The Clue in the Embers Read online

  CHAPTER XVII

  The Weird Ceremony

  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!

  The chanting ceased. The circle closed even smaller. The leader extended his arms a second time and the murmuring began again, a little louder than before. Now, with his stick, the man scraped some of the warm ashes into a wooden bowl.

  The boys winced as the hot ashes struck their skin

  “Kai-ee! Kai-ee!” The chant picked up volume and the leader turned from the fire to face the Hardys and Chet. Holding the bowl out stiffly, chest high, he stopped directly in front of the boys. Inwardly quaking, the captives tried to appear unperturbed.

  Murmuring the chant himself, the old Indian sprinkled the hot ashes on the foreheads of the trio. The boys winced but did not cry out.

 
There was a sudden commotion at the entrance. Then came a booming, commanding voice over the heads of the people. The leader, lowering the bowl, cried out:

  “Tecum-Uman!”

  The man for whom the boys had been searching! What would happen now?

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Into Dangerous Country

  A handsome elderly Indian, taller than the other tribesmen, walked with stately steps toward the Hardys and Chet. He motioned to a native that they be unbound at once.

  After this was done, the tall Indian addressed Frank in Spanish. “Do you speak this language?”

  “A little,” Frank replied, then hastened to ask, “Where is our friend? Is he all right?”

  For the first time a faint smile played around the Indian’s mouth. “He is quite safe. He is changing his clothes and will be brought here shortly. Your mules, also, are unharmed.”

  Frank told the boys this news, then said, “I don’t understand what has happened, Tecum-Uman. We were advised to ask your aid by Señor Montero.”

  “Yes,” the elderly man nodded. “The señor is an old friend of mine. I am sorry you have been poorly treated here.”

  Mystified, Frank asked him to explain the reasons for the odd happenings. Tecum-Uman motioned for the boys to follow him outside. Reaching a secluded spot, the man began to speak.

  “I am chief of the three Kulkul villages,” he said. “This is one of them but not where I live. I came here because certain men have been causing much trouble. They are the ones who captured young Prito and took you into the ceremonial hall.”

  Tecum-Uman explained that he was sure a certain dishonest Ladino in the area was responsible for the recent unrest in the village. “I believe he was the man who told my tribesmen that your friend was disguised as a shaman. This thing is regarded as a great evil by my people,” he concluded. “The fire dance you witnessed is an old custom performed to break such a curse.”

  Frank said he regretted the misunderstanding. “Our reason for coming here,” he told the chief, “is to find Texichapi. Do you know where it is?”

  If the Kulkul chief was surprised by the question, he did not show it.

  “Texichapi is reputed to be a day’s journey west of the place where Prito said you were to get fresh mules and supplies.” Tecum-Uman gave no further information. “You will be free to go with your friend when he arrives here. My loyal tribesmen wish you no harm.”

  As the old man concluded his statement, Tony was led toward them. Dressed in a blue cotton shirt and a pair of nondescript brown trousers, he rushed up to the boys.

  “Am I glad to see you!” he cried. “I thought all of us were goners.”

  “So did we!” Chet exclaimed.

  “Wait till you hear what happened to me,” Tony whispered. “Tell you later.”

  There was no sign of the unfriendly natives as Tecum-Uman accompanied the boys to their mules. As a gesture of good will, he handed them a sack of food.

  “You will arrive at the village where you change mules within one hour,” Tecum-Uman said. “If you do not leave this trail, you cannot miss it.”

  The four travelers expressed hearty thanks for his help, and the elderly man waved good-by to them. As they rode away, the boys told Tony about their ordeal and about Tecum-Uman’s explanation.

  “He sure arrived in the nick of time,” Joe said. “Now tell us what happened to you.”

  Tony sobered. “This shaman business was a fake,” he said. “They knew right away I wasn’t an Indian. What they wanted was to find out why we’re here. They tried several torture tricks. I guess I can thank Tecum-Uman that things weren’t any worse. He arrived in the midst of it.

  But the guys that were holding me warned that if I told the chief anything, it would go badly with me later.”

  The Hardys were afraid that the group might be followed and urged their mules forward at a faster pace. Several times Frank dismounted and put his ear to the ground to detect any sounds of horsemen trailing them, but he heard nothing.

  “I guess we’re safe,” he concluded.

  Exactly as the old man had predicted, the boys arrived at the next village in one hour. They sought out the shopkeeper’s relative who rented mules. He made arrangements for the group to remain overnight, and promised to have their mounts ready for an early-morning start. Frank told the man about Senor Montero’s workers coming for the borrowed mules, and he promised to care for the animals until they arrived.

