Scanning Proofreading: CSH
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Martha said, “Where have you been?” Her voice was calm but angry.
“It’s my fault that we ran into trouble.” Rory said softly, “I wanted to show off my skills to take a shortcut. But then we couldn’t find our way back, we lost our way.”
“This is no picnic,” Martha said, gazing up into Rory’s handsome, sneering face.
I glanced instinctively at Masson. Mason, the miser, had planned to deceive Martha, his lids leaning on both elbows, his face far from the fire. Margaret was sitting near him, her arms wrapped around her lap. I felt sorry for her, and if what Lorry said was true, all that would prove one general rule: men are as cunning as vipers, and you may admire the scales that are particularly good-looking in appearance, but don’t trust the forked tongue.
Rory knelt down to the fire and picked up an apparently unpalatable can, “We may have found the cave,” he said. “You’ll be excited before long, but not out of what you’ve found.”
I turned around and crouched down, picking up the still somewhat warm food. I was hungry and horrible at the same time, a feeling that filled my body, and I was trying very hard not to let it show.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t like success, Martha.” Rory, who had stuffed his mouth with rice, said, “And you wouldn’t have organized an unrealistic expedition like this one, you wouldn’t have just expected us to dance around in the forest.”
“You have to be careful, don’t fall.”
He grinned broadly and gazed at her. “I never fall,” he said cynically. “Haven’t you noticed?”
As I ate, my eyes fell on Colin, who was also paying attention to Rory, and I remembered what Rory had told me about him. I think Rory must have liked the fact that lads and girls alike wanted to fuck him, his pride and arrogance, his ego, all turned out to be admirable virtues.
Though a very bad man, like fucked with prejudice. Yellow phosphorus matches containing a special substance that has to burn once in conditions of high heat.
I finished eating and stretched, “I’m so tired,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”
The next day we began a careful search for the cave. The miner’s account was vague; the cave was located on the eastern side near the summit plateau, where the cloudy mountain first bulged and then crumpled up like a mouth coated with sticky glue.
We split up to search, and I knew exactly when we’d find Vicar Bamba, once we’d gotten far enough away that Martha would be tricked into passing.
Martha was already being deceived. Even Lori, smart Lori, had been duped. Matson had already bought that mask in Manaus; Carl had not bought it in Mexico. What amazes me the most is how they can deceive Martha, who up to the present time has not seen that it is a hoax.
This whole thing is so amazing it’s almost unbelievable. In one way or another, one possible answer to this point comes to mind. It is that a sensible, cynical woman like Martha, the head of a large and powerful enterprise, would not have organized and prepared a costly expedition without seeing the mask that was the key to the whole affair.
She will definitely look and study the artifact first, she has her own experts. Once convinced it is real, she will be greedy to get her hands on it.
Yet Masson gave her the mask only the day before we left for the Amazon.
This quandary leads me to an answer.
Later that afternoon, I took a shortcut to the campground out of sight of the others for the time being, and, assured that I was unnoticed, I rummaged through Matson’s backpack.
I knew Martha was carrying that mask, and I found my answer to the other mask in Matson’s backpack.
There are two masks in total.
It looks extremely similar to the one I’ve held before, and is almost entirely identical. The light black smooth wood felt the same and smelled the same. The patterned pattern of the carvings looked the same as well, and I put it on.
It was gently fastened to my face, and through the eye-holes I gazed at the stark, gray, dark brown mountains, and the overgrown light yellow thorny shrubs, and the green sea that stretched for countless miles of rolling waves below.
A pinecone landed on me and I looked up to see Matson.
I took off my mask and he held out his hand and I handed it to him. I sat down cross-legged but he stood, looking superior.
I don’t feel like a big disaster, this situation doesn’t affect me. Fine strike, fuck it, but it has to be contained, sitting in front of his lower abdomen.
“Did Rory ask you to steal from me?” He asked.
“Which one actually came from Shorty?”
After asking this, I found my hand slipping unconsciously to the knife at my waist; we were all alone, and this man had the potential to be very dangerous.
Masson watched my gesture. He bent his knees and bent over to me, his eyes locked in a deadly stare. Reaching out, he pulled the knife from the sheath at my waist, and he handed me the handle. Unbuttoning his shirt, he reveals a gaping hole in the center of his camera belt. “Stab it, Sidney, if you want to, that’s what you want to do, isn’t it?
”
I forced the blade forward, the tip lightly touching his dark brown skin, and I saw dents appear in the skin as Masson leaned in and kissed my lips.
