The Clue in the Embers (13 page)

All were dazed, but managed to climb out of the car. Jorge, who was stunned, was pulled out by Joe and Frank. The trio scrambled over the boulders, following Tony and Chet in their desperate flight to get as far away as possible from the path of the lava. Seconds later, the destructive stream gushed over Jorge's wrecked car, carrying the taxi with it to the valley below.

“Whew!” sighed Joe, when they stopped running and looked back at the fiery spectacle. “Boy, that was a close call!”

“Thank goodness we're all safe!” said Frank.

“All but my little taxi,” said Jorge. Then suddenly his face brightened. “It's hokay! We got insurance. I will get new taxi from the company,” he said, “with louder horn.”

“But what'll
we
do?” asked Chet. “We've lost our supplies and equipment. All that food,” he moaned.

“We get more!” Jorge said cheerfully.

But the boys did not share his lightheartedness. They were miles from any city or town and now had no means of transportation.

“My cousin Alvero Montero owns
finca,”
Jorge said. “It is long distance but we can walk it easily. He has mules we can borrow.”

The boys gladly accepted the offer and followed Jorge down the mountainside. For the remainder of the day, they trekked through the thick undergrowth of the valley.

Shortly before dusk, the group arrived at the charming Montero plantation. Work had ended for the day, and as the boys approached, the aroma of cooking reached them.

A tall, pleasant-looking man, dressed in work clothes, appeared at the front of the main house.

“My cousin,” said Jorge, and hooted a signal to his relative.

Montero waved and hurried to meet his unexpected guests. “Welcome, Jorge!” he cried in Spanish. “You bring friends? Good. You are all just in time to take dinner with us.”

Then, as the group came closer, he noticed their disheveled condition. “You have been in a battle with rebels?” he continued. “And what are you doing on foot? Where is your taxi, Jorge?”

Almeida introduced the boys and told his cousin of the near tragedy. After expressing his sympathy, the planter looked in amusement at Tony's disguise. “You had me fooled.” Montero laughed. “And I see Indians every day. They work here.”

He invited the group inside and presented the boys to his beautiful Spanish wife and their two small sons. Their host provided the visitors with swimming trunks, and they swam in the cold, clear mountain water of a dammed-up stream near the house. Later, they sat down to eat a lavish steak dinner.

The hungry boys had never tasted a better meal, especially the dessert—bowls piled high with papayas and pineapples.

After dinner Senor Mr. Montero, smoking a slender black cigar, told them that he had not heard of Texichapi. But he would be glad to lend them four mules to take them to the point where they planned to rent animals and equipment for the rest of their trip.

“If anyone in Guatemala knows about Texichapi,” Montero continued, “it will be a remarkable old Indian who lives in a village across the next mountain.”

“Will he talk to us?” Frank asked.

“Yes,” Montero replied. “His name is Tecum-Uman. Tell him I sent you—he knows me well.”

Jorge arranged with his cousin to let the travelers stay overnight and they all slept soundly. Early in the morning he excused himself, saying he would go back to Guatemala City on one of Alvero's mules and report the loss of his car to the taxi company.

The Hardys and their friends prepared to start for the village where Tecum-Uman lived. Señor Montero gave them a supply of food and handed each boy a machete. “With this, you can chop your way through the thickets.”

After thanking the planter for all the favors he had shown them and saying good-by to his family, the boys mounted their animals. Senor Montero said that the mules could be left at the place where they would pick up the others. Two of his workers would bring them back later.

With Tony still wearing the Indian outfit, the quartet began their arduous ride. Because the road was blocked off, they were forced to take a path through the dense forest of the valley.

“I wish we had a guide with us,” Chet remarked.

“What do we need a guide for,” Joe asked, “when we have Big Chief Tony? He will lead us to Tecum-Uman.”

“Si,
we no get lost,
amigos,”
Tony said with a stony face. “Only trouble is, wig itches!” He scratched his head and laughed.

