Jennifer Marie Stephens was excited, nervous and somewhat uneasy. Her husband was the curator for a big museum at the local college. Maybe she had been right about him all along. Now maybe her parents would see him in a better light. She had normally dated a bunch of "wild ones" in high school and college. She had been burned out with all of their maniacal egos; their endless flirtations with other women and sexual demands.

She began to take a whole new direction with her personal life after she started working. During a guided tour of the local college archeological museum, she had been approached by the tour guide, which unknown to her was the curator. She was twenty two at the time, and he was almost twenty years older. He was not a particularly athletic looking man. He was a studious man. She had gone out with him reluctantly on a casual basis. She was not that excited when he proposed to her. She had decided to marry him for a number of dubious reasons. One was that she needed to change the direction of her social life from being on the back of a Harley, to the passenger seat of a BMW. She tired of being on the verge of eviction with a boyfriend who felt the world was against him. She felt she could adjust to the five-acre lot in the suburbs that took most of the weekend on a riding mower to maintain.

Her parents weren't that wild about the prospects of a son-in-law that didn't know how to change the oil in his own car. He didn't know how to over-seed the lawn, or spray weeds. Jenny didn't care. She could do all that. For the first time in her life, she had some sort of stability in her life. Her disappointing romantic and sex life seemed to take a lower priority when their daughter Dakota came along. They had a common interest now, or at least, so she thought.

When the news came that her husband Joe was going to have a full semester sabbatical; and that they were going to Peru to search for Vilcabamba, her daughter threw a tantrum.

In 1911 Hiram Bingham had published his archeological findings for Machu Picchu and Vilcabamba. The world has since recognized the findings for Machu Picchu as one of the outstanding discoveries of architecture. However, nobody had been able to find Vilcabamba since then. Was this place a myth? Were the bearings he gave to this other city wrong? Brad had to find out.

He had spent several summers examining other documents and writings of others who had tried to find it. He had been on air searches where they had spent month's gridding off the mountainous area searching for the lost city. The cloud cover was too dense for aerial searches to be effective. Years of studies of maps from Google Earth had turned up nothing.

The news of this new trip gave Jenny some sense of vindication for her choice in husbands. She was being offered the opportunity to spend the summer before her freshman year climbing mountains in a savage country with no modern amenities. There would be no cell coverage, no satellite coverage, no bathrooms and no friends. She was just getting old enough that her parents would consider letting her date. She was just old enough at fourteen, to get a learners' permit.

Jenny knew that in time she would have memories to last a lifetime.

Joe had spent lots of time collecting maps of the area. He had GPS devices. He had satellite phones. He had a laptop and flash drives for information and photographs. He had not told his wife, but now his priorities were a little different.

The last few years, or so, he had been reading the book by Tahir Shah, called "Trail of Feathers;" Serpent of the Incas It was a dubious account of the 'Legendary Birdmen of Peru.' He had been to the archives in Cuzco and had been allowed to read the notes of a 16^th century Spanish priest. Depending on the conflicting meanings of a few words, there seemed to be references to a band of "Birdmen of Peru." These men seemed to be able to soar from one mountain top to another; sometimes following the river along the Sacred Valley. There was speculation both that men could fly, or that maybe it was just hallucinogenic effects of the coca leaves.

Joe had become obsessed with this search; not only for Vilcabamba, but the "Serpent of the Incas; the Birdmen of Peru." Although he had started out with sabbaticals funded by the university, his lack of finished published papers was taking its toll. He had begun borrowing against his house. He had begun borrowing against the farm property that Jennifer's parents had left for her inheritance. The "Serpent of the Incas," portion of his investigation was not an approved part of his research, but was consuming a great part of his effort. This would be a discrete secondary exploration that he would not tell anybody about.

Joe and Jenn flew to Florida and caught a connecting flight Lima. Joe had spent a lot of time analyzing the route. He knew that his wife was fit from her years of jogging in college and years after.

