Hunt at the Well of Eternity (18 page)

Podnemovitch rolled away from Gabriel’s shots. The slugs stitched into the water barrels instead as Podnemovitch took cover behind them. Water began to spurt from the holes.

Esparza shouted in fury as he saw the water splashing on the ground—perhaps, Gabriel thought, he hadn’t entirely accepted that the water had lost its power. Esparza jerked his pistol from the holster at his waist and fired at Gabriel and Fargo, forcing them to veer apart so that the bullets passed between them.

Fargo’s gun jammed. He threw it aside, and at that moment one of his men came running up and held something out to him.

“General! We found it in the hut with the guns!”

Fargo wrapped his hand around the hilt of a cavalry saber. A smile appeared on his weathered old face. “My good friend,” he said, and Gabriel wasn’t sure if he was talking to the man who had brought him the saber—or to the blade itself.

With a chilling Rebel yell, Fargo lifted the saber and charged through the chaos toward Esparza.

Gabriel, meanwhile, went after Podnemovitch. Like Fargo, he’d already emptied his pistol, so he charged bodily into the barrels, sending them crashing against the Russian. Podnemovitch yelled as the barrels tumbled around him, knocking him over and dashing the guns from his fists.

Gabriel bounded over one of the barrels and tackled Podnemovitch as the man tried to get up. They rolled over and Gabriel realized they were just inches from the lip of the well. Podnemovitch wound up on top, and he managed to get his hands around Gabriel’s neck.

“Here we are again,” the Russian said, breathing heavily. “Just like in New York. I seem forever to be strangling you, Hunt. But this time—” he said, squeezing viciously “—I am going…to make it…
stick
.”

Gabriel had the fingers of one hand inside Podnemovitch’s grip, and that was the only thing that had kept the Russian from crushing his larynx—so far.

The faces of the two men were only inches apart as the desperate struggle continued. Between gritted teeth, Podnemovitch said, “Do you want to know how my shoulder healed so fast after you bayoneted me, Hunt? Do you?” A harsh laugh came from him. “I drank the water that dog Hector brought to Mexico City! The water
does
work. I will live forever, you fool!”

Gabriel had been gathering his strength while Podnemovitch gloated. Now he acted, using all the power in his rangy body to arch himself up from the flagstones and plant a knee in Podnemovitch’s belly. At the same time, he grabbed the collar of the Russian’s shirt and heaved as hard as he could. With a startled yell, Podnemovitch went up and over Gabriel’s head…

And into the Well of Eternity.

Gabriel rolled over onto his belly and gasped for breath as he heard the huge splash from the bottom of the well. He didn’t know how deep it was, but with its smooth, slimy sides, Podnemovitch wouldn’t be able to climb out. Unless—

Gabriel raced to the pump, struggled to detach the suction mechanism leading down into the Well. From far below, he heard Podnemovitch grab hold and slowly begin an ascent. He was climbing the hose.

“I’ll kill you, Hunt,”
came the Russian’s voice, echoing from deep within the Well.

Gabriel wrestled with the end of the hose that was connected to the pump, trying to unlatch it. The thing was firmly attached, and Podnemovitch’s weight was making it impossible to loosen it.

“It won’t take me long to climb out,”
the Russian taunted,
“and when I do, I will kill you most painfully.”
And indeed his voice was louder, closer than it had been. It wouldn’t take him long.

Gabriel searched the ground for anything he might be able to use. He saw a knife lying half in shadow and snatched it up, began using it to saw away at the hose. The damn thing was too thick to cut quickly.

“Just fifteen feet, Hunt,”
the Russian jeered. Then:
“Fourteen.”

Gabriel swept sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand while he kept sawing with the other. The surface of the hose was finally showing signs of stress as he ran the blade furiously across it, back and forth, pressing hard with each stroke. The material was starting to part, to separate, and as it did, the pressure of the water inside helped drive the cut open wider.

“Just five more feet, you son of a bitch,”
Podnemovitch called.

Then the hose split, with a popping sound. Water went gushing everywhere, and Gabriel heard the big Russian fall once more, bellowing as he plunged. The severed hose whipped through the air, then dropped into the Well.

“Now try to climb out,” Gabriel muttered. “You son of a bitch.”

Gabriel heard another sound, a quieter cry of pain, and turned. A few yards away, General Fargo was struggling with Esparza. The general had hold of Esparza’s right wrist and was straining to keep the man’s gun aimed away from him; at the same time, Esparza was twisting Fargo’s right wrist so that the general couldn’t use his cavalry saber. It was a stalemate…but one that Esparza was slowly winning. It was Fargo who’d let out the whimper of pain that Gabriel had heard.

Suddenly, with a wrenching twist, Esparza jerked his gun hand free and swung the pistol toward Fargo. The muzzle was almost touching the general’s chest when flame spurted from it. Fargo rocked back as the bullet drove into his body.

