A Golden Legend

Chapter 24

Leaves moved imperceptibly from the foliage surrounding the camp, the brightness of the reflection of the little light that filtered among the shade of trees revealed binocular lenses. The man in camouflage jacket, lying motionless on the ground covered with leaves slightly moved his arms to be able to focus on another part of the vivac. Although there wasn´t considerable distance to the tents circle centre, he watched with the binoculars not to miss a detail. Once satisfied by the results of his inspection he began to crawl backwards without almost disturbing the bushes surrounding him; his feline movements betrayed someone with great training in travel in the jungle with maximum stealth. After going back that way about sixty feet,  he judged that he could merge partially and run through the forest, always without making noises that would betray his presence. He finally came up to where the rest of his men were waiting for him. One of them reached the cutting-edge satellite communications equipment.

“Alo! Yes, we have already located them... yes; at the coordinates that we received... they have moved their camp beside the stream. So far they have found at least two houses in ruins... well, we will continue to monitor them... no, they do not suspect anything.”

A week after the first finding they had already detected twenty three houses, built with the same type of stone and technique and all in a similar state of abandonment. An inspection to both the territory and the available maps made them boast that the rocks had been transported from some mountain ranges whose closest foothills were located about five miles away, which of itself represented a remarkable logistic effort, given the impenetrable forest the stones had to travel through.

The houses were distributed within a radius of about three hundred yards around a natural spring, from which flowed a stream of crystal clear water.

“They found here everything what they were looking for” explained didactically McPherson to its collaborators “a source of water that even today, centuries later, can be safely drunk. They had access to a jungle that would provide them hunting game. They also had land in abundance for their crops, after clearing it of its jungle cover. Last but not least they were surrounded by a dense forest that hid them from potential enemies” he made a pause and added in a reflective tone “we must not forget that it was basically people expelled or self-exiled of the Inca Empire, and perhaps persecuted after their escape.”

At that point they heard the characteristic sound of the helicopter that had been hired to visit them with a frequency of once per week. It brought packaged and fresh food for the teams, spare parts for their equipment and new members that were added to the expedition. The helicopter was their only physical contact with the outside world, it brought back people who already had served they purpose, broken pieces of different pieces of equipment to be repaired, and written and filmed reports on the progress of the search, essential for keeping  sponsors informed and willing to open their wallets and provide fresh funds. Precisely this was a task where McPherson outperformed.

To her chagrin, Teresa felt once more admiration for the teacher, his synthesis power and his capacity to explain the meaning of unclear data. These virtues were added to his professional honesty.

“My mistake” she reflected “was confusing this purely intellectual linkage with affection.”

Marcelo´s mind ran along similar paths. On the one hand it wasn´t easy for him harboring negative feelings like jealousy by the professor, on the other he couldn´t very well understood what a spirited young as Teresa had once seen in him. He tried to remove from his head all spurious thoughts, since in that place both closed and remote were all interdependent on basic issues that had to do with survival. In addition, he thought that the Potter who had kneaded his mind and soul had forgotten including many virtues in the clay, but had at least not included vicious feelings such as envy and jealousy. He thanked for being relatively free of such negativism, which affected so many of his friends.

One day a ruin that was notoriously different from the others was discovered. It was a great space without interior divisions, with a single door, whose sides were partially collapsed. After a functional analysis and taking into account some plant debris that were still in the ground, Jimenez predicted that it was a barn.

“According to what Professor Gamarra told me” he said alluding to one of the Peruvian archaeologists who had joined recently the expedition “this is a very common Inca construction in settlements located in the hills and mountains, and that apparently the Incas have brought this layout from their lands to this so different environment. This would reinforce the presumption that part of the land surrounding the site would have been cleared at the time and used on crops. Once the inhabitants abandoned them, forest advanced on agricultural lands once again taking his revenge.

The finding confirmed the nature of long-term permanence of the builders of the found houses, strengthening the researcher’s belief of being in a good track.