From Lima, they took a four hour train to Cusco. They had to hire a porter. Joe had had good luck with his previous porter, so it was easy to use him again.

Joe, and his wife each had a horse to ride. The porter walked, leading a string of Llamas, which carried food, water and camping equipment. Raul was tall. In fact you could say he was huge. He did not look like other porters. Most of them could be traced back to the Indians of the forest; a lineage of Inca. Raul was a little different. He was at least 6'-6" tall; very lean and fit. Unlike the native Indians, he had a number of tattoos, indicating a substantial contact with the outside world. Neither Joe or Jenn had actually seen his tattoos. Once in a while, one of his long sleeves might snag on something enough to get a quick glimpse of part of his arm. Sometimes when he might lean over, one might see down the front of his work shirt, showing a hint of some kind of tattoos on his body; but nothing they could really understand.

He did not wear the traditional bright colors and skull caps of the Cusco Villagers. He dressed in faded military fatigues; jungle camouflage. His trousers were tucked into the top of his black, oiled lumberjack boots that stopped just below his knees. The sides of his head were shaved. The hair along the top of his head was kinky and braided into a Mohawk that trailed down the back of his neck. This did not seem like the typical Inca guide, but he had been recommended by the college and used by Joe before.

Walking along the world famous Inca Trail was an incredible experience. The four day hike took them past villages, forests, valleys, and mountains, and was an excellent way to taste the flavor of the local culture. The hiking from Cusco to the Sacred Valley gave them several days to acclimate themselves to the height of 11,000 feet above see level. This Sacred Valley tour combined the Inca trail with visits to other historic architectural ruins along the way from Cusco to Machu Picchu.

Although she should have known, Jenn was unexpectedly surprised at the vast array of orchids; thousands growing among the fern and within the crooks of large trees. She was now glad that her husband had packed away several computer chips for her camera. The camera memory would never have been able to store the pictures of vicuna, condor, alpaca and different animals she had seen along the trail. There were dozens of Inca ruins that had not been noted in the travel handbooks.

This was Jenny's first trip, and was soon feeling uncomfortable around the guide. Raul had a stare as cold at the Andes wind. He was blatant about it; never politely looking away when she caught him starring. Raul had not seen Joe's wife before. She preferred to feel it was innocent, but the local men were not used to the way many of the tourist women dressed.

On the four day trip from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, at the foot of Machu Picchu, Jenn would need to find a bathroom or even bathe. She made it clear when she wanted to be alone, but always felt somebody was watching when she would wade out into the cold stream to wash. She tried to do it in the evening as late as possible, so there was minimal light. However, when the sun went down, the stars shining off of the water made it feel almost like mid-day.

Jenn would take off her boots, socks, shirt and shorts; wade into the water and remove her swimsuit and lay it on a large rock beside her. She tried to keep crouched low, but it never seemed enough to ward of the unseeing eyes she felt were out there.

Once, she must have waded out too far. She was beyond reach of her swimsuit. When she turned, there was Raul; her swimsuit under one arm her clothes rolled and tucked under the other. The shoestrings of her boots were tied together and the pair slung over his shoulder. He was barefoot and standing ankle deep in the water; holding a large terrycloth towel out between his two outstretched hands.

She wasn't sure how to take it. Did he consider himself a lower paid servant offering innocent assistance to his employer? Was he a stalker; a lecher, leering at her nakedness? In any case, she didn't have much choice.

If she screamed; if she made an issue of this, Joe would have no choice but to fire the man. Without a guide, they would be lost? What would be their plight then? There were jaguars, panthers and according to rumors, some uncivilized savages still living anonymously in the jungle, hateful of the illegal lumbermen and miners who were laying siege to their country.

Jenn weighed her alternatives. "P ... p ... please, Raul. Please leave my clothes here so I can dress myself. Please go back to camp. I will be there soon." She stammered.