The talk shifted to the treasure.

“What do you think it is?” Chet asked.

Frank said, “I've read that when Cortez's captain, Alvarado, conquered this country over four hundred years ago, he reported that the Indians had great quantities of gold and precious jewels. Some of this treasure was buried by earthquakes, fioods, and volcanic eruptions, and people have been searching for it ever since.”

“Don't get your hopes too high,” said Joe. “You may end up with some worthless three-eyed stone monsters.”

Several times along the way the quartet overtook small groups of homeless refugees whose houses and land had been devastated by the same volcano which nearly cost the boys their lives. The elderly people and children were riding burros, but the middle-aged group trudged along on foot, carrying their salvaged goods on the three-foot-high
cacaxtles
strapped to their heads and shoulders with cowhide thongs.

Each time the boys met these groups, Tony tried out his dialect, asking the people about the location of Texichapi. To his delight, they understood him and seemed to accept him as a member of some other tribe, but the boys were disappointed not to learn anything about Texichapi.

Traveling at a brisker pace than the heavily laden people, they quickly moved out ahead of the refugees. In midafternoon, as they approached the Indian village where Jorge's cousin thought Tecum-Uman might live, the four riders came upon another group of natives on the narrow trail. Tony prepared to try out his disguise once again.

As the group rode up, the mounted Indians suddenly spotted Tony and cried frantically,
“Shaman! Shaman!”

They made a quick flanking movement and encircled the stunned boys. Before Tony could even open his mouth, the attackers had grabbed him, pulled him onto a horse ridden by the fiercest-looking of the lot, and galloped off.

“They've kidnapped him!” Chet cried out.

 

 

 

 

As Chet made a mad dash after Tony's kidnappers, Frank called him back.

To his amazement, the Hardys were grinning.

“How can you stand there laughing when Tony's in trouble? Why don't we do something?”

“Calm down, Chet,” Joe said. “Didn't you hear what those Indians were yelling?”

“It sounded like
shaman,”
Chet replied.

“Exactly,” Frank said. “And that means sooth-sayer.” Shading his eyes from the sun, Frank peered ahead. “Looks as if they're taking Tony to the village. They probably think he's some sort of traveling magic man.”

Chet sighed in relief.

Joe, however, was worried. “I sure hope Tony can get away with it,” he reflected. “If they find out he's not a shaman—”

“Suppose we all wander into the village,” Frank proposed. “By the time we get there they'll probably have elected Tony chief of the tribe!”

With Joe leading Tony's mule, the procession started along the trail.

“What's so wonderful about a shaman?” Chet questioned.

“He's a mixture of priest and poet,” Frank replied. “Whatever the shaman says goes. He is supposed to be able to see into the future. One ritual he performs is called ‘telling the mixes.' ”

“What's that?” Chet asked eagerly.

“When a person plans to do something on a certain day,” Frank explained, “and he wants to be sure it's the right time, he calls on a shaman. This man arranges some red beans from a pita tree and then he burns some stuff called copal, says his mumbo jumbo, and announces to the man whether it's the lucky day or not.”

“We could use a shaman for our Bayport High football schedule,” Joe remarked with a laugh.

Suddenly the trail turned sharply into the cobbled main street of the village. Adobe shacks with thatched roofs lined both sides. Indians huddled against the poles that supported the shop roofs.

There was no sign of their friend or of the group that had borne him off. But Frank felt certain that the Indians would release Tony as soon as they discovered their mistake.

“While we're waiting, let's ask one of these men about Tecum-Uman,” he suggested.

Frank went along the line asking the same question of each of the stolid, poker-faced natives. He got only a cold stare in return.

“Well, that went over like a lead balloon,” he said a bit angrily. “Let's look around for Tony.”

At the end of the street stood a low whitewashed building with a long porch. It looked like a shop. Half a dozen natives were moving about in front of the place, which appeared to be the only spot in the village with any activity.

“That must be where they took Tony,” Joe said.

