Temple of the Jaguar God (5 page)

“
Oh, I don’t know. All we really have, Gerald, is the statue.
Which, admittedly, would appear to be about the right age. The
style is unknown, completely unheralded by any similar discoveries
in this or any other area. It’s completely barbarous. Unique,
really.” Harry took another walk around it, now that they had
scrubbed it free of dirt, mildew and what Jeremy thought were black
lichens, although at first impression they looked like
runes.

They
were sticking together, although the cat had wandered off on its
own. Jeremy figured it would be able to hear them for miles. The
creature would probably turn up again. Why he should worry about it
or feel sorry for it was a good question. The cat was much better
suited to survive in the jungle than any of them.

With a
brief survey, they had determined that the land sloped down to the
southwest, ending in a finger of land with deep creeks or side
branches of the river on both sides. The land gently sloped up to
the northeast, and that seemed the next logical direction of
travel. For the time being, camp would have to stay put. They would
take care to blaze a proper trail, both sides of the tree, one that
could be followed easily. Jeremy had the axe, a fitting irony, but
he was more than happy to make sure—especially after the other
night.

“
Right. Gentlemen.” Standing there with his compass in hand,
Uncle Harry pointed at the green wall of brush. “Here, I
think.”

Mister
Smith spoke in that curious mixture of the native tongue and then
Spanish when he ran into a word he didn’t know. Two husky workmen
stepped forwards and started whacking at a thin spot with their
machetes, stained and sticky with dried sap from previous days.
They babbled excitedly in their own language. Kevin Smith, armed
with a slung Army-surplus Lee-Enfield .303 rifle, turned away and
stood calmly watching the water’s edge as he’d just seen something
cut the surface in his peripheral vision.

“
What is it, Mister Smith?”

“
There—”

“
What? What?”

Smith
pointed, waving the tip of the weapon around to indicate an area of
surface, green leaves floating upon it, but black as the Ace of
Spades in the shadows.

Something moved, and Jeremy had the impression of dark,
scaled body with the thin line of a long, low fin along the back
and tail.

Thankfully, not a snake as one of that diameter would have
been a big one indeed.

“
What is it?”

“
Electric eel.” His eyes twinkled under sandy eyebrows. “Which
actually might explain Mister O’Dell’s disappearance. Assuming he
slipped and fell in when trying to cross on a log for example. If
one of those buggers was right there, it could have stopped his
heart. They say a croc tries to take one once in a while, and it’s
not an easy death.” Not for either one of them—the croc would break
the eel’s neck with a good bite, and then die trying to let go as
its victim shocked and shocked trying to defend itself even in
death.

Harry
and Mister Day were listening, but also following closer now that
the men had advanced a few yards into the jungle. While the trail
would quickly overgrow, for a few days at least, the white ends of
cut branches and saplings would make navigation easy.

“
Go on, Mister Smith.”

His
uncle’s thoughts were on other things. But this was
interesting—

“
That’s about it, actually. It could have been anything, but
that would account for why Jeremy didn’t hear him. An electric
shock like that, it completely paralyzes the victim. He wouldn’t
even have time to cry out.”

“
That’s true—I’ve had a good shock once or twice. Even one and
a half volts, one amp, can kill. The shock went right up my
arm—it’s like a hammer beating inside of you, it really is.” Jeremy
and a friend had been fascinated by magnets, electricity and taking
things apart rather than building anything practical.

The
trouble was, they didn’t really know what they were
doing.

Smith
grinned at this explanation.

Jeremy
stepped in close, making sure his area was clear of people.
Swinging, he knocked a good couple of chips out of the bark, making
it big, white and about as high as he could comfortably get. This
first one would be visible from the stone jaguar.

He and
Kevin were bringing up the rear.

“
Now around to the other side.”

“
You don’t have to tell me twice.”

***

A good
hour had passed. Uncle Harry thought the effort worth it. They had
advanced perhaps a half a mile and then the ground turned abruptly
upward.

With all
the noise, predators being shy creatures, Kevin had the rifle on
his back, casually smoking his pipe and chatting with the sweating
Jeremy, who was also coming along well in the cursing
department.

Oh, if only
Beak
could see me now—better yet, Old Baldy, or even better, Mister
Christmas, the music teacher.

He
laughed, throwing another swing into his latest anonymous
tree…

“
Jeremy! Mister Smith!” It was Uncle Harry, fifty or a hundred
yards up ahead. “Get up here! You have to see this.”

Jeremy
turned.

“
You go ahead. I’m going to mark another two or three trees
between here and there.”

I’m not rushing for anybody…

Not in
this place.

Not now,
not anymore.

From now
on, I think before I act.

***

“
Come along, nephew, come along.”

Mister
Day had his camera set up on the tripod, he’d set the timer and he
was trying to pose everybody just so.

“
What’s going on, Uncle?”

There
were delighted chuckles.

“
Take a look, boy.”

Harry
pointed.

The
natives were clustered, where they had cut and hacked and pulled
away more brush, more vines, more pickers and thorns and dead and
dying litter.

There
were stones…square stones fitted tightly together.

His jaw
dropped.

Harry’s
chin lifted, and Jeremy looked up, following the rise of the green
wall before him…

Dear God.

Whatever
it was, it was big.

Very,
very big.

Harry
was beaming.

