LEGACY JOURNAL OF WINSTON RAYNE
Thursday, Apr. 3 - Camp - 50 km NE of Rd. from Quince Mil to Pto. Maldonado
More mud & rain - the rainy season’s last hurrah, I suspect. At times like these one wonders if one will ever be clean & dry again.
Derek became ill this morning - doubtless something at breakfast disagreed. I should have insisted that he eat our own food, rather than trusting the local cafe. I gave him a dose to settle his stomach, then made him stretch out in the back of the Rover. He slept for a couple of hours, after which he seemed back to his contrary self. Thank goodness - don’t know what I’d have done if it had been something serious.
The water pump broke this afternoon & cost us almost 3 hrs. It’s a good thing that I pack almost as many spare parts & tools as I do food. I fear it will be slow going. The inclines are steep & the trail is mud. I’m afraid I’m going to strip the gears. The clutch has also developed an odd feel. I almost got stuck twice, but so far have been lucky enough to push on through.
With sheer drops above and below, if we were to meet so much as a llama one of us would have to back up. God knows how many miles it would be before the other could get around. Only a few more kilometers until we begin the descent into the much denser vegetation that will mark the real beginnings of the Amazon. The man assured me that the road improves closer to the mine.
Am guessing at the mileage since the odometer doesn’t work. Spotted a rocky ledge with an overhang & stopped here. Have been able to make a camp & have a bit of a fire using some rags, papers, & other refuse - enough to warm up a meal.
All day today I tried to pound into Derek’s brain the Latin, Greek, Gaelic, & Quechuan incantations needed to vanquish & enthrall the demon of the sepulcher. Hopeless! If he cannot translate it out of the Latin into English or even Dutch, how will he ever be able to use it properly in the language from whence it came? He thinks rote memory will do it - it will not! He must know & understand fully what it, or any incantation, means - in order to believe the words. It’s the belief that’s all. We cannot win without believing & in order to believe absolutely, to have faith, we must know the whole truth.
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I’m ready to turn him over my knee & may just do it within the next few minutes. It wouldn’t be that difficult - he’s a runt. I hope he gets a spurt of growth soon - after all, he just turned 15. At his age, I was nearly a ft. taller. He keeps parroting Prof. Washburn at me. George is a fine man & an excellent researcher, but he’s an academic, who prefers his ivory towers to true field work. Anything & everything in the field is dangerous, but we must not shirk our responsibilities to discover the truth, to ferret out evil, & to fight the minions of hell whenever & wherever we have the opportunity. We can kill the serpent if we can cut off its head. It’s the burden that God placed upon the Legacy.
According to George, I shouldn’t be doing this without back-up. I’m afraid my back-up is Derek. I’ll just have to make sure he’s ready & then pray to God that I don’t need him, because he certainly wouldn’t be much help. Perhaps, George is right that it should only be opened in the controlled environment of a Legacy laboratory - especially in that I do have Derek with me. Should I risk my son like this? But if I take it back unopened, it will remain unopened. The Ruling Council will judge it to be too dangerous & will lock it away in some secret vault, never to be seen again. To learn we must embrace danger - after all, great scientists, like Louis Pasteur, used themselves as guinea pigs to further man’s knowledge. If I do not open it, the questions will never be asked, nor answered - and the battle may be lost. What’s the old rhyme? For want of shoe the horse was lost?
We should arrive at the Chipote mine tomorrow evening, barring unforeseen problems, which, of course, there will be. I hope that our guide will still be waiting, since he probably expected us today.
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