The Vivero Letter

I

Every three days a big helicopter came in from Camp One bringing drums of fuel for the diesel generators and cylinders of gas for the camp kitchen as and when necessary. It also brought in the mail which had been flown from Mexico City by Fallon’s jet, so I could keep in touch with England. Mount wrote to me telling me that probate was going through without much difficulty, and Jack Edgecombe had taken fire at last and was enthusiastic about the new plan for the farm. He was going ahead in spite of acid comments from the locals and was sure we were on to a good thing.

Reading those letters from Devon while in that stinking hot clearing in the middle of Quintana Roo made me homesick and I debated once again whether or not to quit. This business had got nothing to do with me and I was feeling more on the outside than ever because there was a distinct coolness now between Katherine and myself.

On the day of the quarrel there had been raised voices from the Halsteads’ hut quite late into the night and, when Katherine appeared next morning, she wore a shirt with a high collar. It wasn’t quite high enough to hide the bruise on the side of her throat and I felt an odd tension in the pit of my stomach. But how a man and his wife conducted their marriage had nothing to do with me, so I left it at that. Katherine, for her part, pointedly ignored me, but Halstead didn’t change at all — he just went on his usual bastardly way.

I was just on the point of quitting when Fallon showed me a letter from Pat Harris who had news of Gatt. ‘Jack is making the rounds of Yucatán’ he wrote. He has been to Mérida, Valladolid and Vigio Chico, and is now in Felipe Carillo Puerto. He seems to be looking for something or someone — my guess is someone, because he’s talking to some of the weirdest characters. Since Jack prefers to spend his vacations in Miami and Las Vegas I think this is a business trip — but it sure is funny business. It’s not like him to sweat when there is no need, so whatever he is doing must be important.’

‘Felipe Carillo Puerto used to be called Chan Santa Cruz,’ said Fallon. ‘It was the heart of the Mayan revolt, the capital of the indios sublevados. The Mexicans changed the name of the town when they got on top of the rebels in 1935. It’s not very far from here — less than fifty miles.’

‘It’s obvious that Gatt’s up to something,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Fallon pensively. ‘But what? I can’t understand the man’s motives.’

‘I can,’ I said, and laid it all out for Fallon’s inspection — gold, gold, and again gold. ‘Whether or not there is any gold doesn’t matter as long as Gatt thinks there is.’ I had another thought. ‘You once showed me a plate of Mayan manufacture. How much would the gold in that be worth?’

‘Not much,’ he said derisively. ‘Maybe fifty or sixty dollars.’

‘How much would the plate be worth at auction?’

‘That’s hard to say. Most of those things are in museums and don’t come on the open market. Besides, the Mexican Government is very strict on the export of Mayan antiquities.’

‘Make a guess?’ I urged.

He looked irritated, and said, ‘These things are priceless — no one has ever tried to put a price on them. Any unique work of art is worth what someone is willing to pay.’

‘How much did you pay for that plate?’

‘Nothing — I found it.’

‘How much would you sell it for?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ he said definitely.

It was my turn to get exasperated. ‘For God’s sake! How much would you be willing to pay for that plate if you didn’t have it already? You’re a rich man and a collector.’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe I’d go up to $20,000 — maybe more, if pushed.’

‘That’s good enough for Gatt, even if he is clued up on the gold fallacy — which I don’t think he is. Would you expect to find any similar objects in Uaxuanoc?’

‘It’s likely,’ said Fallon. He frowned. ‘I think I’d better have a word with Joe Rudetsky about this.’

‘How are things coming along?’ I asked.

‘We can’t get anything more out of the air survey,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve got to get down on the ground.’ He pointed to the photo-mosaic. ‘We’ve cut down the probables to four.’ He looked up. ‘Ah, here’s Paul.’

Halstead came into the hut, the usual glower on his face. He dumped two belts on the table, complete with scabbarded machetes. ‘These are what we’ll need now,’ he said. His tone implied — I told you so!

‘I was just talking about that,’ said Fallon. ‘Will you ask Rider to come in?’

‘Am I a messenger boy now?’ asked Halstead sourly.

Fallon’s eyes narrowed. I said quickly, ‘I’ll get him.’ It wasn’t to anyone’s advantage to bring things to a boil, and I was quite willing to be a messenger boy — there are less dignified professions.

I found Rider doing a polishing job on his beloved chopper. ‘Fallon’s calling a conference,’ I said. ‘You’re wanted.’

He gave a final swipe with a polishing rag. ‘Right away.’ As he walked with me to the hut, he asked, ‘What’s with that guy, Halstead?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s been trying to order me around; so I told him I work for Mr. Fallon. He got quite sassy about it.’

‘He’s just like that,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’

‘I’m not worried about it,’ said Rider with elaborate unconcern. ‘But he’d better worry. He’s liable to get a busted jaw.’

I put my hand on Rider’s arm. ‘Not so fast — you wait your turn.’

He grinned. ‘So it’s like that? Okay, Mr. Wheale; I’ll fall in line right behind you. But don’t wait too long.’

