Treasure Hunters--Quest for the City of Gold Page 6

  “Um, isn’t that where you said they buried Inkarri’s arms?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Storm. Always ready to tell you everything she knows even when you wish she wouldn’t.

  The seven of us hurried to the square. Nothing spooky happened. No ghostly arms leaped up from under the cobblestones.

  A man named Diego was waiting for us.

  “Dr. Kidd, I presume?” he said to Dad.

  “Yes, Diego. Thank you for making the arrangements for us.”

  “Jorge contacted me. Gave me your list of particulars. I trust you will find everything to your satisfaction.”

  I know I did.

  Because there, in the square, were the two most beautiful things Beck and I had seen since arriving in Peru.

  I’m not talking about the twin cathedrals. Nope. What made our hearts skip a beat were parked behind a Toyota four-by-four: two quad ATVs!

  One for Beck and one for me!

  CHAPTER 31

  We started loading gear into the back of the SUV.

  “There won’t be room for all seven of us inside the vehicle,” said Dad.

  “No problem,” I said.

  “Bick and I will gladly follow you guys on the quads,” added Beck.

  Dad grinned. “Such was my plan.”

  Beck and I put on helmets and eagerly climbed aboard our new rides. I could already hear their two-stroke engines whining like angry wasps, which was weird, because we hadn’t even started them yet.

  Suddenly a motorcycle roared up the street.

  It whizzed by so fast and so close, my shirt ruffled in the breeze.

  “He grabbed my bag!” shouted Dad.

  “The priest’s letter is inside it!” shouted Mom.

  Beck and I didn’t wait to hear what everybody else was going to shout.

  We both locked our feet on the starters, gave a little jump, and pushed down hard. We each pulled in on the clutch, kicked the gear shifter into first, and blasted off. As we worked our way up the gear changes, I realized Dad had rented two very speedy all-terrain vehicles.

  We chased the thief out of Cuzco, hoping that the rest of the family was chasing after us.

  In no time, we were outside the city and in the open country. The mountains were spectacular.

  We were also gaining on the guy.

  The bag-snatcher veered off the road.

  Beck and I did the same.

  The bad guy skidded his dirt bike to a stop near a scaffold. He hopped off his ride and charged up what looked like a rolling section of bleacher steps.

  “What is that thing?” cried Beck.

  “Steps!” I shouted. Sunlight glinted off a taut wire. “To a zip line!”

  As we raced closer, we passed a sign reading THE FLIGHT OF THE CONDOR. LONGEST ZIP LINE IN THE WORLD: 2,930 METERS.

  “That’s one-point-eight miles!” Beck shouted loudly. She’s way faster at mathematical conversions than me.

  The thief was strapping himself into a harness and shoving off from the platform.

  “Looks like the line is broken up into sections,” I said as Beck and I abandoned our ATVs and scampered up the scaffold. “There’s a platform down there, maybe five hundred yards away, see it?”

  “Not really, but I’ll trust you. Let’s go! Maybe we can tackle the guy before he clips onto the next section of wire!”

  We tightened our helmets and slid into a pair of harnesses connected to one pulley.

  “If we fly together, we’ll fly faster,” I said. “More weight equals more speed. That’s just the law of gravity.”

  “Fine,” said Beck as we bumped thighs. “Just try not to do anything too gassy.”

  “Deal!”

  And then we leaped off the platform!

  CHAPTER 32

  We sailed through the sky against the spectacular backdrop of the Maras mountains. It’s a good thing me and Beck aren’t afraid of heights.

  The guy with Dad’s bag reached the end of the first line and transferred to the second. We were maybe thirty seconds behind him when we quickly made the same switch, hooking our harnesses to the next set of wires.

  Now we were flying above the Sacred Valley, known as the birthplace of the Incan Nation.

  When we got to the transfer platform for the third cable, we were only ten seconds behind the thief. We made the change and zoomed along so fast, our cheeks started flapping in the breeze.

