Ace Lone Wolf and the Secrets of Machu Picchu by Eric T Knight

Author:Eric T Knight [Knight, Eric T]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-02-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Elias spends some time telling me all about my sins and then goes to bed.

We lay out our bedrolls and lie down on them. “We wait until he starts snoring, then we sneak out of here,” Jack says. “Unless you want to stay for your baptism. I’m sure we could delay for a day if it’s that important to you.”

He laughs. If anyone needs baptizing, it’s him.

It isn’t too long before we hear snoring through the doorway. We gather up our gear, head out and saddle up. We might have to make a fast getaway. It’s best to be prepared.

The pick is leaning up against the side of the house along with a shovel. We take them both and sneak into the old church. Jack lights a candle and we head on up to the front.

“This is a terrible idea,” I say.

“You worry too much.”

“We ate his food. We sat in his home. And now we’re stealing from him.”

“It ain’t stealing if he doesn’t know he has it.”

“You said that already.”

“It’s still true.”

“And what about breaking up the floor?”

“We’ll be careful,” Jack says, swinging the pick. On the first blow, the tile with the owl on it shatters into a hundred pieces. “Oops.”

He takes another swing, shattering another tile. “You need to look at the big picture. We’re staving off a war. That makes us heroes.”

“Only you could turn robbing a church into something heroic.”

“It’s called perspective, Ace.”

“I can think of other words for it.”

“Or you going to help or only talk?”

In a few minutes he’s got all the tiles destroyed in a good-sized area. I take the shovel and start digging. The ground is rock hard, and the going is hard. Then I hit something that sounds different. I tap it again. It’s definitely not a rock.

“Give me that,” Jack says, climbing down into the hole and taking the shovel from me. His eyes are all lit up like a kid with a sack of penny candy. He gets the shovel under a corner of it and pries it up.

It’s an old, metal box about the size of a man’s foot. He looks at me.

“You ready for this?”

“Stop wasting time. Open it up and let’s get out of here.” I look over at the door of the church, worried I’m going to see Elias standing there.

Jack has to hit the box with the shovel a couple of times, but he manages to get it open. Inside is something wrapped in cloth. He takes it out and unwraps something peculiar.

It’s a piece of white stone about as long as my hand and about two fingers wide. One end is carved weirdly.

“What is this?” Jack wonders.

I look in the metal box and see there’s a piece of paper in there still. I take it out. The paper looks the same as the half map we have. “Look at this.”

Jack takes it from me, pulls the half map out of his pocket and holds the pieces together. They match perfectly. He looks at me, his eyes very bright.

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