DISCLAIMER: The Raiders of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc. and Lucasfilm, Ltd. The story contents are the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 1983 by Cheree Cargill. This story was originally published in Field Studies #1, Cheree Cargill editor, and is Rated PG-13.

The Treasure of Tenochtitlàn

Cheree Cargill

"Don't start that again," Indy said, leaning one arm on the dusty mantle and staring into the fireplace. He had a headache and Marion's harping wasn't helping it any. "It's a long time in the past."

"Happens I feel like starting it again," she said, belligerently. She had been drinking all evening and had gotten onto topics he felt were best avoided. "I was just a kid and you knew it."

"You weren't any kid. I didn't drag you into my tent that night and you didn't yell rape afterwards."

"Yeah, and you didn't struggle too hard either," she said nastily. "Don't think I hadn't seen how you looked at me. You were horny as hell!" He turned from the fireplace with a dangerous expression on his face. She saw with pleasure that she had finally gotten to him and twisted the knife even deeper. "You've got a thing for little girls, huh, Indiana? Do you go through your classes systematically or just pick at random?"

He advanced on her, furious, then caught himself with difficulty. "Do you think I'd be stupid enough to risk my tenure for anything like that?" he demanded. "I made that mistake once." Besides, he thought darkly to himself, they're all over eighteen. Suddenly tired, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "You're drunk, Marion. Why don't you go to bed and sleep it off?"

"I intend to get a lot drunker. Besides, I can drink you under the table any day of the week and you know it. You owe me, Indiana, and I'm not going to let you forget it. I haven't forgotten the money you burned up in Nepal and I haven't forgotten what you did to me eleven years ago."

"Will you just drop it, for God's sake? I'm sick of hearing about it!"

"I'm sick of you and this dump you live in! I'm getting outa here and into a place of my own." She suddenly swayed unsteadily as a wave of dizziness engulfed her, so that she had to clutch the back of the chair for support.

He had turned away again and didn't notice. "Yeah, with what? You haven't got a dime to your name!"

"I'll get a job … in a bar …" she answered and knocked back the rest of the whiskey in her glass. The dizziness swept her again but she tried to ignore it. "I've got plenty of experience at that! Boy, wouldn't that look great to the Board of Regents - Professor Jones' wife workin' in a … a …." This time her head spun with such force that she dropped the glass and clutched at her temples, trying to bring the world back into focus. The floor wouldn't stay level and she started to tumble over.

Taken by surprise, Indy hesitated for an instant then caught her before she could fall and held her close until she steadied. When she could stand, he put his arm around her shoulders and gently walked her down the hall to the bedroom. "You're tired and you've had too much to drink. You'll feel better in the morning."

She didn't argue, but let him put her to bed. He sat down on the side of the bed and smoothed her dark hair.

"Why didn't you ever come back?" Marion murmured sleepily, fast drifting off under the tender hand caressing her hair.

"Go to sleep," he said and rose. He turned out the bedside lamp and bent down to kiss her forehead, then quietly closed the door behind him and went back to sit before the fire.

* * *

Indy awoke to find Marion huddled against him, trembling. "What's the matter?" he asked groggily.

"I'm sorry, Indy," she whispered. "I'm just having bad dreams."

He turned on his side so that he could take her in his arms. "What about?"

She seemed very small and vulnerable pressed against him. "The whole thing," she whispered. "Snakes everywhere and bodies falling out of the walls on me ... the walls caving in and all the air being sucked out … I was suffocating and couldn't get out and I called and called but no one could hear me."

"Who were you calling?"

She buried her face against his chest, as if ashamed, and answered in a voice so small he barely heard her. "You."

He smiled and held her a little tighter. "I'm here now," he whispered. "I won't leave you. Go back to sleep, honey." He kept her close to him until he was sure she was asleep again, then settled back and fell asleep himself.

* * *

They had been married in a quiet civil ceremony in Washington, following the hearings there. Marion had hesitated at first, ten years of bad memories crowding in on her, but in the end, she knew she could never leave him or let him go a second time. And, in truth, she had nowhere else to go. All that she had owned had gone flaming up into the cold Himalayan night earlier that year. All that she had salvaged were the clothes on her back and Abner's treasured Headpiece to the Staff of Ra.

She had been terrified of their return to Connecticut, to a way of life she only half-remembered from her childhood. Suddenly, horribly shy, she dreaded being the inevitable object of curiosity among the other faculty wives and wondered if she could ever fit into the comfortable society there. She had been away from America so long, had lived for so many years in completely different environments, had been forced to fend for herself after Abner's death and had been successful at it. How could she possibly re-enter the quiet life of afternoon teas and sewing circles that she had frequented when her mother had been alive, so many years ago? The memory of her refined, gentle mother brought back an ache to Marion's heart that she hadn't felt in years. Suddenly, she missed her mother desperately.

Indy had gone back to his classes at Marshall College and had slipped effortlessly into his other persona. To watch him leave the house every day, clean-shaven, dressed in suit and tie and wearing his horn-rim glasses, it was hard to imagine the man who had appeared to her out of the night and her past.

The weeks had slipped past quietly through a mild winter and early spring. Somehow she had survived the obligatory little coffee klatches and had even made friends with one or two of the younger wives. Slowly, she began to feel at home here in the quiet domestic routine. She wrapped the security of the little brick house and tree-shaded yard around her like a blanket.

At other times, though, she ached for the high wildness of the Himalayas, to feel the cold wind in her face, to stand on the mountainside and have the earth spread out at her feet. She longed for the brisk chatter of Sherpas and warm, smoky confines of the little world she had created in the Raven. At those times, she felt that that was her real home and, then, the gossipy, catty wives of Indy's colleagues and the neat little brick houses lining the streets were insufferable to her and she felt almost desperate to break free of them.

It was Friday, a week before the Easter vacation and Indy sat hunched over his desk, doggedly going through the task of grading freshman mid-term exams. With luck, he would finish them in time for class Monday morning. Marion brought him a fresh cup of coffee and stood looking over his shoulder. Indy ran a hand over his sprouting beard, shook his head and clucked softly to himself, then marked another answer wrong.

"Wanna take a break?" she asked. She had been essentially alone the whole week. Even when Indy was home, he was bent over his desk with work.

"Can't," he replied laconically, his attention focused on the paper. "Huh - can't believe it - he got this one right."

"Well, I want to do something," she said, crossly. "You've been so caught up in your work I've hardly seen you."

"Mm-hmmm," he answered absently.

"Indy!"

He looked up tiredly and sighed. "I'm sorry, Marion, but I've really got to get these papers graded."

Whirling away from him, she snapped, "Forget it! Just forget it!"

His mouth tightened in exasperation for a minute then he dug into his pants pocket and came up with three quarters. "Look, here's 75 cents. Why don't you go to a movie? I think Jezebel is playing at the Palace Theater."

"Is that some sort of crack?"

"For Pete's sake, Marion! I wasn't implying anything! I just thought you liked Bette Davis! Go see it. Don't go see it. Do anything you want! Just please let me get these rotten freshman tests graded!"

She eyed him angrily for a moment then snatched the coins from his extended hand. Without further comment she grabbed her purse and the car keys and stormed out, slamming the stained glass door behind her. In a moment, she heard his old Ford start up and roar off down the street. Indy let her go, deciding it was better to give her a chance to cool off, and went back to his papers.

The clock in the living room was striking eleven when he finally decided he'd had enough and stretched, popping the kinks out of his back and neck. It dawned on him that Marion should have been back by then. Oh, well, he thought, she probably stopped to get a cup of coffee or something.

He went to bed and read for a while, all the time listening for the sound of the Ford Model A to pull into the driveway. By 12:30, he had begun to worry. He got up and pulled on his robe and slippers and went into the living room, where he put a small log on the fire and stoked up the embers then stretched out on the couch.

He was jerked out of sleep two hours later by insistent pounding at the front door. By the time he had scrambled up, trying to clear his mind of sleep, there was the sound of running footsteps and then a car motor gunning. Indy flung open the front door in time to see a black sedan round the corner, its lights off.

As he stepped out onto the porch, his foot caught on something and he bent down to pick it up. It was Marion's purse, empty of its usual contents but containing a small folded piece of paper. Indy stepped back into the light of the living room to read it and was snapped into full wakefulness. The note, printed in block letters as if in a deliberate attempt to disguise the handwriting, read, "We have Ravenwood's daughter. Bring the map of Tenochtitlan to war memorial. You will be met. Do not call the police."

* * *

Intuition told Indy to wear his work clothes so now he stood warily in the darkness, dressed in heavy cotton pants and khaki shirt, leather jacket and books, his sweat-stained fedora pulled low over his eyes. The cold steel of his Colt .44 revolver nestled comfortingly under his left arm in its shoulder holster. He only regretted that he could not bring his bullwhip, but the police did not take kindly to citizens wandering around openly carrying weapons.

He was on edge, his eyes nervously probing into the shadows of trees thrown by the setting moon. The park was only five blocks from his house and he had walked it quickly. Now he waited tensely by the weathered granite pillar that celebrated Connecticut's veterans of the War to End All Wars. Listening to the latest news from Europe every evening, Indy often wondered how long they could say that. Italian forces had invaded Ethiopia the year before; civil war raged in Spain; and the German Wehrmacht had already marched unopposed into Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland.

A soft footstep made him whip around, simultaneously reaching for his gun, but he froze in mid-action and slowly raised his hands. The business end of a Luger was pointing at his stomach. His gaze followed the black gloved hand up the sleeve of the trench coat to rest on a face barely visible in the darkness, further shadowed by the wide-brimmed hat the man wore. Without speaking, he motioned Indy ahead of him and the two walked quietly back towards the street.

Just before they stepped out of the shadows underneath the trees, another figure joined them and frisked Indiana quickly. An amused smirk appeared on the face of the second man as he relieved Indy of the pistol and two boxes of ammunition. Then he jerked his head toward the waiting black sedan. The back door opened and Indy climbed in. The two muscle men got in the front seat, one behind the steering wheel.

A third man waited in the back seat. "Good evening, Dr. Jones," he said pleasantly, his speech edged very slightly with a Prussian crispness. "Or should I say, good morning? I trust we did not disturb your sleep too much."

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Eric Kohl. We have not met before but I am familiar with your work. I believe our little note explained the reason for this meeting."

"It said that you've kidnaped my wife and wanted me to bring some sort of map. I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do, Dr. Jones. You have in your possession the remains of a map made by Spanish conquistadors showing the location of a cache of Aztec gold. It is said that the golden statue of Quetzlcoatl is among the artifacts there. We require your assistance in finding it."

"I don't have any map."

"I believe you do, Dr. Jones, and your cooperation in this project is mandatory. Otherwise Mrs. Jones will of necessity suffer a number of unpleasant things. Do I make myself clear?"

Indy sat for a moment in anger, calculating his chances in taking on the three of them, then said sullenly, "I don't have it with me. It's in my office at the university."

"Then we will go there and collect it. Klaus, fahren sie, bitte."

The car moved quietly away from the curb, the fine engine purring. Indy took the opportunity to think. His suspicions as to their nationality had been confirmed by Kohl's order to the driver. He had very little doubt in whose coffers the gold would end up, should they be successful in their mission. He'd already thwarted the Nazi attempt to possess the Ark of the Covenant; he didn't intend to help them fuel their tyrannies with Aztec gold.

* * *

The campus of Marshall College was dark and deserted as the sedan moved quietly down its narrow streets towards the science building. It didn't surprise Indy that they knew the way to his office. The big car pulled up to the curb and Kohl and Indy got out, the former casually keeping his right hand in his coat pocket. Although there was no outward evidence to indicate it, the archaeologist had no doubt whatsoever that the German was prepared to blow a sizeable hole in him at the first sign of trouble.

The building was dark and locked, but Indy peered down the long hall and rapped on the glass in the door. When there was no response, he rapped again harder. After a few minutes, a small circle of light appeared from an adjoining hallway and approached the door. It grew into the night watchman with his flashlight.

