“We can’t stay here!” Indy yelled over the whine of the revving engine.
The duck lurched as the tree slowly bent under its weight. Behind the rear wheels, its massive roots ripped from the cliff face. Chunks of rock crashed below. The tree slowly sagged, the vehicle tilting precariously.
Down, down, down . . .
As they all held their breath, the first wave of Russian soldiers swept past them. The men ignored the foundering duck. Immediate survival overwhelmed old grudges. The ant colony swarmed after the fleeing soldiers. One body toppled from above, screaming, coated with ants.
All the while, the duck slowly tilted nose-first, shifting toward vertical.
Through the windshield, Indy spotted a sandy beach below, bordering the swollen river. It was not far. In fact, the front of their vehicle was only a yard from the shoreline. As the tree continued to bow, their center of gravity shifted. The duck began to slide down the bowed tree trunk. Branches snapped and fell. Leaves rained to the sand. The duck was about to follow.
“Hang tight!” Indy called out.
The warning proved needless. The tree continued to bend, the duck to slide, and a moment later the front tires touched sand. They drove smoothly onto the shore with hardly more than a bump.
The Russian soldiers who had gathered below gaped at the strangeness of their landing. Still, rifles slowly rose in their direction and pointed at them.
But as soon as the duck dropped free of the tree and released its weight from the massive limb, the tree snapped back and slapped the wall like a giant flyswatter. The impact knocked two soldiers off their ropes.
Worse yet, the tree also swept the ant army off the cliff face.
The biting horde rained down upon the gawking Russians below. Weapons were forgotten. Cries and screams chased Indy and the others as the duck raced across the sandy shore and crashed into the river.
Hitting the water, the duck proved its amphibious nature and jetted out into the wide river, floating and bobbing on the surface. The swift current grabbed the vehicle and hauled it safely away from the two battling armies: ants and Russians.
They had made it.
His heart still pounding with adrenaline, Indy’s face broke into a broad grin.
Oxley pointed downriver, shaking with excitement, apparently just as hyped up from their narrow and precipitous escape as Indy. “The way down!” the professor yelled. “The way down!”
The boat spun in a circle, and Marion seemed to have no control over their draught or direction. She twirled the wheel this way, then that. But nothing changed. They continued to be slaves to the current.
“The way down! The way down!” Oxley insisted and pointed again, jabbing an arm in his enthusiasm. He clutched the skull under his other arm.
Indy checked where Oxley pointed. At least the current was carrying them in that direction. He patted his friend’s shoulder. “That’s the way we’re going, pal. Calm down.”
Mac helped Oxley sit back down, but then leaned forward from the backseat and pointed to a switch on the dashboard. He spoke to Marion. “Flick that, my dear, and you’ll miraculously transform from driver to motorboat pilot.”
With a glance over her shoulder, Marion eyed the man, but she obeyed and thumbed the switch up.
A new motor engaged. The seat under Indy rumbled. He leaned over the starboard side of the duck and watched the vehicle’s wheels retract into its sides. A churn of water erupted behind the stern as a boat propeller engaged.
With one hand on the wheel, Marion straightened their spin. She grinned over at Indy. He shrugged, grumpily impressed.
Mutt leaned forward. “Way to go, Mom!”
As Mutt dropped back, Indy slid his arm over and twined his fingers around Marion’s free hand. He squeezed tightly. He wasn’t letting go.
Not this time.
FORTY-FIVE
AS THE BOAT MOTORED slowly down a flat section of the river, Mutt leaned back in the seat. He sat with his legs propped on the rear door, his ankles crossed.
Even though his gaze was on the river, he sensed eyes on him. Turning, he found Jones staring back at him from the front seat.
“What?” he asked.
“I saw you with Spalko.” Jones made a motion of wielding a sword. “You learn to fence like that in prep school?”
Mutt shrugged. “Just one more useless experience.”
“I’m not sure I’d call that one useless.”
