The groan repeated off to the right. With Morales covering him, Trout moved cautiously toward the apparent source. The sound seemed to be coming from practically underfoot. Trout looked down. Partially hidden by the long grass was a black hole. He knelt at the edge but couldn't see anything in the darkness.
Feeling somewhat foolish at talking into the ground, he said “Who's there?”
Another groan. Followed by a stream of Spanish in a weak voice.
Morales, who had come over to kneel by Trout's side, listened a moment. “It's a man. He says he fell down the hole.”
“What's he doing way out here?”
Morales relayed the question, then the answer. “He said he was out walking.”
“This is a pretty remote place to be taking a nature stroll,” Trout said. “Let's get him out.”
Trout went back to the chopper and found a nylon rope in ,the emergency kit. He dropped a knotted loop into the hole, then he, the pilot, and Morales hauled on their end of the rope. First the head, then the shoulders of a pitiful-looking creature appeared in the opening. The man's scraggly beard and long greasy hair were covered with a gray dust, and the whiteness of his illfitting clothes was a distant memory. He sat on the ground, alternately rubbing his arms, legs, and head. His nose was bruised.
The police officer gave him a water bottle. He noisily gurgled the water, slopping half of it onto his chin. Refreshed by the water, the man showed yellow teeth in a cocky grin and tipped the canteen for another guzzle. His sleeve fell as he raised his arm.
Trout kicked the canteen like a punter and sent it flying into the grass. His big hand shot out and gripped the man's hairy wrist. Even Morales was shocked by the unexpected move.
“Senor Trout!”
“This is my wife's watch.” Trout slid the expansion band Swatch off.
“You're sure?”
“I gave it to her.” Anger flashed in the normally calm eyes. “Ask him where he got it.”
Morales asked the question in Spanish and relayed the answer.
“He says he bought it.”
Trout was through playing games. “Tell him that if he doesn't talk we'll throw him back in the hole and leave.”
The grin vanished. The threat of being tossed back into the ground unleashed a torrent of Spanish.
. Morales listened, nodding. "He's crazy. Name is Ruiz. Keeps talking about the devil woman and the dwarf who made the
earth swallow him:"
“Devil woman?”
“Si. He says she broke his nose.”
“What happened to this woman?”
“He doesn't know. He was down in the hole.. He heard a lot of shooting. Then quiet. He says his friends abandoned him. I ask if these amigos are chicleros. He says no.” Morales grinned without mirth. “He's a stinking liar.”
“Tell him we're going to take him up in the helicopter and throw him out if he doesn't tell the truth.”
The man looked at the granitehard expression on the face of the giant gringo and decided he wasn't joking.
“No!” he said. “I talk. I talk.”
“You understand English.”
Poco," the man said, holding his thumb and finger slightly apart.
In halting English, using Spanish when words escaped him, Ruiz admitted he was with a gang of chicleros who came here to steal antiquities. They found the woman and the little old man and locked them in the ground where there was no way they could escape. But they burrowed out of the earth somehow and threw him into the hole. The other chicleros gave chase. They never came back to look for him. He didn't know what happened to the man and woman.
Trout pondered the report briefly.
“Okay, get him in the chopper.”
Morales handcuffed the man gingerly, trying not to touch him, then used the toe of his shoe to persuade Ruiz to stand. They stuffed him into the rear bench seat, and Morales got in beside him. The man exuded a stench so vile the pilot complained. Morales laughed and said if it got too bad they'd throw Ruiz over the side. Ruiz didn't think it was funny, and his eyes grew wide in fear as the helicopter lifted off the ground. He wouldn't be giving them any trouble. They circled the site a couple of times, then picked up the gleam of the river. It was barely visible through the trees, but with three sets of eyes they were able to trace its course.
Trout couldn't wait to tell Gamay her new sobriquet. Devil woman. He hoped that she was still alive to hear it.