The watchman looked the two men over thoroughly before unlocking the door but was smiling as he let them in. "Oh, it's you, Dr. Jones. Didn't recognize you for a minute. What brings you out at this hour?"

"Working late, Fred. Dr. … er .. Coates and I came down to get something I left in my office this afternoon." The German nodded pleasantly at the security guard but did not speak and did not remove his hand from his pocket. "We'll just be a minute, Fred."

"Do you need the lights on?" the watchman asked.

"No, no," Indy answered quickly. "We'll only be a minute, really."

"Well, if you need anything, just yell. Nice meetin' you." Fred waved as they moved off down the dark hallway.

"Very good," Kohl said when they were out of earshot of the watchman. "Please do not think of trying anything foolish, Dr. Jones. I would not hesitate to kill both you and the other gentleman should it prove necessary."

"Answer me one thing," Indy said in a low controlled voice, continuing down the hall without looking back at the Nazi agent. "Where's Marion? What have you done with her?"

"All in good time, Dr. Jones. First the map."

They had come to the broom closet-sized office that Indy inhabited and he fished out his keys and unlocked the door, then reached in and flipped on the light. The scratched nameplate on the door was still embellished with the faint impressions of blue ink hearts left by some ardent student admirer. Inside was floor to ceiling clutter - books, papers, treatises, artifacts, carvings, creased photographs, rolled maps, all the flotsam and jetsam of his wanderings. The old desk in one corner had a small cleared working space and even this was scattered with a variety of pens and papers. The office chair tipped back into a comfortable reclining position and looked as if it squeaked. Beside the door was a plain wooden straight chair with a leather seat, into which was worn a distinct hollow, as if too many student bottoms had squirmed there over too many years.

Kohl looked around and one corner of his mouth came up. "Very appropriate, Doctor. You play at being the absent-minded professor quite well. Now, where is the map?"

"I'll have to find it." Indiana began to sort purposefully through the stacks of papers, all the while turned so that Kohl was just within his peripheral vision. At last, he saw the German look away to inspect the office further and Indy whirled, swinging his right arm and fist in a blur of motion that was intended to knock the other man off-balance and into the wall. But Kohl responded with lightning-like reflexes and jerked his left arm up to counter Indy's blow. Kohl was staggered as their forearms crashed together, but he did not fall and the next instant had the pistol out of his pocket and pointed at Indy's chest.

"That was very foolish, Dr. Jones," he said, breathing heavily. "Remember that we have your wife. If there are any more such outbursts on your part, you will have the opportunity to watch her die. I will do the job myself. Now, get the map."

Indiana realized that he had no choice but to cooperate and, after a tense moment of staring at each other, he turned and went to his desk. From a bottom drawer, he extracted a brown cardboard envelope tied with string and handed it unceremoniously to the German. Kohl nodded in satisfaction and tucked the packet under his left arm. With the gun, he motioned Indy out into the hallway and turned off the light behind them. Silently, they made their way out of the building and back to the car. The other two men got out of the sedan and stood waiting.

Indy, sensing danger but not knowing what to expect, tensed, ready for anything. But before he could react, the butt of the pistol in Kohl's hand came down viciously on the back of his skull and he plunged forward into darkness.

* * *

He came to with his head cradled in a soft lap and gentle hands stroking his face. His eyes fluttered open and he tried to sit up, but the sharp pain in the back of his head made him catch his breath and ease himself back down.

"Indy," Marion's voice whispered. "Just lie there for a while more. Are you okay?"

"How long have I been out? Where are we?" He looked up at her bending over him, still holding his head in her lap. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. They tossed you in here about ten minutes ago. I don't know how long you were unconscious before that," she answered in a low voice. "And I'm not really sure where we are. They blindfolded me. It seems to be a warehouse or something like it. I think this room was an office."

"Are you all right? Have they hurt you?"

"They pawed me around a bit but I'm okay. How are you?"

More slowly this time, he sat up and surveyed his surroundings. The room was windowless, empty and thick with dust and cobwebs. The wooden floor had probably been varnished at one time but was now gray with age. Weak, yellow light came from a bare overhead bulb, which flickered now and then as if on the verge of going out.

Indy and Marion were both sitting on the floor, his hat lying nearby. "What happened to you?" he asked.

"The car wouldn't start," she said. "I guess they had fixed it so that it wouldn't while I was in the theater. While I had my head under the hood trying to figure out what was wrong, they grabbed me, stuffed something in my mouth and put something over my eyes. Before I knew what was happening, they had me in their car and brought me here." For the first time, a hint of desperation appeared on her face. "Indy, what do they want? They wouldn't tell me anything."

"It'll be okay. Don't worry. They were after me and an old map I brought back from Mexico a couple of years ago."

Indy retrieved his battered fedora and put it on. There was going to be a definite bump on the back of his head, but outside of a bit of throbbing, it didn't bother him any more. He climbed to his feet and pulled Marion up after him. "Have you tried the door?"

"Yes. It's not locked, but they must have a chair or something propped up against it. And one of their goons is outside."

Before they could talk further, there was the sound of activity outside and the door opened. The driver, Klaus, was standing in the opening with a gun in his hand and motioned them out then moved back so that they could pass. The hope of escape that had sprung into Indy's head died abruptly as he stepped out of the room and saw that Klaus was not alone. Three other large, silent men stood waiting, all looking as determined and grim as the big German beside the door. All were armed.

They moved down a short hallway and turned to the left into another featureless room. This one, however, contained a table and two wooden chairs, facing each other across the room. Kohl was bending over the separate sections of a stained, torn parchment. A fourth piece, the upper right-hand section, was missing.

He straightened and turned to face the group as they entered, Indy and Marion in the lead. "We have added your section of the map to our own, Dr. Jones," Kohl said without preamble. "The map is not complete."

"I never said it was," Indy replied levelly.

"Where is the rest of it?"

"Go to hell."

Kohl smiled humorlessly. "If necessary." He jerked his head at Marion and said to one of the waiting men, "Verbind ihr!"

In answer, the man yanked Marion into one of the chairs and tied her hands in back of it. Smugly, he reached up to pat her cheek but in an instant she had sunk her teeth into his thumb, bringing a scream of pain from him. He jerked away from her and backhanded her viciously.

With an outraged cry, Indy flung himself at the German but two of the muscle men caught him in mid-flight and dragged him into the other chair, similarly tying his hands behind him.

"You listen to me, Kohl!" he said in a barely-controlled voice, his eyes blazing in fury. "You want the rest of the map and I know where it is. But I'll fry in hell before I'll tell you, if you lay another hand on her. You understand me?"

The German regarded him coolly and then barked another order at the group and the men backed off from Marion, one angrily sucking on his wounded hand.

"Very well, Dr. Jones. Cooperation will get us both what we want. Where is the rest of the map?"

"How do I know you won't kill me as soon as I tell you what you want to know?" he asked.

"You will simply have to trust us when we say that we mean you and Mrs. Jones no harm," Kohl answered evenly.

Indy had to smile sardonically. "You'll forgive me if I hesitate to take your word."

Kohl said nothing but flicked his steel-grey eyes in the direction of one of the heavy set men. Quickly, efficiently, the man stepped up and slammed a rock-like fist into Indy's midsection. The blow was unexpected and knocked the breath from his lungs explosively. Before he could recover, the big German delivered two more of the sledge-hammer punches to Indy's stomach.

It took Indy a few minutes to stop the stars from dancing before his eyes and to get his lungs to draw in air. Nausea welled up from his protesting stomach. Dazed, he struggled to keep from vomiting.

"Where is the rest of the map?" the German asked coldly.

The taste of bile in his throat kept him from answering.

The Nazi took a step toward him and his face hardened even more. "I am a patient man, Professor Jones, but my patience is running out. There are many ways that we could extract the information from you, all of them very unpleasant. My friends here are very creative. Or perhaps you would prefer to watch while they administer to Mrs. Jones? Where is the rest of the map?"

Indy had blanched noticeably and couldn't seem to straighten back up in his chair. He had to swallow before he could speak. "In Mexico City," he answered hoarsely.

"Where?"

"I can't tell you. I'll have to take you there."

Kohl stood for a long time, one fist clenching and unclenching, then turned and spoke rapidly to the group. Indy's head had cleared enough to mentally translate Kohl's words, although his harsh, North German accent made some of it difficult to pick up. Abruptly the Nazi leader began to gather the pieces of the map together and the rest of the men began to file out.

Kohl faced them stiffly, his lean face like granite. "You will stay here until arrangements are made for the train. You will go to Mexico City with us and lead us to the missing piece of the map. Mrs. Jones will go along to insure that you attempt nothing foolhardy." He leaned menacingly closer. "This had better not be a ruse, Dr. Jones."

"Will you at least untie us? I don't think we'll wander off."

The German studied him again for a moment then evidently decided that they could do nothing harmful if they were free and nodded to the lone remaining guard. This man drew a wicked looking knife from his belt and approached Indy with it. For a second, Indiana was not certain of his intentions, then the man stepped behind him and deftly slit the short length of rope binding his hands.

As Indy sat rubbing his wrists, the two Germans went out through the door and this time it did lock behind them. He rose a bit stiffly and went to Marion, loosening her bonds. As soon as her arms were free, she flung them around Indy's neck and clung tightly to him, as if afraid to let him go. He groaned and pushed her away, holding his bruised stomach, still slightly bent over.

"Oh, Indy, are you okay?" she pleaded.

"No," he said softly. "I think I'm gonna be sick." He glanced at the bare table. It seemed sturdy enough and he crawled up on it and curled into a fetal position, his arms still folded over his stomach, sinking into unconsciousness almost immediately. Marion watched as his breathing evened out and some of the pain left his face. She realized then that she too had been up all night. Wearily, she climbed up beside him and curled up with her back against him. The table was hard and totally unsuitable as a bed, but she was asleep before she could realize how uncomfortable it was.

* * *

The guards woke them up sometime during the next afternoon and prodded them harshly into action with the muzzles from their guns. Both were stiff from having slept on the hard table but were more refreshed. Indy's stomach still hurt but the numbing pain of the night before was gone.

They were herded down the hall and through another door, which led into the cavernous main warehouse. It was dilapidated-looking and empty except for the black sedan which stood waiting beside a truck-sized door. Kohl was standing beside the car, immaculate in a trench coat and an expensive looking gray fedora.

"It is time to go, my friends," he said, one corner of his mouth turned up into what was not quite a smile. His eyes remained hard as stone. "We are not completely barbaric. We have reserved you a compartment. You will have a chance to wash and eat once we are aboard and on our way."

"You're all heart," Indy said sarcastically.

"Do not provoke me, Professor Jones," Kohl said, his mouth going back into a hard, straight line. "Get into the car."

"We'll be missed. What happens when I don't show up for class Monday morning?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry that you haven't heard, Dr. Jones. Your father has suddenly taken ill and you and Mrs. Jones have rushed to his bedside. Dr. Parker, your department head, sends his regrets and wishes him a speedy recovery. He will be most happy to arrange for a substitute until your return."

"So, what do we do when we get to Mexico City? Stroll in and ask for the map? The Mexican authorities just hand it over to you? Just like that? You'll never get away with it, Kohl."

Kohl eyed him for a second and then, incredibly, began to laugh in genuine amusement. "Oh, Dr. Jones, I assure you, we will. I think you will find that our influence reaches into a number of different governments." Still chuckling, he motioned them into the sedan.

They obeyed resolutely, Marion in the front seat between the driver and Kohl, Indy sandwiched in back between two heavies who looked as if they would brook no nonsense from him. The journey to the station was uneventful and within two hours they were on their way south.

