Gunslingers Don't Sing or Dance - Mike Marino (free books to read TXT) 📗

contingent of...well, hard to explain, but will try… a contingent of large headed midgets with strange weapons in hand. The weapons were  guns of a type I never saw before. These were not Sam Colt’s Colts. (But he’d pay a fortune for information on them!)


I leaned closer to isadora’s ear inhaling her tri-racial musk  and said softly, “ I don’t believe this...Mayan Midgets?” Of course her laugh was enough to trigger a laugh response in me as well. El Diablo, since dismounted came over to our group with a grin broader than the entire Gulf of Mexico when he saw them up close.


Jules Verne as always was one literate step ahead of us walking brazenly up to the vertically challenged greeting committee.   “ Bah-sch kah wah-lee” to which the supposed leader replied “Meesh bah, koosh tehch?Bix a k’ aaba” My gawd, Mayan lingo


“I am Jules Verne, these are my friends. Do you speak English or only Mayan?”


“I am Balam and these are my friends. We speak many languages. We are related to the ancient ones and are the protectors of Chichen Itza. What is your business here?”


El Diablo with the social grace of  a desert buzzard not sharing a dead coyote carcass blurted  out words faster than beer flowing from  a broken beer keg spigot, “We’re looking for the treasure, little man. The hidden treasure of the Toltecs. My men and I are revolutionaries and we need it to finance our revolt to free our people from tyranny.” So much for subtlety! I firmly believe he would pick the pocket of a condemned man who  was swinging from the gallows in a dusty town square with an audience of bible belters belting out that old tyme thou shalt not kill religion, unless sanction by the law west of the Pecos.






“Ah, the treasure. Many have come before, senors y senorita. The treasure has never been found. Only stories of this place I am afraid. Maybe there is no treasure and you have wasted a journey.”


“Not likely,”I said offering the map as some sort of abstract proof. Balam’s stance changed quickly. “Where did you get this?” he screamed excitedly. Isadora fessed up it was her father’s map. Balam bowed graciously to us. What the hell was going on?


“Please, join us... as friends. I will explain. Let me show you something that may be of interest. He and his compact compadres led us to the base of the central pyramid. He stepped aside pointing to faded 700 year old carvings in the stone that foretold a story that would unfold 700 years later.. in fact, roughly in  this decade of the 1860’s. We  stood with our mouths open in disbelief as beef cattle must look after an arduous journey across the plains to the Kansas City stockyards only to be transported to Chicago to begin the killing process that would have them end up as steaks on a plate in the finest restaurants in St. Louis. “Don’t forget the steak sauce and baked potato garcon’ and bring me the wine list , merci’”




“You can see now,” Balam said proudly, “Why you are most welcome here as our honored guests. Anything you wish, including the treasure is yours!” We didn’t quite fathom what was being said. Soon after careful scrutiny it hit us with the impact of an ambush bullet in the back. The carvings depicted an air machine which strangely enough was a disc like balloon shape with a gondola compartment for passengers secured below. In the gondola  was a woman, a dark haired beauty with a beam of light emanating from her eyes pointing to the pyramid!


“Isadora. That’s you!” I said incredulously. It was uncanny! The resemblance was remarkable!


“Yes, and the light from the eyes is the same marking  found  at the base of your map,” Balam brought to our attention.”


“Damn, he’s right. I never noticed it before thinking it was just some superstitious mumbo jumbo,” I had to admit.


Isadora was in a state of shock. “I don’t understand. How….I mean..what…?”


Balam smiled and took the map from her hand.


“As I mentioned before, we are the offspring of the ancient ones from the sky. They showed our people the way to progress...building these magnificent structures, how to extract valuable metals from the earth, yes, gold, silver, jewels which we fashioned into ornamentals. We developed rapidly, but could see the outside world was fast encroaching. The visitors had sexual relations with our people….we are the result...the offspring of generation after generation.”


“That doesn’t explain the carvings...or the map,” Jules interceded.


“The Ancient Ones foretold of a sky machine coming in the future. Destiny guided your ship to this location. 20 Years ago a man ventured into Chichen Itza. A foreign man, French I believe who had come here quite by accident. We befriended him and told him our story and about the treasure, but did not show him it. We came across another carving, the one you just saw. Another carving, smaller, here at the bottom almost unnoticeable is one of the stranger and a young girl...with light coming  from her eyes...he had a dark haired daughter, you Senorita. So from past instructions we were to give the map to the stranger, your father I assume. You were chosen by the Ancients...it is yours because your heart is pure..and peaceful… Destiny proclaimed 700 years ago has  now been fulfilled!”