  After buying fresh supplies, the boys were shown to the cabin where they were to sleep. The four agreed that they would ask no questions.

  “We can’t tell friend from foe in these mountains,” Frank said, “so we’d better just be mum about the treasure.”

  Before the sun went down, the boys took a short walk around the trading post, inspecting the various supplies that were bought by traders, explorers, and settling farmers. Chet picked up a short-handled miner’s shovel.

  “Say, here’s a tool we might need in Texichapi!” he exclaimed, breaking the silence concerning their destination.

  An Indian standing nearby flashed a strange look at Chet. The boys expected him to vanish in the next instant and bring back reinforcements to harm them. But instead the man walked closer and spoke to them in broken Spanish.

  “Texichapi?” he asked. “You going there?”

  Since Chet had already given away their destination, the boys admitted that they were.

  “Bad place,” the Indian told them. “Stay away. It is valley of evil.”

  The man said that Texichapi was hard on a man physically because of its sudden and extreme changes in temperature. At times, the place was hot and damp. At other times the area was cold and swept by winds.

  “And besides,” he went on, “there are many mahogany trees in Texichapi which are protected by spirits. When someone not wanted tries to enter that section, a curse is put on him!”

  The boys looked at one another, dismayed. But the part about the curse did not seem to ring true.

  “Where did you learn about the curse?” Frank asked the Indian. But it seemed the man did not understand his stilted high school Spanish.

  The Hardys and their friends tried to get the native to tell them whether this tale of the curse and the place being called the valley of evil was an old legend of the Indians or whether it was a recent one. It might be another stratagem of the boys’ enemies, the patriotic society, to frighten away the quartet.

  “No, sorry,” the Indian replied.

  Either he was pretending not to understand, or finding the language barrier between them was just too great.

  The Indian drifted away and the boys returned to their cabin. All were uneasy about going to sleep, not knowing what might happen. But nothing disturbed them except the howling of wild animals in the nearby forest.

  At the crack of dawn the group headed west as Tecum-Uman had instructed them. There was no indication that they were being followed. The boys pushed on and did not take a break in their difficult journey until the sun was directly overhead. Then they lunched briefly and set off again.

  Much of the way seemed to be along dry river-beds and across streams which appeared to have left their former course to flow in adjacent ravines.

  “There sure are a lot of crisscrossing trails,” observed Frank, who was leading the cavalcade. “The trail to Texichapi would be mighty tough to follow if Tecum-Uman had not insisted that we keep heading straight west all the time.”

  Suddenly he stopped, and as the others waited, dismounted and picked up a stick. With it Frank scratched several marks in the dirt. Finishing the last line, he asked the others to look at what he had drawn. “Do these seem familiar?” he asked.

  The boys studied the lines for only a few moments, then Joe exclaimed, “Of course. They’re the ones on the medallions!”

  Frank explained that he had traced the curves of the streams that they had just passed. “They exactly match the lines that we memorized! We must be in the middle of the Texic
hapi country!”

  Joe looked around excitedly. “I wonder what the opal really meant—should we look for a certain tree, a cave, or maybe a particular hill?”

  No one knew the answer. Taking their bearings on the curve of the last stream, the boys changed course slightly. For half a mile they made their way through swampy ground until they saw, sparkling like a jewel, a small lake at the base of a distant cliff.

  “Do you think this lake corresponds to the location of the opal on the medallion?” asked Tony.

  “I doubt that the treasure would be buried underwater,” replied Frank. “Besides, we have to travel a little farther if my memory is correct.”

  The riders broke into a jog as the wooded countryside became more open. Within a few minutes they arrived at the lake.

  “Look up there!” Joe cried suddenly.

  Two figures stood at the top of a sheer wall of rock that dropped seventy or eighty feet straight down to the water. The sight of people in this apparently uninhabited area startled the boys. Could they be spies for the so-called patriotic society sent out to intercept them? But surely no spies would show themselves so plainly.

  As the figures moved close to the rim of the cliff, the watchers could see that they were an Indian man and a small boy.

  Frank was about to shout to the Indian when they saw the little boy break away from the man and run along the cliff’s edge. They could hear the man give a warning shout. Abruptly the little boy turned to face the man, but lost his balance and hurtled toward the water.

  The four gasped in horror as the small form struck the lake surface and disappeared. They realized that even if the youngster knew how to swim, a fall from such a height would knock the wind out of him and he would drown. The same would be true of the child’s companion if he should dive in and attempt a rescue.

  “I’m going after that boy!” Joe cried, slipping off his moccasins and jacket.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Followed!

  As Joe dived into the lake, his friends watched apprehensively from the water’s edge. There was still no sign of the boy who had fallen from the cliff.