When Rider and I walked into the hut there seemed to be some tension between Fallon and Halstead. I thought that maybe Fallon had been tearing into Halstead for his uncooperative attitude — he wasn’t the man to mince his words — and Halstead looked even more bloody-minded than ever. But he kept his mouth shut as Fallon said shortly, ‘Let’s get to the next step.’

I leaned against the table. ‘Which do you tackle first?’

‘That’s obvious,’ said Fallon. ‘We have four possibles, but there’s only one at which we can put down the helicopter. That’s the one we explore first.’

‘How do you get to the others?’

‘We winch a man down,’ said Fallon. ‘I’ve done it before.’

So he might have, but he wasn’t getting any younger. ‘I’ll give that a go,’ I offered.

Halstead snorted. ‘With what object in mind?’ he demanded. ‘What do you think you could do when you got on the ground? This needs a man with eyes in his head.’

Regardless of the unpleasant way in which he phrased it, Halstead was probably right. I had already seen how difficult it was to spot a Mayan ruin which Fallon had seen casually, and I could certainly miss something which might prove of the utmost importance.

Fallon made a quick gesture with his hand. ‘I’ll go down — or Paul will. Probably both of us.’

Rider said hesitantly, ‘What about Number Two — that one’s real tricky?’

‘We’ll consider that if and when it’s necessary,’ said Fallon. ‘We’ll save it until the last. When will you be ready to leave?’

‘I’m ready now, Mr. Fallon.’

‘Let’s go, then. Come on, Paul.’

Fallon and Rider walked out and I was about to follow when Halstead said. ‘Just a minute, Wheale; I want to talk to you.’

I turned. There was something in his voice that made my short hairs prickly. He was buckling a belt around his middle and adjusting the machete at his side. ‘What is it?’

‘Just this,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘Stay away from my wife.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘Exactly what I said. You’ve been hanging around her like a dog around a bitch in heat. Don’t think I haven’t seen you.’ His deeply sunken eyes looked manic and his hands were trembling slightly.

I said, ‘The choice of phrase was yours — you called her a bitch, not me.’ His hand clutched convulsively at the hilt of the machete, and I said sharply, ‘Now just listen to me. I haven’t touched Katherine, nor do I intend to — nor would she let me if I tried. All that’s gone on between us is all that goes on between reasonable people in our position, and that’s conversation of varying degrees of friendliness. And I must say we’re not too friendly right at this minute.’

‘Don’t try to pull that on me,’ he said savagely. ‘What were you doing with her down at the pool three days ago?’

‘If you want to know, we were having a flaming row,’ I said. ‘But why don’t you ask her?’ He was silent at that, and looked at me hard. ‘But, of course, you did ask her, didn’t you? You asked her with your fist. Why don’t you try asking me that way, Halstead? With your fists or with that oversized carving knife you have there? But watch it — you can get hurt.’

For a moment I thought he was going to pull the machete and cleave my skull, and my fingers closed around one of the stones that Fallon used to weigh the maps on the table. At last he expelled his breath in a whistling sound and he thrust home the machete into its sheath the half inch he had withdrawn it. ‘Just stay away from her,’ he said hoarsely. ‘That’s all.’

He shouldered past me and left the hut to disappear into the blinding sunlight outside. Then came the sudden rhythmical roar from the chopper and it took off, and the sound faded quickly as it went over the trees, just as it always did.

I leaned against the table and felt the sweat break out on my forehead and at the back of my neck. I looked at my hands. They were trembling uncontrollably, and when I turned them over I saw the palms were wet. What the flaming hell was I doing in a set-up like this? And what had possessed me to push at Halstead so hard? The man was obviously a little loose in the brain-box and he could very well have cut me down with that damned machete. I had a sudden feeling that this whole operation was sending me as crazy as he obviously was.

I pushed myself away from the table and walked outside. There was no one to be seen. I strode over to the Halsteads’ hut and knocked on the door. There was no reply, so I knocked again, and Katherine called, ‘Who is it?’

‘Who were you expecting? It’s Jemmy, damn it!’

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ I said. ‘All you have to do is listen. Open the door.’

There was a long pause and then a click as the door opened not too widely. She didn’t look very well and there were dark smudges below her eyes. I leaned on the door and swung it open wider. ‘You said you could control your husband,’ I said. ‘You’d better start hauling on the reins because he seems to think that you and I are having a passionate affair.’

‘I know,’ she said tonelessly.

I nodded. ‘You know, of course. I wonder how he could have got that impression? You couldn’t have led him on a bit — some women do.’

She flared. ‘That’s a despicable thing to say.’

‘Very likely it is; I’m not feeling too spicable right now. That nutty husband of yours and I nearly had a fight not five minutes ago.’

She looked alarmed. ‘Where is he?’

‘Where do you think he is? He’s gone with Fallon in the chopper. Look, Katherine; I’m not too sure that Paul shouldn’t pull out of this expedition.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said quickly. ‘You couldn’t do that.’

‘I could — and I will — if he doesn’t bloody well behave himself. Even Rider is threatening to hammer him. You know that he is only here because of my say-so; that I forced him down Fallon’s throat. One word from me and Fallon will be only too glad to get rid of him.’

She grabbed my hand. ‘Oh, please, Jemmy; please don’t do that.’