I didn’t react, I had been stunned. As he stepped back, I saw that the knife had pierced his skin, and a bright bead of blood flowed out, a thick crimson color.
He stared at me, his head cocked to one side. “Now you got what you wanted?”
“How do you know what I want?”
“You got Rory last night, he’s great isn’t he?”
“He’s a miracle and it feels so good to be with him.”
My voice was suddenly filled with the warmth of memories. I smiled at Masen and stuck my tongue out to flick it across my lips.
Masen’s face tightened as he buttoned his shirt and stood up, and I turned and took a step back away from him, releasing the knife from my hand.
“I think you should tell Martha.” I said, staring at the mask as I spoke.
“You go tell her.”
“Was it you who slammed me in the head the other night?”
“If I had done it, you would not have survived.”
The man looked so ugly that he couldn’t help but squeeze the knife in his hand again. He turned and walked away.
We were unable to find the cave, and we saw some unknown bird, rattling and circling overhead, and a horned eagle staring hungrily at us with a wild, far-seeing eye. It was horrible to probe the cracks in the hillside, for a great number of bats flew out of them and raised a light smoke, bringing with them a strong odor of urine and ammonia.
It was very cold and we were running out of food. That night a great storm fell from the sky, and we had to all huddle together in a ball to hide under the jutting rock. The clouds rolled in and out, and the lightning flashed brilliantly at times in ominously bright clusters. The storm made a splitting and rumbling noise, and the wind swirled relentlessly around the mountains, tearing everything up mercilessly.
I feel like God looking down on everything from above.
Early the next morning Martha sent Jack, Margaret and Colin to find food. This was the first time since coming out that we would descend back to camp and return two days later. The current walk through the jungle was much easier than when we arrived, as the path had been cleared.
Yet they are going down a different path, in order to avoid the place where Rory jumped. If they run into trouble when they get to our base camp, it could be four or five days.
Our group girded our respective straps and set off for the top of the hill, searching even harder, skirting those territories that had already been searched.
Toward the end of the night, Matson played his harmonica quietly and alone. We were all tired, and we all wolfed down our discretionary reduced food before going to bed.
I wondered why Martha had let Matson come up with us, perhaps she didn’t want him to return to the ship unsupervised, I just didn’t understand.
The next night we saw the helicopter again. Perhaps it was another airplane that flew a few more miles over the thick forest canopy to the north of us, where it hung, seemingly motionless, and we could not visualize it properly. Fifteen minutes later it descended and disappeared.
Martha said, “Let’s clear out a bat cave and move in, then build a fire inside. I have a feeling we’re being watched.”
“Seriously?” I said, “I mean how many government regulations have we violated up to here?”
“As far as I know, not a single article has been violated. I think we are still on Brazilian territory, so we are not violating the law by going beyond the border.”
“Then why are you troubled?”
This time it was Rory who was answering, “You don’t understand, Sidney, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Understand what.”
“Potential prizes we pursue.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Kara laughed out loud, “Why does all this interest you.”
I was surprised: “What do you mean?”
“The Amazon. The tropical jungle, how incredible it is, unusual, parrots, monkeys.”
“Poisonous spiders big enough to devour small, untreatable bacteria.” I said.
“Is there no romance in your life?”
“You don’t? I’m a reporter.” I bared my teeth, “We have no such qualities.”
“But it will be a long and arduous process,” Carla insisted. “The search for Vicar Bamba will be like the search for the Tomb of Dutankhamen and and the ideal Golden Land. It’s marvelous stuff, Sidney, and you can’t always have that kind of skepticism.”
I showed my teeth and smiled. “Let me try.”
“Sidney,” Rory said. “Someone might be hiding on the trail.”
Martha puffed on her cigar and blew smoke rings into the night. “Exactly,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you the truth about the expedition at first, until we’d advanced far enough that you couldn’t turn back, and that’s why I told you and the others. And that’s also why we arranged it like a vacation, so it didn’t attract the attention of the press, when in fact a helicopter could have gotten us to this mountain in a day. Except the whole damn river knows about it and we’re close to our target, Sidney, so no nosy guys know what we’re up to.”
“Does anyone really care?” I asked.
“Okay strike that.” Martha looks rattled. It was surprising, and for the first time I felt uneasy, “Carla heard a rumor that he was asking around about Vicar Bamba, trying to check the provenance of the mask, that the guys were in Paraguay, and possibly Argentina, and that we couldn’t be sure, and that he was supposed to have bought that mask.”
