Chuckling to himself, the paunchy Westerner clumped off in his high-heeled boots. He had been really inspired by Magnificent Max’s talk of jungle THE SKINNY PHANTOM 73
health foods, and wanted to try his own hand at native cookery.
Left to themselves, Tom and Bud strolled about the village. “Where do you plan to start using your camera?” Bud queried a few minutes later.
“We’ll shoot all the stone carvings around here for traces of worn-off inscriptions,” Tom decided. “Then I’ll try probing underground and see if we can turn up any buried relics.”
The boys passed an outdoor “kitchen” area where the women of the village had gathered to help prepare the feast. They were seated on the ground, patting the zacan, or ground corn, into round flat cakes on tiny three-legged wooden tables.
“Uah” one woman said, pointing to the cakes.
Tom responded with a smile. “Must be the Mayan word for tortillas,” he whispered.
“I’ll make a note of it,” Bud quipped.
Chow was crouched nearby, stirring a pan of dark-brown sauce. It was bubbling over a woodfire on a native “stove,” which consisted of a metal tray set about six inches above the ground on stones.
“Jungle hot plate I” Bud commented.
Chow stirred busily, humming a cowboy song and pretending not to see the two boys.
“Come on. Let’s leave the master to his work,” Tom said with a chuckle.
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He and Bud continued their stroll beyond the outskirts of the village. Here and there they came across a carved slab or half-crumbled stone column. All lay sunken deep in the jungle soil and overgrown with green, matted vegetation.