His mother spoke as she guided the boat along the current, her voice ringing with pride. “He was fencing champ two years in a row, but he got kicked out for betting on the matches.” She cast a glare back at him over her shoulder.
“What?” Indy exclaimed. “He got kicked out for that? That’s outrageous!”
Mutt straightened in his seat and pointed a thumb to his chest. “I bet on myself to win, I made a fortune. What’s wrong with that?”
Mac smacked Mutt on the back. “Attaboy!” Then the Brit leaned over and added in a more serious tone, “But you did do something wrong, young man.”
“What?”
“Always have a little action on the downside. In case you gotta throw one.”
Mutt considered the advice, then slowly nodded. That makes sense. Cover all angles. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
In the front seat Jones rolled his eyes and looked like he was about to say something, but the boat suddenly began to shake and rattle. Everyone tensed, expecting the worst.
“Water’s getting rougher,” Marion warned.
Mutt scooted up, searched downriver, and pointed. “Rapids ahead. But they don’t look too bad. You can do it, Mom.”
His mother patted his arm and smiled back at him. She guided the boat to smoother water, but there the current also ran swifter, and the duck flew down the river.
As they raced, Mac leaned up next to Mutt and thrust an arm out at Marion, offering his hand to shake. “By the way, the name’s George McHale. Sorry about the first impression. Double agent and all that. I’m actually rather a—”
Jones pushed the Brit’s arm away. “Will you back off her already?”
“What?”
Jones glared back at the man. “Don’t think I don’t notice the way you keep smiling at her, buster. Like your lips are stuck to your teeth.”
Just then the duck entered the rapids Mutt had seen a moment before. Hitting the first swell, the boat’s nose shot up, then dropped and dipped underwater momentarily. The river rushed over them.
Hit in the face by a wall of water, Mutt got knocked to the floor. He took a mouthful of river. Fighting to rise, he coughed and spit. As the duck righted itself, Mutt found himself sitting in a small pool of water on the bottom of the boat. He started to shift to a higher spot, then fell a biting pain flare in his hand. He yanked his arm out of the water and found a rainbow-bellied fish hanging from one of his fingers. He shook his hand in disgust.
“Ack!” he gasped out. “Piranha!”
The others screamed, too.
Mutt whipped his arm out over the side of the boat. The fish went flying and plopped into the river. He pulled his bleeding hand to his chest.
But the screaming continued from the others.
“It’s okay! I’m okay!” he assured them.
But no one aboard the small boat was looking at him. They were all staring forward. His mother spun the steering wheel, her concentration fierce.
Curious, Mutt scooted higher and looked downriver. His eyes widened as he realized the source of the others’ terror. The river ended a few yards ahead—and went plummeting over a waterfall.
Off to the side, Oxley shouted, excited, “Three times it drops!”
Though his mother continued to fight the current, they could not pull free. The engine was at full throttle, the stern propeller tore into the chop, but the duck raced onward, trapped in the heavy flow.
With no escape, Mutt braced for the plunge.
Spalko stood with the remainder of the Russian contingent on the bank of the river.
Three vehicles were slowly being brought down a steep road toward the gathered soldiers. She studied the men, now fully under her command. Somewhere along the chase, Colonel Dovchenko had vanished.
So few remained.
Three-quarters of her forces—the finest of the Russian Spetsnaz—had been wiped out by a woman, a boy, and an old archaeologist. She shook her head at the impossibility of it all. Still, she accepted the reality of it, too. Undaunted, she would forge ahead. Her enemy was on the river. With no other choice, she would follow the river’s course and hunt for the others.
As the vehicles drew up beside Spalko, she did not wait. She swung to the lead vehicle and climbed inside.
“Load up!” she bellowed to her soldiers.
Over the waterfall they went.
Indy clenched his fingers to handholds and braced his legs as the duck dropped in another gut-wrenching moment of free fall. The screaming from the boat seemed to hold them suspended in the air, borne aloft by pure terror—then the duck fell and struck the river again, plunging deep, but bobbing back up quickly.