“Who is he? What’s it going to be?” I looked at the others, and many terrible questions quickly rose.
“A bad man of international renown,” said Rory. “An important, mysterious and wealthy man who’s going to loot the Vicar Bamba and take the best of the best for himself, and use all the rest as an earmarked fund, that’s one of his politico-metallurgical speculative maneuvers.”
“It’s so great,” I said radiantly. “How many rifles did we leave with?”
“Jack brought one, Pepper brought one, we brought one up, and one fell into the river.”
This time it’s Matson speaking.
“Do you think it’s possible that this helicopter is with him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Martha said. “I don’t understand how he knew we were here, we thought he must have heard rumors about the masks and the cloudy mountains, but I don’t understand how he knew there was an expedition going on, we weren’t even drawing attention to ourselves. We were just eco-tourists and they drove in a bunch of people.
But I don’t think there will be any danger; now we know that there are watching eyes in the tropical jungle, and if we find the cave, they will be sure to know it too.”
The third day was still fruitless, and that night, Carla put on her mask.
We shooed away countless bats and cleaned the inside as best we could.
It was not a deep . Martha was fatigued and had a slight fever that day. She was anxious about the time going by and the helicopter was haunting her and I think she was worried that she was also losing the sexual comfort she was getting from Lori on a daily basis.
She took a couple of aspirin and fell asleep before dark. The rest of us sat outside for a while, gazing up at the stars fixed like icy dots in the deep, dark night sky.
The wind swirled back and forth between the mountains making a slight whistling sound, and there was a rustling and fluctuating sound coming from the distant greenery below the mountains that sounded like a distant sea.
Kara put on her mask, her face glistening in the moonlight from her glossy cheekbones, her eyes turning into black holes.
She began to speak and the three of us, Matson, Lori and and myself were all numb and unable to move.
“I was chosen when I was ten,” she said in a sharp, soft voice. “They took me away from my mother and my young siblings, and all of us who were chosen were woven in the harem of the supreme lord of the Inca. We worshipped the sun every day to prevent it from becoming angry so that all the subjects of the Inca would be blessed with rain and bountiful harvests. We wove very beautiful cloth, and Mama-san taught us that we became handmaidens of the sun god and lived in the highlands, out of reach of men. Some of us were taken to marry servants who were dear and trusted by the Inca king of the highlands; we belonged to the Inca race, and we were his wealth, so he rewarded those who served him faithfully with a boon. Some of us remained and continued to weave and worship. Until the white men came and found us women in that high temple, and they took us by force and violated our people. For what they did, they blasphemed the Inca monarchs, and blasphemed the sun god, who then became angry, and our time was gone.”
When she stopped reading aloud, Rory moved toward her, straddling her crouched body, his hands cupping her masked cheeks in a bow bent over her.
I stood up clumsily, and Masson reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me. The wind whistled in my ears and I heard all sorts of sounds, the shrill howls of raped women, footsteps sprinting in soft-soled straw shoes, the piercing maniacal laughter of conquistadors, the rushing of metal, the crashing of swords slamming into stone and hacking into flesh.
Rory bent over Kara and spoke to her before he removed that mask.
Matson gripped my arm tightly and I froze.
Rory kissed Carla on the mouth and she looked upward at him with her eyes wide open, like she was hypnotized. Rory kissed her again, and I watched as he tried to suck out of her what he craved. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me.”
Her lips quirked.
He squeezed downward against his groin and rubbed his sex against her abdomen. “Tell me,” he whispered, “and you’ll get everything you want.”
Kara groaned.
Lori slipped her hand into her dress. Masen bellowed, “Stop.” Letting go of my arm.
“Tell me,” Rory murmured. “I want to know everything you know.” His groin pressed against Kara in a rhythmic, sensual squeeze.
Masson took a big step toward him and grabbed him by the shoulder.
Rory spun around to get away from him as he straightened his body from Kara and slammed Matson hard in the face. Masson backed up and staggered suddenly sitting on his butt. At that moment, he touched his feet and Carla had moved.
She was kneeling next to Rory’s feet, fumbling clumsily with his pants.
“Stop.” I shouted.
Rory turned to me with a glowing face: “That’s the way.” He said. “Can’t you see?”
Kara pulled out his genitals, glinting a touch of silver in the moonlight. She began to dance, kneeling there in the moonlight, her taut body swaying. Her head tilted back her eyes all white, the iridescent colors seemed to disappear.