  The bag man looked over his shoulder and saw that we were nearly close enough to reach out and grab Dad’s satchel.

  “¡Bueno!” he shouted. “¡Usted puede tener la bolsa! ¡Es viejo y feo!”

  “He just called Dad’s bag old and ugly,” said Beck.

  “Well, it sort of is…”

  The flying purse-snatcher let go of Dad’s shoulder bag.

  Beck and I kicked out our legs and flapped our arms to slow ourselves down.

  And watched the bag tumble down into the valley below.

  Where Tommy and Storm were standing waiting to catch it like a high pop fly!

  They had our twin ATVs. Guess they’d picked them up at that launchpad where we’d dropped them off.

  We reached the transfer to the fourth cable—the longest and highest one in all of Peru—just as the local kleptomaniac took off. We were about to chase after him when Dad drove the SUV up and over the rugged ridge.

  “Let him go!” shouted Mom as the vehicle swerved into a dusty fishtail. “He may be armed.”

  “You can stand down, kids,” added Dad. “Storm and Tommy have retrieved my bag.”

  “And,” said a very excited Chet Collier, “I recorded some excellent footage of you two soaring through the air like eagles.”

  “Condors,” said Beck as we climbed down. “This is Peru. Condors fly over the Andes; eagles fly over the Rockies! Do a little homework, Chet.”

  I turned and watched the thief disappear. The fourth cable was over three-quarters of a mile long. The guy quickly turned into a hazy little blob.

  “We should go after him,” I said. “Find out why he stole your bag.”

  “Because he’s a pickpocket and purse-snatcher,” said Chet. “It’s what they do, little dude.”

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “As much as I’d like to pursue the man who purloined my shoulder bag, Bick, I’m afraid he’s flying in the wrong direction.”

  “We need to go south and then east to reach the rain forest,” said Mom.

  Tommy and Storm puttered up on the four-wheelers to join us.

  “The, uh, you know, thing is safe, Dad,” said Tommy, doing his best to speak in some kind of code. “He didn’t steal anything, uh, importante out of your bag.”

  “Roger that,” said Dad. “Well done, Bick and Beck. Thanks to you two, our mission remains on track. Our secret edge remains secure.”

  “Woo-hoo!” said Tommy. Then he started pumping his fist in the air. “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

  Mom arched an eyebrow. “Thomas?”

  “Sorry. My bad. Chase scenes always get me stoked.”

  CHAPTER 33

  We pushed on.

  The trek through the mountains and into the rain forest took my breath away.

  Literally.

  The higher we climbed, the harder it was to breathe. The atmosphere kept getting thinner and thinner. I might’ve been getting thinner, too. If water makes up 60 percent of your body weight, I think I’d sweated out 30 percent of mine.

  And then there were the llamas. We had to keep stopping so they could cross the washed-out roads we were traversing.

  While we waited for the furry herd to clear the road, I remembered something Mom had told us: according to legends, Paititi was built by the Inca hero Inkarri, who had slipped away from the Spanish conquistadors with more than twenty thousand llamas loaded down with gold and silver!

  Watching all those shaggy llama butts slowly making their way over the steep mountains, I realized we were probably headed in the right direction.

  We mi
ght even be on the exact same route that Inkarri and his llamas took.

  We were going to find the Lost City of Gold!

  CHAPTER 34

  We headed into the dense and drippy rain forest (what Storm’s treasure map called the Cloud Forest).

  Sadly, a lot of that forest had been chopped down.

  “Half of Peru is covered with trees,” said Mom as we studied the stumpy, lumber-littered landscape all around us. “Or at least it used to be. Nowadays, eleven thousand square miles of Peruvian forests are chopped down every year. And more than three-quarters of that deforestation is done illegally. This is what we need footage of, Chet. I want to take videos of this horrible destruction to Lima and plead with the president to step up his efforts to put a halt to it!”

  “And,” said Dad, “when we find the Lost City of Gold, the people of Peru can use that treasure to buy up more of the land to turn it into conservation areas.”

