Temple of Gold

by A. J. Stewart

  “Well, we’ve got a situation.”

  Lenny led the Pilot to the main cabin, where Lucas was dressing the injured man’s legs in bandages.

  “He don’t look so flash,” said the Pilot.

  “He’s not,” said Lenny. “We were told it was an explosion, but it looks like some kind of anti-personnel mine.”

  “Can you get him to a hospital in Thailand?” asked Lucas.

  “Sure, I guess. Probably Tha Chang is the best bet.”

  “Okay,” said Lucas, grabbing a bundle of MREs—pre-packaged meals to eat in the field—and he jumped down from the Huey.

  “You’re not coming?” asked the Pilot.

  “No,” said Lenny. “We want to find out what’s happening out here first. You think you can come back?”

  “Daybreak, I can. Unless you want to light a flare.”

  “No, that’s fine. It’ll practically be dawn by the time we get back to the village. Get some sleep in Thailand where it’s safer, and drop in around noon. We’ll contact you.”

  “Righto.”

  The Pilot got in the chopper and fired it up. Lenny didn’t wait to watch. He heard the pitch of the engine rise, and the Huey lifted into the air and away as they reached the trees at the riverbank.

  Lucas found the hike back was easy without the weight of the wounded man on his shoulders, and they made good time back to their hidden packs on the village side of the hill. They crossed the rice paddies again and reached the edge of the village in darkness. They waited in the same depression but saw no movement and no sign of the woman.

  “Maybe she went to bed,” said Lucas.

  “The pot’s still on the firepit.”

  “But the fire’s out.”

  “Still, would she leave it—”

  Lucas put up his hand to quiet Lenny. There was movement on the far side of the track that led into the jungle. They watched someone walk out of the trees into the camp. As the person got closer to the firepit, they saw it was the woman. Lenny dropped his pack and stood. This time, there was no fire affecting her eyesight, so she spotted him immediately. She continued shuffling across to the firepit.

  “Are you okay?” asked Lenny.

  “Why you come?”

  “To help.”

  “You no help. You go.”

  “We can help.”

  “Where my brother?”

  “Your brother? That old guy was your brother?”

  “They all my brother. Where he go?”

  “Our friend took him to the hospital. In his helicopter.”

  “You go, too. Before people wake up. You go.”

  Lucas stood and moved to Lenny’s side.

  “What were you doing in the woods?” he asked.

  “Woods?”

  “In the trees?”

  “I make grave. For him. So they think he die.”

  “We can help,” said Lenny, again.

  “All finish. You go.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Lucas.

  “No name. You go now.”

  “What is General Tan doing?” asked Lenny. “Is he fighting for the Khmer Rouge?”

  “Fighting? Who he fighting?”

  “Anyone. These people—” said Lenny, gesturing at the huts beyond. “Are they soldiers?”

  “No, no soldiers. No more fighting.”

  The woman kneeled again by the fire and poked at the ashes with a stick.

  “What is General Tan doing, then?” asked Lucas.

  “He digging.”

  “Digging?” asked Lenny. “Digging for what?”

  “The yellow metal.”

  The woman pushed some leaves into the fire to reignite the flames.

  “Yellow metal?” asked Lenny, glancing at Lucas.

  “You mean gold?” asked Lucas.

  The woman said nothing. She was focused on the fire, as if this were the most important thing she could do, and Lenny and Lucas were just figments of her imagination. She blew on the embers and the leaves sparked to life, and then she fed some more branches and the fire grew.

  “What’s wrong with the people here?” asked Lenny.

  “They die.”

  “Is it food? Do they need food? The Americans brought food.”

  “No, no food. This food.” She pointed at the pot of water that was warming.

  “So how are they dying?”

  The woman shrugged. “Bad stuff.”

  Lucas looked around the darkened village and said, “Why are there no children?”

  “Tan keep them. They work better.” The woman stopped tending the fire and looked at Lucas. “You American?”

  “No. British,” he lied.