‘Get up off your knees,’ I said. ‘Why the hell should you have to plead for him? I told you a long time ago, back in England, that you can’t apologize for another person — not even your husband.’ She was looking very blue, so I said, ‘All right, I won’t push him out — but see that he stays off my neck.’

‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘I really will try. Thanks, Jemmy.’

I blew out my cheeks. ‘If I’m accused of it, and if I’m going to get into a fight because of it, this passionate affair might not be such a bad idea. At least I’ll get myself half-killed because of something I did.’

She stiffened. ‘I don’t think that’s funny.’

‘Neither do I,’ I said wearily. ‘With me the girl has to be willing — and you’re not exactly panting hotly down the back of my neck. Forget it. Consider I made a pass and got slapped down. But Katherine, how you stand that character, I don’t know.’

‘Maybe it’s something you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Love?’ I shrugged. ‘Or is it misplaced loyalty? But if I were a woman — and thank God I’m not — and a man hit me, I’d walk right out on him.’

Pink spots showed in her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

I lifted a finger and smoothed down her collar. ‘I suppose you got that bruise walking into a door.’

She said hotly, ‘How I get my bruises is none of your damned business.’

The door slammed in my face.

I contemplated the sun-seared woodwork for quite a while, then sighed and turned away. I went back to the big hut and opened the refrigerator and looked at the serried rows of beer cans, all nicely frosted. Then I slammed it shut and went into Fallon’s hut where I confiscated a bottle of his best Glenlivet whisky. I needed something stronger than beer right then.

An hour later I heard the chopper coming back. It landed and taxied into the hangar and out of the sun and, from where I was sitting, I could see Rider refuelling and I heard the rhythmic clank of the hand pump. I suppose I should have gone to help him but I didn’t feel like helping anyone, and after three stiff whiskies the idea of going into the sun struck me as being definitely unwise.

Presently Rider came into the hut. ‘Hot!’ he said, stating the obvious.

I looked up at him. ‘Where are the brains?’

‘I dropped them at the site. I’ll go back in four hours to pick them up.’ He sat down and I pushed the whisky bottle at him. He shook his head. ‘Uh-uh — that’s too strong for this time of day. I’ll get me a cold beer.’

He stood up, got his beer, and came back to the table. ‘Where’s Mr.s Halstead?’

‘Sulking in her tent.’

He frowned at that, but his brow cleared as he drank his beer. ‘Ah, that’s good!’ he sat down. ‘Say, what happened between you and Halstead? When he climbed into the chopper he looked as though someone had rammed a pineapple up his ass.’

‘Let’s say we had a slight altercation.’

‘Oh!’ He pulled a pack of cards from his shirt pocket and riffled them. ‘What about a game to pass the time?’

‘What would you suggest?’ I enquired acidly. ‘Happy Families!’

He grinned. ‘Can you play gin?’

He beat the pants off me.

II

There was nothing at the site. Fallon came back looking tired and drawn and I thought that his years were catching up with him. The forest of Quintana Roo was no place for a man in his sixties, or even for a man in his thirties as I had recently discovered. I had taken a machete and done a bit of exploring and I hadn’t left the clearing for more than ten minutes before I was totally lost. It was only because I had the sense to take a compass and to make slash marks on trees that I managed to get back.

I gave him a glass of his own whisky which he accepted with appreciation. His clothes were torn and blood caked cuts in his hands. I said, ‘I’ll get the first-aid kit and clean that up for you.’

He nodded tiredly. As I cleaned the scratches, I said, ‘You ought to leave the dirty work to Halstead.’

‘He works hard enough,’ said Fallon. ‘He’s done more than me today.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Getting cleaned up. I suppose Katherine is doing the same to him as you’ve done to me.’ He flexed his fingers against the adhesive dressings. ‘It’s better when a woman does it, somehow. I remember my wife bandaging me up quite often.’

‘I didn’t know you are married.’

‘I was. Very happily married. That was many years ago.’ He opened his eyes. ‘What happened between you and Halstead this morning?’

‘A difference of opinion.’

‘It often happens with that young man, but it’s usually of a professional nature. This wasn’t, was it?’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ I said. ‘It was personal and private.’

He caught the implication — that I was warning him off — and chose to ignore it. ‘For anyone to interfere between man and wife is very serious,’ he said.

I drove the cork into the bottle of antiseptic. ‘I’m not interfering; Halstead just thinks I am.’

‘I have your word for that?’

‘You have my word — not that it’s any business of yours,’ I said. As soon as I had said it I was sorry. ‘It is your business, of course; you don’t want this expedition wrecked.’

‘That wasn’t in my mind,’ he said. ‘At least, not as far as you are concerned. But I am becoming perturbed about Paul; he is proving very awkward to work with. I was wondering if I could ask you to release me from my promise. It’s entirely up to you.’

I pounded at the cork again. I had just promised Katherine that I wouldn’t get Halstead tossed out on his ear, and I couldn’t go back on that. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Other promises have been made.’

‘I understand,’ said Fallon. ‘Or, at least, I think I do.’ He looked up at me. ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself, Jemmy.’