I started to go forward again. Matson stopped me, coming from behind and placing his arm across my chest.
Emotional inhibition does have a protective effect, and what we saw was truly frightening.
Kara dropped to her knees and danced with her arms twisting, then slowly and gracefully undressed herself.
Her flesh was pearly in the cool air, her hair flowing and her eyes mesmerized. She whirled around to Rory’s heels, lightly touching his erect cock with her belly, then she lifted one leg high, very high indeed, her body leaping.
Now she stood close to him, crossing one leg in ballerina position to support herself between the two, but found it difficult to do so, her exposed pussy door like a black hole waiting to devour this man’s silvery white sex. She padded up on her toes and grabbed Rory’s shoulders as he gently gripped her waist, supporting her in a position that was agonizingly difficult for me, and Carla was obviously much more relaxed.
She slowly lowered herself onto the top of his cock as it disappeared into her cave. Rory still clung to her for support as her body next to his began to shiver slightly.
Matson braced his hand under my jowls, causing my head to tilt back, and I looked up into the dark sky, which was hung with certain bird-like objects that were so huge they seemed grotesque.
She spoke again in that sharp nasal-singing tone, uttering many long-syllable words like a hymn or a song. Her body swayed in a sensual dance, her pussy door sucking and eating the root like a butterfly with wings.
“They taught us how to make men happy. Bowing down to a man’s intentions, we were vessels for his pleasure, and we were taught to wriggle our respective muscles in strange ways so that the man could quickly produce abundant life.”
She put her hands on Rory’s shoulders and drew back to avoid him, his cock slipped out of her but he hadn’t climaxed yet, the intensity was faintly visible on the membranous skin filled with sexual slime, Carla wrapped her hands around his neck, “Ha!” She said suddenly and jumped.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, crossed her ankles over her back, and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. She bent back and he did the same, fighting her weight to stand and stabilize himself.
I watched his face turn pale from the impact and her hole was gone. She may have snapped the section of cock that was inside her with a yelp.
She bobbed sharply on his upper side, her cunt fluttering up and down against him so tightly that she was able to fuck him while he remained tightly embraced. Suddenly he roared and jerked his hips back and forth several times.
Kara waited until he calmed down. Then let go of his neck and hugged him tightly situated. His hands were placed under her arms, and then, extremely slowly, she arched her back.
He was a little unsteady on his feet as her weight pressed downward, and before long, her hands went over her head and her body was bent so tightly that she was able to support herself with her hands on the ground, still keeping his sex inside her.
He stood dumbfounded, as if recovering from a great illness.
Carla uncrossed her ankles and gradually spread her legs, and by her own strength she drew back to avoid the man, avoiding his genitals until she was standing upside down on her own two hands, her legs one forward and one behind her, performing a two-legged split in the air.
Moonlight glinted off the dark cavern between her legs, gradually coming into view, the thin, curving pussy door swollen and pouting outward. The labia stood up and seemed to twist in the vague light. The clitoris stood free and erect, at least an inch large and proudly erect. Slowly her vaginal opening, again switching faces and full of wrinkled muscles opened again, as if looking for the next cock.
Rory takes a step back, a wisp of vapor wafting into the frigid air, and Masson lets go of me. “I…” he says in a breathy noise, and I feel his body swinging at the girl.
I grabbed him and hit him hard in the face. He covered his cheek with his hand and looked at me in horror, “That’s witchcraft,” I said noisily, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
The thing in the sky, suddenly crow-like, cawed with a loud, raspy taunt. I resisted the urge to kiss Kara’s prancing flesh as Rory got himself properly dressed and stepped backward silently.
Matson said, “Sidney.”
“No!” I said.
The moon floats behind a dark cloud, and the wind boisterously swirls back, sucking at the roots of our hair. The bird-shaped thing faded into the sky, and the good Kara tumbled down, landing on her feet and grabbing her clothes.
Lori helped her get dressed. Both walked mutely into the cave.
“What happened?” Masson asked in a strange voice.
“You should know better.” My voice was harsh.
“Why should I know?”
“You caused this, you and Carl, you made this replica and you know the difference between them. When I put it on in your room, you knew what was happening.”
“We did that?”
“All because of this mask.”
“Sidney.” He said disappointed. “You really disappoint me.”
“Dammit, I’m the one who’s upset, I know that everything is wrong and everything that should be cursed is not justified. There is some extremely crazy reason for this whole thing, in fact you know very well what Carla is up to with that thing.”