  “British fight Angkar?”

  “Yes,” he said. Lucas didn’t want to tell her that it didn’t matter who he was—British, American, Canadian, Australian. They were all complicit in what was happening to her, either through action or inaction, or both.

  “You don’t know? About Pol Pot?” asked Lenny.

  The woman looked at him with her blank expression.

  “He was defeated. He’s no longer in charge of Cambodia, or Kampuchea, or whatever you want to call it.”

  “The Americans?”

  “Defeated him? No, it was the Vietnamese.”

  The woman shrugged again. “Same, same.”

  Lucas placed a bundle of packaged field meals on the dirt beside her.

  “Some food. You should eat.”

  Lucas unwrapped one of the packages and held it up to her. It was chicken and rice, and he showed her how to heat it, and then he took a bite to show it wasn’t poisoned.

  She eyed him with suspicion, and then the container of food the same way. Lucas nodded and gestured for her to eat. Lucas wondered if it was pride holding her back more than suspicion, but eventually the underlying hunger won over and she picked up the container and scooped some rice into her mouth with her fingers. She chewed and looked at Lucas but gave no hint of enjoyment or thanks. She ate more, and then more, as if her hunger had kicked in. She finished the container and set it in her lap but made no move toward any of the other food packages. Then she frowned at Lucas.

  “My name is Lucas,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow to Lenny who pointed at himself and said, “Lenny.”

  After looking each man up and down, she said, “Jarani.”

  “How long have you been here?” Lucas asked.

  “Long time. Many years.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  She frowned as if she didn’t understand.

  “Where is your home?” asked Lucas.

  Both men watched Jarani’s eyes glaze over like she was trying to remember something she hadn’t thought of in years. She stared at the fire, itself nothing more than a few lazy flames under the pot.

  “I come from the capital.”

  “Phnom Penh?” confirmed Lucas.

  Jarani nodded softly.

  “Do you have family here?” he asked.

  She looked up at Lucas and shook her head.

  “All gone,” she said. “My father was doctor. I was studying to be nurse. My father was killed when Angkar come to the capital. All educated people killed by Angkar. My mother lie about me, my education. She tell me no talk French or English.”

  “You speak French?” asked Lenny.

  “Oui. Et vous?”

  “No.”

  Jarani shrugged. “We forced to walk many days, out into countryside. We stay in one camp, and then another camp. My brother taken to learn to shoot gun, become army. I never see him again. When my mother die in camp, I tell them I can help hurt people, sick people. Many people sick. Most people die. I help but not very good.”

  Lucas watched the fire glow on the side of Jarani’s face but he said nothing. She spoke of her loss so matter-of-factly that it took his breath away. He was no stranger to death—he had taken lives himself—but it had never been so immediate to him, so close.

  Jarani looked at him ag
ain. “What is the year?”

  Lucas hesitated before saying, “It’s 1983.”

  She nodded but said nothing. Lucas just watched her. If she had been forced out of the city when the Khmer Rouge had taken Phnom Penh, then she had been out here for eight years, and half of those had been after the Khmer Rouge regime had fallen to the Vietnamese. He knew that Pol Pot hid somewhere in the area in the west of the country, probably in the villages to the north of where they sat now, but he didn’t know how he would explain that to Jarani if she asked. Perhaps it would make no difference.

  “You said General Tan was digging for the yellow metal?” asked Lenny.

  Jarani nodded. “Yellow metal. Bad thing.”

  “How long have these people been digging?” he asked, gesturing at the huts behind her.

  “Not long time. These people new people.”

  “New people? What do you mean?”

  “New people. Some people die, Tan bring in other people. Those people die, he bring new people.”

  “Where is he finding these people?”

  Jarani shrugged. “Don’t know. People no say. No talk about where come from, no talk about other camps. Angkar no like, punish for talk.”

  “These people are starving to death?”

  “Starving, yes. To die, no. They get sick. They lose their bodies, they get sick, they die.”