  “There’s the sleeping lady,” said Storm, gesturing to a mountain range above the tree line that, believe it or not, looked exactly like a woman taking a snooze.

  Dad pulled the priest’s letter out of his bag and consulted it. “We head in the direction the sleeping woman’s toes point.”

  “Wha-hut?” said Beck.

  “Check out that rocky outcropping at the end of the range,” said Tommy. “That looks like a foot with stubby toes.”

  “They’re aiming southeast,” added Storm.

  “So we drive southeast,” said Dad.

  “Oh, I get it now,” said Chet. “You need the map and the letter. Otherwise you don’t really know where you’re supposed to go. Cool.”

  “Chet?” said Dad.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Dad gave Collier a super-stern look. “Kindly forget you ever figured that out.”

  “Yes, sir, Dr. Kidd, sir. Will do.”

  “But keep shooting video of these felled trees,” urged Mom. “At the presidential summit, I’ll be going up against Juan Carlos Rojas. I’ll need all the evidence we can muster.”

  “Right,” said Chet. “Who’s this Rojas dude?”

  “A bad guy,” said Dad.

  “The worst,” said Mom. “A filthy-rich lumber baron who wants to buy up all of Peru’s forestland for his own personal profit. Señor Rojas is a reckless, arrogant billionaire who once ordered his loggers to carve his initials into the forest so he could read them whenever he flew overhead in his private jet. I suspect he is the illegal hand behind this horrible devastation.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “I think we’re standing in the curved bottom of a J right now. Could be a C—”

  We heard branches snap.

  Somewhere in the thick foliage surrounding the clearing, another two-cylinder engine sputtered and chugged to life.

  This one wasn’t on an ATV or a dirt bike.

  This one had the unmistakable sound of a chain saw!

  CHAPTER 35

  Suddenly, a group of scary-looking men lugging chain saws and rifles strode into the clearing.

  “What are you Yanquis doing here in Señor Rojas’s forest?” asked the leader after he shut down his saw. He wore a red T-shirt as a mask and spoke pretty good English. “For it can be a very dangerous place.”

  “This isn’t Señor Rojas’s forest,” said Mom defiantly. “It belongs to the people of Peru.”

  The man laughed. “Not for long. Señor Rojas is going to buy it from El Presidente!”

  “Not if we offer a better price!”

  “And what would you do with these trees, Yanqui lady?”

  “Protect them!”

  “Ha,” the man sneered. “Señor Rojas brings jobs to the people. What do the trees bring besides bugs and snakes? You will never outbid Señor Rojas. You will lose!”

  You know how my big sister’s eyes get all dark and stormy whenever she’s mad?

  I think Storm inherited that trait from Mom.

  Because after the logger thug said that, thunderstorm warnings were definitely issued for Mom’s eyeballs.

  “You can’t scare me or my family, sir,” said Mom.

  “Is that so?” said the logger. “Because that was my plan. Boo!”

  The crew behind him laughed.

  “But, my Yanqui friend,” he went on, “if I cannot scare you, perhaps the rain forest you love so much will. Beware. Danger lurks around every tree.”

  He motioned to his men. They all yanked up on their starter cords. Five chain saws roared to life. Dad motioned for all of us to stand behind him and Tommy as they formed a protective barricade between us and the malicious loggers.

  “For instance,” the masked man hollered over the rattling din, “do not pick fruit from a palm tree. Snakes will hide in the warmth of the dry leaves at the base of the tree. The snakes will bite your ankle. They will sink their teeth into your flesh just like this.”

  He dipped the nose of his chain saw into the front tire of the SUV while three of his friends did the same to the other wheels. They sliced the vehicle’s tires into rubber shreds.

  “If you pick fruit from a lemon or orange tree,” shouted the masked man, “be especially careful. The sweeter the fruit, the more likely the tree will be home to a wasps’ nest. You do not want to anger the wasps, my friends. Their stingers are very, very sharp. Just like the blades of our saws!”