“I don’t know.” The lust died out of him. “I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”
The next day, Martha, looking a little sickly and with some slight coughing of the cane, scratched out the search for us. We left her alone and lit a small fire and piled up a lot of firewood. The cold and damp were attacking us.
When we reached the cave, Rory called out to Matson and me. He gazed at us both, his face a little unnatural. “I suggest we’d better follow Carla,” he said.
“Why?” Masson said.
Rory said bitterly, “It’s all your doing. Sidney, come with me.”
I stared at Carla, who was aimlessly trudging in a direction completely opposite to Martha’s instructions. She seemed to be singing. The sky was azure blue, the sun shining warmly, a few wisps of clouds in the sky like torn thin silks, a mist rising from the forest below, thin ghost-like columns of vapor emanating from the humid trees, drifting slowly upward into the wide blue warm air.
“I think we should stay close to Carla,” I said slowly. “I’m worried about her condition.
”
The three of us trailed Carla with unease.
She kept going without looking back, probably sensing that we were trailing behind her, yet she didn’t seem to care about our presence, stopping from time to time to pick a small mountain flower. She zigzagged along at a slow pace until she came to a place where a short wall stood above her.
The water cascaded down the edge and made a circular arc in the clear sky . Small blue flowers grew on the clay-covered, green-lashed, damp rocks, and tiny reddish-brown horses leaped and chirped noisily among them.
I saw a hummingbird and heard its wings lifting and pleasant buzzing.
Turning to the waterfall on the left, a deep fissure was embedded in the rock, with a series of precarious stone steps running upward along it, and Kara began to climb these steps.
I was sandwiched between two men, glad they would give me a hand, as the crack tapered off into a chimney-like. Fractured rock, occasionally crumbling down to our feet, Carla climbed upward as if her feet had wings. We had to struggle to keep up.
I couldn’t make it to the final summit, how Carla was able to get on was a mystery, even Rory couldn’t make it until Matson made him step dangerously on his shoulder so that Rory could climb to the top.
After a while I calmly wondered if he would leave me and Matson there. But he quickly held out a hand, and I stood firm against the rock, curved my palm into a loop, and with all my strength, lifted him upward. Rory grabbed him and yanked him up.
The two men then dragged me up again by brute force.
“I hope that’s the only means you have of having a woman.” I sneered back.
Carla was oblivious to all this and suddenly we lost sight of her.
We began to search, looking for any sign of her, when suddenly there was a loud cacophony of blackened bats swooping straight out from the center of the hard rock. A narrow, straight crack opened up and we dove in.
Matson said, “Martha should be here.”
“Then go back and get her, hero.” I interjected.
In the darkness, ahead of us, Kara screamed shrilly.
“Don’t leave,” Matson shouted. “We’re right here.”
Rory pulled the candle out of his pocket and lit it as we looked around at our surroundings.
We were in the middle of a narrow defile which turned just to the right. We came together and moved slowly as a large number of bats flew out, and when they chirped and swooped down at me, I was foolish enough to lean down close to Matson’s chest while catching the hat on my head so tightly that I didn’t want my hair to get tangled in them.
Lori’s candle led the way. The ground began to dip dramatically and we couldn’t stop our boot-clad feet from sliding.
“Help!” Kara yelled.
“Come on!” I said excitedly.
“No.” Rory’s voice was cold. “Let’s not get in trouble because of her.”
We pushed forward slowly, trying to slide down the futile slope. The narrow junction gradually opened up a bit, and we advanced steadily while holding on to the edge of the rock next to us.
Carla is whimpering and sobbing.
“We’ll be right over.” Rory shouted.
A sudden gust of wind hit my face, interspersed with the strong smell of urine causing me to feel a wave of dizziness. The wind whistled and crashed back and forth between the walls of the letterbox, and I found myself suddenly clinging to Lori’s belt.
He laughed out loud. “It’s starting,” he said gently. “God, it’s starting.” I realized he was calming a huge commotion.
“What happened?” I asked. The voice sounded horrified.
“Follow the scent, Sidney, don’t be afraid.” His voice was full of excitement and I let go of him.
He stopped abruptly as the floor cut off at our feet and a cave appeared, from which Kara’s whimpers came up.
Rory placed the candle carefully on the ground. He got down on his stomach and examined the perimeter of the stone cave carefully, then took out his flashlight and shined it downward. “Are you hurt, Kara.” He said very softly.
“Rory,” she cried with a low sob.