“Granville!” Mariella screamed and ran toward him.

Fargo dropped his sword as he collapsed. Mariella scooped it up and slashed at Esparza, driving him back. He howled in pain as the blade cut across his face, laying his cheek open to the bone. Cursing, Esparza swung his gun around and fired twice, hitting Mariella both times in the chest. She staggered and fell, collapsing next to Fargo.

Gabriel surged to his feet and started for Esparza. He didn’t have a gun, just the knife, but at the moment he didn’t particularly care. He was prepared to kill the man with his bare hands if necessary.

Esparza fired again. The bullet ripped along Gabriel’s side, spinning him around and dropping him to his knees. The wound wasn’t bad—he could breathe, he didn’t think he was bleeding too badly. But it had stopped him, and now Esparza had drawn a bead on him for a finishing shot.

Before Esparza could pull the trigger, though, Cierra let go with a burst of fire that chewed up the ground around his feet. Esparza turned and dashed away into the darkness.

Gabriel struggled to his feet, one hand clamped to his wounded side, aware that the shooting was dying out around him. He saw bodies scattered around the plaza, some Esparza’s men, others wearing the rustic clothes of the Cuchatlán dwellers. He also saw the living, the few who remained standing. And those, thank God, included none of Esparza’s men.

Gabriel saw Fargo’s saber lying on the ground next to the general and Mariella. He picked it up, pausing just long enough to confirm the worst: Both of them were dead.

Before dying, Mariella had managed to reach out and take Fargo’s hand. They lay there together, hands clasped in death, just like in their wedding photograph.

“Gabriel!” Cierra cried as he started toward the jungle. “What are you doing?”

He glanced back at her, saw that she appeared to be all right, and said, “Going after Esparza.”

Then, clutching the saber, he ran in the direction Esparza had fled.

Esparza didn’t have much of a lead, and Gabriel could hear him crashing through the vegetation ahead. Normally, Gabriel was confident he could have overtaken Esparza fairly quickly, but desperation gave the man strength and speed he might not have had otherwise and Gabriel’s wound slowed him down.

Where were the damn snakes and jaguars when you needed them, Gabriel thought. If Esparza ran into one of those predators, it would slow him down, maybe even finish him off.

It seemed that the only predator abroad in the jungle tonight, though, was man.

Cuchatlán fell far behind them. Gabriel’s heart slugged in his chest, and his lungs struggled to draw in enough of the tropical air. Sweat drenched him. But he kept moving, kept following Esparza’s ragged trail.

If Esparza reached the Blade of the Gods and made it across, he might be able to get back to the trucks. He had probably left some men there, and he might try to return with them to Cuchatlán and finish off the survivors. Even if he didn’t do that tonight, he could flee back to Mexico City, put together another expedition, and start this unholy affair all over again. This had to end now.

Gabriel suddenly broke out of the clinging vegetation and found himself on the grassy verge at the edge of the gorge. Esparza was about a fourth of the way across the sagging rope bridge. Gabriel could see him plainly in the moonlight.

He dragged a deep breath into his body and then called, “Esparza!”

Out on the bridge, Esparza stopped and turned. He flung up his pistol and fired as Gabriel ducked aside. The bullet whipped past Gabriel’s head and whined off into the jungle.

“You’ll never make it, Esparza,” Gabriel called.

“Why not?” the man demanded as he pointed the gun at Gabriel again. “Tell me why I will not return in triumph to Cuchatlán some other day?”

“Because earlier,” Gabriel said, “I cut through all but one strand of one of these anchor ropes, remember?”

And with that, Gabriel swept General Fargo’s saber up brought it slashing down, parting the last of the ropes.

Esparza cried out in terror and rage. He fired his gun but the shot went blindly overhead. The anchor rope, meanwhile, slapped through the air with a loud twang and the planks of the bridge clattered violently as they struck against one another. Esparza dropped the gun and grabbed for the guide rope with both hands, but his fingers slipped off it. He grabbed at the planks as they went out from under him. He screamed as splinters dug into his scrabbling hands, but he couldn’t hold on.

Still screaming, Esparza plunged out of sight into the thick darkness that cloaked the gorge. Gabriel listened hard and heard the screams all the way down…and the ripe thud that ended them.

He stood there for a long moment, breathing heavily and resting his free hand on one of the bridge posts.

Then, still carrying General Fargo’s saber, he turned and started back to Cuchatlán.

Two weeks later, in the Hunt Foundation brownstone, Michael called Gabriel and Cierra into his office from the library adjacent to it. Cierra had spent quite a few hours in the library since arriving in New York, poring through all the relevant volumes of history and archaeology the foundation possessed.

The days following the battle had seen more tragedy, as the years inevitably caught up to the oldest survivors of Cuchatlán, no matter how much water they drank from the Well. The younger members of the lost city’s population were still alive, but most now wore the look of octogenarians.