"It's not safe out here after dark, Miss Jennifer. Please get dressed and I will walk you back to the campfire. It's getting cold. You can walk back the way you are, but the mosquitos will eat you alive, and you will be scratching for the next two weeks." She felt but could not see a smile on his face. Jenn had little choice.

"When you're getting run out of town, act like you're leading the parade," were the only words she could use to console herself. Reluctantly, Jenn dropped back down into the water and wet her hair. She began to undo her French braid. Once it was undone, she again dropped down below the water. When she came up, her hair was flowing evenly down across both of her breasts, giving her some measure of modesty.

She tried to appear aloof. She tried with all the dignity she could muster to stand and walk towards the towel. She kept one hand across her breasts. She was unable to keep her long pink nipples from poking through the thin blanket of red hair. Her other hand tried valiantly to pull the sides of her long hair over her shaved vulva. It wasn't completely shaved. She had a "landing strip" of fine hair from the top of her cleft going up. From the top of her cleft down, she was bare. She tried to shield herself with her long red hair and palm. All it did was make her look all the more provocative.

She stared him in the eyes as she walked towards him, trying not to tear up. She had little choice but to approach him. When she got to him, she turned her back to him. He wrapped the king sized towel around her shoulders. It covered her back, but none of her front.

With her head now down, she stammered a barely audible: "T ... t ... thank you."

Jenn struggled to readjust the towel; turning it sideways so she could wrap the length of it around her, covering her breasts and crotch. The next dilemma was her clothes. Should she sit down on the rock and dress herself? Should she just march back into the camp, naked with Raul behind her and holding her clothes? Joe would see and perhaps be outraged. Would he fire Raul on the spot? Jenn was too much in an emotional turmoil to logically figure all of this out.

With the towel tucked around her, Jenn tip-toed through the ferns back to camp.

When Joe looked up from the campfire, he saw his wife; soaking wet. Her hair was dripping wet and she was clutching the towel around her. It covered her breasts, but the bottom part would gap open to her hips as she walked; obviously naked underneath. "What the fuck was going on?" his mind screamed. "Why were his wife naked and Raul carrying her clothes behind her?"

Joe was ready to shoot somebody, but he wasn't sure who it should be. First of all, he was sure his wife would not have willingly undressed for this savage; would she?

The next thought was that somehow, Raul was behind all this. Jenn was not smiling. She was tense. His thought was to fire Raul. But he knew he couldn't do that. Neither he or his wife spoke Spanish or Quechua. They would be lost without him, and this far into the jungle.

"Hi, hon." Joe said, not knowing what else to do. Jenn turned, took her clothes and disappeared into her tent. No words were spoken.

Raul had won this round and the rest now seemed like a slam-dunk. If she did not protest; if her husband showed no outrage, he knew he had something they wanted. He had a good idea what it might be.

He almost drooled when watching Miss Jennifer after that. Jenny had not really anticipated the idea of having a guide. She had packed a limited wardrobe. She had few options other than to wear her chocolate covered lumberjack boots with the gray wool socks folded over the top. Her Levi cutoffs were cut so short that the pockets were shortened so they wouldn't stick below the hem. Her hours playing tennis at home; along with her hours of sunning with her friends left a golden tan as far up past the denim hem as anybody could see

Being a natural redhead seemed to clash with her skin tone. Most redheads do not tan. Her French braids down to their waist; golden tan over a slight sprinkling of freckles created an unexpected surprise to most men. South American men were not accustomed to seeing red hair on a tanned and freckled Yankee. To a South American, this woman of forty looked younger than thirty. Although somewhat innocent, her dress and behavior seemed provocative and tempting to the native Indians.

Some days, Jenn wore a blue oxford men's button down collar shirt tucked into her jeans. Under the practically unbuttoned to the waist shirt could be seen a one piece black swim suit with the jeans shorts over them. With the heat and humidity of the rain forest, it was virtually transparent. Her firm melon sized breasts stuck almost straight out. There was no sag to them. They were more conical than round. Her long pink coral nipples were plainly outlined.