That piece of advice was coming a bit too late. I grinned and put down the antiseptic bottle. ‘It’s all right; I’m not a home wrecker. But Halstead had better watch himself or he’ll be in trouble.’

‘Pour me another whisky,’ said Fallon. He picked up the antiseptic bottle, and said mildly, ‘We’re going to have trouble getting that cork out again.’

The Halsteads had another quarrel that night. Neither of them appeared for supper and, after dark, I listened to the raised voices coming from their hut, rising and falling but never distinguishable enough to make sense. Just raw anger coming from the darkness.

I half expected Halstead to stomp over to my hut and challenge me to a duel, but he didn’t and I thought that maybe Katherine must have argued him out of it. More probably, the argument I had put up had a lot of weight behind it. Halstead couldn’t afford to be ejected from the expedition at this stage. It might be a good idea to pass on Fallon’s attitude to Katherine just to make sure that Halstead realized that I was the only person who could prevent it.

As I went to sleep it occurred to me that if we did find Uaxuanoc I’d better start guarding my back.

III

Four days later there was only one site to be investigated. Fourteen out of the fifteen in Fallon’s original list had proved to be barren; if this last one proved a bust then we would have to extend our radius of exploration and take in another forty-seven sites. That would be a bind, to say the least of it.

We had an early-morning conference before the last site was checked and nobody was happy about it. The cenote lay below a ridge which was thickly covered in trees and Rider was worried about the problem of getting in while coping with air currents. Worse still, there was no possible place for a man to drop from the winch; the vegetation was thick and extended right to the edge of the cenote without thinning in any way.

Fallon studied the photographs and said despondently, ‘This is the worst I’ve seen anywhere. I don’t think there’s a chance of getting in from the air. What do you think, Rider?’

‘I can drop a man,’ said Rider. ‘But he’d probably break his neck. Those trees are running to 140 feet and tangled to hell. I don’t think a man could reach the ground.’

‘The forest primeval,’ I commented.

‘No,’ contradicted Fallon. ‘If it were, our work would be easier. All this ground has been cultivated at one time — all over Quintana Roo. What we have here is a second growth; that’s why it’s so goddamn thick.’ He switched off the projector and walked over to the photo-mosaic. ‘It’s very thick for a long way around this cenote — which is archeologically promising but doesn’t help us in getting in.’ He laid his finger on the photograph. ‘Could you put us down there, Rider?’

Rider inspected the point Fallon indicated, first with the naked eye and then through a magnifying glass. ‘It’s possible,’ he said.

Fallon applied a ruler. ‘Three miles from the cenote. In that stuff we couldn’t do more than half a mile an hour — probably much less. Say a full day to get to the cenote. Well, if it must be done, we’ll do it.’ He didn’t sound at all enthusiastic.

Halstead said, ‘We can use Wheale now. Are you good with a machete, Wheale?’ He just couldn’t get out of the habit of needling me.

‘I don’t have to be good,’ I said. ‘I use my brains instead. Let me have another look at those photographs.’

Fallon switched on the projector and we ran through them again. I stopped at the best one which showed a very clear view of the cenote and the surrounding forest. ‘Can you get down over the water?’ I asked Rider.

‘I guess I could,’ said Rider. ‘But not for long. It’s goddamn close to that hillside at the back of the pool.’

I turned to Fallon. ‘How did you make this clearing we have here?’

‘We dropped a team in with power saws and flamethrowers,’ he said. ‘They burned away the ground vegetation and cut down the trees — then blasted out the stumps with gelignite.’

I stared at the photograph and estimated the height from water-level to the edge of the pit of the cenote. It appeared to be about thirty feet. I said, ‘If Rider can drop me in the water, I can swim to the edge and climb out.’

‘So what?’ said Halstead. ‘What do you do then? Twiddle your thumbs?’

‘Then Rider comes in again and lowers a chain saw and a flame-thrower on the end of the winch.’

Rider shook his head violently. ‘I couldn’t get them anywhere near you. Those trees on the edge are too tall. Jesus, if I get the winch cable tangled in those I’d crash for sure.’

‘Supposing when I went into the water I had a thin nylon cord, say about a couple of hundred yards, with one end tied to the winch cable. I pay it out as I swim to the side, then you haul up the cable and I pay out some more. Then you take up the chopper, high enough to be out of trouble, and I pay out even more line. When you come down again over the cenote with the stuff dangling on the end of the cable, I just haul it in to the side. Is that possible?’

Rider looked even more worried. ‘Hauling a heavy weight to one side like that is going to have a hell of an effect on stability.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I reckon I could do it though.’

‘What would you reckon to do once you got down?’ asked Fallon.

‘If Rider will tell me how much clear ground he needs to land the chopper. I’ll guarantee to clear it. There might be a few stumps, but he’ll be landing vertically, so they shouldn’t worry him too much. I’ll do it — unless someone else wants to volunteer. What about you, Dr. Halstead?’

‘Not me,’ he said promptly. He looked a bit shamefaced for the first time since I’d met him. ‘I can’t swim.’

‘Then I’m elected,’ I said cheerfully, although why I was cheerful is hard to say. I think it was the chance of actually doing something towards the work of the expedition that did it. I was tired of being a spare part.

