Burial Ground

VIII

6:36 p.m.

Leo didn't care if Sam believed that the tribe wasn't hostile. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The natives had killed his son. They had allowed Hunter to reach his destination, and then they had stalked and murdered him. When he ultimately found the source of the placers and concluded that his son's party hadn't mutinied against him, he would have all of the proof he needed. And then he could return to the village and let them know how he felt about the cowardly act of stabbing a man in the back.

He glanced back at Sorenson and Webber, who ferried the crate affixed to long wooden dowels on their shoulders.

Oh yes, he would show these natives exactly how he felt.

Darkness descended upon the forest. The heat began to dissipate by degree, which only served to amplify the humidity, and welcome more mosquitoes to the ranks swarming around them. They were still more than an hour from the formal time listed for the setting of the sun, but the high mountains bathed them in premature shadows. Soon they would need to pitch camp for the night if they were to rest up for the final push during the coming day. He had compared the maps to their current position on the GPS unit. Tomorrow they would reach their goal, he could feel it.

Leo's heart raced at the prospect. Within twenty-four hours, he would learn the answers to the questions that plagued him about his son's death.

Twenty-four hours and he'd finally be able to determine what he needed to do about it.

Few vines eclipsed the trail and the branches were easily enough shoved aside, which allowed them to advance at a rapid pace. Unlike the path leading into the jungle from the river, this one appeared frequently used. Rippeth scouted ahead, often disappearing entirely. He held his gun in his left hand, and cradled his bloody right against his gut. The man had barely spoken since leaving the fortified city. Flames burned behind his eyes. He was obviously itching to extract a measure of revenge, and soon enough Leo would give him the opportunity.

A glimmer of red sparkled through the branches of the trees. It grew brighter and brighter until they pressed through the final stand of trees and stepped out onto the bank of a small lake, upon which the reflected brilliance of the setting sun shimmered. The water was still and crystalline. A startled school of fish darted from the shallows, leaving a cloud of silt in their wake.

"It's beautiful," Galen said.

Leo nodded his agreement. It truly was a breathtaking sight. The lake was circular, and perhaps a hundred yards across. Waterfowl appeared as dark dots in the very center. The jungle encroached to the edge of the water on all sides. Sheer, tree-covered mountains rose up into the low-lying clouds ahead and to both sides, forming a bowl to cradle the lake.

"This is their pacarisca," Sam said. "The Chachapoya always built their villages near one. It's generally a lake or river, sometimes a mountaintop. They regard it as their point of origin, the sacred place where their souls---for lack of a better term---were born. Somewhere nearby we'll find their chullpa, their tribal burial site. The dead are always interred close to the metaphorical point where their lives began, the completion of the circle of life, if you will."

Leo wondered what Hunter must have thought when he came upon this incredible sight. Had he camped here as well before beginning what might have been the last day of his life?

Rippeth emerged from the forest twenty yards up the bank, strode directly to Colton, and whispered something into his ear. Leo watched Colton closely. His old friend's stare darted to the point where Rippeth had appeared, and then back.

Leo sauntered over to join them, but by then they were already done speaking.

"Why don't you guys start setting up the tents," Leo said, and, without a backward glance, joined Colton as he walked northwest along the muddy bank, which was choppy with alpaca hoof prints.

Rippeth vanished into the trees, with Leo and Colton directly behind him. They followed the shivering bushes that trailed Rippeth deeper into the jungle. The smell hit them first, the awful stench of decomposing flesh. Leo had to cup his hand over his mouth and nose until he adapted to it. Another dozen paces and the sound of buzzing flies reached them.

"Jesus," Leo gasped as they stumbled into a circular clearing. The largest kapok tree he had ever seen stood in the center. Its trunk was so wide that even if all three of them joined hands, they wouldn't be able to encircle it. All of the shrubs and undergrowth had been torn out to expose the rich loam in a fifteen foot radius around the behemoth. The massive branches formed a leafy roof five feet over their heads. Lianas coiled in serpentine fashion around the trunk. The smooth gray bark looked as though it had been assaulted by an angry group of ax-wielding lumberjacks. There were cuts and gouges from the ground clear up to the first row of branches. Amber sap bled down the surface like wax on a candlestick. Several ropes had been tied around the tree, their frayed ends dangling toward the dirt.

Bones were scattered everywhere throughout the clearing. Some were still tacky with rust-colored blood, while others had yellowed with age and started to deteriorate. Bloodstains decorated everything in arcs and spatters, upon which the flies swarmed like seething black scabs.

"I told you it was a mess," Rippeth said to Colton, who had crouched to inspect the remains.

Leo didn't have to study the bones to recognize to which species they had once belonged. Wiry wool clung to the surrounding bushes, against which it had been blown into small drifts at the edges of the clearing.

A light flashed from his left. Colton had turned on his penlight and now used it to scrutinize the sloppy earth. It was growing darker by the minute as the lingering residue of the sun faded from the sky.

Colton shoved aside a pile of broken bones and inspected the mud. His beam fell upon a clear set of tracks in a V-shape that appeared to have been made by some sort of deer, only the impressions didn't have the sharply defined edges to delineate them as hooves.

Leo turned his attention again to the tree. Designs had been carved into the bark at the level of the lower canopy. The sun, the moon, and stars of various shapes and sizes were framed by twin zigzagging lines.

"They brought them out here and tied them to the tree," Colton said. He stood, approached the end of one of the tattered ropes, and pulled it taut. At his feet lay the cracked remains of a camelid skull. He lifted it and held it up for them to see. The occipital bone had been broken away from the hollow hole where the brain had once been, and the elongated snout had been snapped in half so that only the worn rear molars remained. He tossed it aside and pointed his light at the dirt, which had obviously been scuffed and gouged by alpaca hooves.

"Why would they do that?" Rippeth asked. He kicked a femur that shattered into chunks of calcium.

"They were sacrifices. But to what?" Colton turned in a slow circle. Leo noticed the man had drawn his pistol. This was the first time he had seen Colton act in a manner that was anything other than calm and collected, which unnerved him even more than all of the death surrounding him.

"Jaguars?"

"No," Leo said. "Remember the jaguar carcass we found in the light gap? This looks like it was done by the same animals. Jaguars don't hunt in packs like lions. They're territorial, and they don't slaughter their own kind."

"They could have done this to those alpacas though."

"This isn't the work of jaguars," Colton said. "We're dealing with something else entirely."

"What do you propose then?"

"I haven't got a clue." Colton bent over and held up a trio of dark feathers. "But we do know that the buzzards had their way with the leftovers as well."

"So we can assume that the natives have been bringing the alpacas out here from that stone pen as part of some sort of sacrificial ritual, where they tether them to this tree---"

"Waka," Sam said from where she'd been watching them from behind a stand of ferns. She stepped out into the open. "The tree is a waka, a sacred object the Chachapoya believe holds great power, but they didn't perform any kind of sacrifice here. Life was the most valuable commodity to these people. They respected and revered it like few others. Animals served an important function in their everyday lives and in the way they perceived the world around them. They weren't sacrificing them." She stooped and picked up a sharply-fractured rib. The broken end appeared serrated. "They were feeding them to something."