“Don’t you think that if there was anything of value around here he would already have found it?” Carter indicated the old Indian who had led them to the site.
“Not necessarily.” Ashwood was making her way along the wall, toward the farthermost opening. “Remember how the porters refused to go up to Pusharo? This is another place of the gods. I doubt the old boy’s even been inside.”
“Well, you can find out, and then you can tell all of us.” Carter was unpacking his sleeping bag.
She straightened. “If I break a leg or fall down some old shaft you’ll come and get me, won’t you?”
Carter ignored her with great deliberation.
“Get up!”
Carter tried to turn over. Even with his knees drawn up to his chest the small tent was still barely big enough to cover him. He half opened one eye and squinted down past his feet. It was barely light outside. What the hell was going on?
“I’m not ready to get up.”
Someone kicked at the soles of his feet. Hard. “Get up and come out.”
He blinked, realizing that the voice was new to him. The English was even more heavily accented than Igor’s.
Sitting up, he slipped into his shirts and pants, tugged on his boots. Macha was standing near his feet, ears alert, her tail twitching like a nervous metronome. The tent rattled around him as he repeatedly bumped into the stays. Unzipping the mosquito netting, he pushed aside the rain flap and crawled out, still half asleep.
In the dim light of early morning he saw Igor and Christopher seated next to the remnants of last night’s campfire. Ashwood stood in front of her tent, looking angry and unhappy.
Three strangers confronted them. No, that wasn’t quite correct. Two of them were strangers. One he recognized.
Bruton Fewick was sweating profusely. The automatic pistol looked distinctly out of place in his pudgy fingers. It shifted to cover Carter as he emerged from his shelter.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to take my instructions seriously, Mr. Carter. I thought actors were accustomed to rising early.”
“Only when you have an early call.” Carter buckled the belt of his pants. “The rest of the time you learn to sleep in.”
“I am sorry to have to rouse you. If it is any consolation you should know that your presence here is equally distressing to me.”
“Screw you,” Ashwood told him.
Fewick’s eyebrows lifted and he brushed blond hair from his forehead. “You know, Ms. Ashwood, you are an extremely foul-mouthed old lady. If you persist in insulting me I may be forced to shoot you.”
“Very melodramatic. You’re not gonna hurt anybody.”
“Really? I thought you were a seamstress. I didn’t realize you were prescient as well. How did you find this place?” Ashwood simply smiled at him.
“Suddenly you prefer not to talk? Well, I suppose I can imagine a scenario. You had my disc. You copied it, despite the fact that it was private property, and decided to usurp my life’s work.”
“You ain’t lived long enough to have a life’s work.” Ashwood’s fists were clenched. “What you got in mind for us, Few-ick?”
“Fee-wick. If you don’t give me any trouble and you in particular can keep a civil tongue in your head, I probably won’t shoot you, for all that your presence here complicates my life. Even though you are thieves I did not come all this way for revenge.”
“Your research only led us as far as the notched rocks,” Carter said. “How did you make it the rest of the way?” He indicated the old Indian, who sat off to one side observing the proceedings with detached interest while amusing himself by making drawings in the dirt with a pointed stick. “Minga there said he was the only person who’d ever visited this spot.”
Fewick frowned. “You don’t say.” Turning, he addressed his two porters in fluent Spanish.
Carter tensed. He knew some martial arts, and Fewick’s physical reactions were likely to be slow. Still he hesitated. The pistol Fewick clutched was no prop.
One of the porters turned and shouted something into the trees. A third Indian emerged, older than the pair who were shouldering Fewick’s supplies.
At his appearance Minga rose and tossed his stick aside. Simultaneously Fewick’s guide caught sight of what was obviously an old friend. The two men embraced formally and walked back to Minga’s pallet of leaves, chatting earnestly while utterly ignoring everyone else.
“I thought you said he was the only one who knew how to find this place?” Ashwood asked their guide.
Igor shrugged. “That is what he told me. Sometimes truth in the selva is as scarce as ice.”
“You don’t need that.” Carter indicated Fewick’s pistol. “There’s nothing here worth shooting someone over. If it’s right of discovery you’re concerned about, I could care less.”
“Same here,” said Ashwood.
“That remains to be seen. In the meantime I will keep my gun, Mr. Carter. If I were to put it aside that would leave you with the option of beating me up, which I am certain you could do very effectively. Now, if you will please seat yourselves I will have my people bind you except for your man, who may depart if he so desires. My concerns do not extend to the locals.”
Igor murmured something to Christopher, who looked reluctant but finally nodded. Still reluctantly, he gathered his pack and with a last backward glance at his friend and employer hurried off into the jungle.
“He’ll bring back help,” Carter said.
“Oh, I doubt that.” Fewick watched as his porters securely bound the two men and Ashwood. “The local people owe Europeans no allegiance. They might have some loyalty to him,” and he indicated Igor, “but not enough to risk involvement in Anglo affairs. I’m confident that he’ll return to his family and forget all about this as quickly as possible.” He settled himself against a tree.
“You say there’s nothing here worth being shot for. I therefore take it that you have found nothing of value?”
“You can bet your ass on that,” Ashwood told him with relish. “There ain’t no lost city here, no Inca treasure. Nothin’ but that damn wall.”
“I can see this was never a city site. A runner’s outpost, perhaps. As to treasure, that remains to be seen.”
