The walkway widened into a perfectly circular clearing about fifty feet in diameter and also surfaced entirely with stones. In the center of the clearing was a large object.

“I'll be damned,” they said in unison.

The jet plane was in two sections. The front was intact, but the passenger cabin was virtually gone. The tail section was in fair shape and had been moved directly behind the cockpit, giving the aircraft a short, stubby look. The paint was old and faded and not overgrown by vines or lichen as might be expected.

They peered through the cracked cockpit windows, expecting to see skeletons. The seats were empty. Directly in front of the cockpit was a shallow pit holding the blackened ashes of fires and charred bones of small animals. Carved totems as tall and thick as a man ringed the stone circle. The figures adorning each post were different. Carved in dark wood at the top of each pole was a winged woman with her hands cupped in front of her. It was the same figure carved onto the medallion they had found on the dead Indian.

“It looks like some sort of shrine,” Gamay whispered. She went over to the ash pit. “This must be where they burned sacrifices. Mostly bones from small animals.”

“That's certainly reassuring,” Paul said. He looked up at the sun, then checked his watch. “They've got the plane positioned so that it acts like a sundial. It reminds me of the layout at Stonehenge, with the concentric rings that acted as a celestial calendar.”

Gamay put her hand on the plane's nose. “Does this blue and-white color scheme seem familiar to you?”

“What do you know? The Chulo national colors.”

Gamay's eyes widened as she looked past Paul, who had his back to the forest.

“That's not the only thing around here that's blue and white.”

Paul turned and saw about twenty Chulo Indians emerge from the trees, their faces and bodies painted the colors of sky and bone. He cursed himself for allowing the plane's discovery to push caution aside. As silently as the ghosts they were reputed to be, the Indians surrounded them. There was no way to run. Paul and Gamay were completely boxed in.

The Indians advanced with their spears held high, but then they did a peculiar thing. They opened the circle. One Indian indicated with his spear that they were to go through the opening. The Trouts glanced at each other for mutual reassurance, then, with the silent Indians flanking them like a military honor guard, they marched from the shrine and followed the path along the river.

The path widened into a road that took them to a stockade palisade. They made their way toward a gate wide enough to drive a truck through. From a distance they had seen on either side of the gate tall wooden staffs that had knobs on the top like flagpoles. As they neared the entrance Gamay squeezed her husband's hand even tighter.