“You stay right there, honey, and tell me, what’s down there?”
“Help me up, I don’t like it here, pull me up.”
“This is the cave, my dear, and there’s no need to rush back now.”
The wind whistled wildly up from the cave, whistling, whistling, whistling.
“Which way is it, Carla? Why don’t you go through this hole on the lower side and follow this letterway, okay?” Rory swung the torch in his hand upward and shone it across the top of the sloping chute, where the narrow path continued on the farther side.
“Pull me up.”
“What exactly did the mask say to you?”
The blood in my body froze at once. Unconsciously drawing the knife from its sheath and pressing it against Rory’s neck, he slumped forward and was closing in on the cave, so startled that his whole body stiffened.
I grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head backward tight against the tip of the knife. “Kara.” I yelled.
“Hey, is that Sidney? Is Martha there?”
“Not in, sweetheart, hold on tight. We’ll throw down the rope later, are you hurt?”
“No, not too great, scared the hell out of me, Sidney.”
“Don’t worry, there are three of us, don’t be afraid.”
“What the hell am I doing here?” She huffed. “How did all this happen? When I fell down, I thought it was a dream.”
I moved back, away from the edge of the hole, and let Rory sit up. He looked at me in the candlelight, his off-color face shining. “Get her out.” I said.
“Sidney, she knows where to go.”
“Pull her up quickly.”
He laughed out loud. “I could kill you with this knife.”
“Had you done that, Matson would have pushed you down the hole, and he’s been looking for that opportunity.”
Rory takes the rope from his backpack.
I stretched my body into the hole, shining my flashlight downward, and lowered the rope to where I could see it.
Kara looked upward at me, that face terrified and white, with deep darkness everywhere.
“Tell her,” said Lori, “to put the noose around her.”
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready.” She smiled at me, her panic not subsiding. “Okay,” I said to the men.
They both dragged slowly as Kara steadily rose, finally helping her upward over the hole.
I reach my arm out and wrap it tightly around her and brush the hair back from her face. “Better now?”
I mumbled and whispered.
“I’m fine, I’m so sorry for acting like a child.”
“You’ve been a little less lucid today.” I said carefully. “We saw you wandering off and trailed behind you, and then you found this cave, it’s amazing, Kara, this could very well be the cave, the one with the unusual buried mask.”
“Don’t go back into that horrible hole.”
“Of course not.”
Sudden hot excitement spread throughout my body, dissolving every bloodline. It was the first time I knew I had the desire to seek the truth. The first moment of true belief, of conviction in that mask, in the cave, in the possibility of finding Vicar Bamba.
I turned to the two men. “Listen,” I said. “It is Martha’s prerogative that Jack and the others return this afternoon. I propose that we go back to camp quickly and tell Martha to make preparations for everything here. We’ll bring more candles and kerosene lamps.”
“We haven’t seen the pictures yet?” Matson said, pointing to the camera, and I knew that for all this he had color film and a flash.
“We’re well aware of exactly this place.” Rory said, his eyes sparkling. He grabbed Kara in a handful of hair and kissed her lips softly, “Dear Kagome,” he cheered smugly. “You’re the one who led us right here.”
Carla’s face flushed a light red. I bet she can’t remember last night, she’s not sure what she did.
Things are gradually improving. Martha had regained her strength after her rest, and we were almost all sick with excitement. The excitement of the cave interview had put me as firmly in its grip as anyone else, and while I would not have forgiven Rory for his treatment of Carla in the cave, I could understand the matter.
It’s a frenzy.
We forced ourselves to wait. We decided to move our campsite to the caves early the next morning, and we would leave a message for the rest of the group and mark them along the way.
An hour before sunset they finally climbed the mountain, and as it grew dark and we all ate our fill and lay with bulging stomachs in the smoky cave listening to Matson melancholically playing the harmonica, Lori asked me to take a walk outside.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said happily.
“Don’t be stupid, Sidney, I want to talk to you in confidence.”
“Still wet from Martha’s, honey?” I said softly.
“We’re just talking.”
“It’s weird how many euphemisms there are for describing sexual intercourse.”
“Sidney, please give me a minute.”
I stared at him. “Then fasten your pants, ha!”
We went outside and sat shoulder-to-shoulder looking away at the moon, the moonlight illuminating the emptiness beneath us. “I was just talking to Martha,” Lori said, “about Carla.”
