Inca Gold

    After he drank five cups of water from a big olla, or pot, whose porous walls let it sweat and keep its contents cool, Polly fed him shredded pork and refried beans with fried cholla buds that reminded him of okra. The tortillas were made from mesquite beans she had pounded into a sweet-tasting flour. The late lunch was accompanied by wine fermented from fruit of the saguaro.

    Pitt couldn't recall eating a more delightful meal.

    Polly seldom spoke, and when she did utter a few words they were addressed to Billy in Spanish. Pitt thought he detected a hint of humor in her big brown eyes, but she acted serious and remote.

    "I do not see a happy community," said Pitt, making conversation.

    Yuma shook his head sadly. "Sorrow fell over my people and the people of our other tribal villages when our most sacred religious idols were stolen. Without them our sons and daughters ca

    "Good God," Pitt breathed. "Not the Zolars."

    "What, senor?"

    "An international family of thieves who have stolen half the ancient artifacts ever discovered."

    "Mexican police told us our idols were stolen by American pothunters who search sacred Indian grounds for our heritage to sell for profit."

    "Very possible," said Pitt. "What do your sacred idols look like?"

    Yuma stretched out his hand and held it about a meter above the floor. "They stand about this high and their faces were carved many centuries ago by my ancestors from the roots of cottonwood trees."

    "The chances are better than good that your idols were bought from the pothunters by the Zolars for peanuts, and then resold to a wealthy collector for a fat price."

    "These people are called Zolars?"

    "Their family name. They operate under a shadowy organization called Solpemachaco."

    "I do not know the word," said Yuma. "What does it mean?"

    "A mythical Inca serpent with several heads that takes up housekeeping in a cave."

    "Never heard of him."

    "I think he may be related to another legendary monster the Peruvians called the Demonio del Muertos, who guards their underworld."

    Yuma gazed thoughtfully at his work-worn hands. "We too have a legendary demon of the underworld who keeps the dead from escaping and the living from entering. He also passes judgment on our dead, allowing the good to pass and devouring the bad."

    "A Judgment Day demon," said Pitt.

    Yuma nodded solemnly. "He lives on a mountain not far from here."

    "Cerro el Capirote," Pitt said softly.

    "How could a stranger know that?" Yuma asked, looking deeply into Pitt's green eyes.

    "I've been to the peak. I have seen the winged jaguar with the serpent's head, and I guarantee you he wasn't put there to secure the underworld or judge the dead."

    "You seem to know much about this land."

    "No, actually very little. But I'd be most interested in hearing any other legends about the demon."

    "There is one other," Yuma conceded. "Enrique Juarez, our oldest tribal elder, is one of the few remaining Montolos who remember the old stories and ancient ways. He tells of golden gods who came from the south on great birds with white wings that moved over the surface of the water. They rested on an island in the old sea for a long time. When the gods finally sailed away, they left behind the stone demon. A few of our brave and curious ancestors went across the water to the island and never returned. The old people were frightened and believed the mountain was sacred and all intruders would be devoured by the demon." Yuma paused and gazed into the desert. "The story has been told and retold from the days of my ancestors. Our younger children, who are schooled in modern ways, think of it simply as an old people's fairy tale."

    "A fairy tale mixed with historical fact," Pitt assured Yuma. "Believe me when I tell you a vast hoard of gold lies inside Cerro el Capirote. Put there not by golden gods from the south, but Incas from Peru, who played on your ancestors' reverence of the supernatural by carving the stone monster to instill fear and keep them off the island. As added insurance, they left a few guards behind to kill the curious until the Spanish were driven from their homeland, and they could come back and reclaim the treasure for their new king. It goes without saying, history took a different turn. The Spaniards were there to stay and no one ever returned."

    Billy Yuma was not a man given to extreme emotion. His wrinkled face remained fixed, only his dark eyes widened. "A great treasure lies under Cerro el Capirote?"

    Pitt nodded. "Very soon men with evil intentions are coming to force their way inside the mountain to steal the Inca riches."

    "They ca

    "That won't stop these men, believe me," said Pitt seriously.

    My people will make a protest to our local police authorities."

    "If the Zolars run true to form, they've already bribed your law enforcement officials."

    "These evil men you speak of. They are the same ones who sold our sacred idols?"

    "As I suggested, it's very possible."

    Billy Yuma studied him for a moment. "Then we do not have to trouble ourselves with their trespass onto our sacred ground."

    Pitt did not understand. "May I ask why?"

    Reality slowly faded from Billy's face and he seemed to enter a dreamlike state. "Because those who have taken the idols of the sun, moon, earth, and water are cursed and will suffer a terrible death."

    "You really believe that, don't you?"

    "I do," Yuma answered somberly. "In my dreams I see the thieves drowning."

    "Drowning?"

    "Yes, in the water that will make the desert into the garden it was for my ancestors."

    Pitt considered making a contrary reply. He was not one to deposit his money in the bank of dreams. He was a confirmed skeptic of the metaphysical. But the intractable gaze in Yuma's eyes, the case-hardened tone of his voice, moved something inside Pitt.

    He began to feel glad that he wasn't related to the Zolars.

    Amaru stepped down into the main sala of the hacienda. One wall of the great room was filled by a large stone fireplace removed from an old Jesuit mission. The high ceiling was decorated with intricate precast plaster panels. "Please excuse me for keeping you waiting, gentlemen."

    "Quite all right," said Zolar. "Now that the fools from NUMA have led us directly to Huascar's gold, we made good use of your tardiness by discussing methods of bringing it to the surface."

    Amaru nodded and looked around the room. There were four men there besides himself. Seated on sofas around the fireplace were Zolar, Oxley, Sarason, and Moore. Their faces were expressionless, but there was no concealing the feeling of triumph in the air.

    "Any word of Dr. Kelsey, the photographer Rodgers, and Albert Giordino?" Sarason inquired.

    "My contacts over the border believe Pitt told you the truth on the ferry when he said he dropped them off at the U.S. Customs compound in Calexico," answered Amaru.