Serpent
26
THE BUZZ OF THE ANCIENT OUTBOARD motor was so loud Gamay didn't hear the helicopter until it was practically overhead. Even then it was Chi's upturned face that alerted her to the arrival of company. She jammed the tiller over and aimed the pram toward the shore, bumping into a grassy bank under a protective canopy of overhanging branches. From the air the boat would be almost impossible to see through. the thick greenery. Gamay took out extra insurance and nudged the pram into a huge fern bush. She didn't want the early morning sunlight reflecting off the aluminum hull.
An instant later the air overhead was filled with the slashing of rotors. Flashes of a shiny red-and-white fuselage came through openings in the dense foliage as the helicopter skimmed the treetops. It never dawned on Gamay that within hours of learning she was missing her husband would return to the Yucatan, commandeer a helicopter, and now be hovering a few hundred feet above her head. Since arriving in this place she'd had her hair almost pulled out by the roots, been threatened with rape, been stuffed into a cave to die, crawled through dark and practically airless tunnels, and been used for target practice. There was no reason to believe the people who had treated her so badly had not brought in air support to increase her misery. She breathed a sigh of relief as the sound of the helicopter receded in the distance, and moments later they headed out into the river again.
After disposing of Yellow Teeth, Gamay and Chi had bolted for the woods, dodging the bullets that whizzed around them, and scrambled down the slope to the river. Finding three battered aluminum prams lined up side by side on shore, they shoved two boats adrift, then piled into the third, got the outboard motor going, and made a dash for safety.
Traveling an entire day without incident, they spent a quiet night pulled over to the side of the river and got an early start the next morning. The helicopter made Gamay realize their smooth escape and peaceful passage had lulled them into a false sense of security. Now they kept a sharp eye on the sky, and Gamay steered dose to the river's edge. There was no further sign of the helicopter, but the propeller tangled in vegetation, and she had to angle the boat into shore to clear the blades of weeds. The job should have meant no more than a minute or two of delay. When Gamay went to restart the motor it played hard to get. She couldn't figure it. The antique fifteen-horse-power Mercury didn't look like much with its sandblasted engine housing. Yet it worked fine before they turned it off. She was trying to figure out what the problem was when they heard voices in Spanish coming from upriver.
Nothing on the face of the earth is more frustrating than a cranky outboard motor, Gamay thought, especially when the recalcitrant hunk of metal is all that stands between you and disaster. Gamay braced her foot against the transom. Hoping to placate the malevolent spirit inhabiting the machine, she smiled prettily, whispered “Please,” and pulled the starter cord with all her might.
The motor responded with a soggy poppop, an asthmatic gasp, a wet sigh, then silence broken by Gamay's cry of pain as she fell back and scraped her knuckles on the hard metal seat. She unleashed a stream of blasphemies that turned the air blue as she called down the furies on dumb, stubborn machines everywhere. Professor Chi was in the bow, clutching an. overhanging branch so the pram would not drift out of control with the lazy current while Gamay fussed and fumed over the outboard. Sweat dripped off her chin. With her mouth set in a square of anger, snakelike tendrils of dark red hair framing her features, she could have modeled for an ancient Greek sculpture of Medusa. What's worse, she knew how gorgonish she looked. Pr
imping would have to wait.
Their crude attempt to sabotage their pursuers had apparently failed. They couldn't have known that setting the boats adrift wasn't enough, that one pram would catch on a mot, that the other would drift back to shore. Now the first of those boats was coming around a bend, emerging from the morning mists, followed seconds later by the second. There were four men in each boat, including the two she had dubbed Poncho and Elvis. Poncho was leading the assault, standing in the bow of the lead boat brandishing a handgun. It was clear from his excited shouts that he had caught sight of the quarry.
