Hunt at The Well Of Eternity

Chapter 19

When Gabriel woke in the morning, his muscles were stiff from sleeping on the floor of the cave, which had only a thin layer of sand over hard rock. He stirred a little and became aware that there was soft warmth pressing against both sides of his body. He had gone to sleep between Cierra and Mariella, and as he opened his eyes he saw that Cierra had shifted so that she was snuggled up next to him with her back to his chest. Mariella must have moved around some during her sleep, too, because she was pressed against him from behind, with an arm draped over his hip.

Gabriel couldn’t help but grin as he lay there between the two women. On the other side of the cave, Escalante and Tomás were shivering under their coats. He could almost hear his brother’s voice in his head: Only you, Gabriel, could find yourself stuck in a cave on the side of a Guatemalan mountain and still wind up spending the night between a pair of beautiful women.

Of course, one of those women was well over a hundred years old, Gabriel reminded himself, and a married woman to boot. That is, if Mariella’s story was true.

He moved a little more and that woke up Cierra, who let out a soft groan as she stretched. Then she seemed to become aware that she was spooning with Gabriel and pulled away slightly as if she were embarrassed. She looked around, saw Mariella cuddled against Gabriel from behind.

“She didn’t waste any time, did she?”

“Hey, she’s an old married lady,” he said. “Really old.”

“Doesn’t seem to have bothered you.”

Mariella’s hand, meanwhile, lifted from his hip, curled into a fist, and punched him on the shoulder, showing that she was awake and had heard what he’d said.

“Years don’t matter in Cuchatlán,” she said. “And don’t flatter yourself, Señor Hunt.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Gabriel said as he sat up.

Escalante grinned at him. “You slept well, Señor Hunt?”

“I always sleep well. The trouble starts when you wake up.” Gabriel got to his feet and stretched, working some of the kinks out of his muscles. He would have helped Cierra and Mariella up as well, but neither of them seemed interested in his help. They were too busy glaring at each other and at him.

“Any sign of Esparza and his men?” Gabriel asked as he went over to join Escalante and Tomás.

Escalante shook his head. “I thought I heard the sound of his trucks far in the distance a while ago, but I could not be sure.”

“If he’s still in the trucks, he won’t be able to go much farther in them,” Mariella said. “The trail isn’t wide enough for them, and then there’s the Blade of the Gods to consider.”

“What’s that?” Gabriel asked.

“A gorge that borders the valley on the west. It’s narrow and very deep, as if someone had drawn a giant knife through the earth. On the eastern side of the valley, the mountains are impassable. Those two barriers are why Cuchatlán is so isolated, and why it has remained so for all these years.”

“How do you get across this gorge?”

“There is a rope bridge. It will support men and even pack animals, but not trucks.”

Gabriel nodded. This was a primitive land where they were going, but not a primitive people, he reminded himself. They knew quite a bit about the outside world in Cuchatlán, enough so that Mariella had been able to travel to New York City and function just fine. The gown she had worn that night at the Met, while presumably handsewn, could have passed for the height of current style. Hell, it had passed.

“What about between here and there?”

“There are several trails. I can guess which ones Hector is likely to show Esparza. We will take a different path, one that is shorter. And we can move faster, since our group is smaller.”

Gabriel nodded. “We’d better get started. We don’t want to blow what ever advantage we’ve got.”

They made a quick breakfast on the provisions that had been left in the cave, then set out. Mariella led them along the ledge as it twisted downward, and soon they were back in the thick, junglelike forest. She took Escalante’s machete and used it to chop away the vines that clogged the narrow path. This was some sort of game trail, Gabriel thought, and it took a considerable amount of work to widen it enough for them to use it. Mariella’s fatigue shirt was dark with sweat and torn in several places by thorns that had caught it, but when he offered to spell her with the machete, she shook her head.

“No offense, Señor Hunt, but you would soon lose the path. I know where I’m going.”

Unlike the cool, clear air where they had spent the night on the side of the mountain, down here the atmosphere was thick and muggy, and mosquitoes and other insects buzzed and whined around their heads. Once Mariella held up her hand in a signal for the others to stop, and they stood there silent and motionless as a snake twenty feet long and as big around as a man’s leg slithered across the trail in front of them. Another time Mariella halted the group with the whispered warning, “Tigre!” and they waited nervously, listening to the nearby rustling in the brush, until the jaguar moved on.