* * *

Each had their turn at the washroom and were brought trays from the dining car, but the constant, unobtrusive presence of the Germans in the passageway outside assured that they would not leave their compartment. Kohl had taken the liberty of sending men to Indy's house while they were incarcerated at the warehouse and they had brought back two suitcases containing a change of clothes apiece, nightwear, their passports and some toilet articles. Indy's jaw tightened as they unpacked in the presence of one of the guards, Gunther. Unbelievably, they had included his old, ivory-handled straight-edge razor. Gunther, however, had stood by stolidly while Indy shaved, his dark blue eyes never leaving the other's face. When Indy had rinsed the razor, Gunther quietly drew his pistol, pointed it at Jones and held out his other hand. In resignation, Indiana folded the blade into the sheath and handed it over. The German smirked and pocketed it, then left the compartment.

Night had fallen long before they reached New York. The train stopped briefly to take on passengers then pulled out and headed into the Alleghenies, bound for Philadelphia. Moonlight flooded the landscape and softly lit the darkened compartment with a silvery light. Marion had watched out the window for a long while, but finally turned away and came to bed.

Indy lay staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. At his side, Marion pleaded softly, "What are we going to do, Indy?"

"I dunno. I'm thinking."

"Is there really another piece of the map?"

"Yes. It's called the Oaxaca Fragment. It's in Mexico City at the University. I've seen it but that's all. It's not on display, just stored there and, really, it's such an obscure piece of parchment, only a few people know about it. I had always intended to eventually turn my part of the map over to the Mexican government. I don't know where the Germans got the two sections they have."

"How did you get yours?"

"Found it at a dig in Zaachila. We found a pottery cache in a temple antechamber, with a couple of sealed, unbroken pieces. We didn't realize what we had until we got home and opened the pots up. One of them had this fragment in it. I went back to Mexico to check out my hunch about it and, sure enough, it matched the section Dr. Ruiz had found in Oaxaca in 1932. I saw it when I did some work with him that year."

"Why do they want it so badly?"

"Well, the story goes that when Cortes was plundering Mexico, a group of Aztec priests escaped to the north with a load of gold from one of the temples of Quetzlcoatl, their god. The feathered serpent, you know. His images are found on a lot of their pyramids. No one knows what all they took, but legend has it that the main thing was the golden idol from the temple. They hid it all somewhere in Northern Mexico. Nobody knows exactly where. Anyway, two Spaniards allegedly tracked them to the hiding place and found it, but there was so much gold they couldn't begin to move it. So they made a map, showing the trail from Tenochtitlan - present-day Mexico City - to the site, intending to return some day and retrieve the gold. But there was a falling out or something later and the map was torn into several pieces. The most important part, showing the actual location, disappeared. I'm pretty sure that's the piece Ruiz has, but I don't think he really knows what he's got. By itself, the Fragment's meaningless. It's just another piece of parchment with a few scribbles on it."

"Until it's put with your part of the map."

"Exactly."

Marion fell silent and then snuggled under his left arm; he obliged by putting it around her shoulders and pulling her close to him. She was warm and soft in his arms and, for a while, they lay listening to the constant clack of the rails, then Indy said softly, "Marion? I'm sorry about all the things I said to you that night."

"I'm sorry I was so nasty to you. I didn't mean it."

"I know."

At length, she said, "You know, I never really stopped loving you. It's just that, when you left, I hurt so much inside I swore I'd hate you the rest of my life."

Indy was silent in the darkness, then admitted in a whisper, "Walking out of there without you was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I almost said the hell with Abner and started back to get you, but there wasn't any hope."

"Why didn't you come back later?" she whispered.

Again, he remained silent for a while before answering, "I don't know. I guess I was too afraid of what I'd do to Abner if he tried to keep me away from you." He drew her closer to him and said softly into her hair, "I guess I just spent ten years of my life trying to convince myself that I didn't love you."

Marion's hold on him tightened and she let the muted, rhythmic clatter of the tracks take her back to their first time together, eons ago, it seemed. The sound became that of tent material, popping softly in the wind, rippling softly over their heads in the desert night. He had been her father's assistant at the dig in the Valley of the Kings, tanned and virile and beautiful in his young manhood. She was fifteen, wild and motherless, strong-headed and flushed with the stirrings of her own sexuality. She had known him vaguely for years as one of her father's students, but there had been a steady stream of students flowing about her father and Indy was just one of many.

It was not until he had accompanied them to Egypt that she began to see him as an individual. The long days on board ship had brought her into close contact with him for the first time and she delighted in his wry sense of humor, in his innate bravura and in his sheer masculinity. She found that she could confide in him and that he would neither laugh at her nor repeat her secrets to her father. Long before they reached Cairo, she had fallen head over heels in love with him.

Indy knew better, of course; she was just a kid, long-limbed, cocky and freckled. But gradually he began to see her in a different light. The dark eyes sparkled with anticipation at his approach and he saw in them the woman struggling to be free of the girl. At times she teased him with provocative glances that promised but never quite fulfilled. He saw that her slim body was rounding out in a delicious way, that it wasn't a child's body any more. After a time, he found that his heartbeat quickened a bit at the sight of her long, dark hair swirling around her face in the evening breeze, at the sound of her laughter at the end of the day, at the warm scent of her skin when she was near him. He would find himself pausing to watch the play of her long legs as she walked or the thrust of her breasts against her cotton blouse. At times, he would find that his throat had gone a bit dry and not from the desert heat. He began to want her desperately.

At last, one night, she came to him on the pretense of returning a book she had borrowed. He was alone, his tent-mate having gone to Thebes for supplies. It was late and he was on the verge of going to bed, in fact, had already extinguished the lantern and undressed when she slipped quietly inside his tent. As startled as he was, his body surged with sudden desire for her and he thanked the stars that the darkness enveloped them both.

For a moment, she fumbled awkwardly at speech, afraid of the passion she felt rising in him and in herself, but then he reached out for her and she sank against him with a soft moan of relief and lifted her face as he kissed her, gently at first, then with increasing fervor.

His hands were shaking as he gently helped her undress in the darkness, as much as she was trembling, afraid but wanting desperately to stay with him. Without speaking, they sank down onto his cot, oblivious to the night sounds of the others in camp around them.

Later, their passion spent, they lay in each other's arms, lost in their own thoughts, awed at the implications of what they had done, but unwilling to let the other go. Suddenly, it seemed that they had only each other left in the world, and each realized that something more than simple desire had passed between them.

They had few chances after that to be alone but, more than once, frantic with their need for each other, they had slipped away from camp after dark into the rocky hills that surrounded the valley and had made love with a fury born of desperation. The mores and inhibitions they had grown up with seemed very far away in this wild and alien land. Somehow, here, there seemed a chance for their love. But there was so little time and it inevitably ran out for them.

Abner had been completely livid with rage when he summoned Indy to his tent and confronted him. Marion sat on the camp bed, her face blotchy from crying, and looked up pleadingly at Indy. Abner had caught her slipping back to her tent and had made her confess where she had been. Did Indy know how old Marion was? Was he aware that he could be charged with statutory rape when they got back to the United States? Standing his ground, Indy answered that he loved Marion and wanted to marry her. Abner was so choked with fury that he couldn't reply for a moment and Indy honestly thought the man was on the verge of a stroke.

At last Abner recovered enough to speak. Marion was a child; she didn't know what she wanted. He blamed Indy for leading her on and taking advantage of her innocence. Marriage was out of the question; Marion was too young. Besides, did he think he'd hand his daughter over to Indy after what he'd done to her? He was lucky he didn't kill him on the spot! He wanted Indy out of camp within the hour and, if he ever saw his face again, he wouldn't be responsible for his actions.

Indy stood for a moment, his fists clenched, staring at his old acquaintance with desperation on his face. Then he glanced in Marion's direction and the sorrow that filled his hazel eyes spoke volumes. Then he swallowed, turned and was gone.

She had sprung after him, crying his name, new tears blinding her. Her father's strong arms had stopped her and held her inexorably, until at last she sank down and sobbed until her body ached, knowing that she had lost him.

Marion's thoughts came back to the present and she gazed in wonder at the man holding her, and for a moment the old hurt throbbed within her, but then she shook it off and took a tighter hold on him, determined never to let him out of her life again.

* * *

They changed trains in Philadelphia and went from there to Cincinnati, from there to Kansas City. Again they changed trains, crossed the Mississippi River and traveled south to Dallas, then on to San Antonio and finally to Laredo. It had taken nearly four days and, during that time, they had been brought regular meals and generally left alone. After their stop in Missouri, Indy had talked Klaus out of the Kansas City newspaper he had bought but Indy gave up trying to read it after a few minutes. He didn't have his glasses and the rocking of the train made the slightly blurred print dance even more.

As the train approached Laredo, Kohl came to their compartment and said, "Get your things together. We will be changing trains again in Laredo and then, Dr. Jones, I believe it will be time for us to talk." Indy knew why the German wanted to wait until they crossed the border before questioning them - bodies were easily disposed of in the arid wastes of the Mexican desert and the Mexican authorities had been known to look the other way on occasion. The thought didn't help his digestion any.

The spring weather in South Texas was fair and already hot as the group stepped down onto the station platform. Indy's leather jacket rapidly grew too warm and he was sure that the trench coats of the Germans were like-wise, but none made any move to take them off and two of them found reason to keep their hands in their pockets. He still wore his shoulder holster, though empty. He didn't know what they had done with his revolver but kept his eyes open for the chance to lay his hands on some sort of weapon.

Kohl led them through the small station to the only other track, on which sat an antiquated steam engine, pulling a coal car, eight passenger cars, a baggage car and a caboose, all looking like relics from the last century. Immigration agents passed the group through quickly and they climbed aboard one of the passenger cars, which contained tiny sleeping compartments and berths. Not long afterwards, the train puffed slowly across the Rio Grande, where it paused again in Nuevo Laredo and was boarded by a contingent of Mexican soldiers, who retired to the next forward coach. An officer, though, made his way back to speak to Kohl with a manner that made it clear that he was putting himself at the German's disposal. He gave a sharp Nazi salute and returned to his men.

Laboriously, the old steam engine started on its way again, moving south-west toward Saltillo. The distant foot-hills of the Sierra Madre loomed up toward them and beyond that, the barren mountains themselves.

Two hours later, the train was slowly climbing the grade, about 20 miles per hour, when Kohl had Indy issued into his presence by Klaus in one of the small compartments. Gunther was present also, the fourth one, Mueller, having been left to guard Marion. The driver and guard had shed their coats and were in their shirt-sleeves, although Kohl remained immaculate in his gray suit. Indy noticed that Klaus had his Luger stuck in back in his belt.

The Nazi leader had the pieces of the map spread on the bunk and smiled with false jollity as Klaus closed the door behind them. It was close quarters. "Now, Dr. Jones," Kohl said. "I think it is time that we learn where you are leading us. I want the precise location of the missing piece of the map."

"Well, I found this portion of the map at the dig in Zaachila," Indy said slowly, calculating his chances. "As you can see, it is obviously the work of a Spanish cartographer…"

"I'm not interested in the history of the map!" the German roared, his temper suddenly snapping. "I want the location of the missing piece!" Then his eyes narrowed and his voice dropped into a low, dangerous tone. "You seem to have forgotten our discussion on cooperation, Dr. Jones, so perhaps we can help you remember." He nodded at Klaus, who seized Indy from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. Looking as if he were immensely enjoying himself, Gunther produced Indy's straight-edge razor and flipped open the blade, then advanced smiling upon the archaeologist.

Indy lashed out, kicking him as hard as he could in the crotch. With a strangled, incoherent cry, Gunther dropped the razor and clutched at his groin, crumpling to the floor as his knees buckled beneath him.

Surprise had caused Klaus to weaken his grip for an instant and Indiana took advantage of it, swinging his heel back into the man's shin with all the force he could muster. Klaus bellowed and Indy jerked loose, ramming his elbow hard into the guard's midsection. Klaus doubled over and Indy jumped clear of him, bringing his locked fists down on the back of the German's neck, then snatched the Luger from his belt as he fell.