I checked on the operation of the saw and the flame-thrower and saw they were fully fuelled. The flame-thrower produced a satisfactory gout of smoky flame which shrivelled the undergrowth very nicely. ‘I’m not likely to start a forest fire, am I?’ I asked.

‘Not a chance,’ said Fallon. ‘You’re in a rain forest and these aren’t northern conifers.’

Halstead was coming with me. There was so much weight to be put into the helicopter that there could be only two passengers, and since it was going to be a job for a strongish man to attach the gear to the winch cable and get it out of the helicopter Halstead was chosen in preference to Fallon.

But I wasn’t too happy about it. I said to Rider, ‘I know you’ll be busy jockeying this chopper at the critical moment, but I’d be obliged if you’d keep half an eye on Halstead.’

He caught the implication without half trying. ‘I operate the winch. You’ll get down safely.’

We took off and were over the site within a very few minutes. I waggled my hand in a circle to Rider and he orbited the cenote at a safe height while I studied the situation. It’s one thing to look at photographs on solid ground, and quite another to look at the real thing with the prospect of dangling over it on the end of a line within the next five minutes.

At last I was satisfied that I knew where to aim for once I was in the water. I checked the nylon cord which was the hope of the whole operation and stepped into the canvas loops at the end of the cable. Rider brought the helicopter lower, and I went cautiously through the open door and was only supported by the cable itself.

The last thing I saw of Rider was his hand pulling on a lever and then I was dropping away below the helicopter and spinning like a teetotum. Every time I made a circuit I saw the green hillside behind the cenote coming closer until it was too damned close altogether and I thought the blades of the rotor were going to chop into projecting branches.

I was now a long way below the helicopter, as far as the winch cable would unreel, and my rate of spin was slowing. Rider brought the chopper down gently into the chimney formed by the surrounding trees and I touched the water. I hammered the quick-release button and the harness fell away and I found myself swimming. I trod water and organized the nylon cord, then struck out for the edge of the cenote, paying out the cord behind me, until I grasped a tree root at water-level.

The sides of the cenote were steeper than I had thought and covered with a tangle of creeper. I don’t know how long it took me to climb the thirty feet to the top but it was much longer than I had originally estimated and must have seemed a lifetime to Rider, who had a very delicate bit of flying to do. But I made it at last, bleeding from a score of cuts on my arms and chest, yet still holding on to that precious cord.

I waved to Rider and the helicopter began to inch upwards, and slowly the cable was reeled in. I paid out the cord, and when the helicopter was hovering at a safe height, five hundred feet of cord hung down in a graceful catenary curve. While Halstead was no doubt struggling to get the load on to the end of the winch cable I got my breath back and prepared for my own struggle.

It was not going to be an easy task to haul over a hundred pounds of equipment sixty feet sideways. I took off the canvas belt that was wrapped around my middle and put it about a young tree. It was fitted with a snap hook with a quick release in case of emergencies. There was very little room to move on the edge of the cenote because of the vegetation — there was one tree that must have been ninety feet high whose roots were exposed right on the rim. I took the machete and swung at the undergrowth, clearing space to move in.

There was a change in the note of the chopper’s engine, the pre-arranged signal that Rider was ready for the next stage of the operation, and slowly it began to descend again with the bulk of the cargo hanging below on the winch cable. Hastily I began to reel in the cord hand over hand until the shapeless bundle at the end of the winch cable was level with me, but sixty feet away and hanging thirty feet above the water of the cenote.

I wrapped three turns of the cord around the tree to serve as a friction brake and then began to haul in. At first it came easily but the nearer it got the harder it was to pull it in. Rider came lower as I pulled which made it a bit easier, but it was still back-breaking. Once the chopper wobbled alarmingly in the air, but Rider got it under control again and I continued hauling.

I was very glad when I was able to lean over and snap the hook of the canvas belt on to the end of the winch cable. A blow at the quick-release button let the cargo fall heavily to the ground. I looked up at the chopper and released the cable, which swung in a wide arc right across the cenote. For a moment I thought it was going to entangle in the trees on the other side, but Rider was already reeling it in fast and the chopper was going up like an express lift. It stopped at a safe height, then orbited three times before leaving in the direction of Camp Two.

I sat on the edge of the cenote with my feet dangling over the side for nearly fifteen minutes before I did anything else. I was all aches and pains and felt as though I’d been in a wrestling match with a bear. At last I began to unwrap the gear. I put on the shirt and trousers that had been packed, and also the calf-length boots, then lit a cigarette before I went exploring.

At first I chopped around with the machete because the tank of the flame-thrower didn’t hold too much fuel and the thing itself was bloody wasteful, so I wanted to save the fire for the worst of the undergrowth. As I chopped my way through that tangle of leaves I wondered how the hell Fallon had expected to travel half a mile in an hour; the way I was going I couldn’t do two hundred yards an hour. Fortunately I didn’t have to. All I had to do was to clear an area big enough for the helicopter to drop into.