  This time, they attacked our twin quads, ripping all the tires to bits.

  “Most of all, when in this misty green world, do not offend those who have been here much, much longer than you. The jaguars. The snakes. And us!”

  The men laughed and, chain saws still rumbling and rattling, marched off into the forest, leaving us stranded in the middle of all those fallen trees, jaguars, snakes, and wasps.

  CHAPTER 36

  “So now do you guys call it quits?” asked Chet, aiming his camera at Dad.

  “Of course not, Mr. Collier,” said Dad calmly. “We will forge ahead on foot until alternative forms of transportation can be procured.”

  “Um, Dad?” said Tommy. “Not for nothing, but I don’t think there are any SUV dealerships in the middle of the Peruvian rain forest.”

  “Maybe we could patch the tires,” I suggested.

  “They chewed them to pieces with their saws, Bick,” said Beck.

  “True. So it would be a ginormous patch job. Maybe we could find a rubber tree—”

  “You can’t just take the bark of a rubber tree and retread a tire, Bickford!”

  “Well, Rebecca, I don’t hear you coming up with a better idea!”

  We were about to break into another Twin Tirade when the leaves started rustling ominously again.

  A group of what I figured had to be locals stepped into the clearing. They looked like a family, all of them dressed in a mix of modern and traditional clothing of the indigenous people. Oh, indigenous is one of those words Mom taught us when we were, like, six. It means “the original or native people.” The ones who have been living somewhere even longer than a masked maniac with a chain saw.

  None of our new visitors were carrying logging equipment or rifles, although the man who looked like the head of the group was wearing a traditional feathered headdress.

  “Are you here with Juan Carlos Rojas’s men to destroy our ancestral home?” asked the man wearing the feathered crown.

  “On the contrary,” said Mom. “We are here to do everything we can to put a stop to this deforestation and to Señor Rojas’s plans.”

  The man smiled. “Then you are most welcome. Please. Come journey with us to our village for food and rest.”

  “Chya,” said Tommy, smiling at the very pretty teenage girl traveling with the group. “I could totally use some rest and relaxation. So, what do they call you, besides beautiful?”

  Chet stepped up beside Tommy. “I think they also call her gorgeous.”

  Tommy looked at Chet. “Whoa. Ease up, dude.”

  “Sorry, Tommy. No can do. Besides, you’re out of your league, kid.”
>
  “Watch it, Collier!”

  The girl laughed. “My name is Q’orianka,” she said with a soft smile. “It means ‘golden eagle’ in Quechua.”

  “Well, hello, Golden Eagle,” said Chet, twisting his ruby class ring, I guess because he thought it made him look suave and sophisticated. “You’re definitely one pretty birdie.”

  Q’orianka rolled her eyes. She was already over Chet. Tommy saw his opening!

  “Um, I’m Tommy. It’s short for Thomas. Like the train.”

  “Actually,” said Storm, “Thomas is derived from a Greek word for ‘twin,’ which he isn’t.”

  “But we are,” I said, gesturing to Beck. “I’m Bick. This is my twin sister, Beck.”

  “That’s our mom and dad,” said Beck. “We’re the Kidds.”

  “Chet isn’t one of us,” I explained.

  “He’s a Collier,” said Tommy. This time he almost gagged on the K sound.

  “You are all welcome in our village,” said the man in the ceremonial headdress. “I am the village president, Chaupi. Come. We will send others to tend to your vehicles.”

  “Will they be safe here?” asked Dad.

  Chaupi shook his head. “This is the jungle, my new friend. Nothing and no one is ever safe.”

  CHAPTER 37

  We followed Chaupi deeper and deeper into the rain forest. The trail took us over rickety boardwalks and a winding path through huge mounds of dirt and rocks.

  “Left over from illegal gold mines,” explained Chaupi as he led us through the leafy forest.

  “Speaking of gold,” I whispered to Storm, “are we still going the right way to find you-know-where?”

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “In fact, there was a marking on the map suggesting that we would pass through a small village on our journey.”