Kohl had launched himself with an enraged cry at the American and, reflexively, Indy whipped the gun up and pulled the trigger. It kicked twice and Kohl's leap was checked in midair. He fell to his knees beside the still writhing Gunther, an incredulous look on his face as he groped at the growing red stain spreading across the front of his shirt. Then, with a hissing gasp, he crumpled sideways, dead.

Breathless, Indy snatched up the map and stuffed it unceremoniously inside his shirt then scrambled out of the compartment and into the hall.

The fourth man, Mueller, had heard the shots and plunged into the passageway, gun drawn. Indy's shot knocked him backwards, blood bubbling out of his throat.

"Marion!" Indy burst into the small compartment where he had left her and drew up short. She was nowhere to be seen. Abruptly, there was a scrambling sound behind the door and he whirled, bringing his gun up.

Marion gave a small cry and dropped the suitcase she was about to deck him with and launched herself into his arms. They embraced for a second then Indy said, "There's no time! Hurry!"

They leaped over the body of Mueller, lying in the passageway, and ran towards the front of the car - and skidded to a halt abruptly. The old train had no enclosed interconnecting passageway between cars, only an open catwalk. Laboring up the grade, the train was travelling relatively slowly but still the ground moved past at a respectable clip. To their back, the hillside rose steeply and in front of them the incline continued at about a 60 degree angle until it ended in a gully about thirty feet below.

Indy surveyed this quickly then started to step across to the next car.

But there the Mexican soldiers, alerted by the gunshots, were jostling their way toward them, rifles ready, through the coach's narrow aisle. It was this that saved the two Americans, for the aisle was not wide enough to permit quick organization and no one man could bring his rifle up accurately in the crowd.

Indy and Marion started back the way they had come, but now Klaus' bulk filled the passage behind them. He was bending over Mueller and as they watched, he recovered Mueller's gun and turned toward them. He spied them instantly and yanked the gun up.

Indy grabbed Marion's hand and they leaped out into space.

Marion screamed but Indy could not hear her for her own hoarse yell and the blood thundering in his ears. For an instant they seemed to hang motionless then the ground came up to meet them with sickening force. Indy lost Marion's hand as they hit and rolled down the slight incline from the tracks.

He came to rest at the bottom of the shallow, rocky ravine, littered with slag from the railroad dump. Dazed, he lay for a minute as dust and scree settled around him. The train continued on up the track, but he knew that the engineer would be bringing it to a halt within a few minutes.

This thought brought his sharply back to the present and he got to his feet, still feeling a bit dizzy from the fall. He had lost the gun in the leap, but found it several feet up the slope. Jamming it into his shoulder holster, he scrambled over the loose rock until he was high enough to see up and down the ravine. He spotted Marion's dark blue dress about twenty-five feet north of him and hurriedly made his way to her. She was holding her head and was bleeding from a scrape on her left cheek.

Indy slid down to her and grasped her shoulders, intently searching her face. "Marion! Are you all right? Can you get up?"

She moaned and groggily shook her head. "Marion, honey!" he insisted urgently. "Can you get up?"

She blinked and her dark eyes finally focused. "Yeah," she muttered. "Yeah … I'm all right."

"Can you walk? We have to get out of here."

"Yeah … I think so."

He pulled her to her feet and put his arm around her shoulders, bracing her. Perhaps a mile farther along, he could hear the train's brakes screeching in protest. "Hurry, honey," he urged. "We have to run!"

Marion's head had cleared now and she realized their danger. The ground was uneven, littered with rocks of various sizes and sloped on both sides to form a V. In the sparse rainy season, it became a swift and sudden creek that galloped down the hillside until it joined others that eventually made their way to the Rio Grande and then to the Gulf of Mexico. But now it was dry, dusty and treacherous. Though Indy had no trouble negotiating it in his boots, Marion's low-heeled pumps were not made for running under the best of circumstances. She considered taking them off, but the sharp rocks on her feet would have been even worse.

Indy saw her difficulty and helped her as best he could, aware that the Mexican troops and German agents would be spilling off the train by now to search for them. He pulled them up after they had gone about 3/4 of a mile and looked around them. "They'll track us down this ravine," he said, as Marion leaned against him trying to catch her breath. "We have to get out of it." But the landscape around them was essentially the same - barren, rocky hills and gullies, wind-eroded sandstone, scrubby, sere vegetation.

Sudden inspiration made him look up behind them. The railroad had followed the curve of the hill, though an easier grade had been blasted out of the slope. Fifty feet above them the tracks rested on the ledge cut into the hillside.

"Marion," he said, turning to survey the hill further. "Do you think you can make it up there?" The incline was steep but not impossible to climb.

"With that goon squad behind me, I could climb the Chrysler Building!" she answered. "Give me a boost!"

He got her on her way then started up behind her, keeping an eye and ear open for sounds of pursuit. He thought he could hear voices far down the ravine now. "Hurry," he urged her. The gravel was loose in spots but afforded enough hand and toe-holds that they were able to reach the tracks in a few minutes.

"Wait," said Marion. "Let me take off my shoes. It won't be bad running on the ties." When she had her slippers in her hand, they started off down the tracks in a rhythmic jog that landed them on the railroad ties rather than the rocky bed in between. Occasionally, Marion stepped on a stone and winced, but they were able to cover about two miles before they slowed to rest.

Indy kept them walking as they caught their breath. They had now put three or more miles between themselves and the train and hopefully the Mexican soldiers were still scouring the ravine and the surrounding area for them. But they couldn't afford to stay on the tracks. Sooner or later, one of the men would discover the deception.

The train hadn't been more than an two hours out of Nuevo Laredo when Kohl had summoned him. That meant that the border would be … what? Indy tried to think. About 30 miles away? Maybe not that far.

They came to a trestle that crossed a shallow dry creek bed. It might have been the same ravine they had been in earlier, but there was no way of telling. But, while the railroad continued on north-west toward Laredo, the creek bed wandered off almost due north and was lost to sight amid the rocky bluffs and hills.

"Come on," Indy said, starting down the incline. Marion followed, sliding down after him.

The going was easier once they had reached the bottom and started along the course of the creek. The sudden spring rains had over the years cut a wide trough-like path out of the surrounding sandstone and had swept the rock clean. There was not enough sand on the floor of the creek bed to leave footprints. Still, Indy was uneasy and kept them moving until they had covered another half mile.

Marion's sides were heaving and finally she stopped, announcing, "Indy, I have got to rest!"

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to get us as far away from there as possible." He looked around at the walls of stone pushing up around them and spotted a wide cleft cut in the rock, another feeder of the creek. "Wait here. I want to see where that goes."

Marion sat on a low shelf cut out by water and put her shoes on, watching him as he climbed up the split in the rock and disappeared, then leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to get her pounding heart to settle into a more regular beat.

She was startled into alertness as she heard footsteps crunching across the gravel toward her. She hadn't heard Indy returning. "Can you make it a little further?" he asked. "That split levels out into a clearing of sorts just inside that wall. They won't be able to see us if they should track us this far."

Marion nodded and followed him up the little ravine until they came to a wide flat area, apparently washed out by swirling rainwater. It bit back into the hill wall itself until it formed a shallow cave that disappeared into darkness farther into the mountain.

"Okay," Indy said. "I think we should be safe here. Why don't you rest a while and I'll see how far back this cave goes. Maybe there's an underground stream. We need water."

"It's dark back there. You need a torch or something," Marion said. He nodded and looked discouraged. "Did you see anything that would burn?"

"Yeah, I think I saw some brush back up the creek bed. I'll be right back."

Indy scrambled back down the crevice and was gone for what seemed to Marion quite some time, but at last he returned triumphantly holding a couple of long dead branches and a handful of grey-colored vegetation. "This should burn pretty slowly," he said. "It's not dead but its pretty dry. Some sort of sagebrush, I think. We can make a torch out of it."

"Great," Marion said, a bit dubiously. "Now, shall we wait for it to strike lightning or rub two sticks together and pray?"

Indy held up on finger for patience and began to rummage around in his pockets while Marion watched in wonder. He came up with $1.35 in change, a note to himself to bring the Assyrian map to class, a sad-looking leather wallet, and a book of paper matches.

"I don't believe it!" Marion said, shaking her head.

"I was a Boy Scout," he answered. "'Be prepared'. Now … next item on the agenda … Take off your stockings."

"What?!"

"Come on, Marion - I'm serious. Take off your stockings?"

"Have you gone crazy …"

"Look, I need something to tie this torch together with. I'm doing my best to get us out of here, so please just do what I say."

Grudgingly, she complied and they set to work on their makeshift torch. Indy used the notepaper as kindling to set fire to the sagebrush and, after one or two tense moments, it crackled with a small, smoky flame.

"I'm going with you," Marion said. "There's no telling what you'll find in there and … well … I'd rather be with you."

He nodded and they entered the cave. It was only twenty or so feet deep then ended with a rock wall split by vertical crack perhaps 10 to 12 inches wide.

Indy thrust his torch through and tried to see into the next chamber of the cave. "Well, there's a bigger room in here but I can't see very much. I think I can squeeze through."

First, however, Indy removed the map from inside his shirt and gently folded it. He had not taken the time to do so when he had grabbed it from Kohl's bunk and run. It was somewhat the worse for wear; the ancient parchment had crumbled in a few places and one leaf of it had split in two. The archaeologist in Indy made him grit his teeth at that. The map itself was nearly priceless and he hated to think that he had a part in its destruction. Finally, though, he tucked it away inside his shirt again, this time securely cushioned by his jacket and his body.

The crack in the wall was a tight fit. At one point it seemed that he might be stuck, but he sucked in his stomach, drew himself up and, with a jerk, was through into the next chamber, tearing a couple of buttons off his shirt in the process.

"Indy?" Marion put her face up against the crack and peered through. She could see his faint outline by the flickering little flame of the torch. She had an easier time of squeezing through than he had.

Inside the chamber, it was pitch black except for the weak light thrown off from the torch. She went to where Indy stood and looked up at him inquiringly.

"Shhh," he said. "Listen."

Marion held her breath and strained her ears. She never knew that any place could be so silent. At first all she could hear was the quiet crackling of the fire and her own heartbeat. Presently, she heard Indy's heart beating, too. Then, far off, she thought she detected a faint, steady, musical sound.

She looked up at Indy and found that he was smiling at her. "Water?" she whispered.

He nodded. "May not be much, but we'll soon find out. Come on."

Cautiously, they began to walk toward the sound of dripping water. The floor sloped downward and there was a relatively smooth path where rainwater had flooded in through the crack during the spring rains. Over the ages it had worn a neat aqueduct for itself before it disappeared somewhere deeper into the cave.

Eventually, Indy and Marion came up against a wall of rock. The pathway disappeared into a low, irregular hole in the rock face. Indy got down on his hands and knees and inspected it further. "I can't see how far back this goes, but it's big enough to crawl through, I think. And the water's a lot closer. Come on."

Before Marion could protest, Indy had disappeared into the dark tunnel, pushing the flickering torch ahead of him. Gritting her teeth, she got down and followed him, shuddering at the feel of the cold, clammy rock. She could barely see Indy some way ahead of her and the smoke from the torch stung her eyes. Then suddenly the tunnel went pitch black.

"Goddammit!" Indy's voice said.

"What's the matter?" she cried, suddenly seized by a claustrophobic fear.

"Torch went out," he answered. "I'll have to see if I can get it lit again."

Shaking, Marion began to edge cautiously forward, feeling along the pathway with her fingers. Suddenly, her fingertips came to something smooth and leathery which flinched away from her touch. She screeched and jerked away, banging her head on the low ceiling.

"Marion! What's the matter?" Indy's concerned voice demanded, directly in front of her.

"Oh, God, I touched something alive! What's in here, Indy?" she answered, her voice full of revulsion.

