David Golemon: Legend

Jack was the last to be manhandled off the cargo net as Captain Santos ordered the Rio Madonna to the opposite shore. Sarah, Carl, and Mendenhall were safe among the others. The students all looked his way in silent thanks; that was as much as their sorrow and fatigue would allow them. They knew it had been the four people before them who had saved everyone from being stranded in the mine just as Helen Zachary and a lot of their friends had been.

The major now located Virginia — and a scowling master chief, sitting by the wheelhouse in silence. Then he reached out to Sarah and half smiled as he took her hand.

"I didn't exactly get them all out, did I…" he began.

Sarah turned on him and looked him right in the eye. "Don't even start with that crap, Jack. You did all you could; the result is right before your eyes. Ten kids will see home again because of you."

Just beyond her, Carl nodded his head, agreeing with Sarah.

Jack, Sarah, Virginia, and Carl stood at the bow and looked at the falls, which had been reduced to only sixty feet from their tumble to the lagoon. Three hundred feet of mountaintop had collapsed in on El Dorado, enough tonnage to keep the plutonium and gold away from the hands of man for many decades.

The lagoon itself was silent again as life sounds returned to the rain forest around them.

"I guess Farbeaux would have made off with enough uranium to guarantee we would all be scared to death for the next fifty years," Virginia said, as the captain of Rio Madonna gave orders for getting under way.

"No, his plan would have ended right here," Jack said.

"What do you mean?" she asked, as Santos turned and smiled at the gathered Americans, his cigar freshly lit.

"Our friend here," said Jack, nodding toward Captain Santos, "would have killed anyone involved with the mine as soon as they returned to his boat. Hell, he may still be planning to kill everyone."

Sarah didn't follow this. "What makes you say that?"

"Because it's his job," Jack answered, staring at Santos. "Captain, would you mind joining us, please?"

Santos stepped over and removed his cigar from his mouth. " Si, senor? "

"Captain, you can knock off the peasant act now and show these ladies your jewelry," Jack said, smiling.

"Act? No, senor , I am a peasant of the river," he said as he reached into his shirt and drew out his necklace. He kissed the object on it, as he always did. Then he smiled and held it out so the two women could see his proudest possession.

"A papal medal of the Order of St. Patrick," Virginia said, astonished.

" Si , it has been mine for twenty-three years. Starting with my ancestors many years ago; our passion for the pope has continued through my bloodline. It has been our responsibility to ensure that the world shall never benefit from Padilla's discoveries. To make sure no one ever goes beyond the borders of the river and her surrounding sisters," he said as he dropped the medal back into his sweat-stained shirt, then he struck a match to his dead cigar. "My pleasure in life has been safeguarding Eden from men and women such as…"

"Us," Sarah said, comprehending at last.

Santos smiled as his cigar glowed to life. " Si, senora , people such as you."

"Captain Santos and his family were listed by Europa as having been awarded the first medals back in 1865, your great-great-grandfather, I believe," Jack said as he remembered the papal medalist list he had studied after Niles had hit on Keogh's name in Virginia.

" Si , this is true. You are surely a man with great knowledge, and I must assume you would not be easily disposed of, senor ?"

"No need; we are going to make sure El Dorado remains just a myth, a place where legends go to die," Jack said, looking the captain straight in the eye.

Santos didn't say anything, but just nodded and puffed on his cigar. Then he briefly looked toward the collapsed mine that was hidden behind the waterfalls. The waters allowed only wisps of smoke to escape from the devastation inside.

"It must get tiresome out here all alone," Virginia said.

Santos laughed heartily as the Rio Madonna 's engines came to life and the old boat made for the far shoreline. "Alone? No, I have my loyal crew and all of this," he said. He looked up into the bridge and gave an up-and-down motion with his fist. The boat's whistle sounded loudly in the silence of the valley.

Santos laughed as he looked up along the lip of the extinct volcano. Then Jack and the others heard chanting, almost a gentle song as sung by hundreds of people. They looked at the spot Santos was indicating and saw that the edge of the caldera was lined with Sincaro who stood watching the boat as it chugged its way out of the center of the lagoon.

Professor Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III broke away from the other survivors and held a hand to his bandaged head when he saw the ancient people of this lost valley. He began to cry for Professor Keating, who had died before he could see the prehistoric success story now unfolding before them. The Sincaro had taken everything the outside world could throw at them, be they Inca, Spanish, or modern man, and it was they who God allowed the sole ownership of Eden.

"It is a hard life, but my friends up there and not El Dorado is why we have always done this service for our pope. Not gold, not strange minerals." He turned and looked at the major. "This place is truly Eden, but it does have a few snakes that will protect it at all costs."

A large group of Sincaro watched from the sandy beach as the Rio Madonna dropped anchor on the eastern shore of the lagoon. Santos hummed the very tune of the Sincaro as he stepped to the gunwale. He gestured for Jack, Carl, Sarah, and Mendenhall to join him.

"I have it in my power to kill all of you. It is within my right to do so," he slowly explained without one iota of accent to his English. He turned away from the shore and the jungle beyond, to address the Americans, his face a death mask of seriousness. Then he smiled a sad sort of smile, replaced his cigar in the corner of his mouth, and tilted his filthy saucer cap back on his black hair. "But I think you have acted honorably in this place, as others have not. Those that have not are now a part of the legend of the valley, si ?"

"Yes," Jack answered as he heard noise coming from the bush.

"Good. Now, I think you may have lost something of yours in the jungle, senor. You may have them back. My friends the Sincaro are quite finished with them."

As Jack and the others followed his eyes to the shore of the lagoon, the bushes parted and an even larger party of Sincaro came forward, marching in a straight line. Jack smiled when he saw who they had in tow, tied with hands behind his back and strung along like a dog on a leash, but very much unharmed.

"Hey, guys, what's up?" Jason Ryan asked with his boyish grin. It quickly became a grimace when a small spear was probed into his lower back. The Sincaro chattered something in their own tongue as they herded him and the thirteen survivors from Operation Proteus forward. "Think we could get a lift out of here?" Ryan flinched and looked back at the miniature man pointing the stick behind him.

Half an hour later, after Ryan and the Delta and air force personnel had been pulled aboard and the Rio Madonna began to make its way out of the lagoon, the lone creature breached the surface and stared at the departing boat. Then the beast slowly sank beneath the surface as the small monkey-like creatures came out of the trees and started jabbering and jumping into the water. And so life returned to normal in the Garden of Eden, which returned to serenity in front of a collapsed legendary treasure that would continue to tease the mind of greedy men the world over — the lost mines of El Dorado.