The sunset caught them high in the Andes, leading the stolen llamas over frost-shattered scree between scattered patches of snow. They’d only taken four of the herdsman’s charges, leaving all eight cavalry mounts in exchange. But the female in heat had followed, despite occasional rocks tossed to discourage her, and Gaston kept needling Captain Gringo that she liked him. An amorous llama was the least of his worries as the shadows lengthened around them. He and Gaston were warmly dressed, albeit hardly well enough to play Eskimo in the chill night air. The captives they’d rescued were wearing only cotton rags. They’d taken eight blankets from the saddle rolls of the slain troopers, of course, but eight blankets weren’t going to do thirty people much good once the sun went down.
Diablilla must have been thinking along the same lines as he walked beside her. She hadn’t complained about having to go the rest of the way on foot. Diablilla knew her high country and had agreed the llamas had been a good notion. She said, “We must find a sheltered place for to build a fire, Captain Gringo.”
“I agree, but call me Dick. I’ve been looking for some boulders or something. We have two problems with a fire up here. The wind will blow the heat away from us unless we find a backstop, and a night fire in the open can be seen for miles, even when you don’t build it on a mountain top.”
Diablilla nodded and pointed up a boulder-strewn arroyo running at almost right angles to the trail. She said, “I have never been here, but I know a bit about the old Quechua ways. In places along this trail one can see where the Inca ordered steps cut in the rocks.”
“Is that who carved those boulders back there a couple of miles? I thought maybe the old Spaniards did it.”
“Bah, they never looked at a rock unless they thought there was gold under it! Almost all these high trails were Inca post roads. Those who came later just used them and, as you see, wore them out a bit. But, as I was about to say, the ancient Inca empire was well organized. They built rest stops for their travelers at convenient places along the old road network. That arroyo over there offers the only permanent water supply for several kilometers around. There should be at least the ruins of an old way station, no?”
Captain Gringo raised his hand to halt the column, but as he stared up along the jumble of house-sized boulders he frowned and said, “I don’t see anything in the way of walls, Diablilla. Come to think of it, I don’t see any water either, and we could use some.”
She laughed and said, “Silly, one does not see water running over the rocks, when it has not been raining or snowing. The steady trickle is always under the rocks. Come, I will show you.”
Leaving the others in Gaston’s charge, he followed her across and upslope at an angle that took them to the long wavy line of rounded granite boulders paving the apparent dry wash. She led him down the gentle slope into the jumble of big dusty rocks. Then she paused, resting one hand on a waist-high boulder, and said, “Listen.”
He did so, cocking his head to one side. He could hear the liquid gurgle of running water, as if someone had left a tap on in the cellar. He nodded and said, “Yeah, it sounds like a fair-sized babbling brook. But how the hell do we get at it?”
She said, “We can’t, from here. It would take dynamite to blast these boulders out of the way. But let us explore farther. If there is anywhere a passing traveler can get down to the water, the ancient Quechua engineers would have found it.”
She started up the arroyo, leaping lightly from boulder to boulder on her bare feet. The view as he followed was interesting as hell. She flashed well-turned sturdy limbs as the loose skirt flapped flirtatiously. She leaned forward as she climbed the slope, her nicely rounded derrière aimed much like the llama’s had been presented to its human abuser, or maybe amuser, back down the mountain. He wondered if she had anything on under that skirt, and what she’d say if he caught up with her and shoved it to her dog style. He doubted like hell she’d chew a cud, so he decided to pass on the idea, even though it was teasing as hell to catch a flash of thigh now and again without knowing just what lay above and beyond. He was glad it was getting harder to see by the minute.
“You know Goddamn well what’s up under that skirt,” he warned himself, adding a mental note to behave. The rebel band had accepted him as a natural leader, but he knew at least some of the other men had noticed this kid’s ass by now and Spanish-speaking guys took their jealousy more than seriously. They tended to go nuts when another guy aced them out.
Diablilla suddenly vanished like the imp she was named after, as if she’d read his mind and wanted no part in his sexual fantasies. He blinked and muttered, “What the hell?” as he heard her laughing somewhere.
He hopped from boulder to boulder and then stopped short, grinning in surprise as he saw the girl again. She was down in a hollow the size and shape of an old Greek theater. His first thought was that some freak natural event had formed the crater. Then he saw the stone steps she’d scampered down and that the ground around the little pool she stood beside was paved with cobblestones. There were fluted mossy stone channel ways leading up and down slope from the circular pool. As he moved down to join her, he spotted the foundations of what looked like housing around the evenly sloping banks of the depression. He nodded down at her and said, “Somebody went to a hell of a lot of work here.”
She sighed and said, “I know, but they had a lot of time. This place could have started as a natural low stretch where one could get to the running water from the surface. The Quechuas stationed here to aid passing packers and messengers on the road below must have simply started moving rocks, one at a time, until this was the result.”
She pointed at a wall nearby arid added sadly, “They never finished. Quechua ruins don’t fall down once they have been built for the ages. This way station was abandoned about the time of the Spanish Conquest. I doubt if anyone has ever been here since.”
“It sure offers a great campsite, Diablilla. But how come you know so much about Indians? You sure don’t look Indian, meaning no disrespect.”
She smiled bitterly and replied, “My late father liked to say he was descended from El Aquilar, a noted Spanish general who in turn claimed second cousinhood to the Inca himself. But you are right, I am a blanca, or so I considered myself until they, classified everyone who did not agree with the government as an animal to be exterminated. Despite his dramatics, my father was a university professor before he took up politics. He was a noted anthropologist. As a child I accompanied him and my late mother on field trips. I probably know more about the native cultures in these parts than the sadly abused natives. They make such terrible Spanish peasants and, of course, one can hardly consider them Indians anymore.”
Captain Gringo saw she was sort of cut up inside and resisted the impulse to console her by putting a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t know how she’d take it. The sky above them was purple and the hollow was filled with a soft romantic light from the glowing peaks around them. He broke the spell by saying, “Why don’t you look around for some firewood here? I’ll go get the others,” and she looked disappointed when she agreed.