“About Kara what?” I purposely made my voice full of admiration, “She’s very fit and perky, isn’t she?” I was sensitive to his groin, “You’re getting an erection too fast.”
He smiled grudgingly, “That goes from here,” he amended. “You see, we must recognize that there is something rather magical about this mask that guides the way.”
“How do I know!”
“Because you wore it, and that’s how you knew to get out of the lagoon.”
It’s funny, I haven’t quite gotten over that repression. I don’t like it and I abhor the intention to escape control.
I kept my cool. “It’s tricking us,” he says gently, “I’ve tried it too.”
“In the forest?”
“Are you going to try it again, Sidney?”
“No, never. I like to be in control of everything I do, honey.”
“Kara too, mind you, she doesn’t remember everything. I remember, you remember, but she can’t, so she’s one of the safest people to use the mask, it won’t hurt her.”
Indignation quickly swelled in me, “Hey, hey, hey,” I said shrilly, “that’s a little credit, isn’t it?”
“Carla agreed, and so did Martha.”
“Did Martha have her stepdaughter cater to this mask?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sidney. Don’t you see why I’m telling you this? Because I’m going to be protecting her left and right when she’s under its influence.”
There was a brief moment of silence. “You mean you’re going to fuck her,” I corrected.
“Yes, that’s what I mean, and that’s why I’m going to make it clear to you that I owe you so much.
”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“You mustn’t think that; I know the difference well. You are an extremely unusual man, Sidney, and I am extremely curious to know whether the move was worthwhile.”
I was silent, did he think I was a candle? Am I worth the price?
“Martha has accepted you to fuck her daughter.” I finally said.
“Yes, obviously this time the game is coming to an end, and I know they are not related by blood in any way. Carla wasn’t adopted either, but nonetheless, it was distressingly close to incest. I stopped my relationship with Martha as soon as I started having sex with Carla.”
“You will always have a dilemma,” I said slowly. “How do you account for these two women you have sex with when it may or may not work?”
“I have profited greatly from accompanying Martha. She is a versatile and sensual lady, and any man who shares his bed with her would be proud. She is ten years older than me, but it has become a special treat, and in order to increase our chances of finding Vicar Bamba, though it would be regrettable, we could terminate the relationship. With you, however, I am not sure.”
“Me?”
“Once I give you up, maybe I won’t get you again in the future!”
I moved my back, the chill rising from the ground going straight down my spine. “Who says you own me?”
He reached out with it a warm hand to caress my face. “Sidney,” he said in a low, condemning voice, full of amusement.
I sensitively let my face fall back, “So your relationship with Carla has suddenly become monogamous and faithful.”
“I didn’t want this. But I don’t think Carla would allow me to be with you again, and frankly, use my body. But I want you so badly, Sidney, I always miss you, I need the bed, the champagne, the restaurant and to fuck over and over again in your company, to flirt with you, to stab into you, to make you call.”
“I’m having a hard time taking your word for it.”
“Of course you do, other women are susceptible to my deceptions, Carla being one of them. Did it ever occur to you that I find your exciting sneering insights.”
“Don’t brag.”
“Don’t put me in the big bad wolf box, of course I’m a big bad wolf. But it’s the little piggies who opened the door and lit the lights themselves, except for you.”
“I think you’ve eaten me like a delicacy, perhaps my memory is exaggerating.”
“The fact is you gave me permission to come in, you could have said no, you said not this night.”
“You give a whole new meaning to that overconfident phrase.”
“I am not pretending to be with you; I am not lying to you. I am what I am, arrogant, conceited, excitable, dishonest, ambitious, manipulative. I like danger, I mean I prefer the situation, I scoff at danger, Sidney, it’s my vice.”
“You have chosen a peculiar profession.”
“I know exactly what I want and what I can do, and I’m able to endure again and again if necessary. It is my job to keep getting myself into harm’s way, and I’m not going to do the fine work of the Romans or dig up the buried riches of the pirates, Sidney. Up to the present time, I have worked for ten years before and after in South America, and I have been shot at, arrested, and whipped. I’ve also been bitten by snakes, poisonous scorpions, and once I was actually bitten by a poisonous spider.”
“Oops.” I said. “Can I get your autograph manuscript?”
He burst out laughing indulgently. “I might be in love with you.” He said. “Don’t give up on me!”
The next day we relocated our campsite, we really couldn’t figure out what the cave was going to tell us or how the masks could help, yet each of us was so excited that our emotions were running high and our nerves were on edge.
