Relic (Pendergast, #1) by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
INTRODUCTION
= 1 =
The Amazon Basin, September 1987
At noon, the clouds clinging to the top of Cerro Gordo broke free and scattered. Far above, in the upper reaches of the forest canopy, Whittlesey could see golden tints of sunlight. Animals—probably spider monkeys—thrashed and hooted above his head and a macaw swooped low, squawking obscenely.
Whittlesey stopped next to a fallen jacaranda tree and watched Carlos, his sweating camp assistant, catch up. “We will stop here,” he said in Spanish. “Baja la caja. Put down the box.”
Whittlesey sat down on the fallen tree and pulled off his right boot and sock. Lighting a cigarette, he applied its tip to the forest of ticks on his shin and ankle.
Carlos unshouldered an old army packboard, on which a wooden crate was awkwardly lashed.
“Open it, please,” said Whittlesey.
Carlos removed the ropes, unsnapped a series of small brass clasps, and pulled off the top.
The contents were packed tightly with the fibers of an indigenous plant. Whittlesey pulled aside the fibers, exposing some artifacts, a small wooden plant press, and a stained leather journal. He hesitated a moment, then drew a small but exquisitely carved figurine of a beast from the shirt pocket of his field jacket. He hefted the artifact in his hand, admiring again its workmanship, its unnatural heaviness. Then he placed it reluctantly in the crate, covered everything with the fibers, and reattached the lid.
From his rucksack, Whittlesey took out a folded sheet of blank paper, which he opened on his knee. He brought a battered gold pen out of his shirt pocket and began writing:
Upper Xingú
Sept. 17, 1987
Montague,
I’ve decided to send Carlos back with the last crate and go on alone in search of Crocker. Carlos is trustworthy, and I can’t risk losing the crate should anything happen to me. Take note of the shaman’s rattle and other ritual objects. They seem unique. But the figurine I’ve enclosed, which we found in a deserted hut at this site, is the proof I’ve been looking for. Note the exaggerated claws, the reptilian attributes, the hints at bipedalia. The Kothoga exist, and the Mbwun legend is not mere fabrication.
All my field notes are in this notebook. It also contains a complete account of the breakup of the expedition, which you will of course know about by the time this reaches you.
Whittlesey shook his head, remembering the scene that had played itself out the day before. That idiotic bastard, Maxwell. All he’d cared about was getting those specimens he’d stumbled on back to the Museum undamaged. Whittlesey laughed silently to himself. Ancient eggs. As if they were anything more than worthless seed pods. Maxwell should have been a paleobiologist instead of a physical anthropologist. How ironic they’d packed up and left a mere thousand yards from his own discovery.
In any case, Maxwell was gone now, and the others with him. Only Carlos and Crocker, and two guides, had stayed. Now there was just Carlos. Whittlesey returned to the note.
Use my notebook and the artifacts, as you see fit, to help restore my good standing with the Museum. But above all else, take care of this figurine. I am convinced that its worth to anthropology is incalculable. We discovered it yesterday by accident. It seems to be the centerpiece of the Mbwun cult. However, there is no other trace of habitation nearby. This strikes me as odd.
Whittlesey paused. He hadn’t described the discovery of the figurine in his field notes. Even now, his mind resisted the memory.
Crocker had wandered off the trail for a better look at a jacamar; otherwise they’d never have found the hidden path, slanting down steeply between moss-slick walls. Then, that crude hut, half-buried among ancient trees, in the wet vale where daylight barely penetrated … The two Botocudo guides, normally chattering nonstop to each other in Tupian, shut up immediately. When questioned by Carlos, one of them just muttered something about a guardian of the hut, and a curse on anybody who violated its secrets. Then, for the first time, Whittlesey had heard them speak the word Kothoga. Kothoga. The shadow people.
Whittlesey was skeptical. He’d heard talk of curses before—usually, right before a request for higher wages. But when he emerged from the hut, the guides were gone.
... Then that old woman, blundering out of the forest. She was probably Yanomamo, obviously not Kothoga. But she knew of them. She had seen them. The curses she’d hinted at ... And the way she’d just melted back into the forest, more like a jaguar yearling than a septuagenarian.