A Golden Legend

Chapter 23

Already four days had passed since the fortuitous discovery of carved stone. The contingent, including members who were in the base camp, had moved to the site: McPherson was exultant because the random finding had saved them the usual weeks of search until hitting a promising site, and thus a considerable amount of money.

They had also asked radio manpower reinforcements in order to clear weed from the places of interest within a radius of 1,000 yards around the stone. A score of additional workers would arrive in the following days in response to that request. Four groups of laborers led each one by an expert archaeologist roamed the jungle to locate probable sites.

Teresa was leading one of those groups made up three pawns, to which Marcelo had been attached. They were making their way in a direction in which the jungle was especially dense with trees of different sizes linked by a real curtain of vines; myriads of birds raised flight on their way, angered by their annoying intrusion while numerous parrots chattered disturbed; small monkeys watched them curious from the high branches, throwing some harmless projectiles, and some predator hid among the foliage.

Teresa was in the state near ecstasy usually produced to her by the contact with wild nature, with its chorus of murmurs, his palette of bold colors and their varied scents. The girl touched once the bark of a tree, then the texture of a rock, to complete the visual and auditory stimuli with the sensory experience. Marcelo watched her from behind and apprehended the true character of his girlfriend: essentially a free being, in peace with the natural world. This almost idyllic perception of the woman he loved put him in a good mood while he went to good stride after drying the sweat squirting from the forehead and scaring away countless insects seeking to settle on his face and hands, only exposed parts of his body. They had had s*x the night before and felt slightly its effects. Suddenly, Teresa paused to contemplate an impenetrable mass of vegetation on her right. Marcelo approached her:

“What, have you seen something?”asked her.

The young woman did not answer him, he observed her face and saw her staring, and tried to visually penetrate the forest with her. After a few moments she turned herself and looked at him.

“There is something odd in this mass of plants” “she replied, and then addressing Raul, one of the laborers commanded “please clear the branches in this part.”

“Have you had one of your visions? You had the same look that time in Yucatan.”

“Yes, I have a feeling that there is something worth seeing in that direction.”

Three workers began clearing weeds in the direction indicated by Teresa, away of the course that they had been following until then, and kept doing so during several minutes. Suddenly one of the machetes collided against a hard object by emitting an unpleasant screech.

“Miss, there is a kind of wall beneath these plants” warned Raul.

The heart of Teresa gave a leap; a vertical wall could not be the work of nature.

Gradually the machetes were waging the rocks of its vegetative cover. They could now clearly distinguish large blocks of stone surfaces grossly flattened, with obvious signs of having been worked with primitive tools. The joints between the blocks, with notches and straight angles allowing to assemble them together without mortar were soon exposed.

“Is a typical Inca construction” said Teresa “they knew the secret of building in height without mortar through an almost perfect fit of the stones they used.”

“We would never have found this place without your intuition” replied Marcelo “It´s really is a powerful tool for archaeological searches. You have chosen your profession well.”

She smiled thoughtfully considering the observation of her boyfriend; she had never established that relationship, but she found it wise.

Teresa communicated with McPherson telling him about the novelty; she thus learned that the group commanded by Jimenez and that included Lupita had also made a find, five hundred yards away from the base camp but in the opposite direction. This meant that the alleged ruins covered a fairly wide area, fact that increased the archaeologist’s expectations.

McPherson sent three workers to collaborate with the group led by Teresa, which accelerated the tasks. At seven in the evening the general construction layout that had been found was evident: a stone square house, of about eighteen feet on each side, about the maximum measure that would meet the possibilities of covering the house with a roof made with elements available in the area. Three of the walls were partially ruined and were not signs of the ceiling, surely   of vegetable nature and that presumably would have long ago be scavenged. The dwelling door place was well preserved, and was no more than four and a half feet high.

“Short people indeed, to go through it I must bend” said Marcelo, almost six feet three inches tall.

“You can't expect to enter comfortably in Inca dwellings, when you barely fit in a hotel bed” Teresa answered too quickly; when she realized the pawns had heard it she blushed; with a gesture she chased away the shame of her mind. There was no room in her for any other feeling than excitement for the finding.