  “Malaria?”

  “No. Many people die malaria, but not this place. This place they get sick from the demons. Bad demons.”

  “Demons? What do you mean?”

  “I no know words in English. You sure no speak French?”

  “No.”

  “Bad demons from hell. From deep, deep down. Bad things. Come into people’s body. Get sick. They die.”

  “But you aren’t sick.”

  “I stay village. I do cook, look after sick people, many people. I no go to bad place.”

  Lucas looked at Lenny. He knew they were both thinking the same thing. About the big hole that was being dug—Lucas’s swimming pool, Alice’s mass grave. Lucas saw the look in the American’s eyes, and he knew they were headed to the place where the demons lived.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lenny stood and hoisted his pack onto his back. He watched Lucas stand, his eyes on the woman.

  “We might be able to get more medicine,” said the Australian. “But we need to know what’s making your people sick.”

  Jarani looked up at him blankly.

  “We’re going to take a look,” said Lucas.

  Jarani didn’t seem to mind what Lucas and Lenny did. She picked up the meal kits and handed them to Lucas.

  “You should keep those,” he said.

  “No,” she replied. “Tan’s men find it, very bad.”

  Lucas took the meals and slipped them into his pack, which he then pulled onto his back.

  “Truck with men come soon. You hide,” said Jarani.

  “We’ll keep off the road,” said Lucas.

  “Many bomb in jungle. Stay close to road.”

  Lucas nodded. “Thanks.”

  The two men marched past the huts and into the darkness of the road that led into the jungle. Any light the waning moon had provided was swallowed now by the swarming foliage overhead. The road was nothing more than two ruts through the jungle, and Lenny and Lucas took one each, marching shoulder to shoulder.

  It was twenty minutes before they heard the distant rumble and bang of the returning truck. They stepped to the side of the track, just inside the trees, where they hoped any mines had long been cleared. They lay low and waited for the headlights to appear, and then the truck roared by in a tunnel of light, bouncing along the rough jungle track without its cargo of men to weigh it down. The truck sped away toward the village, leaving the jungle to the insects.

  Lenny got up, brushed off, and kept walking. Like an internal timer ticking over, they felt the first hint of a daybreak they didn’t yet see. About fifteen minutes later, they heard the truck returning, so they climbed off the road all over again. The headlights came once more, and then the truck bounced by, seemingly unaffected by the weight of the people inside.

  They hiked for another hour. They knew from the aerial shots that there was some kind of encampment in the trees at the end of the track. To the north was the hole that looked like a pit mine, and to the east was the possible mass grave that they preferred to think of as the swimming pool.

  The overhead foliage thinned as they reached the camp. The day was in full force now, and the sun beat down relentlessly. They broke from the track and crept behind the buildings to the west. The camp consisted of a few wooden huts, storage sheds, and maybe a dozen canvas tents. A mess hall of sorts had been erected under a shade of branches and thick leaves. Men were moving through the camp, some eating in the mess, some lazily patrolling the perimeter. Those men carried rifles.

  There was no sign of the truck or the villagers. Lenny and Lucas edged around unseen until they reached a point at about nine on the clock. The camp was due east, and to the north the trees stopped both abruptly and unnaturally. The terrain beyond opened like a lunar landscape. The earth had been scraped flat, and a hole had been dug.

  The hole was massive. Getting a full perspective from their position was impossible, but it was clearly much deeper than the aerial photos had suggested. Lenny could see workers wending down a carved path that corkscrewed around the perimeter of the pit. The workers looked tiny in comparison. They all carried buckets, two at a time, strapped across their shoulders. Some of the miners were taking empty buckets all the way to the bottom of the pit, while others were hefting full buckets up, and clearly the latter task was the more onerous. It was, quite literally, backbreaking work.

  The miners at the top carried their full buckets up a wooden plank to a large yellow hopper, into which they deposited the mined rock and soil. The hopper was attached to a dormant machine, which featured a long cylinder about five feet in diameter.