Along their hiking, Joe made cautious conversation about different subjects. In one sense, he did not want to tip his hand about what else he might be looking for.

Raul tried to pass off questions about "Flying Birdmen" as a joke; a myth with no substance. Joe had tried to treat the conversation the same way; not wanting to tip his hand.

Once they climbed the trail to the top of Machu Picchu, the clouds seemed to part and they seemed to be magically transported back a thousand years. They could feel the presence of the villagers, chipping the stones, pushing them into place and caring for the crops along the terraces.

At the main gate, Joe leaned against the inside of the stone opening. He pulled Jenn up against him and handed Raul the cell phone. Raul lined the couple up in front of Huayna Picchu. Huayna Picchu is the huge pointed mountain in the background behind Machu Picchu.

Jenny's shirt was open. It fluttered in the wind. Raul waited. He waited for the wind to catch the shirt blowing back into her husband. He caught the skin tight tank top in the afternoon light just right. Her nipples were cold in the high altitude. Her top might as well have been sprayed on. It was a perfect shot. It caught Jenn somewhat by surprise, but she realized when the flash went off that her work shirt was open. Would there be enough light to embarrass her? She hoped not. Too late. Who cares what a porter might see.

Joe took out his transit, binoculars and lots of other digital equipment and compared the readings to the old maps and new pictures from Google earth. Jenny spent several days exploring the area while Joe spent most of the time trying to get bearings from different parts of the mountain.

Joe felt he had seen something. There seemed to be a discrepancy between the bearings of Hiram Bingham's notes and pictures. Had Bingham transposed the numbers for degrees and minutes on his transit when he wrote them down?

Joe had almost a mystical look on him when he said they were leaving. Jenny was sad to hear they were leaving. Once they got to the bottom of the mountain, Joe got rid of most of their equipment. They could get water at many places. They took lots of small light packages of Jerky and a few clothes. It was going to be several days of brutal climbing, and they needed to pare down their supplies as much as possible.

Joe was secretive about where they were going. He did not want them discussing anything in public. They took a short train ride down the valley. Joe had seen something on Google Earth that he wanted to check out.

They got off the train about ten miles down the valley. They took two days to climb another mountain. It was hard brutal work to climb to hack their way up the vine covered granite outcroppings.

Jenn could sense that her husband was getting more irritable now. Was it the weather? Was it the heat? Was it the guide? She was getting more and more uncomfortable with the looks she was getting.

That night, after everybody had gone to sleep, Jenn was sitting with her husband staring at the campfire. "What's wrong, Joe?" She asked. "What's bothering you?"

Joe sat quiet for a while. He got up and went to his back pack. He pulled out a packet of notes. Some of them were photocopies of the priest's notes. Another was the book from Tahir Shah.

She browsed through most of it, not really understanding what it all meant. "This trip is not all about the lost city of Vilcabamba," he whispered as he looked over to Raul's tent. "I have read and re-read the stories. I need to find out whether the legend of the 'Birdmen of Peru' or just a mistake in translation."

"I've been watching you, and I've been watching him." Joe paused for a while not sure how to continue. "I've tried to ask innocently about these issues, but he doesn't want to answer. I don't know if I just can't get through to him, or he doesn't know."

Jenn sat there without answering. She had a bit of a guess where this was leading.

"What ... what ... why are you telling me?" she asked without looking up at him. "What do you want me to do?" This conversation was not going to have a pleasant ending.

"I've seen how he looks at you." Joe looked up at her slowly. Their eyes met for a millisecond. "I ... I ... I think that if you were a little friendlier with him, maybe he might tell you something he won't tell me."

Jenn didn't like the sequence of comments. She knew from the travelogues how women were supposed to interact with local men. Never be out by yourself after dark. Walk with purpose. Let them know you do not want their attention if they show too much interest. Was her husband asking her to flirt with this savage in order to get information? Jenn was silent.