We were all in a state of disbelief and ecstasy at the same time. “Queen Isadora,” I said to her jokingly as we took our seats at a sundown feast with our hosts. “I tip my sombrero to you your majesty!” Which garnered me a soft punch to my arm by the woman with light emanating from her eyes..and her heart.


“I knew there was a reason I could love you,” I said jokingly.


“Ah Mr. Dooley, you only love me for my pyramids!”


We were all in a jovial mood, the food served was plentiful and the company enjoyable. As it got darker and darker we heard, then saw thousands of giant Mexican fruit bats emerge from the pyramid in near military precision. Jules was now writing furiously in his leather bound notebook.


“What’s the hurry, Jules? You write as though you’re going to die from snakebite.”


“Before I set out for Mexico I was in New York. Having just sailed from France.  I made friends with a real estate man, a Mr. Benjamin Baum who had a perfectly charming young son, Frank is his name. I was a guest in their home for a week and the lad loved stories. Knowing I was a writer he said he wanted to be one too when he grew up.,. A writer of children’s stories. So I am merely making notes so he can fashion a story from them someday. How marvelous...the bats for example to us as adults are just bats..but you see, to  child they could be anything, flying monkeys for example. A magical village inhabited by a race of little people. Flying Monkeys. A child can picture these things and create a story. A little girl leads them on a journey of magic. Isadora for example is the protaganist. She meets three friends who are all searching for treasure. You, Mr. Dooley, El Diablo and myself. Her three friends. Marvelous idea don’t you think? Ah and you Colonel are the key to the treasure. You are who they seek! It’s grand but only child can write it! Or someone with great imagination. Young Frank Baum is just the writer.!”


“It will never sell,” I added my pulp fiction detective novel two cents. “Flying monkeys and little people and a young girl leading a journey. Even if you added an evil witch I don’t think the world is ready for this drivel! What are you writing down now Jules?”


“Fantastic. An evil witch! Thanks Mr.Dooley. Perfect. I can’t wait to send this off to him! He’ll be excited!”


“Yes, then when he grows up he’ll see how ludicrous the concept is and end up leaving the literary canyons of Chicago and go back home to the family farm. After all..there’s no place like home.”

Chapter 21 - Sacrificial Virgins

 

 

Balam, if not of normal stature was a  giant among men,  and was the perfect host, if alien offspring with a history of sacrificing virgins doesn’t bother you. No wonder the Golden Age of the Maya disappeared. I can think of a few other things to do with a virgin other than strapping them down on a rock slab from the Cenote Sagrado near the main pyramid and removing a beating heart.

We sat down in the enveloping darkness and were partaking of a passing gourd cup of xtabenton, a Mayan ceremonial drink made from a species of morning glory seeds that contain ergine, which has I must admit some wonderful hallucinogenic properties which worked wonders faster than bullets fired from a Gatling Gun. It induces visions and a somewhat trance like state where prophecy is preponderant.

Soon, as the effects grab a hold, we were catatonic cowboys watching cosmic wheels on  a Conestoga wagon race along the ruts with hostiles in hot pursuit. The effects were energizing. Isadora moved in closer to me to get warm, or affectionate. I wasn’t quite sure, but  felt it was a little of both. Her hair brushed my face and right then and there I wanted to sacrifice both of us sexually on an altar of mutual agreement.

 

Just as the intoxication was at it’s peak, all of us were silent as we were cast into our own inner worlds, especially Jean-Paul who was speaking in a fashionable patois to the severed head of Gallegos who it appeared was listening  intently to every word!

The silent circle was not to be unbroken. “El Castillo is where the treasure is located,” Balam explained startling all of us with its abruptness causing El Diablo to draw his pistol to take on any and all interlopers. Never give vision inducing drugs to a paranoid bandito with a loaded gun! Lesson learned….

 

The little man continued. “Along with some gold, jade and silver you will also find an excellent collection of human remains. Bones and skulls of those who were given an afterlife with Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent.”

 

I had trouble picturing a serpent with feathers, but then again, my host was part Venusian and part Mayan, so anything is possible. Even harder for me was to erase the mental pictures of a multitude of Mayan virgins being wasted on some invisible deity on a slab of cold stone.

 

“The treasure you seek is inside in an underground chamber on the shore of the great underground river, yet the real treasure lies elsewhere, the treasure of your dreams that lie in your heart.”

Balam was as balmy or if he were an Irish leprechaun I’d say he was full of blarney.

 

El Diablo was not in the mood nor in rapt attention of any mystical horseshit handed out by our host. “Senor, I can’t help but notice. There is no entrance to El Castillo. How does one go inside to retrieve this maybe treasure or maybe not treasure?”

 

Isadora, ever surprising, had the inebriated answer. “The entrance lies in a riddle my father told me about before he died.