We tied a rope into a crack in the rock that would have given us trouble earlier. Poor Carla did not believe that she had gone up alone without our pushing her. We did not wish her to be uncertain of her direction or afraid, and she had changed as she wished, showing a boldness, a confidence, as if she had gained some secret knowledge. I think it is a very accurate way of looking at things, and she has become somewhat of an authority, and the rest of us are now under her, and we have to depend on her progress, and she has humbly tolerated us.
Frankly, she needs her ass to keep making noise.
I don’t understand how Lori puts up with all this, she absolutely owns him, she flaunts him a lot, especially to Margaret and me. It was madness, and I could say that he was the last thing Margaret wanted, and I couldn’t understand how she knew what was going on between him and me, and we were always so careful. The things Lorry told me made me sick to my stomach, but I tried to ignore them, and at least Carla had a reason not to object to Martha, before whom she was still as meek and kind and loving as ever.
So Martha couldn’t even see what the rest of us could see, the girl had changed so much.
Jack could see that, and his beady eyes paid attention to Rory for a moment, and I don’t think Jack will be affected by Rory’s magic any longer.
Despite having been there yesterday, we found it difficult to find the entrance to the cave. The similarities and intricacies of the terrain simply baffled us until Martha stuck her hand inside and leaned against the rock with an indignant expression.
“Hey, compatriots,” I shouted as we were getting ready to go into the cave. “Hey, suppose we all go in and something happens, like a rock falls or something? Who’s going to come to the aid?”
There was a moment of silence.
“What kind of assistance?” Rory asked. “You mean the emergency call while we were traveling through the jungle?”
“It will only take two days to get down to Pepper’s. We’ve got plenty of food and water with us, and there are intake holes in that place where we felt a strong wind yesterday.”
The wind was howling wildly, and it wasn’t delightful.
Margaret said, “Martha, I’m claustrophobic and I don’t like this place at all. Mason will show me the pictures later, I’ll just stay out here and wait, I’m tired, I’m just ready for a break.”
The advice was taken, and she stayed comfortably in her pack, the hammocks of the group, the cooking utensils, and all our piles of clothing. We entered the cave with the simplest equipment on our backs, and advanced in a column, Martha leading because it was her expedition, and Lori following close behind, knotted to each other with ropes, and he knotted the jacks together in order, so that if Martha should fall, the two men would be able to rescue her at once.
The rest of the men then arranged themselves, untethered. We crossed the pit into which Carla had fallen, and again I became aware of the air currents drumming ceaselessly around the huge cavern, and it seemed to me that the air was full of consciousness, as if the cave were breathing. In truth, I was in shock.
We carried two lighted kerosene lamps and a bucket of spare oil; they were much more economical than candles and flashlights, and we had a very limited electric he stash.
The channel remained narrow and meandered into the center of the great mountain. It was dry and very warm all around, and the two walls sparkled with tiny quartz stones and crystals that reflected the light into a myriad of stars.
We moved on, down into the mountain. Somewhere in the center came a rumbling sound, deep and regular sounding like a pulse beat, as if the mountain was alive.
“What makes that sound?” I asked Colin jitterily.
“I think it’s the wind.”
“Is this place hard to understand?”
He didn’t answer. I found him very reticent. “Is this all the sandstone?” I inquired.
“Limestone,” came the low, deep reply from his throat. “The Amazon Basin has extremely old guard rocks; it was once an inland sea, and the vast majority of the piles have been subject to erosion since that time.
Scattered exposed sections like these have been preserved to this day.”
“How do you feel about that mask?” I said that I found him a difficult man to understand.
He’s always kept himself closed up tight, which is exactly the opposite extreme of the outgoing Rory.
Colin was reticent for a moment, then he said, almost curtly. “I don’t think it’s relevant, or maybe you do, it doesn’t play any role at all, everything Poe develops, time and circumstances change them, meanings change, the scales between things are constantly shifting, that’s why I became an archaeologist.”
“You’re confusing me!”
He glanced at me contemptuously.
After a few narrow passages we finally reached that cave. The walls were damp and shiny, and the stalactites dangling from the top almost touched the stalagmites growing upward from below. Matson tapped them with his own knife as he walked, and when he blew a whistle through his teeth, it produced a distinctive cave music.
Stopped by for some meat and cookies as we prepared for the next step in our program.
“Carl can help us if he’s here.” Martha swept me a reproachful glance as she spoke, “The men who sold him the mask had described this place to him carefully.”
That’s when Kara said, “I’m going to wear a mask.”