I was flailing away with the machete when the blade hit something with a hell of a clang and the shock jolted up my arm. I looked at the edge and saw it had blunted and I wondered what the devil I’d hit. I swung again, more cautiously, clearing away the broad-bladed leaves, and suddenly I saw a face staring at me — a broad, Indian face with a big nose and slightly crossed eyes.

Half an hour’s energetic work revealed a pillar into which was incorporated a statue of sorts of a man elaborately dressed in a long belted tunic and with a complicated headdress. The rest of the pillar was intricately carved with a design of leaves and what looked like over-sized insects.

I lit a cigarette and contemplated it for a long time. It began to appear that perhaps we had found Uaxuanoc, although being a layman I couldn’t be certain. However, no one would carve a thing like that just to leave it lying about in the forest. It was a pity in a way, because now I’d have to go somewhere else to carve my helicopter platform — the chopper certainly couldn’t land on top of this cross-eyed character who stood about eight feet tall.

I went back to the edge of the cenote and started to carve a new path delimiting the area I wanted to clear, and a few random forays disclosed no more pillars, so I got busy. As I expected, the flame-thrower ran out of juice long before I had finished but at least I had used it to the best advantage to leave the minimum of machete work. Then I got going with the chain saw, cutting as close to the ground as I could, and there was a shriek as the teeth bit into the wood.

None of the trees were particularly thick through the trunk, the biggest being about two and a half feet. But they were tall and I had trouble there. I was no lumberjack and I made mistakes — the first tree nearly knocked me into the cenote as it fell, and it fell the wrong way, making a hell of a tangle that I had to clean up laboriously. But I learned and by the time darkness came I had felled sixteen trees.

I slept that night in a sleeping-bag which stank disgustingly of petrol because the chain saw around which it had been wrapped had developed a small leak. I didn’t mind because I thought the smell might keep the mosquitoes away. It didn’t.

I ate tinned cold chicken and drank whisky from the flask Fallon had thoughtfully provided, diluting it with warmish water from a water-bottle, and I sat there in the darkness thinking of the little brown people with big noses who had carved that big pillar and who had possibly built a city on this spot. After a while I fell asleep.

Morning brought the helicopter buzzing overhead and a man dangling like a spider from the cable winch. I still hadn’t cleared up enough for it to land but there was enough manoeuvring space for Rider to drop a man by winch, and the man proved to be Halstead. He dropped heavily to the ground at the edge of the cenote and waved Rider away. The helicopter rose and slowly circled.

Halstead came over to me and then looked around. ‘This isn’t where you’d intended to clear the ground. Why the change?’

‘I ran into difficulties,’ I said.

He grinned humourlessly. ‘I thought you might.’ He looked at the tree stumps. ‘You haven’t got on very well, have you? You should have done better than this.’

I waved my arm gracefully. ‘I bow to superior knowledge. Be my guest — go right ahead and improve the situation.’

He grunted but didn’t take me up on the offer. Instead he unslung the long box he carried on his shoulder, and extended an antenna. ‘We had a couple of walkie-talkies sent up from Camp One. We can talk to Rider. What do we need to finish the job?’

‘Juice for the saw and the flamer; dynamite for the stumps — and a man to use it, unless you have the experience. I’ve never used explosives in my life.’

‘I can use it,’ he said curtly, and started to talk to Rider. In a few minutes the chopper was low overhead again and a couple of jerrycans of fuel were lowered to us. Then it buzzed off and we got to work.

To give Halstead his due, he worked like a demon. Two pairs of hands made a difference, too, and we’d done quite a lot before the helicopter came back. This time a box of gelignite came down, and after it Fallon descended with his pockets full of detonators. He turned them over to Halstead, and looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You look as though you’ve been dragged through a bush backwards.’ He looked about him. ‘You’ve done a good job.’

‘I have something to show you,’ I said and led him along the narrow path I had driven the previous day. ‘I ran across Old-Cross-eyes here; he hampered the operation a bit.’

Fallon threw a fit of ecstatics and damned near clasped Cross-eyes to his bosom. ‘Old Empire!’ he said reverently, and ran his hands caressingly over the carved stone.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a stele — a Mayan date stone. In a given community they erected a stele every katun — that’s a period of nearly twenty years.’ He looked back along the path towards the cenote. ‘There should be more of these about; they might even ring the cenote.’

He began to strip the clinging creepers away and I could see he’d be no use anywhere else. I said, ‘Well, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. I’ll go help Halstead blow himself up.’

‘All right,’ he said absently. Then he turned. ‘This is a marvellous find. It will help us date the city right away.’

‘The city?’ I waved my hand at the benighted wilderness. ‘Is this Uaxuanoc?’

He looked up at the pillar. ‘I have no doubt about it. Stelae of this complexity are found only in cities. Yes, I think we’ve found Uaxuanoc.’

IV

We had a hell of a job getting Fallon away from his beloved pillar and back to Camp Two. He mooned over it like a lover who had just found his heart’s desire, and filled a notebook with squiggly drawings and pages of indecipherable scribblings. Late that afternoon we practically had to carry him to the helicopter, which had landed precariously at the edge of the cenote, and during the flight back he muttered to himself all the way.