Incredibly, he began to laugh, so hard and long that Marion started to fume. At last, he managed to get out, "That was my foot you touched! Oh Lord! Something alive …" He dissolved into laughter again.

She struck out with her fist and made contact with his right thigh. "Ow! Hey, Marion, I'm sorry!" But he kept laughing and at last she started chuckling, too, as the tension they had both felt dissolved.

"Get the torch lit," Marion finally said. "It's too damn dark in here."

"Okay. Let me find the matches." There were fumbling noises as Indy searched his pockets as best he could in the cramped quarters. At last a feeble light sprang into the tunnel as Indy struck a match and held it to the end of the make-shift torch. It had nearly burned down to his fingers before he succeeded in getting a meager flame going. They pushed on for about fifteen minutes more, the passageway sloping downward into darkness.

The tunnel abruptly ended in a drop-off into a large chamber. Indy leaned out with the torch and looked around. It was another big chamber, this one echoing with the steady drip of water that over countless ages had populated the cavern with immense stalactites, stalagmites and columns. Immediately below them was a depthless black pool, its surface undisturbed by any ruffle or wave.

"What do you see?" Marion asked prodding him from behind.

"Hush," he answered. "I'm thinking." He judged the distance from the edge of the tunnel to the shoreline of the pool and thought he could do a standing broad jump and make it. "Hold the torch," Indy said, handing it back to Marion.

He crouched on the edge of the drop-off, steeling the muscles in his legs, gathering the tension in them as if coiling a spring. Balancing himself lightly on his fingertips, he took a quick breath and leaped out into the dark. His momentum cleared the pool and he went forward onto his hands and knees as he landed. Recovering quickly, he turned back to the tunnel entrance.

Marion was visible in the flickering glow of the torch, peering anxiously into the darkness. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered. "It's not too bad. See if you can toss me the torch. Careful - don't let it drop in the water."

Marion clenched her teeth and tossed the burning branch to him. He caught it before it hit the water and, although the flame dipped dangerously low, it did not go out. He carefully laid it on the shore and then turned back to her.

"Okay," Indy said, "Now, your turn. Come on."

Marion threw him her shoes and poised on the edge uncertainly. "I'll catch you," he assured her. "It's not very far."

She took a deep breath, tensed and sprang away from the edge. Indy reached up to catch her but her weight crashing into him knocked them both back onto the shore. For a moment they lay stunned then they began to laugh and got to their feet and looked around.

"Stay here," Indy said. "I'm going to explore a little bit."

"I'm coming with you," Marion said.

"No, stay here. We can always go back out the way we came in and I'll be able to find you as long as the fire stays lit. But if we both go wandering around, we may get lost and never find our way out again."

Marion had to bow to his logic, though she didn't like it much, and sat down beside the glassy black pool. Indy broke off a small clump of the burning sage and disappeared into the darkness, soon even his footsteps fading away.

Marion put her shoes on and sat huddled in on herself, her eyes beginning to dart back and forth with apprehension. She hated dark places and was this absolutely the worst. It was cold and damp from the steady drip of water down the stalactites covering the ceiling. Involuntarily, she began to think back to the Well of the Souls, to the smell of death and decay, to the soft hiss and rustle of the snakes and the stench of the burning oil torches. She could feel again the dry, cool touch of mummified hands and the suffocating dust of centuries choking her. She could not suppress a shudder of revulsion.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the black water ripple but when she jerked her head around, it was smooth as glass. Her imagination began to populate it with noisome creatures, slimy and silent, waiting for her attention to wander so that they might slither ashore and drag her beneath the suffocating waters.

Once started, her imagination ran wild and she began to see eyes blinking at her from the impenetrable blackness around. She thought she heard the skittering of claws on bare rock and a rustle of leathery wings. The dripping of the water changed into the chuckle of something inhuman and seemed to come from all around her.

She was just on the point of screaming when Indiana came walking back into the feeble light of the torch. Marion was almost weak with relief and put her head down on her knees.

Looking at her curiously, Indy asked, "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. Did you find anything?"

"Maybe a way out. Maybe not."

"Well, let's go! This place gives me the creeps!"

"In a little while. I want to wait about an hour or so, until it's dark outside," Indy said. "Our friends will still be prowling around out there. I don't want to give them any help."

"Okay. So what did you find?" Marion asked.

In answer, Indy lifted one foot and showed her the sole of his shoe, pasted with a stinking black sludge.

She wrinkled her nose at the odor. "Ugh - smells like shit."

"Exactly."

"What?!"

"It's shit," Indy grinned. "Bat shit to be exact. Guano." Marion stared at him in disbelief. "I found a whole colony of bats and that means that there's an opening to the outside fairly close. We'll wait till dark and follow them as they fly out for the night. We can't be too far in."

Marion shook her head. "Jones, you have got to be the most perversely brilliant man I've ever known! Only you would think of something like that!"

Indy made a grand bow. "Thank you, thank you. No applause, please. Just throw money."

She took a swing at him but he danced back out of reach, laughing. When she came after him, fists clenched, he caught her in his arms and kissed her, a kiss that started out playful and sank into something deep and fervent. She drew away, a little surprised at his sudden tenderness, and they stood for a moment searching each other's face with their eyes.

"I'm scared, Indy," she said softly, seriously.

"Me, too," he answered, then smiled, his eyes full of love for her. "It'll be all right. I promise." He kissed her gently again and then drew away. "Wish we had something that would hold water," he said, back to the business at hand. "We've got a long way to go before we're out of this. I figure we're about 30 miles into Mexico. Once we're out of here, I can steer us back north and we're bound to hit the border sooner or later.

"How sooner or how later, though?" Marion asked. "This isn't exactly the garden spot of North America."

"Well, I think we can walk it in two or three days." He looked her over critically. "You're going to have trouble in those shoes, though. They're not exactly made for hiking."

Marion put her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed into a frown. "Look, buddy boy, I went to a movie! I didn't particularly plan on taking a stroll in the Mexican desert when I left the house the other night!"

He nodded apologetically. "I know; I'm sorry. Look, drink as much water as you can and we'll get started for the surface."

"Do you think the water's all right?" Marion asked, looking hesitantly at the glassy, black pool.

"We'll soon find out," Indy replied philosophically. He knelt beside the pool and dipped one hand in, brining the water cupped in his palm up to his lips. For a moment, he silently considered the smell, then tasted it, rolling it over his tongue before swallowing.

He looked up at Marion and nodded. "It's okay. A bit of a mineral taste, but really pretty good." She knelt down as well and they drank for a long time.

Finally, Indy lay back, propped on his elbows and looked thoughtfully off into the darkness. "What time do you think it is?" Marion asked, still kneeling beside the water.

"I dunno. Around 4:30 or 5:00, maybe. Sun'll be going down soon. I think it'll be pretty well dark by 6:30 or 7:00." He roused himself and got to his feet, pulling her up as well. "We'd better get going."

He picked up the torch, now beginning to burn low. He took Marion's hand and they started off in the direction he had gone before.

The floor of the cave began a gentle upward slant as they passed through a forest of columns and stalagmites of varying sizes. Before long, they entered a small, closed in chamber, the fissured ceiling seeming to fold in on itself, the air heavy with a fetid odor. Marion thought she saw vague figures clinging there but decided it was just her imagination again.

But this time the sound of rustling and claws really did come and she drew up close to Indy, eyeing the cavern ceiling fearfully. About the same time, one foot slid out from under her and she would have fallen if she hadn't been clinging to his arm.

He steadied her and said, "Careful. It's slippery in here." He nodded toward the ceiling where dark forms moved about in the flickering light of the torch. "Bats." She shuddered and did not release her grip on his arm. "Come on. I think they go out through that opening up ahead."

They picked their way through the small cave while the bats, disturbed by their presence, rustled and squeaked overhead. The opening led to a broad shaft, pointing upward at an 85 degree angle. It was rough and fissured and provided plenty of hand-holds.

Indy stopped them and studied the thin plume of grey smoke rising from the torch. "This must lead out," he said. "This is a natural chimney, I think."

He started climbing up, hampered somewhat by the torch, and she followed. About thirty feet above the floor, a chamber suddenly opened up before them. Indy paused uncertainly, then followed his intuition and clambered into it. He helped Marion over the rim and they stood up, looking around.

The opening formed a short natural hallway, bending out of sight to the right. This became a rough, winding corridor and more than once they had to climb up or down as the opening ended and branched off in another direction. Twice they had to back-track as the corridor they had chosen ended in a vertical wall, and once the floor dropped away suddenly into a depthless black pit.

But eventually the way smoothed out into an upward-winding pathway that seemed to lead into a small chamber. They were only a few steps from it when there came a sudden whirring sound from behind them, like the sound of rushing water, but instead a black cloud of bats surged out of the darkness behind them and past them. There must have been several thousand of them, intent on reaching the outside for their nightly rounds, and they whipped at top speed around and over the two humans caught in their path.

Indy yelled and dived for cover, arms over his head, and dropped the torch in the process. It immediately went out, plunging the cave into total darkness. At the same time, Marion began to run, but tripped and fell with a scream. There was an incongruous crash of metal, partially obscured by the high-pitched squeak of the bats and the leathery flapping of their wings.

At last the remaining bats had winged their way past and the cave again fell silent. Indy got to his hands and knees from where he lay and felt around for the torch. He couldn't find it and fumbled in his pockets for the little book of paper matches.

"Marion?" he called. "Marion! Where are you?"

Her voice seemed a bit distant. "Indy? Where are you?"

"Keep talking! I'll try to find you." He had located the matches by now and struck one. The torch was lying beside a wall and he picked it up and touched the match flame to it then started around the bend in the tunnel - and stopped cold, his mouth dropping open.

Marion lay on her stomach facing away from him, her head up, dumbstruck at the sight revealed by the flickering torchlight.

Scattered about the floor of the small chamber and heaped up around walls were mounds of golden artifacts - cups, jewelry, breastplates encrusted with turquoise, platters, rings, headgear, golden staffs, and objects that they couldn't identify. The dust of centuries covered them and one wall of the cavern had partially collapsed some time long ago, burying an untold part of the treasure in rubble. Mice had nested among the beautiful cups and scattered the smaller objects across the floor. Over all rested an air of unreality, of a pocket of time not meant for man.

And towering over it all was an immense golden serpent, its eyes inlaid obsidian, lips drawn back in a grimace that revealed long golden fangs. An ornate golden headdress framed the feral features and this was ornamented with a mane of brightly colored birds' feathers, still vivid after centuries. The idol seemed to glow with a light all its own, as if it defied the centuries of darkness to conquer it.

Marion had climbed to her feet by now and was staring awe-struck at the pile of gold. Indy joined her and they proceeded with reverence into the room. Marion had tripped over a golden staff that lay across the pathway and she moved it out of the way.

The light from the torch cast the piled golden ornaments into high relief and the glint of pounded gold shone through the dust. For a long time, Indy and Marion could only stare at the feather-crested serpent. Its head reared up menacingly from its coiled body and two short, square-cut wings sprouted from its back. The breastplate was studded with turquoise, pearls and semi-precious stones. The obsidian eyes were bright and seemed to watch them.

At last they were able to tear their eyes away from the golden idol and look at the wealth lying around them. "We're rich!" Marion said in a whisper, then began to bounce up and down with excitement. "We're rich, Jones! We're goddamn filthy rich!"

But Indy was studying the treasures seriously, the archaeologist in him taking command. When Marion moved to scoop up several of the golden articles, he grabbed her arm and held her back. "Don't touch it," he said.

"Why not? We found it. It's ours," she retorted angrily.

"No, it's not. You know what this is, Marion. You've been on enough digs to know better than to scatter things around."

She glared at him then had to admit he was right. She'd been raised to know the sanctity of a virgin dig, that you didn't touch anything until it was photographed and catalogued … a rule that held true whether you were excavating a Babylonian garbage pit or an Aztec treasure trove. Despite their present situation, Indy was still a dedicated archaeologist and she was still the daughter of one.