The trio rode to the end of the street and dismounted near the building. At first the natives paid little attention to them. But when Joe walked up to a man near the door and asked him in Spanish if he might go in and look around, the Indian scowled. He shook his head as if he did not understand Spanish and made a threatening gesture.

“Don't get tough,” Joe said in English. “I'll just walk in.”

“Careful, Joe!” Frank warned.

But his brother reached for the knob. At once two men stepped up, one on each side of the boy and struck him across the cheeks with the butt of their hard, bony hands. The force of the unexpected blows caused Joe to lose his balance and fall backward. Furious, he picked himself up and rushed at the bigger Indian, punching him soundly in the jaw.

“That was a beauty,” Frank cried out.

The man's eyes glazed and his knees sagged, then he dropped with a half-turn to the porch.

“We'll take this one!” Frank yelled as he swept past Joe to meet the charge of the second man. Dodging a vicious blow, Frank swiftly crouched, grabbed his adversary's knees and hurled him to the floor. As he straightened up and turned to Joe, the doors of the building were flung wide open. Through the entrance swarmed the whole group of kidnappers.

Seeing their guards lying stunned on the floor, the angered Indians attacked the boys. The youths fought violently, but, being greatly outnumbered, were overwhelmed and quickly bound. Their captors, who had not spoken a word, led them through the doorway.

Inside, natives were carrying armfuls of mahogany wood to the center of the room. Other men sat silently in a circle. The building was not a shop after all, but some kind of ceremonial hall. Tony was not in sight. The captured boys were taken to the center of the circle.

“Look, they're starting a fire!” Chet's face turned white when an old man stepped forward from the circle and ignited the chips.

Standing inside the ring of about forty Indians who sat glowering at them, the Hardys whispered words of encouragement to each other and to Chet.

Some of the smoke was escaping through an opening in the roof, but the place was already hazy. The three boys began to cough.

“Maybe this is part of the curse that Willie Wortman warned us about!” Chet moaned. “We'll never get out of here alive!”

Frank, trying to keep up his courage, said he was afraid that the Indians had overheard them talking about the treasure. If this were the case and he could convince them that they did not intend to steal any of it, the boys might go free. But before Frank had a chance to try to speak up, Joe exclaimed, “Look what's happening now!”

The men in the circle began to chant on a single low note. Then two drummers entered the circle and started an accompaniment.

The sound of the beating drums grew louder. The men seated in the ring made rhythmic motions with their hands. The chanting increased in fervor—louder and louder, until the boys could no longer hear each other speak.

Snakelike, the circle came to life as the men, one by one, slowly rose to their feet and started stamping, sending clouds of dust swirling off the earth floor into the smoke-blue atmosphere.

At the entrance to the building stood four weirdly painted dancers wearing feathered head-dresses. With a savage throbbing of the drums, these half-naked Indians, brandishing long spears, leaped into the moving circle of stamping fanatics. As they whirled past the boys, the prisoners could see the milk-white and scarlet streaks of paint on the dancers' faces and the eerie blue lines daubed along their sweating shoulders.

“Kai-ee tamooka! Kai-ee tamooka!”
the entire circle bellowed as the big dance got under way.

The solo dancers moved to the right as the circle stamped clockwise. Dust and smoke almost blinded the boys. The drummers started a faster beat. The chanting became a half-scream.

Then, as if by some invisible signal, the wild frenzy came to a sudden end. The performers stood as if frozen. Then a slow thump—thump—thumping of a lone drum began. Slowly the men in the circle re-formed their ring and crouched in silence on the dirt floor. A moment later the circle moved in on the boys and the dying fire.

Now the oldest man arose and approached the low-burning fire. With his arms extended, palms up, he stood for several moments without uttering a sound. Then, as several of the elder members of the circle began to murmur, the leader pulled a long stick from a sheath. With it he poked about in the embers. Scraping carefully, he heaped up a cone-shaped pile like those the boys had seen before!