All five of them were drenched in sweat by the time they trekked through another pass and then climbed down a steep slope, clinging to vines to keep their balance as they did so. “The Blade of the Gods is not far now,” Mariella said as they paused to rest for a moment. “We will be in Cuchatlán in less than an hour.”

That couldn’t come soon enough to satisfy Gabriel, and the others were showing signs of impatience as well.

The jungle remained nearly impenetrable, right up to the point where it suddenly thinned out and they stepped onto a grassy verge about ten yards wide. After that, the ground dropped away into the yawning nothingness of the chasm Mariella had spoken of. The Blade of the Gods was a good name for it. Fifty yards wide, evidently hundreds of feet deep, its sides were perfectly sheer and dropped straight down. The chasm ran perfectly straight as well, due north and south as far as Gabriel could tell. It vanished in both directions, extending farther than the eye could see.

Mariella’s knowledge and instincts had led them unerringly to the only spot where they could cross the chasm. A four-foot-wide bridge made of thick ropes and rough-hewn planks extended across the giant slash in the earth. Cierra muttered, “Dios mio,” when she saw it, and when Gabriel glanced over at her he saw the fear in her eyes. Even Escalante and Tomás, hardened though they were, looked a little nervous at the prospect of crossing that sagging span. A breeze drifted along the gorge and, at its touch, the bridge swayed back and forth.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Mariella said. “I’ve crossed it many times. Many of us who live in Cuchatlán have.” She gave Cierra a slightly superior look. “If you’re worried about it, I’ll go first, so you can see how it’s done.”

“That’s not necessary,” Cierra replied with a defiant toss of her head, though her eyes still showed her ambivalence. “But will it hold all five of us?”

Mariella gestured toward the ropes that were attached to the sturdy pair of posts anchoring each end of the bridge. Those ropes were each as thick as a man’s wrist. “The bridge will support all of us without any problem. I’ve seen fully loaded pack mules go across it.”

“Let’s go, then,” Gabriel said. He was ready to see this so-called lost city of the Mayas for himself, and wanted to have as much time there before Esparza showed up as possible.

Mariella stepped out onto the bridge. The planks had gaps of several inches between them. She moved carefully but confidently, holding the machete in her left hand and the bridge’s guide rope with her right. There was no guide rope on the left, only open air.

The bridge sagged even more under her weight. Gabriel saw the ropes attached to the anchor posts tighten around the wood.

“I’ll go next,” he said. “Cierra, you follow me.” Escalante and Tomás could bring up the rear, Gabriel didn’t care in which order.

Despite his generally steady nerves, he felt a tightening in his belly as he stepped out onto the span. The gaps between the planks gave him a very good view of the hundreds of feet of empty air underneath him. The gorge was a good four hundred feet deep. At the bottom of it ran a stream that appeared to be nothing more than a thread of silver from this height.

Mariella was four planks ahead of him. She glanced back over her shoulder and called, “Are you doing all right?”

“Fine,” Gabriel replied. “No problem.” He moved to the next plank and paused to look back at Cierra. “Come on. It’ll be fine. Just hang on tight to the guide rope and don’t look down.”

Cierra swallowed hard and said, “I think you can count on that, Gabriel.” She moved onto the first plank. She’d reached out and grasped the rope with her right hand before she stepped onto the rough board. It was clear that heights bothered her a great deal. Still, determination was etched on her face as well as fear. She stepped out with her left foot, rested it solidly on the next plank, and moved her right foot to join it.

Slowly, they worked their way out onto the bridge. Escalante and Tomás followed Cierra. Soon, all five of them were above the deep gorge. The ropes had sagged so much that their heads were below the level of the cliff on the far side.

This would be a heck of a place for a trap, Gabriel thought.

As if reading his thoughts, Mariella turned to look back at Gabriel and smiled in encouragement.

That smile disappeared abruptly, to be replaced by a look of shock and horror. Gabriel jerked his head around, knowing that Mariella had seen something behind them.

Alexei Podnemovitch had stepped out of the jungle at the western end of the bridge. He no longer wore the sling for his injured arm and shoulder but had a gun in that hand instead. Podnemovitch leveled the revolver at Gabriel and the others and said, “Not another step, Hunt.”