That wasn’t too bad.
Spitting water, Indy sighed with relief—until he saw the river rush over a second waterfall just ahead. Their boat, slave to the savage current, shot toward it.
“The way down!” Oxley screamed from the backseat.
They were airborne again. Indy felt the boat drop out from underneath them. He hung above his seat for a breath. Then the boat struck the river. Indy crashed back into his seat as water swamped the vessel, almost washing him out.
He grabbed a door handle to steady himself.
He checked the others. Everyone was shaken but still in the boat.
Oxley sat straight in his seat. “The way down!”
“Take it easy, Ox,” Indy said. “You wanted us in the river, right? Three times it drops?”
Oxley lunged forward and pointed frantically. “The way down, the way down . . .”
Mac shifted. “He’s not pointing to the river, Indiana.”
Indy saw Mac was right. Ox was pointing to the shore, at a path that switchbacked down beside the waterfalls.
The way down.
As he stared, Indy also spotted a handful of vehicles cautiously traversing the path, heading down. He knew those trucks and jeeps.
Russians.
“Aw, nuts.”
Marion glanced to him, “What?”
Indy recognized his mistake. “The way down isn’t in the river . . . it’s next to the river. And we’ve got company coming.”
He glanced back to Oxley. The professor trembled and shook, quaking all over. Indy had attributed Oxley s attitude to excitement. Now he understood the truth.
It wasn’t excitement—it was terror.
Without turning, Indy heard it.
Distant thunder, growing louder, swelling.
The third drop.
He turned and faced the monster ahead. The entire river rolled over a churning edge. Beyond, there was no sign that the river even continued.
Just sky and more sky.
“We won’t make it,” Indy mumbled. “Not in the boat.”
“Indy?” Marion’s voice was strained with worry, fearful at what he might be about to propose.
Indy faced the others. “As soon as we go over the falls, everyone abandon ship! Leap clear of the boat! It’s the only chance!”
Eyes just stared at him, but Indy knew they understood. He faced forward, readying himself as the boat raced for the abyss.
There was no screaming—what came next was beyond screaming.
With no other recourse, they all held their breath as the boat hit the edge and went shooting out into open space. The duck tipped its nose downward. The river came in sight again, impossibly far below.
Indy knew they had only one hope.
“JUMP!”
FORTY-SIX
INDY CLAWED FOR the river’s surface, kicking and pulling. He had lost all sense of direction and instinctively fought out of darkness and toward the light. His lungs burned, and his muscles cramped. With one last fierce kick he broke through the surface of the water. He shoved high with a great gasp of air.
As he reentered the world, it greeted him with a thunderous applause.
Indy treaded water and searched in a slow circle. He discovered the source of the noise. The giant waterfall pounded a few yards off. Fearful of the crashing waters, he swam away. Luckily the river pooled into a deep lake below the falls before continuing onward.
Indy felt the current’s tug, but he kicked against it.
Through the fall’s mist, he spotted splashing in the water. Voices called. He heard his name. “Indeee!”
Marion!
He swam in the direction of her voice. Drawing closer, he made out both Marion and Mutt. Mother and son were swimming for shore.
He waved to them. “Marion!”
She stared back, and her face bloomed with relief.
“Get to shore!” he called to them.
Indy searched both banks and the open stretches of water.
Where were Mac and Oxley?
As if summoned by his fear, two figures stumbled from the very edge of the waterfall, already ashore. They looked like drowned rats, leaning on each other.
Indy kicked toward where Marion and Mutt were climbing out of the river. The pair collapsed onto the mossy bank.
Swimming toward them, Indy fought his water-laden clothes while taking in his surroundings. The air seemed cooler here, yet also moister, due to the falls. The shoreline was covered with jungle trees and flowering orchids. A scarlet macaw took wing in a brilliance of fiery plumage. Monkeys hooted deeper in the forest, calling questioningly at the intruders.