  Lenny glanced at Lucas. “Any idea what they’re doing?”

  Lucas nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen this before. Mining. Take the rubble out of the ground, and toss it in the hopper, which then deposits it in that round machine: the trommel. The big cylinder rotates and high-pressure water starts to separate the rocks from whatever mineral you’re mining. See how there’s a sluice coming out from underneath the trommel? The big rocks get chucked out the back, and the smaller deposits—where the minerals are—get sent down the sluice to be separated further. My bet is it goes past that storage shed over there and down the hill on the other side, and gravity does half the work. They’ve probably got an enhancer and some kind of separator or shaker table down the bottom of the hill, to separate the heavy metals from the soil.”

  “You know a lot about this.”

  “I’ve seen guys doing it in the outback.”

  “Mining what?”

  “The theory works for any heavy metal—copper, tin, whatever. But mostly blokes are after gold.”

  “Yellow metal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why isn’t it running?” Lenny asked.

  “When I’ve seen it before, it’s done with front-end loaders. They scoop big heaps of it into the hopper at a time. These guys here are delivering it by the bucket-load—a lot slower. My guess is they’re waiting to fill the hopper before running the trommel, to save water and fuel.”

  They watched more miners dump their buckets into the hopper, and Lenny chewed over the elements: the pit, the buckets, the machines, the miners. Something didn’t fit.

  “You notice anything about those miners?”

  “You mean apart from the fact that they’re kids?”

  Lenny looked again and realized Lucas was right. Everything looked bigger than it was because the bodies were out of perspective. The workers from the village were not generally tall, and their malnutrition and illness made them look frail, but they were definitely adults. The people carrying the heavy buckets out of the mine were smal
ler but less frail. They moved with an economy that suggested they weren’t being served a particularly nutritious diet, but they bore the energy of youth, however limited.

  They watched for a good hour, and Lenny was about to say something more when the trommel finally roared into action. A diesel engine kicked in and the cylinder started rotating, and a pump burst to life and shot water into the cylinder through high-pressure hoses. Rocks bounced inside the cylinder like shoes in a washing machine, and water spilled from the holes, down into a sluice box that flowed in the opposite direction of Lenny and Lucas’s hideout.

  They pulled back into the trees and returned to look over the camp. The men from the mess area had moved out—some to watch over the pit, others to places Lenny couldn’t see. A few stood guard, but did so lazily, smoking and talking in undertones, rifles hanging loosely from straps around their shoulders. They didn’t seem too concerned about any kind of attack.

  “What do you think?” asked Lenny.

  “They look pretty relaxed. Bored even.”

  “This is their territory, that’s for certain.”

  “Did your guys give them guns?” asked Lucas.

  “You know we did.”

  “So where are they? Those boys out there don’t have M16s. They look like AK-47s, don’t they?”

  “Something like that. But you’re right, they certainly aren’t US weapons.”

  “Why would they use old Russian rifles when you gave them M16s?”

  “That’s a question I’d like to answer,” said Lenny. “What say we take a look in that shed there?”

  It wasn’t difficult. The two guards were facing the open-pit mine, backs to the camp. Lenny and Lucas hid their packs in the brush beneath the trees and then moved swiftly behind the closest shed. It was made of wood and so was more solid than any other structure in the camp. The door bore a padlock, a rusted old unit that Lenny could have picked with a matchstick.

  The interior was dark and humid and offered no electricity, so Lenny lit a flashlight and found a kerosene lamp hanging from the wall. Lucas lit the lamp and looked around the room.

  It was an armory of sorts. Rifles were racked against the walls, and boxes of ammunition sat open on wooden shelves. Lenny looked over the rifles while Lucas pulled a crate from under the shelves. Inside he found explosives—good old-fashioned dynamite sticks. He pocketed a few, and then rummaged in another box until he found a coiled length of fuse wire. With his hunting knife, he cut off a long piece, which he wrapped tight and put in his pocket.