“
You know what I think? This might just be one part of a larger
complex—” Harry was telling anyone who would listen. “This is a
major temple.”

Most of
them weren’t listening.

Mister
Day was all over him, drops of sweat hanging on the end of his nose
and staining his bush shirt under the armpits.

“
Here. Bring the axe, wonderful, wonderful…”

Apparently he was to stand on the end, cap tipped back, axe
over the right shoulder, foot up on a boulder, and looking like the
proper woodsman.

For some
reason, the last thing Mister O’Dell had said to him rattled around
in his mind.

“
What a lovely bunch of coconuts.”

***

“
Doctor. Doctor.” Mister Syrmes’ excited voice came down from
above. “Up here.”

Upon
Jeremy and a native being sent back to the camp for more workers
and more tools, Syrmes and even Melody O’Dell, grief-stricken as
she now appeared to be, had tagged along on the return. For her, it
was probably better than being left alone with the camp virtually
deserted.

Jeremy
hadn’t seen too many women in trousers, and she was decidedly cute
in boots and a bush jacket and wide-brimmed hat.

Syrmes
was all over the place.

“
What have you got?” Squinting against the hard light of
midday, Uncle Harry bellowed through cupped hands.

“
It’s an opening. I’m sure of it. Bring up some
machetes.”

They had
eight or ten workmen on the site, most of them converging on the
area of excitement.

For the
natives, it was a welcome break from the back-breaking labour of
clearing brush and some pretty gnarly old trees, hundreds of years
old, growing from cracks and crevices in the stones. The workmen
also knew they were searching for a temple, and must have had a
smidgeon of curiosity.

Each
stone was a good three feet tall, and six or seven feet wide.
Getting up there took a bit of clambering, which was almost easier
when a person had roots and branches to grab onto.

Jeremy
beat his uncle to the spot, being fifteen years younger.

“
Well.”

Puffing
and gasping, his uncle made it up to the level just below where
Mister Syrmes stood.

Looking
down, Jeremy could see Mister Smith patrolling around the edge of
what was becoming a clearing, with Mrs. O’Dell shading her eyes and
looking up to where they were.

Turning
back, Mister Syrmes beckoned impatiently. There was just enough
room to squeeze in, but it wasn’t his dig and it wasn’t his
expedition—

“
Here, get this out of the way, boy.” This was what Jeremy
thought was genuine ironwood—all too familiar from his axe-work,
but clearly the machetes weren’t going to be up to it.

It was
either than or a related species. Fifteen feet tall and stunted by
growing out of the rock like that.

“
Right.” Clambering up one more notch, he took his stance and
began taking the thing down.

There
was a pleasant pain in each shoulder, every muscle really, but he
still had this much in him—

The axe
merely bounced off it the first shot, leaving a thin green line in
the smooth grey bark.

This
would take a while.

“
Shit.”

“
Jeremy.”

There
were appreciative chuckles.

Whack.

(…take a
deep breath and focus.)

Whack.

Whack.

This was
going to take a while.

Sure
enough, there was more darkness and an empty space in behind it,
once he’d taken a few of the smaller branches out of the
way.

His
uncle turned.

“
Mr. Day.”

“
Yes, sir?”

“
Take a couple of the natives. Go back to camp and bring back
every torch that you can find.”

“
Right.” With a nod and one last look at their entrance, he was
carefully lowering himself down again.

Axe bit
wood and Jeremy kept going.

Act Two

Ten or
twenty minutes had passed.

“
Are we ready?”

Uncle
Harry and one other, Mister Day, would go in first. While some
ancient temples had special killing-traps to dissuade grave
robbers, this was relatively unknown in the Americas.

With an
unsealed entrance like that, it did not appear to be a burial
chamber. Aztecs buried their dead beside the temple, disposed of
their ashes out in the country or even on a mountaintop. The Mayans
of the classic period did build tombs and burial complexes, but
they looked nothing like this.

What
they had was still something of a mystery according to Harry. The
sweat was beginning to dry, and for that Jeremy was
grateful.

Snapping
on their biggest light, his uncle carefully examined the way and
then gingerly stepped down. He flashed a grin as Mister Day took
yet another picture with the small (and very expensive) camera
hanging around his neck.

“
Right. In we go.”

Their
voices could clearly be heard as they descended what looked like
some roughly-cut stairs.

There
was complete silence. It struck Jeremy that for all the hundreds of
bird and animal calls in the jungle, you hardly ever saw
them—

Then his
uncle was calling out for Mister Smith and more lights.

***

“
What’s going on?” The voice was plaintive, tinged with
sadness, but perhaps also a bit of boredom.

Jeremy
looked down to Melody, tragic in her beauty and aloneness from his
vantage point.

“
I don’t know.”

They
were all down there now, except for the natives. Some of them had
gone back to a desultory job of clearing more vegetation from the
front elevation from what was beginning to look like a terraced,
pyramidal structure. It was incredibly steep, which set it apart
from the relatively gentle slopes around it. It could easily have
been mistaken for another volcanic plug, he supposed.

She was
alone down there, although there were a couple of native boys
nearby, and she was probably nervous of snakes, or big cats or
whatever.

He
couldn’t really blame her for that. They’d heard the gruff bark of
what Smith said was a jaguar, not too far away and keeping them up
half the night with its growls. The smaller creatures were just as
bad in terms of alien noises.