Like the living creature it was, the jungle fought them. For hours they hacked their way through the dense vegetation. Each foot they advanced was won by bone wrenching toil. After ten hours of exhausting struggle they broke into an open area thirty feet wide and nearly seventy feet long. Fatigue dogged their every move as they set up their camp in the rectangular clearing that defied the jungle around it.
As the sun left the sky the air turned cold. After the intense heat of the day the evening cold felt that much colder. The fire that blazed in the center of the camp didn't throw enough heat to warm them. Its yellow tongues of flame cast a pale light across the features of the two men who sat there hunched against the cold.
Lost in their own private thought's the two weary men stared at the crackling fire. Thirty days into the expedition and it was in trouble, very serious trouble. Not only might it fail, but also their very survival was now in question. Although they were not completely lost, they were cast adrift without a guide. He was gone. He and the porters who had signed on with him had disappeared.
Perhaps they should have expected it. He had told them that they should turn back. They had paid no attention to him. After all it was only superstitious fear that had frightened the five native bearers. The stone statue had frightened them. It was (oddly enough) the statue that put the hope of success into the two that now sat alone by the fire. It was the encouragement that they had needed. At the same time it was the catalyst that might very well have doomed them both.
The statue had over the centuries been weathered by the elements. Not much of it was recognizable. It was some kind of warrior. That much they could tell. It didn't look quite human. It had been fashioned from gray granite like stone. It stood about twelve feet tall. Considering that there were no rock formations close by large enough to produce a figure so big, a great amount of effort must have been expended by the people who had placed it where it stood.
Campbell estimated that it was in the neighborhood of two thousand years old. A helmet-clad head whose features had long since been erased by the tropical rains sat perched upon a body equally decimated by the elements. A shield and sword was held in battle position. The figure had animal like legs that were massively muscled. There was something odd about the torso as well. It had protrusions several inches under the arms that looked as if they had once been a second set of arms. The weather damage was too severe to tell for sure. What looked like an armored breastplate seemed oddly shaped. The weather and elements had been all too successful in erasing its true form. Yet as badly damaged as it was the native bearers recognized it at once. There was no mistaking their fear its discovery created.
Their guide, a dark skinned Mexican with black marble like eyes, had refused to say anything about the find. All he would say was that they should turn back. "Bad place," he called it. He kept shaking his head and repeating, "No one goes here. This bad place. We must go."
Ignoring his warning, they had camped within sight of the statue. In the morning the two explorers awoke to find the camp empty. The guide and the bearers had left during the night. The bearers took only their possessions. They hadn't taken one piece of the equipment they had been paid to carry. Cowards they might have been, but thieves they were not. At first this had relieved Campbell. He was soon to see that it didn't matter. Campbell and Martin had to abandon nearly all of it. There was no possible way that two men could carry it all. So it was left to the same elements that had washed away the stone statue's features.
Just when the discovery of the ancient culture they sought seemed promising they were squarely facing defeat. It was not only discouraging to Doctor Jacob Campbell it was a crushing blow. His life's dream seemed doomed. His search for the lost cities relegated to failure by superstition. He had pleaded for years for the church to help him in his efforts to locate the actual cities spoken of in the scriptures. It would prove the validity of the Book of Mormon if they could find the physical evidence. The world was so skeptical of the new church. To Jacob it seemed necessary to find actual proof of its truth. At last the funds for the expedition had come. A collection from the members of the church who shared his vision made it possible. Brigham Young, the president of the church, had (though somewhat reluctantly) donated some of the money. This had thrilled Jacob Campbell.
Jacob Campbell was a firm believer in his religion. It had taken hold of him after his first meeting with Brigham Young. At the time he thought it ludicrous that the man should claim to be a prophet of God. What folly this was he had thought. Yet after he had met the man he had become a convert to the Mormon faith.
Jacob now sat chilled to his insides staring at the fire wondering just what would become of his dream. As he looked up across the fire he saw its light reflected in the reddish brown eyes of his companion. He shivered. It was not from the cold that he shivered. Something about Elias Martin frightened him. It had not been that way at first, somehow he had not seen it. There had been three of them when the journey had started. Poor brother Petros had been lost at sea before they had reached South America. Somehow he had fallen overboard during one of the moon-less nights. Petros had not liked Elias at all and he had said so. It had been Jacob's decision to enlist Elias.
Of the three of them, Elias was the only one who was not a Mormon. He was, he claimed, a hunter. He was to be their protection against misfortune. Neither Petros nor Campbell was familiar with physical self-defense. They were educated men unaccustomed to self-preservation in a wilderness. This made a man like Elias essential.
Alone with Elias, Jacob could feel what Brother Petros must have felt. Something deep inside the man, hidden from sight, lurked with quiet patience. Whatever it was that Jacob sensed it was evil. He thought of what President Young had said as he gave Jacob the money collected for the venture.
"I give you these funds because I know it is the Lord's will that you go. This much, he has revealed to me. His purpose I cannot guess. I feel in my heart that I am sending you to your doom. Be careful, and may our Lord be with you."
Elias Martin felt the glance of his companion sitting across the fire from him. He didn't look up. He continued to stare at the flames. Inwardly he smiled. He could smell the fear on Jacob Campbell. That was how it should be.
Petros had not been as big a fool as Campbell had. He had sensed the threat almost at once. It hadn't made any difference. Campbell had over ridden Petros's protests and taken him on anyway.
Elias rubbed his hands together. He held them out to the fire. He wondered how much more afraid Campbell would be if he knew that those hands choked the life out of Petros before his dead body went over the side into the dark sea?
Campbell and Petros were what Elias hated most in the world. They were religious men. Elias despised religion in all its forms. Perhaps he hated th