Indy finally reached the shoreline and hauled himself out of the river. He felt four times his normal weight and half as strong. He shook his satchel off his shoulder and let it drop to the shore. Before he knew it, he was on hands and knees, too exhausted to stand upright. He crawled over to Marion. She did not even lift her head to greet him. He slid next to her, scooping an arm beneath, pulling her to him. It was as familiar as coming home.
Indy turned to her, staring down into those eyes. He ran the back of his thumb along the edge of her eyebrows. Soaked, exhausted, and nearly drowned, Marion had never looked more beautiful.
She noted his attention and allowed a ghost of a warm smile to tease her lips. “Not tired, are you, Indy?”
“Baby, you have no idea.”
“Sure I do. The way you live? Running off to every godforsaken spot in the world and back again twice?”
He sighed, returning her gentle smile. “It ain’t the mileage, honey. It’s the years.”
They stared at each other. For once, Indy was too tired to fight, too worn to hold back. “Marion . . .”
Her name was a promise and a wish on his lips.
Before he could say more, a rustling erupted in the underbrush.
Mutt jerked up from his half-drowsing state. His hair stuck out every which way as he glanced frantically all around. “What the hell was that?”
Indy rolled to his back and up on an elbow. “Calm down, kid. Probably just a deer or tapir.”
Oxley and Mac arrived at their riverside camp.
Joining them, Mac fell flat onto his rear end, then collapsed back. “Let’s not do that again,” he mumbled to the sky.
Oxley wandered past, carrying the drowned burlap sack. Despite the long fall, the professor had not let go of the crystal skull.
As Indy watched, Oxley crossed to the river’s edge and sat down, his back to the river. With the sack in his lap, he fingered it open, pulled out the crystal skull, and placed it on the pebbly shore.
Curious, Indy stood with a groan and stumbled over to his friend.
Marion and Mutt followed.
Oxley had positioned the skull so that it stared in the same direction as he did. Indy heard or maybe just sensed a vibration in the air. It grew stronger.
“Look!” Mutt exclaim
ed.
Small pebbles and sand had begun to quiver and jump, slowly stirring in a slow circle around the skull.
Marion slipped her arm into Indy’s. “It’s both beautiful—and horrible.”
Indy lifted a hand to shield his eyes. He followed the path, of the skull’s gaze and pointed his arm. Beyond the fringe of rain forest, black cliffs rose high. They were craggy and streaked with patches of moss and trails of blooming orchids. But where the skull stared, the entire cliff had been carved into the relief of a colossal stone head. Its eyes were huge, oversized for its face.
Like the crystal skull.
Oxley intoned next to them: “Through eyes that last I saw in tears . . .”
The golden vision reappears . . .
Mutt stirred at Oxley’s side, filling in the last half of the verse in his head. He recognized that poem!
“He’s quoting T. S. Eliot!” Mutt said aloud.
Everyone stared at him.
Ignoring them, Mutt pushed forward and bent next to Oxley. “Ox, you made me read it, remember? Eyes that last I saw in tears, through division, here in death’s dream kingdom, the golden vision reappears.”
Oxley showed no sign that he’d heard anything Mutt said.
But someone else had.
Mac came over, drawn by the commotion. “Golden vision? I like the sound of that! You can count me in.”
Disheartened but not giving up, Mutt straightened and positioned himself in front of the skull. He stared in the same direction as the skull’s eyes and squinted with concentration. Jones joined him, matching his expression.
Studying the cliff face, Mutt slowly lifted his arm. “If you look closely, there’s a thin waterfall flowing from the left eye. Like tears.”
Jones squinted harder at the cliffs, but eventually shook his head in defeat. “You got sharper eyes than mine, kid. I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Through eyes in tears,” Mutt mumbled.
As Mutt chewed on the puzzle, he felt Jones studying him, as if waiting to see if he could figure it out. Mutt hated that he even cared what this man thought . . . yet at the same time, he knew that he did care.
He finally faced Jones. “So that must mean we have to go through that waterfall . . . through the tears?”