"We're not on a dig," she suggested weakly, but Indy's expression didn't change and she knew it was a lame excuse. "Okay, okay. I know. Dad would come back to haunt me for sure."

Still, they could not take their eyes from the golden artifacts. Greed warred with dedication in Indy, too. The articles were beautifully wrought and the itch to possess them was almost overpowering.

Curiosity finally won out and Indy knelt down and picked up a large stemmed goblet, which was encrusted with rough-cut garnets. It sparkled and shone in the torchlight as he reverently turned it around. It was definitely not European in design but was still recognizable as a ceremonial chalice. Marion sank down beside him, fascinated by it, too.

"What sort of rituals do you suppose that saw?" she whispered.

Indy shook his head. "Human sacrifices probably. The Aztecs were a pretty blood-thirsty bunch. I wonder if this was used to catch blood in …"

Marion made a face. "Who would profane something this lovely with something that gory?"

He glanced at her in surprise and smiled. "They didn't consider it either profane or gory," he said. "The poor schnook they sacrificed instantly became a god. It was the highest attainment of their religion." He carefully replaced the goblet in the exact place it had lain for centuries. "Of course, after a while, there got to be fewer and fewer people who wanted to be gods. The Aztecs would go out and raid other tribes and bring the prisoners back to be sacrificed. I guess, when you look at it, the ultimate irony was when the Spaniards came and raided them." He stood up and dusted off his hands, looking around.

Marion was fingering a delicate golden wristlet, inlaid with pearls and turquoise. "Look at this workmanship, Indy," she said. "It's all so beautiful! I can understand why they tried so hard to save it and why the Spaniards wanted it so badly."

"Well, the Spanish weren't after it for the artistic value," Indy laughed. "They were in the hole financially! The English had recently beaten the hell out of their Armada and Elizabeth was encouraging Drake and the other pirates to raid Spanish shipping. The Aztec and Inca gold kept them above water for about another two hundred and fifty years. They took everything but the kitchen sink back to Spain and melted it down." He let his gaze sweep again over the mounds of gold and a serious tone came into his voice. "That's why this find is just so … incredible. It's worth ten times what the gold itself is worth." He reached out to gently touch the muzzle of the serpent and a profound sadness took him. "That's why we can't let the Nazis find it. It's nothing to them … just fuel for their war machine! They're worse than grave robbers. They steal everything they can lay their hands on and cart it back to Berlin or Berchtesgaden for Hitler's private use! What they can't use or put a price on, they destroy! Who knows how many priceless artworks are gone forever? The waste … the senseless waste of it …"

Marion came to him and slipped her arms around him comfortingly. He smiled down at her and hugged her back, then glanced around at the golden visage of Queztlcoatl, gazing at them with the same inscrutable expression it had held for five hundred years. From this angle, the feathered serpent almost seemed to be grinning. Indy gave a small laugh and said, "We'd better get going."

Marion let her eyes roam over the mounds of treasure once more. "I almost hate to leave," she said softly. "It almost … compels you to stay."

"I know," Indy replied seriously. "I feel it too."

"Could we take something to carry water in."

"We don't dare. If we're caught, they'd know we've found the treasure. And, frankly, I don't know how well either one of us would hold up under torture. They're bound to force us to lead them back here if they think they can get their hands on the gold." Indy sighed. "We'll just have to rough it."

They lingered a minute longer, unable to tear themselves away from the beautiful golden artifacts, glittering in the torchlight, and Indy made a silent vow to himself to come back some day and begin a systematic excavation. Then they reluctantly turned and followed the path that the bats had taken.

The pathway wound steeply upward, twisting and turning with many avenues branching off to each side. At the first of these junctions, they paused uncertainly. The three halls looked identical, each disappearing into blackness just outside the circle of weak torchlight.

"Indy … which way?" Marion whispered, afraid.

He had to fight down the little voice of panic rising inside him. "I don't know," he said hesitantly. He moved forward to study each of the openings in turn. On the wall of the center passageway, about halfway up, a narrow round notch had been gouged into the rock, possibly to hold a torch in the distant past. It was nearly invisible in the gloom and Indy almost missed it. "This way," he said with more assurance then he felt and they set off down the long, dark passage.

Before long, they came to another split in the tunnel and Indy easily found the tell-tale notch in the wall of the left branch. They began to breath a bit easier. The Aztec priests had left a clear trail down into the bowels of the earth. If they could only keep locating the torch notches, they should be able to find their way out with no trouble.

Their makeshift torch, however, had burned down to almost nothing and, at last, the flame spluttered and went out. Indy used nearly all his remaining matches but the twisted little stump of the tree branch refused to light. The blackness was completely impenetrable and they began to envision sparks of color and light as their eyes strained for sight.

"Give me your hand," Indy said and felt around in the darkness until their hands met. "Okay, see if you can feel the wall on your side."

Marion stretched out her left hand gingerly, her right held tight in Indy's warm grasp. He was doing the same with his right hand and about the same time their fingers came up against the cold rough wall on either side.

"Okay," she said, her voice sounding too loud. "Now what?"

"The corridor is pretty narrow here," he answered. "I think we can feel our way along and hope for the best."

Hesitantly, walking abreast, they began to edge their way forward, each keeping their free hand against the wall and stepping cautiously ahead. After a time, they began to gain confidence and picked up their pace a bit, their senses straining into the utter dark. Then, abruptly, Marion's hand slipped off into nothingness and she caught her breath.

"Stay right here," Indy said and released her hand. She could hear him moving around but still had to fight down the terror threatening to engulf her.

He cautiously inched forward, feeling his way until the wall of the corridor suddenly veered off to the right. "We've come to another junction," he said. He slowly moved to his left then began to run his hands over the surface, feeling for the notch in the wall. Nothing. The rough, cold surface seemed to be of virgin rock.

"Not this way," he said conversationally. He continued around to the left and discovered another branch, where he repeated his blind scrutiny. This time, he thought he detected the hole in the rock and he ran his fingers around it. "I think I've found it. Follow my voice, Marion. I think I'm right in front of you."

"Why don't you light a match?" she asked.

"I only have two or three left. We may need them later. I'd rather not waste one if I can avoid it."

She nodded and inched her way toward his voice, her hands outstretched before her until they brushed against the soft leather of his jacket and she clung to him for a minute. Then they resumed their positions and groped their way into the new tunnel.

The passageway slanted steeply upwards and became rough, so that they were forced to get down on their hands and knees and feel the way before them. Doubt began to creep into Indy's mind. This couldn't be right. He must have made a mistake.

Without warning, their hands slid off into emptiness and they barely caught themselves from banging their chins on the sharp rock. Indy leaned forward and felt around as far as he could reach, but only cold damp air met his fingers. At last, he fished out the little book of matches and struck one.

Marion gasped and shrank back and Indy felt his hand tremble. Yawning before them was a steep drop-off, plunging away into inky blackness below, studded with jagged rocks and pinnacles of limestone, barely visible in the matchlight, rearing up from the unseen floor forty feet below.

They moved carefully back and retraced their steps, Indy shielding the light until it burned down to his fingers. When they had come again to the intersection of the passages, Indy struck another match to be certain this time of their way. The hole in the rock he had felt was a natural formation and he found the true notch in the far left-hand passage.

The pathway here was smooth and worn and wandered back and forth at an upward angle. Before long, they began to taste a freshness to the unmoving air and, after about thirty minutes of walking, they were suddenly before the low entrance to the cave. A little patch of scrub grew up before it, effectively concealing the opening from the outside. In fact, if a passerby didn't know exactly where to look, the cave entrance was all but invisible.

It was fully dark outside as they emerged. The walls of the surrounding hills rose black around them and overhead the crystal air sparkled with stars seldom seen in the city lights. A soft breeze ruffled Marion's hair as she and Indy stood hand-in-hand listening to the night sounds of the desert.

"It's so beautiful!" she whispered.

He nodded but did not speak. He was listening and identifying each sound that drifted up from the desert. Far off a couple of coyotes called to each other. He heard the faint squeak of a rodent as a small owl swooped and seized it. There were barely audible skittering sounds caused by mice or some small night-hunting mammal. But nowhere did he hear any sound that might have been made by men.

Their eyes had adjusted by now and Marion was surprised to discover that she could see fairly well by the bright light thrown by a gibbous moon high in the east.

Indy started down the hillside at a cautious rate and Marion followed. "What if there are snakes around?" she asked.

"It's night, silly," he answered. "Snakes are cold-blooded, remember? They go to bed at sundown and don't start stirring around until the sun warms them up a little in the morning." Still, her comment put him on his guard. There just might be one or two around that still felt pretty warm. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of the slimy, disgusting little beasts. Mentally, he counted the number of shots he thought he had left in the Luger's clip.

It took them nearly two hours to get down the mountainside and into a clear space. Now and then Indy calculated their position by the stars and adjusted their course. Marion had long decided that they were hopelessly lost when she stumbled over the railroad tracks.

"We'll watch for any trains that come along during the night," Indy explained, "and we can travel a lot quicker this way. We'll hole up at dawn and sleep during the day. With luck, we'll hit the border in two or three days."

Marion noticed that he didn't mention what they were supposed to do for food and water during that time but said nothing. Her stomach, however, growled and she thought about how long it had been since they had eaten lunch on the train from San Antonio. Indy's face was unreadable in the darkness, but she thought she saw his jaw tighten grimly as they began walking north towards Texas.

Marion had no idea how long they walked. They were silent with fatigue and she could only judge time by the progress of the moon across the sky above them. The night turned rapidly cooler and finally cold. Her woolen dress was long-sleeved but the cardigan she had worn over it had been left on the train when they jumped. The wind was icy on her legs and feet and she envied Indy his leather jacket.

Sometime after the moon had passed the zenith, they began to feel damp. The moisture stirred them out of their stuporous march and made them stare about themselves in puzzlement. It wasn't raining but their clothes seemed wet. Then Indy laughed in comprehension and said, "Dew point."

"What?"

"This is dew," he repeated. "What little moisture is in the air, which isn't much, condenses when the temperature falls to a certain point."

"Great," said Marion miserably. "Just what we needed. I'm freezing and this isn't helping."

"Why didn't you tell me you were cold?" he asked and took off his jacket, helping her into it.

Marion was too cold to protest and snuggled gratefully into his warm coat. It smelled of sweat and gun oil and Old Spice, and a dozen other scents she couldn't identify but which she associated with Indy. The coat was too big for her, but as she wrapped it around her and breathed in the reassuringly masculine odor of it, she felt very safe. He put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to him, and kept them walking.

Marion wasn't aware that she had gone to sleep until she stumbled and fell. Disoriented, she looked around and found Indy on his hands and knees beside her, groggily shaking his head to wake himself up. "What happened?" she asked.

He sat back on his heels and ran the back of his hand across his eyes. "I think we both went to sleep. I just felt you falling and couldn't stop you." He wearily got to his feet and helped her up. "I don't think we can go any further tonight. Let's see if we can find a safe place to sleep."

"Best idea I've heard all night."

They took stock of their surroundings by starlight. The moon had set behind the mountains to the west of them and the Morning Star sparkled brilliantly, high in the east. Indy forced himself as fully awake as possible and tried to see a likely spot. The land had begun to level out somewhat and far to the north-east he could almost convince himself that he saw Laredo's lights faintly illuminating the night sky. Possibly so; he didn't know how far they had managed to come but estimated at least another day's travel before they reached the border.

He led them back to the west of the tracks, into rolling bluffs, dotted with sparse brush and cacti. At last, they came upon a small, eroded gully that traversed the side of a hill; wind and water had cut it back to form a tiny overhang that faced the north-west.

They managed to wedge themselves into it. The cold desert night had chilled them both and they spread the leather jacket over them like a blanket, huddled close together for warmth. Before sinking into the sleep that was dragging him into blackness, Indy said a silent prayer that he had chosen a safe hiding place for them.