The general and Mariella had been laid to rest side by side on a small hill overlooking the valley. Cierra had led the survivors in a prayer while Gabriel stood to one side and watched.

The other dead had been buried as well, with headstones for the residents of Cuchatlán and unmarked graves for Esparza’s men. Podnemovitch was one Gabriel had been particularly glad to see the last of. They’d found the big Russian floating face down; he must have hit his head and been knocked unconscious the second time he fell. The waters of the Well of Eternity might once have held the secret of eternal life, but Podnemovitch had drowned just fine in them.

Leaving Cuchatlán had not been easy. It had required Gabriel to make two dangerous climbs on the sheer rock face of the gorge, one down and one up, the latter with the severed end of the rope bridge strapped to his shoulders. Fortunately the natives had supplied plenty of climbing gear—nothing modern or high-tech, but Gabriel preferred it that way. And the difficult climbs had been as good a way as any for Gabriel to focus his attention on something other than recent events. He didn’t especially want to think about the ordeal Mariella had gone through, or the traumas Cierra had suffered, or the deaths of so many innocents, or the loss of a man unique in history like General Fargo. Not to mention the loss of the Fountain of Youth—the Well of Eternity, what ever.

Instead, he concentrated on the climbs. He was an experienced climber, but the Blade of the Gods would have challenged the best. He took it slow on the way down and slower still on the way back up, resting overnight at the bottom in between. The entire remaining population of the valley was waiting for him when he slowly, carefully put one hand, then the other, over the edge of the gorge. They helped pull him up, secured the bridge, lashed it with new ropes to the anchor posts. They tested it carefully several times with mules before any people dared to cross, and when it held up, they declared it sound. Cierra was a little nervous, but Gabriel walked behind her all the way, one hand at her waist.

An uncomfortable trek of a day and a half brought them to Esparza’s trucks, one of which Gabriel was able to hotwire. From there to the nearest village was a day’s drive, and from there a rickety bus took them to Villahermosa. A public phone had made it possible for Gabriel to call Michael and the foundation’s jet was there nine hours later.

Now, as Michael placed a manila envelope on the desk in front of him, he said to Gabriel and Cierra, “I’ve got the final report on those water samples you brought back.”

“And?” Gabriel said.

“And there’s nothing out of the ordinary about them.” He fished out page after page, turned them so Gabriel and Cierra could read them. Not that they could understand the details—they weren’t chemists. But the conclusions were clear enough. The scientists had run every test they could think of and concluded that what Gabriel and Cierra had brought back from the Well of Eternity was plain water. Clean, drinkable; no parasites or impurities; no unusual minerals or trace elements. It was clean enough that you could bottle it and sell it, and who knows, maybe you could make a buck or two doing so—some companies had done nicely peddling water from the world’s remote rain forests. But there was nothing whatsoever about the water that would produce any unsual effect.

“I guess whatever mineral deposit gave the water its power must have finally been exhausted,” Cierra said.

“If it ever existed,” Gabriel said.

“What, now you don’t believe?”

“I believe that was General Fargo; I believe he lived a century and more. We’ll never know if it was the water that did it. Maybe it was something else down there.”

“Well, what ever it was is gone now,” Cierra said.

“If only Fargo had decided to reach out to us sooner,” Gabriel said, “maybe we could have done something—”

“Or maybe someone like Esparza would have gotten control of it. You don’t know. Things could have turned out a lot worse.”

“And on that note,” Michael said. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a small brown bottle with a cork stopper in it. “Here’s the last of the samples you brought back,” he said. He held it out to Gabriel. “The scientists didn’t need it. The others were enough.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“I thought you might want it,” Michael said.

“You just said it’s an ordinary bottle of water. You can get one like it at any corner grocery store.”

“Pour it out if you like,” Michael said. “I just figured it should be your choice.”

Grinning, Gabriel took the bottle and pulled the cork. “Or maybe we should pass it around and each take a little swig? Just in case? Nothing like a little eternal youth to spark up an evening.”

Cierra shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t want anything more to do with the Well of Eternity.”

“Michael?”

“Thanks, but no,” Michael said.

Gabriel took a deep breath. “Well, then…bottoms up.” He lifted the bottle to his mouth.

He stopped before it touched his lips, though, and sat there like that for a heartbeat before lowering it. “Hell with it,” he said with a shake of his head. “If living and dying is good enough for the rest of mankind, I guess it’s good enough for me, too.”

He walked across to the potted ficus that stood in the corner of Michael’s office and emptied the bottle into the soil at its base.

“Now,” he said as he tossed the bottle back to his brother, “if you’ll both come with me, I know a place where they serve some single malt scotch that’ll make you
feel
like you’ll live forever.”

Gabriel led Michael and Cierra out of the office, closing the door behind them. The ficus was cast into shadow as the door swung shut.

Its leaves had never looked hardier or more resilient.