Miss Pepper’s aviator gear; the jacket and the jodhpurs lent him a heroic air - not that he needed it, of course. And as for Miss Pepper, well, if you have ever seen a laundry bag perambulate around, you’ll get the general idea. She eschewed the eye patch, explaining she did not wish to attract undue attention.
We picked our way across the ploughed furrows with Cuthbert leading the procession like a great explorer with me as his faithful lackey and Miss Pepper bringing up the rear as a walking jumble sale. Apart from birds peppered around hither and yon, pecking for worms, there was no sign of life. At the far end, there was a fence, dividing field from dirt track. On the dirt track, a simple farmer’s cart, its horse basking in the sun. We headed for the vehicle - well, there was no point trying to resurrect the balloon.
When we reached the centre of the field, the air was rent by a thunder crack.
“Get down!” Cuthbert insisted, dropping to the dirt. Miss Pepper went down at once; I was a little slower on the uptake. A second blast spurred me. Some blackguard was taking pot-shots at us!
“Somebody’s shooting at us, sir!” Cuthbert confirmed.
“But who, dash it?”
“Just keep your head down, sir.”
“I bet it’s the farmer,” offered Miss Pepper. “We are trespassers, after all. And in this state, they shoot trespassers.”
“Well, this is a fine state to be in!”
“I’m going to make a break for it,” Cuthbert declared, with a determined set of his jaw. “I’ll draw his fire while you two head orf in the other direction.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” I told him. “This won’t do at all.”
“He’s right,” Miss Pepper chimed in.
“Who is?” said Cuthbert and I in perfect unison.
“Mr Mortlake. We need to split. A three-way.”
Cuthbert nodded. “He can’t shoot all three of us at once.”
“This is insanity,” I protested. “You can’t just shoot people. It’s absurd. Further to which, I am an Englishman.”
I got to my feet and stood tall. I called out across the field. “Now look here-”
A bullet singed my ear. Cuthbert tugged me down.
“This is outrageous. Someone ought to report that trigger-happy maniac to the authorities.”
“Maybe it is the authorities,” said Miss Pepper. I glowered at her. “You forget the cops in this country are tooled up.”
“I should imagine they are.”
“I mean they are armed. With guns.”
She was quite right, of course.
“But why would the police be after us? Seems a trifle draconian to shoot a man for walking across a field.”
“Well,” Miss Pepper blushed, “there is the little matter of hot air balloon theft.”
“So, it’s you they want! This is your fault!”
“Hey! I remind you yet again, that balloon saved your snooty behind. There is the somewhat bigger matter of the murders in the museum.”
“But that wasn’t me! That was Tommy Dog-Face!”
“Tell them not me!”
Oh, she really was the most infuriating harpy. I gaped like a stunned mullet for a few seconds before I noticed Cuthbert was gone. During this heated exchange, my valet had taken it upon himself to wriggle away from us, like a snake in a furrow. The damned fool was moving toward the sniper.
“You damned fool!” I whispered harshly. “Get back here this instant.”
“Just trying to get a closer peek at him, guv,” the damned fool replied without stopping or turning around. “I don’t think he’s no farmer. Nor no policeman with his tool out neither.”
“Then who the bloody hell is it, man?”
“I can’t see him, sir. He must be behind the horse.”
“Come back, you fool!” I appealed to Miss Pepper, “We can’t lie here like sitting ducks. Ideas?”
“I say we make a break for it.”
“And be gunned down like ducks at a fairground? No!”
“Then we surrender. We walk over there with our hands up and see what they want.”
“They want us dead, Miss Pepper. Like dead ducks.”
“What is it with you and ducks? One lousy duck simile after another.”
“I am a writer, Miss Pepper, and writers have style. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“Um, Mr Mortlake, sir?” It was Cuthbert. He was erect with his hands high in the air. His eyes were on the horse and cart, which were advancing at quite a lick. The horse tossed its mane - rather arrogantly, I thought.
I helped Miss Pepper to her feet because I remain a gentleman whatever the provocation. We raised our hands as the cart came to a halt before us. We were about to see just who it was who wanted us dead. Like... dodos.
The horse snorted and fell silent. The door opened and a long-legged man in an ankle-length black overcoat stepped down. His face was in shadow courtesy of the broad brim of his black hat. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. How queerly the farmers dress on this side of the Atlantic!
“Uh-oh,” murmured Miss Pepper, evidently recognising our assailant.
“You know this farmer?”
“He ain’t no farmer.”
The tall man reached into his coat and withdrew a length of bamboo, like a panda pausing for a snack. I was utterly baffled as I watched him lift the end of the tube to his lips.
“No!” cried Miss Pepper in a panic. Something happened too fast for me to witness. Cuthbert clapped a hand to his neck and collapsed, flat on his face in the dirt.
“I say, Cuthbert!” I moved to help him but Miss Pepper pulled me back. My valet was motionless; I could not tell if he was still breathing. “What have you done to my valet?” I addressed the bounder with the bamboo. “Do you know how exceedingly difficult it is to find reliable domestic staff?”
The man lowered his bamboo blowpipe. He extended a hand.
“No!” cried Miss Pepper.
The man nodded. “I see how it is.” His voice was deep, his accent educated - for an American. And there was something vaguely familiar about it. “There is an antidote,” he nodded at the prone Cuthbert. “I will happily provide it if you comply with my wishes.”
“Your wishes!” I scoffed. “What care I for your wishes?”
“Not a fig, I’m guessing.” The man flashed teeth that would not have been amiss in the horse’s face and again I had the sensation that I had seen him before. “But for your man there, you care a great deal.”
“Sirrah! Our relationship is purely professional.”
“Oh, I’m sure! But you want him restored to you, just as I want something restored to me.”
The nickel dropped. “This is about the balloon, isn’t it?”
“No! It is not about the damned balloon. Honestly, you surprise me, Mr Mortlake. I did not expect you to be quite so dense.”
“He wants the king,” said Miss Pepper.
“Astute as ever, Belle.”
“What king?”
“The Aztec king! Xolotl! Do try to keep up!”
“But we haven’t got him? What makes him think we’ve got him? Sir, what makes you think we have a dead king?”
“I don’t,” the man in black was tiring of me; I could hear it in his voice. “But you will find him and you will bring him to me. If you want your man here returned to health.”
“But-”
The toe of the man’s boot touched Cuthbert’s leg. “You there. Stand.”
Slowly, Cuthbert stirred and got to his feet. His expression was blank and his eyes were glassy.
“I say, Cuthbert; gave us a bit of a fright there.” My words fell on deaf ears. Cuthbert marched, albeit sluggishly, to the cart. He climbed into the back. It was both chilling and heart-breaking to see him like that.
“You won’t have forever,” the man warned. “If Cuthbert does not receive the antidote within a week, he will die. Bring me King Xolotl - that’s all I ask.”
He got back into the driving seat, tugged sharply on the reins and turned the cart around. On the flatbed, Cuthbert stood, barely rocking with the motion. I waved to him until he was no longer in my sight. He saw me not.
“Well, ain’t this a turn-up!” Miss Pepper marvelled.
“Madam, this is no time to discuss root vegetables.”
“No, you dolt. Looks like we got a week to track down the mummy or your boy’s a goner.”
“Yes, I gathered that much, thank you. Despite what yon blighter asserts, I am not altogether dense.”
“But you sure are a pompous ass. Come on; let’s get moving.”
She headed off, following the tracks made by the horse and cart. I hesitated; oh, damn it all, Cuthbert. Why did I ever let you make yourself indispensable?
Xolotl Strikes! Page 8