Gaskill rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Won't be easy keeping them in the dark. Like all businessmen on the road, they probably keep in daily communication with their operations."
"We'll use every underhanded trick in the book and fake it." Ragsdale laughed. "Set up operators to claim construction work severed the fiber optic lines. Send out phony memos over `their fax lines. Keep the workers we've taken into custody on ice. With luck we can blindside the Zolars for forty-eight hours while we figure a scam to entice them over the border."
Gaskill looked at Ragsdale. "You like to play long shots, don't you, my man?"
"I'll bet my wife and kids on a three-legged horse if there is the tiniest chance of putting these scum away for good."
"I like your odds." Gaskill grinned. "Let's shoot the works."
Many of Billy Yuma's village clan of one hundred seventy-six people survived by raising squash, corn, and beans. Others cut juniper and manzanita to sell for fence posts and firewood. A new source of income was the revival of interest in their ancient art of making pottery. Several of the Montolo women still created elegant pottery that had recently come into demand by collectors, hungry for Indian art.
After hiring out as a cowboy to a large ranchero for fifteen years, Yuma finally saved enough money to start a small spread of his own. He and his wife, Polly, managed a good living compared to most of the native people of northern Baja, she firing her pots, and he raising livestock.
After his midday meal, as he did every day, Yuma saddled his horse, a buckskin mare, and rode out to inspect his herd for sickness or injury. The harsh and inhospitable landscape with its bounty of jagged rocks, cactus, and steep-sided arroyos could easily maim an unwary steer.
He was searching for a stray calf when he saw the stranger approaching on the narrow trail leading to his village.
The man who walked through the desert seemed out of place. Unlike hikers or hunters, this man wore only the clothes on his back-- no canteen, no backpack. He didn't even wear a hat to shade his head from the afternoon sun. There was a tired, worn-to-the-bones look about him, and yet he walked in purposeful, rapid strides as if he was in a hurry to get somewhere. Curious, Billy temporarily suspended his hunt for the calf and rode through a creek bed toward the trail.
Pitt had hiked 14 kilometers (almost 9 miles) across the desert after coming out of an exhausted sleep.
He might still be dead to the world if a strange sensation hadn't awakened him. He blinked open his eyes to see a small rock lizard crouching on his arm staring back. He shook off the little intruder and checked his Doxa dive watch for the time. He was shocked to see that he had slept away half the morning.
The sun was already pouring down on the desert when he awoke, but the temperature was a bearable 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). The sweat dried quickly on his body, and he felt the first longing for water. He licked his lips and tasted salt from his swim through the sea. Despite the warmth, a cold self-anger crept through him, knowing he had slept away four precious hours. An eternity, he feared, to his friends enduring whatever misery Sarason and his sadists felt like inflicting on them this day. The core of his existence was to rescue them.
After a quick dive in the water to refresh himself, he cut west across the desert toward Mexico Highway 5, twenty, maybe thirty kilometers away. Once he reached the pavement, he could flag a ride into Mexicali, and then make his way across the border into Calexico. That was the plan, unless the local Baja telephone company had thoughtfully and conveniently installed a pay phone in the shade of a handy mesquite tree.
He gazed out over the Sea of Cortez and took one final look at the Alhambra in the distance. The old ferryboat looked to have settled in the water up to her deck overhang and was resting in the silt at a slight list. Otherwise she seemed sound.
She also looked deserted. There were no search boats or helicopters in sight, launched by an anxious Giordino and U.S. Customs agents north of the border. Not that it mattered. Any search team flying a reconnaissance over the boat, he figured, wouldn't expect to look for anyone on land. He elected to walk out.
He maintained a steady 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) an-hour pace across the isolated environment. It reminded him of his trek across the Sahara Desert of Northern Mali with Giordino two years before.
They had come within minutes of dying under the fiery hell of scorching temperatures with no water. Only by finding a mysterious plane wreck did they manage to construct a land yacht and sail across the sands to eventual rescue. Next to that ordeal, this was a jaunt in the park.
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 c
anyons 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 cactus 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."