I was very tired, but after a luxurious hot bath I felt eased in body and mind, eased enough to go into the big hut and join the others instead of falling asleep. I found Fallon and Halstead hot in the pursuit of knowledge, with Katherine hovering on the edge of the argument in her usual role of Halstead-quietener.

I listened in for a time, not understanding very much of what was going on and was rather surprised to find Halstead the calmer of the two. After the outbursts of the last few weeks, I had expected him to blow his top when we actually found Uaxuanoc, but he was as cold as ice and any discussion he had with Fallon was purely intellectual. He seemed as uninterested as though he’d merely found a sixpence in the street instead of the city he’d been bursting a gut trying to find.

It was Fallon who was bubbling over with excitement. He was as effervescent as a newly opened bottle of champagne and could hardly keep still as he shoved his sketches under Halstead’s nose. ‘Definitely Old Empire,’ he insisted. ‘Look at the glyphs.’

He went into a rigmarole which seemed to be in a foreign language. I said, ‘Ease up, for heaven’s sake! What about letting me in on the secret?’

He stopped and looked at me in astonishment. ‘But I’m telling you.’

‘You’d better tell me in English.’

He leaned back in his chair and shook his head sadly. ‘To explain the Mayan calendar would take me more time than I have to spare, so you’ll have to take my word for a lot of this. But look here.’ He pushed over a set of his squiggles which I recognized as the insects I had seen sculpted on the pillar. ‘That’s the date of the stele — it reads: “9 Cycles, 12 Katuns, 10 Tuns, 12 Kins, 4 Eb, 10 Yax”, and that’s a total of 1,386,112 days, or 3,797 years. Since the Mayan datum from which all time measurement started was 3113 B.C., then that gives us a date of 684 A.D.’

He picked up the paper. ‘There’s a bit more to it — the Mayas were very accurate — it was 18 days after the new moon in the first cycle of six.’

He had said all that very rapidly and I felt a bit dizzy. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ I said. ‘Are you telling me that Uaxuanoc is nearly thirteen hundred years old?’

‘That stele is,’ he said positively. ‘The city is older, most likely.’

‘That’s a long time before Vivero,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Would the city have been occupied that long?’

‘You’re confusing Old Empire with New Empire,’ he said. ‘The Old Empire collapsed about 800 A.D. and the cities were abandoned, but over a hundred years later there was an invasion of Toltecs — the Itzás — and some of the cities were rehabilitated like Chichén Itzá and a few others. Uaxuanoc was one of them, very likely.’ He smiled. ‘Vivero referred often to the Temple of Kukulkán in Uaxuanoc. We have reason to believe that Kukulkán was a genuine historical personage; the man who led the Toltecs into Yucatán, very much as Moses led the Children of Israel into the Promised Land. Certainly the Mayan-Toltec civilization of the New Empire bore very strong resemblances to the Aztec Empire of Mexico and was rather unlike the Mayan Old Empire. There was the prevalence of human sacrifice, for one thing. Old Vivero wasn’t wrong about that.’

‘So Uaxuanoc was inhabited at the time of Vivero? I mean, ignoring his letter and going by the historical evidence.’

‘Oh, yes. But don’t get me wrong when I talk of empires. The New Empire had broken up by the time the Spaniards arrived. There were just a lot of petty states and warring provinces which banded together into an uneasy alliance to resist the Spaniards. It may have been the Spaniards who gave the final push, but the system couldn’t have lasted much longer in any case.’

Halstead had been listening with a bored look on his face. This was all old stuff to him and he was becoming restive. He said, ‘When do we start on it?’

Fallon pondered. ‘We’ll have to have quite a big organization there on the site. It’s going to take a lot of men to clear that forest.’

He was right about that. It had taken three man-days to clear enough ground for a helicopter to land, piloted by a very skilful man. To clear a hundred acres with due archeological care was going to take a small army a hell of a long time.

He said, ‘I think we’ll abandon this camp now and pull back to Camp One. I’ll get Joe Rudetsky busy setting up Camp Three on the site. Now we can get a helicopter in it shouldn’t prove too difficult. We’ll need quarters for twenty men to start with, I should think. It will take at least a fortnight to get settled in.’

‘Why wait until then?’ asked Halstead impatiently. ‘I can get a lot of work done while that’s going on. The rainy season isn’t far off.’

‘We’ll get the logistics settled first,’ said Fallon sharply. ‘It will save time in the long run.’

‘The hell with that!’ said Halstead. ‘I’m going to go up there and have a look round anyway. I’ll leave you to run your goddamn logistics.’ He leaned forward. ‘Can’t you see what’s waiting to be picked up there — right on the ground? Even Wheale stumbled over something important first crack out of the box, only he was too dumb to see what it was.’

‘It’s been there thirteen hundred years,’ said Fallon. ‘It will still be there in another three weeks — when we can go about the job properly.’

‘Well, I’m going to do a preliminary survey,’ said Halstead stubbornly.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Fallon definitely. ‘And I’ll tell you why you’re not. Nobody is going to take you — I’ll see to that. Unless you’re prepared to take a stroll through the forest.’

‘Damn you!’ said Halstead violently. He turned to his wife. ‘You wouldn’t believe me, would you? You’ve been hypnotized by what Wheale’s been telling you. Can’t you see he wants to keep it to himself; that he wants first publication?’

