Three tiny piglike animals that Doc said were peccaries came and drank from the pool, ignoring the presence of the seven humans. Dean had hissed to his father that they should butcher them for meat, but Ryan had refused.
“Don’t need it yet. Forest seems to be brimming with food. We’ve all eaten our fills of those fruits you found. Ones that taste like peaches.”
“And those cherries,” Krysty added. “Best ones I ever had, even back in Harmony ville.”
Ryan stretched and stood. “But now I reckon it’s time to be moving on.”
Chapter Seven
They followed the continuation of the trail. It ran roughly west, picking up on the far side of the pool where the two natives had been hiding.
Ryan led the skirmish line, spaced out at about five yard intervals, with J.B., as usual, bringing up the rear of the small column.
The overwhelming humidity had mercifully eased, helped by the freshening easterly breeze that rustled the topmost branches of the mighty trees. Though they saw little of it, Ryan was aware of the profusion of wildlife that moved unseen through the forest around them.
A couple of times he spotted monkeys swinging noisily among the dangling fronds of liana, and once a deer crashed out across the trail, pausing to stare haughtily in the direction of the human invaders. It would have been absurdly simple to put the handsome animal down with a single bullet, and Ryan made the first instinctive move to shoot.
But he held back, partly to avoid the sound of a shot ringing through the trees. Partly because, as he’d said to Dean, there seemed to be more than enough fruit around to hold off starvation forever and a day.
The trail was well trodden, wide enough for a wag in most places, running over mainly level ground. Every now and again it was crossed by narrower side tracks that he guessed were probably for hunters.
“Trees thinning out some,” said Krysty, immediately on his heels.
“Yeah. Seem to be moving steadily downhill. Could be heading toward a river.”
He held up a hand, stopping and looking around him. Krysty was right. The giant forest of a couple of miles back had diminished, and they had just passed through several clearings.
“Look at that bird, Dad,” Dean called, pointing up into a circle of blue sky.
Ryan squinted into the brightness. “Eagle of some kind.”
“I believe that the bird in question is most likely to be a giant condor,” Doc offered. “It was always a splendid bird, but that specimen seems unusually large.”
Ryan’s guess put the wingspan at thirty feet. The bird was circling lazily, riding a thermal, its keen eyes scanning the green carpet below for some sign of edible life. It had noticed the seven two-legs, attracted initially by the blaze of white that was Jak Lauren, but had rejected them from experience, knowing they would fight back too hard.
“What’s that?” J.B. asked, pointing with the muzzle of the Uzi along a transverse trail that cut in from the right. “Some kind of statue?”
They all walked the hundred yards or so to examine it.
It was obviously extremely old, dating back to well before skydark. The stone of the double columns was deeply carved, but time had worn away the sharp, clean edges, blurring the design.
“Dragons?” Mildred suggested.
Doc peered closely at them, shaking his head. “No. I think not. I believe that they are the famous plumed serpents that typify the culture of the old Aztecs. See that they stand ten feet tall and have their jaws gaping open?”
“Oh, yeah.” Jak sniffed. “What got in mouths?”
“Skulls, I believe,” Doc replied. “Representations of human skulls. But moss has grown over them, and it’s a little difficult to make out.”
Mildred was on tiptoe, staring at them. “My guess is that they aren’t carved skulls, Doc.”
“But the eye sockets and the teeth that Oh, by the Three Kennedys! I take your meaning, Dr. Wyeth. They aren’t carved skulls at all. They are real human skulls.”
Ryan was more interested in what lay scattered around the base of the two pillars of stone.