The boats were drawing nearer. She willed her eyes back to the motor and discovered the choke had been pushed in. She pulled out the plastic knob and yanked the cord again. The motor stuttered then caught when she adjusted the throttle slightly. They pushed off into the river, aiming for the middle where it was deepest, although it was also where they'd be most vulnerable. She looked back again. The boat in the lead was breaking away from the other. Maybe it had more horsepower or possibly its motor could be running smoother. It began to inch closer in an agonizing slow-motion pursuit. Before long it would be close enough for the riflemen kneeling in the bow to pick them off.
Smoked puffed from a gun muzzle. Pancho had feed off a couple of quick shots more for show than effect. Either his aim was off or they were out of range, because the bullets never came near. Then she lost sight of their pursuers around a bend. It was only a matter of time, minutes really, before they would be literally dead in the water.
Hack!
Gamay whipped around at the unexpected noise. Chi had found his trusty machete in the bottom of the pram. He was using it to cut down a large branch from the, bowers arching low overhead. Another silvery blur of steel. Another branch fell into the river. Chi swung his machete like a madman. More branches fell in a great tangle to either side of the boat, then drifted together in a floating dam of interlocking branches. The improvised floating breastworks fetched up on a midriver sandbar.
The helmsman on the lead boat didn't see the intertwined boughs until it was too late. The pram came around the curve at full tilt. He tried to turn aside. Instead the boat slammed sideways into the blockage. A chiclero leaned out to push off and discovered Newton was right when he said every action had a reaction. His body was stretched between the boat and the branches. He splashed into the water. There were loud shouts and confusion as the second boat slammed into the first. A gun went off sending a wild shot into the forest. Startled birds darkened the sky in a chittering, chattering cloud.
“Yes!” Gamay yelped triumphantly. “Nice move, Professor.”
From the nascent smile on the Mayan's otherwise poker face, it was clear that he was pleased with both the effect of his labors and the praise. “I knew my Harvard education would come in handy one day,” he said modestly.
Gamay grinned and swung the tiller to avoid the shoaling along the sides of the river, but she was far from sanguine. It occurred to her after her momentary elation that she had absolutely no idea where they were going. Or whether they had enough gas to get them there. She checked the tank. Half full. Or half empty if she were thinking like a pessimist. Which might be the more prudent frame of mind in their precarious situation.
After a hurried conference, they decided to go flat out for a time to put as much distance as possible between the pram and their pursuers. Then they would rely on river drift.
“Not to put too fine a point on our predicament, Professor; but do you have any idea where this river goes?”
The professor shook his head. “This stream isn't even on the map. My guess is that we're headed south. Simply because, as you pointed out, there are few rivers in the north.”
“They say that when you're lost, following a river will eventually bring you to civilization,” Gamay said without conviction.
“I've heard that. Also that moss grows on the north side of trees. It's been my experience that moss grows all around a tree. You must have been a Girl Scout.”
“I always had more fun playing with boys. Brownie was as far as I got. The only woodcraft I recall is how to cut a stick to toast marshmallows over an open fire.”
“You never know when something like that will come in handy. Actually I'm not too eager to encounter civilization. Especially if it comes in the form of more chicleros.”
“Is that a possibility?”
“The ones who are chasing us arrived after we were put in the cave. This means they came from not very far away possibly a base camp.”
“Or they could have been on their way upriver when we ran into their buddies.”
“Either way I think it's best that we prepare for the worst, that we will be caught between two unfriendly groups.”
Gamay's eyes lifted to the patches of blue sky that were beginning to show through holes in the vegetation. “Do you think that helicopter was working with this gang?”
“Possibly, although in my experience these thieves are very much lowtech. It doesn't take sophisticated equipment to dig up antiquities and transport them through the forest. As you saw from the ease by which we escaped the helicopter, the simpler the better.”
“We had nature on our side before. We're coming more into the open and might want to think about what to do if it comes back.” Gamay switched the motor off. “We'll drift for a while. Maybe we can think up a plan if we don't have this thing buzzing in our ears.”