* * *

Marion jerked awake as a hand came down over her mouth and a large male body covered her, pinning her to the ground. Furious, she started to fight then realized in the next second that it was Indy and stopped, a flurry of emotions rearing up inside her - puzzlement, fear, a sudden stirring of sexual excitement. What was he trying to do? she wondered. He hissed softly into her ear and took his hand away from her mouth; she realized that he had the Luger in his right hand and that his body was rigid.

Then she heard it too - the soft clop of horses' hooves and a male voice speaking in Spanish, too near for comfort. She suddenly realized why Indy was covering her with his body. Her dark blue dress would stand out against the dun-colored land; his khaki shirt and pants might blend in enough to make them less noticeable.

They lay still and breathless for what seemed a long time and gradually the riders moved away to the south of them. Indy raised himself off her and gingerly peered after them. As he suspected, two Mexican soldiers, no doubt searching for them. He looked around; there were sure to be others.

"Are they gone?" Marion whispered.

"Yes."

"Indy?" She was looking uncomfortable from where she still lay beneath him. "I have to go to the bathroom."

"There are probably other soldiers out there looking for us," he answered softly.

"Indy, I mean I really have to go to the bathroom! It's all that water I drank yesterday." Her face was reddening with embarrassment but there was nothing she could do about it.

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, I'll be alright."

"Yeah, well, be careful. Keep your ears and eyes open. I'll wait here for you."

She nodded and got to her feet, paused to listen, then picked her way down the gully and out of sight around the hillside. Finding a secluded spot, she relieved herself then started back the way she had come.

She was nearly jerked off her feet as someone grabbed her from behind and a hand was clamped over her mouth. She was getting pretty sick of this and angrily attempted to wriggle around to tell Indy so, then tried to scream and fight in earnest. The Mexican soldier holding her laughed and called out in Spanish. His partner, a big heavy-set man, joined him and said something to Marion's captor that made them both chuckle again.

His eyes going over her lasciviously, the second man stepped up to her and showed his yellow teeth in a grin. He spoke to her in a soft, oily tone and ran a finger down her cheek. Her dark eyes blazing, she tried to yell and struggled to get her arms free, but this only amused the two men more. The big one took a handkerchief from a back pocket and quickly, as the one holding her removed his hand, stuffed it into her mouth. The smaller soldier shifted his grip and got a better hold on her.

The big man grinned again hungrily and stroked her neck softly. Marion was genuinely scared now and squeezed her eyes shut as his hand moved down to her breast. He smelled atrocious, she thought, as he leaned over her, like he hadn't bathed in weeks. He was speaking softly to her as he massaged her breast, no doubt talking dirty to get himself up, she thought.

Suddenly, the other one was dragging her to the ground and she kicked and fought with all her might, her yells muffled by the gag in her mouth. The men laughed and commented to each other while the big one caught her flailing legs and pinned them down, spread apart, by kneeling on them. This wasn't doing any good, Marion realized. Her struggling was only exciting them more. She lay still, breathing heavily from her exertion, glaring at the big Mexican before her.

He ran his hands down her legs, pushing her dress up as he did so. Marion shut her eyes again and bit down hard on the handkerchief as he hooked his fingers inside her cotton panties and began to slide them down.

Abruptly, he was yanked off her and her eyes flew open in time to see a furious Indy plant his fist solidly in the Mexican's face, sending the man crashing back. The smaller soldier had released Marion and sprung to his feet, clawing his gun from its holster. Indy spun and caught him in the stomach with the toe of his boot.

The first man had recovered, blood streaming from his nose, and pounced on Jones from behind, knocking them both to the ground as the Mexican struggled to land an effective punch on the man beneath him. Marion had jerked the gag from her mouth and had turned on the man who had held her, cursing and delivering surprisingly hard blows on his head and shoulders. Taken by surprise and still trying to catch his breath from Indy's kick to his mid-section, the man covered his head with his arms and yelled, trying to dodge away from Marion's fists.

The big Mexican had dragged Indy up and send him sprawling again with a right cross to his chin, then grasped the apparently dazed American by the front of his shirt to haul him up for another punch. But in an instant, Indy's eyes had cleared and his locked fists came smashing up into the Mexican's throat, knocking his teeth together so hard it made his ears ring.

The man staggered back and fell heavily, stunned. Indy turned as the smaller soldier snaked out a leg and caught Marion's ankle, knocking her off her feet. Before he could orient himself, though, Indy had slammed a punch into his nose, sending him spinning back into the dust. Tired of wasting time, Indy kicked him unceremoniously in the face and the man went limp, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Are you all right?" Jones asked, breathing hard as he pulled Marion to her feet.

"Yeah."

"Boy, I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?" he demanded, still half-angry.

"You bastard!" she shot back, livid. "You're the one who got me into this in the first place!"

"Oh, can it! We haven't got time to discuss this now! Here, help me." He was bending over the big Mexican, hurriedly stripping the man's belt and holster off. The man stirred, trying to clear his head, but Marion pulled his gun from its holster and leveled it at him, letting him know that she wouldn't hesitate to blow his head off.

Indy pulled the man's arms behind him and bound them with the belt, then retrieved the handkerchief and stuffed it in the soldier's mouth. Then he moved to the smaller man, still unconscious, and did the same to him. Straightening, he saw that Marion was glaring in hatred at the man at her feet.

"Comprende usted Ingles?" she hissed.

The man nodded, watching her with frightened eyes, all arrogance gone.

"Well, then, comprende this, you son of a bitch! I oughta blow your balls off for what you tried to do to me! I oughta slit your throat and leave you for the ants to pick clean! I oughta …" She gave a strangled sound of rage and began kicking him furiously, tears running down her cheeks. "You bastard! You bastard!" She began to sob raggedly.

Indy took her arm and pulled her away from him. "No, Marion. Leave him alone," he said softly, leading her away from the scene of the struggle. "He can't hurt you now. Let's go." He took the gun from her hand and, after checking the safety, stuck it in his coat pocket.

When they had gone some distance, he stopped and took her in his arms, holding her close as she buried her face in his chest and sobbed. "It's okay, baby," he murmured into her dark hair, gently caressing her shaking shoulders. "It's okay. I won't leave you again. Shhh."

Finally, her crying lessened and she pulled away from him, wiping her wet cheeks with the back of her hands. "I'm sorry," she said, with a not-very-convincing smile.

His hazel eyes searched her face as he reached up to wipe away a tear with his thumb. "I'm sorry, Marion. I should have had more sense than to let you go alone."

She sank back into his arms, whispering, "Oh, Indy, I love you."

He bent to kiss her then said, "Their pals may have heard the noise. We have to get out of here. Do you know how to ride a horse?"

"Not very well."

"Well, you're about to get a crash course in it," he replied. "Come on."

He took her hand and led her back into the hills. There, tied to a scrubby mesquite tree, were the Mexican soldiers' mounts, stringy, ill-groomed mustangs. The little bay horses pricked their ears at the couple's approach and one lowered its head and snorted.

"I don't know how many men were in this patrol. These two make four that I know of," Indy said. "They seem to be spread out in pairs searching along the railroad for us."

As he was untying the reins from the tree, Marion suddenly gave a little gasp and darted to the saddle of one of the horses, causing the beast to nicker and side-step. Marion paid no attention, but grasped something off the saddle and held it up, her eyes shining. It was a canvas-covered canteen.

The sight of it made Indy realize how thirsty he was and he hurriedly checked the other saddle, retrieving the canteen secured there. Marion had turned hers up and was drinking greedily. "Not too fast," Indy cautioned. "We've got a long way to go." She slowed down and then put the canteen back on her saddle. Indy took a long drink from his and resecured it.

He helped Marion to mount and handed her the reins, then got into the saddle of his own horse. "I hope these little guys are relatively fresh, because we've got some hard riding to do," he said, reining the bay around to the east.

Quickly, they made their way back to the tracks and across them, urging the horses into as fast a pace as they dared in the rocky country. "Where are we going?" Marion asked after a while, when she realized that they were traveling at roughly a 90 degree angle from the tracks.

"I did some thinking," Indy answered. "We were taking the long way, going north. The Rio Grande runs almost straight south-east. We can cut the distance in half by cutting across country to the east. I thought I could see Laredo's lights last night so I think we must be about fifteen or twenty miles from there. Cutting across to the east like this, the border should be only about ten miles away."

After about an hour, the land had leveled out into the broad Rio Grande Valley and off in the distance they could see scattered huts and occasionally a small grouping of buildings. They spurred the mustangs into a canter. Marion hung onto the saddle horn with one hand and tried to follow Indy's example of holding the reins only in his right hand. The Mexican cavalry saddles were uncomfortable and she wondered if she'd ever be able to walk normally again, but she kept her mouth shut.

After a while, Indy called over to her, "How're you doing?"

"I think my insides are permanently rearranged," she answered. "How far do you think we've come?"

"About five miles, I think." He reined in a little and turned to look back the way they had come. There was no sign of pursuit from the hills behind them. "Slow down and let your horse rest a little. We may still have to make a run for it."

Both pulled their mounts back to a walk. The grateful horses shook out their manes and snorted, ambling along at an easy pace. Marion shifted stiffly in her saddle and groaned.

Indy couldn't help chuckling at her discomfiture, an action that brought Marion's brows together in a frown. "What're you laughing at? I told you I hadn't ridden very much."

"I was just imagining you hobblin' around bow-legged for the rest of your life," he laughed.

"You'll pay for this, Jones. My buns and I will not forget this!"

Indy laughed again, the corners of his eyes crinkling up in merriment. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, my buns and I feel the same way. I wasn't exactly born in the saddle myself."

"Oh, come on. You ride really well," she answered.

"Only when I have to, though. I'm a city boy. The only time I was ever around horses was summers on my grandfather's farm and they were work horses, not really for riding. Generally, I left them alone and they left me alone."

"Aw, who're you kidding?" Marion retorted, moving her horse in closer beside his, then cried, "Indiana Jones! You've got gray hairs in your beard!"

Embarrassed, he hung his head so that his hat brim shaded his face and looked away from her. "Well, dammit, Marion, this past week would gray anyone! Anyway, I'm not exactly a spring chicken any more, you know."

"Oh, who says?" she answered, reaching out to touch his leg with her fingertips. "Just because you're going gray in your old age …"

"Hell, Marion! I'm thirty-nine goddamn years old! What do you expect?" Suddenly angry, he pulled away.

"Forget it!" she shot back. "My God! I've never seen anyone so touchy in my life!" He pulled her horse out away from him and sat stiffly in her saddle, her jaw tight.

They rode in silence and the only sound that of the horses' hooves. After a while, still not looking at her, Indy asked thoughtfully, "Marion?"

"What?"

"What do you think about starting a family when we get back?"

"What?!" Completely astonished, she reined her horse to a stop and sat staring at him, her mouth open. He kept riding, glancing once over his shoulder at her. She urged her mount on and caught up with him. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I'm serious. Why shouldn't I be?"

"What brought this on?" she asked, her anger with him forgotten. "You hadn't even mentioned it before."

"Well, what you said about my getting gray just then … I'm not getting any younger, you know, and, well …" He looked back at her seriously. "I mean, it's up to you. I know we really haven't discussed it before."

Marion was genuinely touched and she reached out and took his hand. "I don't know what kind of mother I would make," she said honestly. "I've never really been around children. I guess we'll never know until we try, huh?" She squeezed his hand.

He couldn't help laughing then went abruptly serious, his attention snapping back to the horses. Both had their ears turned back attentively and were looking preoccupied.

"Oh, shit," Jones said under his breath and turned in his saddle to look back the way they had come. Marion turned as well and saw at the base of the hills, a plume of dust spiraling up into the hot blue sky.

"Horses?" Marion asked.