Joe was encouraged. A definite "No," meant "No." No response was closer to a "yes." He shuddered to himself. Exactly what would she do? Exactly how would she do it? Joe knew that Jenn had the looks and smile to get anything she wanted from anybody; at least back at home. Here in the jungle, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel; only easier; only ... if she was willing.

The next day went as if nothing had happened. Joe sat down to go over his maps. He got out his binoculars to see if he could see Machu Picchu from where he was.

That evening, Raul had put the food away. In an unusual gesture, Jenn helped clean the dishes, pots and pans. She and Raul looked at each other. Joe struggled with quite what to do. He was sitting by the fire. Jenn looked over at him for a split second, to see if she could read his mind.

Jenn didn't look around. She tried to pretend her husband was not there. She took several deep breaths; struggling with her mind and her body. She struggled with her mind screaming "No," at her. She started off away from the fireplace; apparently looking for wood. Raul seemed to sense things had not been going as normal. It would seem harmless if he followed her, helping to gather firewood.

Jenn heard him following. Her heart was in her throat. "Am I really doing this?" her mind screamed. She picked up another stick. Now she had two.

Raul had one and picked up another by the time he caught up with her. "You need to be careful out here." He said. Near the fire, the leopards will not come close. You have to be careful out here." He said as he picked up another stick.

Jenny bit her lip to stifle her thoughts. "The most dangerous creature in this jungle was him." She muttered to herself. "I'll take my chances with a leopard. They hunt when they're hungry." She thought. "Men hunt when they have an erection."

Jenn tried to put the next stick quickly in the crook of her left elbow. If she didn't do it quickly, he would notice her shaking; her nervousness. "I'm afraid we may not have enough firewood for the night." She said as innocently and nonchalantly as she could.

They chatted about the weather; the tiresome walks and some of the more remarkable places they had been. "I know you've led me out here for some reason." Raul said. "Why are we here?"

Jenn felt trapped. She had struggled with her thoughts. She wanted to be coy about bringing up the subject. Now it was out there. There was no way to be subtle.

"My ... my ... my husband wants ... wants to know about the "Birdmen of Peru." She stammered. "Is it true or is it a myth?" Raul smiled. No fencing. No fucking around. "So, you want to hear about 'La Serpiente Incaico.' The serpent of the Incas. What makes you think it is real? How do you know it's not just a myth?"

At least it was out now. She had asked. Joe could go fuck himself. She had asked. She didn't care what happened now. "You're probably right, Raul. It's probably just a myth. I don't know why we thought such a ridiculous idea could have any truth. There's no way a civilization with no written language could figure out how to fly." She said in almost a scoffing attitude.

They continued picking up sticks. Raul held them as Jenny walked along picking up more. When they got back, Jenn let Joe know she had brought it up, and it was probably just a wild story.

"You've got to be kidding," Joe said. He didn't actually say it was a myth did he?" Jenn hadn't thought about the actual words. "You've got to go back and try again." Joe said.

Jenn was sick. Her heart seemed to get caught in her throat. She had escaped from this man unscathed. She had had worse first dates than that in high school. She didn't want to go out again, but her husband was coaxing her unmercifully.

Jenn was nervous. She sat next to her husband by the campfire. She threw a couple more sticks on the dying embers. Raul heard the new sticks snapping. She heard the zipper swish up. This immense savage seemed to float noiselessly out of the flap in his tent.

Raul sat down across from her with the fire flickering on him. She knew her husband had invested a lot of time and money into this trip. In fact, he had probably invested more than one summer into this investigation. She knew he was close to a major breakthrough on the level of Hiram Bingham if anything turned out. She thought of how her husband had mortgaged almost everything they had to finance his writings and these trips. She tried not to think of the consequences if he went back home without some kind of conclusion to "Serpent of the Incas."