The boat ride was almost idyllic with the outboard silent. There were flashes of bright feathers in the impenetrable greenery that d them in. The high bankings on either side of the river showed that it was an old waterway that had cut its way through the limestone over a long period. As if mindful of its advanced years it snaked through the woods at a slow but steady pace, varying in width, the water bright billiard table green where the sun struck it, dark and spinachy in the shadows. It didn't take long for nature to lose its charm once Gamay's stomach started to rumble. She realized they hadn't eaten since the day before and remarked wistfully that it was too bad they hadn't made more Spam sandwiches. Chi said he would see what he could do. He had her pull over to the banking and whacked away at a bent' bush with his machete. The berries were tart but filling. The river was covered with a green algae. Once the scum was brushed away the. water was dear and refreshing.
Their idyll was ended by the whine of approaching outboard motors.
The boats reappeared a couple of hundred yards behind them. Again, one was in the lead. Gamay started the motor and gave it full speed.
They were on a straight, comparatively wide stretch of river that allowed for no dance at trickery. The chase boat inched forward, and the distance between them slowly decreased. It would be only minutes before they were in easy rifle range. The boats grew closer together cutting the distance by a third, then half. Gamay was puzzled. The chicleros had not raised their weapons. They looked like a bunch of guys on a river cruise.
Chi called out, Dr: Gamay!'
Gamay turned and saw the professor in the bow, staring straight ahead. She heard a low rumble in the distance.
“What is it?” she said.
“Rapids!”
The boat was beginning to pick up speed even though she hadn't touched the throttle. The air was cooler than before and damp with haze. Within moments the rumble changed to a roar, and through the mists hanging over the river she saw white foam and the sharp points of black shiny rocks. She thought of the boat's flat bottom and had a vague image of a can opener ripping through thin aluminum. The river had narrowed, and the tons of water squeezing into this natural funnel spout had essentially transformed a lazy stream into a raging sluiceway.
She looked back. The boats had stopped and were circling in the river. Their pursuers obviously knew about the rapids. That's why they hadn't shot at them. Why waste ammunition?
“We'll never make it past those rocks,” Gamay yelled over the earsplitting thunder of rushing water. “I'm going to steer for land.. Well have to make a run for it
in the forest.”
She pushed the tiller over, and the pram angled toward the shore. Thirty feet from the riverbank the motor coughed and conked out. Gamay tried to start it again, but with no success. She quickly twisted off the gas tank top. All that was left was vapors.
Professor Chi had grabbed a single oar and was trying to scull the boat. The current was too strong and jerked the oar from his hand. The boat's pace accelerated, and it began to spin around. Gamay watched helplessly as the pram was carried like a woodchip toward the toothlike rocks and the boiling white water.
It was Trout's idea to go back along the river. Moments before, the helicopter pilot had tapped the fuel gauge and the dial of his wristwatch, sign language saying they were running low and had to head back.
Trout's thoroughness as a scientist came from working as a youngster with his Uncle Henry, a skilled craftsman who built wooden boats for the local fishermen long after plastic hulls came into style. “Measure twice, cut once,” Henry would say between puffs on his overripe pipe. In other words, doublecheck everything you do. Even years later Trout couldn't start a complicated computer task without hearing his uncle's voice whispering in his ear.
It was a natural reaction to suggest, through Morales, that they go back along the river, slowly this time, in case they had missed something on their first pass. They flew at less than one hundred fifty feet, cruising at a moderate speed; dipping lower when the river opened up. The JetRanger was highly maneuverable, having been designed as a light observation helicopter, and in its military incarnation saw duty as the Kiowa. Before long they came up on the rapids he had seen on the way out.
Trout looked down at the stretch of white water, then, beyond it to the calm river just above the cataract, where he saw a curious sight. Two small boats lay close together back from the rapids, apparently sitting there while a third drifted downstream. Someone in the bow was paddling furiously, but the strong current drew the third boat on a path toward the rapids. Trout spotted the flash of dark red in the boat's stern.