Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"At least my day hasn't been all bad," Pitt sighed at hearing an understanding voice.

The Mexican operator connected him to an American operator. She transferred him to information to obtain the number for the Customs offices in Calexico and then put his call through. A male voice answered.

"Customs Service, how can I help you?"

"I'm trying to reach Albert Giordino of the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

"One moment, I'll transfer you. He's in Agent Starger's office."

Two clicks and a voice that seemed to come from a basement said, "Starger here."

"This is Dirk Pitt. Is Al Giordino handy?"

"Pitt, is that you?" Curtis Starger said incredulously. "Where have you been? We've been going through hell trying to get the Mexican navy to search for you."

"Don't bother, their local commandant was probably bought off by the Zolars."

"One moment. Giordino is standing right here. I'll put him on an extension."

"Al," said Pitt, "are you there?"

"Good to hear your voice, pal. I take it something went wrong."

In a nutshell, our friends from Peru have Loren and Rudi. I helped the crew escape on a life raft. I managed to swim to shore. I'm calling from an Indian village in the desert north of San Felipe and about thirty kilometers west of where the Alhambra lies half-sunk in the muck."

"I'll dispatch one of our helicopters," said Starger. "I'll need the name of the village for the pilot."

Pitt turned to Billy Yuma. "What do you call your community?"

Yuma nodded. "Canyon Ometepec."

Pitt repeated the name, gave a more in-depth report on the events of the last eighteen hours and hung up. "My friends are coming after me," he said to Yuma.

"By car?"

"Helicopter."

"You be an important man?"

Pitt laughed. "No more than the mayor of your village."

"No mayor. Our elders meet and talk on tribal business."

Two men walked past, leading a burro that was buried under a load of manzanita limbs. The men and Yuma merely exchanged brief stares. There were no salutations, no smiles.

"You look tired and thirsty," said Yuma to Pitt. "Come to my house. My wife make you something to eat while you wait for friends."

It was the best offer Pitt had all day and he gratefully accepted.

Billy Yuma's wife, Polly, was a large woman who carried her weight better than any man. Her face was round and wrinkled with enormous dark brown eyes. Despite being middle aged, her hair was as black as raven's feathers. She hustled around a wood stove that sat under a ramada next to their cement brick house. The Indians of the Southwest deserts preferred the shade and openness of a ramada for their kitchen and dining areas to the confining and draftless interior of their houses. Pitt noticed that the ramada's roof was constructed from the skeletal ribs of the saguaro cactus tree and was supported by mesquite poles surrounded by a wall of standing barbed ocotillo stems.

After he drank five cups of water from a big olla, or pot, whose porous walls let it sweat and keep its contents cool, Polly fed him shredded pork and refried beans with fried cholla buds that reminded him of okra. The tortillas were made from mesquite beans she had pounded into a sweet-tasting flour. The late lunch was accompanied by wine fermented from fruit of the saguaro.

Pitt couldn't recall eating a more delightful meal.

Polly seldom spoke, and when she did utter a few words they were addressed to Billy in Spanish. Pitt thought he detected a hint of humor in her big brown eyes, but she acted serious and remote.

"I do not see a happy community," said Pitt, making conversation.