Lost City of the Sun

10

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA," said Skip. "Just back up a bit. Are you telling us that you are Jack Fawcett? No way! That's impossible. Percy Fawcett, his son Jack, and Raleigh Rimmel disappeared a hundred years ago! You'd have to be over a hundred and twenty years old!"

"One hundred twenty-two, this past May," Jack declared with a twinkle in his eye, as he took a sip of the tea Killa had brought.

"But that's at least ten or twelve years older than the oldest known humans!"

"Unlikely, but not out of the question," said Nusiri. "That's about the same as the oldest person ever on record."

"But, how is this possible?"

Jack Fawcett took another sip. "This tea helps. Its ingredients come from a spring up near the City of the Moon. A rich, unique water, found nowhere else."

Skip was dumbfounded as he put two and two together. "The Fountain of Youth? You went looking for the Lost City of Z, and you found the Fountain of Youth?"

"Oh no, no, no," Jack said quickly. "It is a combination of these herbs, which have healing properties, and a fortunate blend of minerals in the water, unique to that spring which feeds them. As I said, it helps, but in the end it is that, with a healthy, active, outdoor lifestyle, and a lot of pure luck. But nobody lives forever. These days I shuffle out to the fountain basin, and on a good day, down to Killa's, but no farther."

Now there were more questions Skip wanted to ask, about herbs and minerals and, where did they say? The City of the Moon? Another discovery to be made, possibly filled with valuable resources from the rainforest? But first, he needed to clear up the mystery that had sent them into the wilds in the first place.

"So," he began, "if you were looking for the Lost City of Z, which you assumed was to the east of the Xingu basin, how did you end up here, so far to the north and west?" Skip paused a moment, then added, "Before you answer, you should know that I'm a journalist, working on a article following up on the mystery of your disappearance, a hundred years later. Still one of the greatest mysteries in the world of exploration and adventure, I might add. So, anything you tell me that you are not agreeable to, I won't publish."

"Not with NANA, I suppose? The North American Newspaper Alliance. They had the rights to our story originally. Not that it matters much now."

Skip shook his head. "They went out of business in 1980. No, I'm with Wild Journeys Magazine. We focus on adventure and experiences off the beaten track."

Jack regarded this unlikely family of explorers, a family not unlike his own, and consented to the interview. "You wouldn't have found me if you hadn't followed the clues on that quipu. And I designed that so that only the worthy could find me." He propped a pillow against the wall at the side of the bed, refilled his tea from Killa's jug, and got himself comfortable in a lounging position. Where to start? With the journey out, he supposed.

"It took us over a month to reach Dead Horse Camp from Cuiaba," he began. "We were plagued by insects the whole time, the worst of which were the ticks. Raleigh had it the worst. His foot was swollen and infected, but had almost healed by the time we were about a week away. Then, his other foot became infected, so bad that the skin was peeling off. By the time we had made it there, and were ready to leave again though, he was feeling better. Though his foot was still bandaged, there was no talking him out of it.

"Along the way, we had stayed at the ranch of Daddy's friend Hermenegildo Galvao, for rest and so Raleigh's foot could heal. He had told of a stone tower with ancient characters written upon it, near to a tall waterfall. So, our plan was to first head north along the Xingu, and attempt to find them. From there we would continue toward our main objective, the search for Z."

The tea did seem to have an invigorating effect, as Jack perked up as he told his tale. Or it could have just been because he now had an audience to tell it to.

"Further study of the manuscript had made us rethink the location of Z. We now considered the possibility of it being to the western reaches of the Xingu river system, near the Serra do Cachimbo Mountains."

"Precisely the corner of Para State we are in," noted Skip.

Jack smiled sagely and nodded.

"It took three weeks from Dead Horse Camp to reach the waterfall," he continued, "which turned out to be not on the Xingu, but on a tributary coming in from the west. Raleigh's feet healed one last time, or so we thought. But by now, we were all covered with tick and mosquito bites, bee stings, and were constantly plagued by those nasty, almost invisible little gnats. We set up camp at the waterfall, to be used as base in search of Galvao's stone tower.

"It was Raleigh who found it, quite by accident. The next morning he woke up feverish, but insisted on going out with us. His ailments must have been just laying dormant for a few weeks, silently building to a deep septic infection, as later that day, oozing sores opened up on his arms and feet, and he was weak enough to say he was returning to camp. He must have lost his way, as he stumbled upon a clearing, in which was a tall stone stela, engraved with pictures and characters. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

"The way Daddy and I found out was that awhile after Raleigh left, we were taken quite by surprise by a pair of odd Indians, stepped straight out of the jungle to approach us. Turns out they had been following us for the past two days, had seen Raleigh go down, and had decided that the time was right to make themselves known. The pair were a male and female, brother and sister it turned out, who had been on a mission of sorts to gather herbs from some special place a few days away."

At this, Skip and Nusiri looked at each other. That spring by the City of the Moon that Killa had mentioned?

"I say odd," Jack went on, "because the language they spoke was not any of the local tongues, but something like Quechua, from the mountains in Peru, far to the west."

Again, an exchange of looks by the others.

"That is why Daddy always gained the trust of tribes we encountered, because he showed them respect and made the effort to communicate in their own language when he could. We all went to where Raleigh had fallen and they applied a poultice of their "healing herb" to his sores. While he rested, we studied the stone and learned of its significance from our rescuers. Turns out it was a signpost, directing travelers to significant cities or temples, for those who knew how to read it, of course.

"And so, the lot of us returned to our camp by the waterfall for that night. The herbal tea they served Raleigh made him feel better, but it must have been too little, too late, as he passed away in his sleep that night. There was nothing to do, no practical way to turn back now, so we buried him by the falls, and with the only way to go being forward, followed our two misplaced Quechua Indians to their village, two days north and three days west. Daddy was nervous, as this would take us deep into unfriendly Morcego territory, the Bat People, who we found out later were properly called Menkragnoti. His fears were not unfounded, as the day before we arrived, we were set upon by a band of those warriors, and Daddy was slain by an arrow. By the time we made the village, this same village where we sit now, I was weak with exhaustion and grief, having lost all just in the last twenty-four hours.

"I certainly had not planned on living my life out here," Jack Fawcett concluded. "But I was far and away from our proposed route, and I did not think I would ever be able to find my way back through the unknown jungle. I had lost my father and a friend, and knew by now that those back home would have given us up for dead. I was taken in by the people, and in time married into the tribe, and built a new life. It has been a good life, if an unexpected one, and a much longer one than I might have anticipated. I have had a good wife and children, many grandchildren, and even known my great-grandchildren." He looked over at Killa with affection.

"Well," said Skip. "That clears up one mystery, the main one that we came here to solve." He wasn't sure yet how he was going to spin this for his article. Wild Journeys was a reputable magazine. Could he explain how he found Jack Fawcett alive after all these years, at over one hundred twenty years old, living with a tribe of possible Inca origins, without sounding like a nutjob? "But one puzzle just leads to another enigma," he went on, holding up the quipu he had inherited from his grandfather, the clue that had led them here. "There is more to your story, of course. This little intriguing artifact, so out of place deep in the Amazon basin. Tell me, what is the story of this quipu? Was this yours? What message were you trying to send? And why a quipu in the first place?"