"I don't think so," he answered. "Maybe some, but I think it's a truck of some sort. I didn't think one could negotiate this terrain. Whatever it is, it's heading this way." He faced forward and squinted, blocking out the glare, trying to see into the distance ahead of them. "I think I can see the river. Maybe three miles." He looked over at her, grimly. "No matter what, don't turn back, Marion. Ride like your life depended on it, because it does."

Her heart constricted. "You don't think I'd leave …"

"Get going! I'll be right behind you!" He reached over and slapped her horse on the rump, sending it away with a squeal, and spurred his own mount into a gallop.

The little mustangs were stringy but possessed of a strength and endurance that a more finely bred horse would not. The rest had given them time to catch their breaths and they stretched out willingly under the urgent hands of their riders. Still, Indy hoped they could keep up the pace until they reached the border. Three miles at top speed was just about more than any horse could take.

He glanced back once and saw the vehicle gaining rapidly on them. He could make out a small, blocky open truck, carrying maybe four men. The utilitarian, no-nonsense design spoke volumes to him - a Kubelwagen, the German equivalent of a Jeep. So … the Mexicans really were mixed up with the Nazis.

The valley had leveled out into more fertile soil and they were in the midst of an area of cultivation, small plowed fields with new crops just beginning to appear. Two Mexicans, a man and woman, looked up from their hoeing as the horses crashed through the field, tearing up chunks of the soft earth and seedlings in their wake. Indy could hear the couple's outraged yells as they plunged through the field and onto the grass again. Up ahead, the river was clearly visible, a line of brushy trees following the meandering water, still about a mile and a half away.

Behind them, the Kubelwagen slewed through the tilled earth, bogging down momentarily as its tires spun for traction. The Mexican couple crowded up against the truck, shouting and waving their hoes angrily in the driver's face. One of the other men knocked them away and the truck regained its grip, fishtailing away, leaving deep tire tracks in the field.

The delay had given Indy and Marion a small lead. Sod kicked up to one side of them and a second later they heard the crack of the rifle. Driving their heels into the horses' sides, they urged more speed from them. The mustangs were laboring now, their nostrils and eyes wide with exertion. Come on, come on, Indy pleaded mentally. Just a little further. Only the length of a race track and we'll be there. Please!

Their world seemed to dissolve into individual sounds and sensations - the jarring jolt of the saddle as their horses pounded across the hard ground, the rasp of the mustangs' breathing, the saliva and foamy sweat that flecked back on them, the dancing, out-of-focus line of trees coming closer and closer, and finally the roar of the truck bearing down on them from behind.

More bullets whizzed by, too close for comfort. Only the fact that the Kubelwagen was plunging up and down over the irregular ground kept the soldiers aboard from bringing the fleeing riders steadily into their sights.

Suddenly, the sparse growth of willows and underbrush was in front of them and they crashed through. With equal suddenness, the shallow river was underneath them and their horses sailed out over the low sandy banks and into the water with a splash. Neither Indy nor Marion could suppress a startled yell as the spray fountained up around them, but they managed to keep their seats and recovered quickly, urging the exhausted horses on across to the other side.

The river at this point was perhaps one hundred yards wide and about eight feet deep and the mustangs staggered through it toward the opposite shore.

They were starting up the sandy beach when three Mexican soldiers and an officer broke through the trees behind them. Indy and Marion were on American soil now, coaxing the horses just a little further, into the safety of the trees at the top of the bank. Its sides heaving, Marion's mount topped the rise and made it into the trees. Indy was right behind her, his little horse having a harder time because of Indy's greater weight.

The crack of a rifle whipped Marion around in her saddle in time to see Indy jerk, a startled expression on his face, and slowly fall backwards out of his saddle. "No!" she screamed and flung herself down, running to him.

He was lying on his back, eyes closed and breathing rapidly, his right hand groping at the growing red stain spreading from his left shoulder across his chest. As she dropped down beside him, another shot skimmed close by her. Angrily, she snatched the Luger from Indy's shoulder holster and pumped off the remaining eight shots in the clip at the group across the river.

They were nearly out of range of the automatic but she did hear one of them yelp and saw them dive for cover. The trigger of the Luger clicked ineffectively and she flung it away, searching in Indy's jacket pockets until she found the Mexican soldier's .45 caliber pistol. She had to use both thumbs to get it cocked and its recoil nearly knocked her down when she pulled the trigger. But one of the men who had risked showing himself cried out and fell, clutching his leg.

The men across the river hesitated and one of them pointed upstream. Marion was struggling to get the gun recocked and finally got it pointed in their direction. The sharp boom of the big gun seemed to decide the issue, for the men gathered their injured companion and disappeared back into the brush behind them.

Marion gulped, tears streaming down her face, still holding the gun ready. When they failed to reappear, she put the pistol down and bent over Indy, slapping his face lightly. "Indy! Can you hear me? Come on, Indy, open your eyes! Let's see some response!"

Instead, he exhaled softly -- a gurgling, death-filled sound that froze her heart in fear -- and did not take another breath. Frantic, she clutched his shirt and shook him. "Damn it, Jones! Don't you die on me!" She slapped him again, harder, and this time was rewarded by his sharp intake of breath and his eyes flickering open.

For an instant he looked disoriented, then his eyes glazed over with pain. Marion tugged on his shirt. "Come on, Indy. Can you get up? We can't stay here. Oh, please, Indy! Try!"

His eyes cleared somewhat and he grabbed hold of her upper arm with his right hand, the left one held close to his body. Sweat broke out on his forehead as she somehow got him to his feet and wedged herself underneath his right arm, supporting him, her left arm around him. By sheer force of will, she got him up the slope and into the shade of the willows. There she let him sink down with his back to one of the trees and began to examine him.

She got his jacket and holster off and eased the blood-soaked shirt down off his shoulder, Indy grimacing in pain as she did so. The bedraggled remnants of the parchment map fell out onto the ground, but she was too busy to bother with it just then.

There was so much blood that it was hard to tell how bad the wound was. It appeared that the bullet had passed through his shoulder, shattering the bone as it did so. One thing was clear, though - he was going to bleed to death if she didn't get it stopped somehow.

Quickly, she ripped the shirt into strips and tied the ends to form one long strip. She had left the sleeves intact and packed the wound with them, then began to wind the makeshift bandage around him, holding his left arm in place against his chest. He tried unsuccessfully to stifle a cry, turned even paler than he already was and fainted.

Marion blinked back her tears and determinedly kept binding up the wounded shoulder. It was better for him to be out while she did this, she thought. He must be in terrible pain.

When she was done, she took what was left of the shirt and went back to the river to wet it. Returning to Indy, she bathed his pallid face and coaxed him back to consciousness.

"I have to get you to a doctor, Indy," she said, her dark eyes filled with worry. "Do you think you could ride if I can catch the horses?"

"I dunno," he answered in a whisper, all he could manage. "I don't think so. Where's the gun?"

"Oh," she said and scrambled away, back down toward the water and returned a minute later with the revolver in her hand.

"I'll be all right," Indy murmured. "Go get help."

"Indy, I can't leave you here," she answered, desperation covering her features.

"I can't ride, Marion. I don't even think I can get up again. Please …"

Marion gritted her teeth and tried to decide what to do. She couldn't leave him here alone, but he was too weak to go with her. She got to her feet and swallowed hard, then turned to catch one of the horses standing nearby, its head down and nostrils flared in exhaustion. Maybe she could make it to a nearby town or farmhouse …

Abruptly, her heart froze as she heard the sound of horses pushing through the brush. Indy looked stricken, as well, and his good hand tightened around the butt of the revolver.

Marion, standing about ten yards from him, saw the riders first and, with a cry, dashed toward them.

"No!" Indy cried.

"They're Americans!" she shouted back, an insane grin splitting her face. "They're Americans!"

Cautiously, surveying the scene before them, the two Texas Rangers eased their big horses into the clearing, service revolvers in hand, Marion almost dancing with relief beside them. Indy sighed deeply and sank back against the tree, letting the blackness take him.

* * *

Two and a half weeks later, Indy was judged fit enough to travel and he and Marion climbed aboard the train to San Antonio to retrace the journey they had involuntarily taken nearly a month before.

When he had come to in the hospital in Laredo, he was asked how he felt then placed under arrest for illegal entry into the United States. It had taken several calls to Marshall College and one call from Washington to convince the immigration agents that they were who they said and they were released with apologies.

Indy had undergone surgery on his shoulder to pin the bones back together. While recuperating from that, he and Marion were visited by Army Intelligence agents and interviewed about their experiences. The agents had exchanged quick glances when Indy got to the part about German involvement in Mexico and one of them had left quietly, with no explanation.

The parchment map, crumbled somewhat from the abuse it had suffered but still readable, had been confiscated by the Federal men. Indy protested that the map belonged to him and the university, but to no avail. He got double-talk about Federal security, top secret, etc., and retired, unplacated, from his latest round with government red tape.

Finally, though, he was released from the doctor's care and was settled into the compartment on board the train, his shoulder cushioned by extra pillows, his left arm in a sling, Marion seated beside him. He brooded for some time as the train pulled out and headed north.

Marion wisely kept her mouth shut. At last, staring out the window at the arid South Texas landscape speeding by, Indy muttered, "Idiots. They'll destroy it. A major find and they'll just go in and destroy it."

"Indy, you don't know what they'll do," she answered reasonably.

He snorted in derision. "They've got the map, don't they? And they know the general area to search in. Shit, they've got teams on the way right now." He banged down his right hand on the arm of the chair. "It's not right, Marion! That site should have been saved for trained archaeologists! It should be photographed and catalogued before a single thing is taken out of it!"

Marion said nothing, thinking back on all the things that now resided in the American Museum of Natural History thanks to Indy's … procurement. That was different, Indy would argue. That was for science.

"Well, there's nothing you can do about it," she said. "So you might as well settle down. You're going to hurt your shoulder again and then you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

He continued to mutter to himself, but he finally trailed off in fatigue, still too weak to stay angry for long. It took too much work.

"Look," Marion said, changing the subject. "The semester's nearly over; I'm sure the university will give you medical leave and you'll have the entire summer to rest up."

"Gotta go to Iraq this summer," he mumbled.

"You gotta go nowhere, honey," she replied, taking his hand firmly in hers. "If we go anywhere, it'll be somewhere that we can relax and have a nice vacation." She smiled secretively. "Maybe get to work on a baby."

He looked around at her, a little startled. "Huh?!"

"Indiana Jones, are you backing out on me?"

"No! I'd just forgotten, that's all."

She yanked her hand away and frowned. "Well, I like that! You beat all I ever saw, you know that? The hell with you!"

"Aw, I'm sorry, Marion. I've just had other things on my mind, that's all." He reached out and took her hand back. "Where would you like to go?"

"A cruise would be nice. Maybe to Europe?"

"Now, Marion, I haven't got that kind of money. Besides, it's too dangerous. Europe is a powderkeg right now. I don't intend to get caught in the big middle of it when it blows."

"Okay. You're right. How about going up to the Catskills? We could rent a cabin, do some fishing, just relax and breathe mountain air?"

He considered it and nodded. "That might be arranged. I hate to think about getting so far behind in my work, but there's not much I can do until this shoulder heals and … anyway, I'm getting too old to be running all over creation looking for little bits of junk …" He grinned at her startled reaction.

"Ha!" Marion retorted. "You're just like Dad! You won't give it up. Won't be long before you'll have a protege out there digging in the dirt beside you, just as excited as you are over some little clay shard or hair pin you've found!"

"Yeah, but I'd better not find him messing around my daughter, or I'll blow his ass to kingdom come!" Indy laughed. "You know, the older I get, the more I can understand Abner's viewpoint. Come to think of it, our kids are staying at home with their mom, where they belong."

"Like hell!" Marion shot back. "And Mom isn't staying home either!"

"Oh, yes, you are …"

"Oh, no, I'm not! And if you don't shut up and kiss me, I'll break your other arm!"

They glared at each other stubbornly for a moment, then he shut up and kissed her.

END