‘I don’t give a damn about first publication,’ said Fallon energetically. ‘All I want is for the job to be done properly. You don’t start excavating a city in the manner of a grave-robber.’

Their voices were rising, so I said, ‘Let’s keep this quiet, shall we?’

Halstead swung on me, and his voice cracked. ‘You keep out of this. You’ve been doing me enough damage as it is — crawling to my wife behind my back and turning her against me. You’re all against me — the lot of you.’

‘Nobody’s against you,’ said Fallon. ‘If we were against you, you wouldn’t be here at all.’

I cut in fast. ‘And any more of this bloody nonsense and you’ll be out right now. I don’t see why we have to put up with you, so just put a sock in it and act like a human being.’

I thought he was going to hit me. His chair went over with a crash as he stood up. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ he said furiously, and stamped out of the hut.

Katherine stood up. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s not your fault,’ said Fallon. He turned to me. ‘Psychiatry isn’t my forte, but that looks like paranoia to me. That man has a king-size persecution complex.’

‘It looks very like it.’

‘Again I ask you to release me from my promise,’ he said.

Katherine was looking very unhappy and disturbed. I said slowly, ‘I told you there had been other promises.’

‘Maybe,’ said Fallon. ‘But Paul, being in the mood he is, could endanger all of us. This isn’t a good part of the world for personal conflicts.’

I said slowly, ‘Katherine, if you can get Paul to see sense and come back and apologize, then he can stay. Otherwise he’s definitely out — and I mean it. That puts it entirely in your hands, you understand.’

In a small voice she said, ‘I understand.’

She went out and Fallon looked at me. ‘I think you’re making a mistake. He’s not worth it.’ He pulled out his pipe and started to fill it. After a moment he said in a low voice, ‘And neither is she.’

‘I’ve not fallen for her,’ I said. ‘I’m just bloody sorry for her. If Halstead gets pushed out now, her life won’t be worth living.’

He struck a match and looked at the flame. ‘Some people can’t tell the difference between love and pity,’ he said obscurely.

V

We flew down to the coast and Camp One early next morning. Halstead had slept on it, but not much, because the connubial argument had gone on long into the night. But she had evidently won because he apologized. It wasn’t a very convincing apology and came as haltingly as though it were torn from him by hot pincers, but I judged it politic to accept it. After all, it was the first time in my experience that he had apologized for anything, so perhaps, although it came hesitantly, it was because it was an unaccustomed exercise. Anyway, it was a victory of sorts.

We landed at Camp One, which seemed to have grown larger in our absence; there were more huts than I remembered. We were met by Joe Rudetsky who had lost some of his easy imperturbability and looked a bit harried. When Fallon asked him what was the matter, he burst into a minor tirade.

‘It’s these goddamn poor whites — these chiclero bastards! They’re the biggest lot of thieves I’ve ever seen. We’re losing equipment faster than we can fly it in.’

‘Do you have guards set up?’

‘Sure — but my boys ain’t happy. You jump one of those chicleros and he takes a shot at you. They’re too goddamn trigger-happy and my boys don’t like it; they reckon this isn’t the job they’re paid for.’

Fallon looked grim. ‘Get hold of Pat Harris and tell him to ship in some of his security guards — the toughest he can find.’

‘Sure, Mr. Fallon, I’ll do that.’ Rudetsky looked relieved because someone had made a decision. He said, ‘I didn’t know what to do about shooting back. We thought we might wreck things for you if we got into trouble with the local law.’

‘There isn’t much of that around here,’ said Fallon. ‘If anyone shoots at you, then you shoot right back.’

‘Right!’ said Rudetsky. ‘Mr. Harris said he’d be coming along today or tomorrow.’

‘Did he?’ said Fallon. ‘I wonder why.’

‘There was a droning noise in the sky and I looked up. ‘That sounds like a plane. Maybe that’s him.’

Rudetsky cocked his head skywards. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s the plane that’s been flying along the coast all week — it’s back and forward all the time.’ He pointed. ‘See — there it is.’

A small twin-engined plane came into sight over the sea and banked to turn over the airstrip. It dipped very low and howled over us with the din of small engines being driven hard. We ducked instinctively, and Rudetsky said, ‘It’s the first time he’s done that.’

Fallon watched the plane as it climbed and turned out to sea. ‘Have you any idea who it is?’

‘No,’ said Rudetsky. He paused. ‘But I think we’re going to find out. It looks as though it’s coming in for a landing.’

The plane had turned again over the sea and was coming in straight and level right at the strip. It landed with a small bounce and rolled to a stop level with us, and a man climbed out and dropped to the ground. He walked towards us and, as he got nearer, I saw he was wearing tropical whites, spotlessly cleaned and pressed, and an incongruous match to the clothing worn by our little party after the weeks at Camp Two.

He approached and raised his Panama hat. ‘Professor Fallon?’ he enquired.

Fallon stepped forward. ‘I’m Fallon.’

The man pumped his hand enthusiastically. ‘Am I glad to meet you, Professor! I was in these parts and I thought I’d drop in on you. My name is Gatt — John Gatt.’