Raul brought something around from behind him. She looked at it, thinking it was nothing. It looked like several long feathers. On the other hand, they weren't feathers. The "Feathers" were about 18" to 24" long. On closer observation, the stems were made of some kind of fine reed. She had seen them at the top of the Andes.

Jenn remembered reading about this in the document from the 16^th century priest in the Cusco Monastery. Only instead of interlaced condor feathers, a woven mat had been created of baby vicuna hair. Baby vicuna hair are about 8 microns compared to the 20 of adult vicuna, alpaca or guanaco.

The fine reeds had been placed it the fabric for reinforcing; like the thicker part of a condor feather.

"Was this real?" Jenny's mind raced. "The Serpent of the Incas," what do you believe, Miss Jenny?

"Do you believe that men could use the sap from trees to glue these to their body and glide like a flying squirrel? Men have watched the condor for centuries; caught them and studied them. These mountains are 11,000 feet in the air. You know people from the U.S. do it now. Why don't you think they could do it five hundred years ago? How do you think the Incas, Mayans, Tiwanaku, Huari or the Chavin fought each other?"

"The story is that the 'Serpent of the Inca' was a group of men who could copy the condor. They could soar for hours in the thermal currents, flying along known trails to spot enemy soldiers. They could soar from mountain top to mountain top and outmaneuver the enemy." It took Jenny some time to absorb this.

"Can ... can ... can you show me some more proof of these ... these ... these people?" she asked nervously.

Raul was quiet for a long time. The sparks from the fire seemed to stop his expressions into stills, like a movie that is shown too slow. Jenn could see his expressions change.

"Well, Miss Jennifer; you and your husband are here for your own purposes. Like Hiram Bingham, you come here to steal our secrets. You will get your proof and go back to your country with your cameras and computer journals and make millions off of us. My people will live here in poverty and gain nothing. Your lumber men rape our forests. They take our gas. They mine our silver, gold and copper. They poison our water with mercury. Look at our rivers; filled with the empty plastic bottles because you are too lazy or too pompous to drink ordinary water.

You want us to reveal our secrets and you walk away. Joe didn't look up. "We ... we ... we could pay you something..." his voice trailed off.

"The early settlers bought Manhattan Island for a handful of worthless jewelry. They made a bargain with Indians who did not understand your language. Hiram Bingham looted these villages of mummies, gold and artifacts. He was almost as bad as the Spaniards."

Joe said nothing. He looked over at his wife. He gave her that look. It was that look he had when they were talking earlier; "You know what to do." Nothing was spoken. When she looked for a millisecond into his eyes, she knew what his instructions were: "You make the deal."

Jenn stood. She took Raul's hand. She tried to walk off with him into the fading light; back to the pond, back to the twilight beyond the campfire.

"No; Miss Jennifer, we're not going to do it that way." She froze. She couldn't look back.

"Your husband, here, is planning to make lots of money. He plans on becoming famous for finding secrets of the Inca. If you and I walk back there, you can tell him that you just was real nice and talked the secrets out of me. He may be naïve enough to believe it. He may choose to ignore this. He may be stupid enough to believe what you tell him. He needs to see what this is going to cost; to both of you."

He was right. Jenn might have just come back and said nothing. Joe wouldn't have asked. He would not want to know. If he knew, he would have to object. Above all, he wanted the secrets; to finish his research, to go on tour as a speaker.

"As a couple, what are the two of you willing to agree to?"

Jenn was numb. She did not want this discussed. She could not bear to have to fuck somebody for financial gain; to whore herself. It would have been one thing to go silently into the night. It was another thing to knowingly have a conversation in front of her husband.

Joe was the same way. If his wife fucked somebody without him knowing, he could force himself; with enough at stake, to look the other way. This was doubly humiliating to each of them.

"what ... what ... what ... do ... do ... you want?" Jenn stammered; not wanting to know, to hear.

"What are you fucking willing to do, Miss Jennifer?"

"I ... I ... I ... don't see what choice I have." She said as she hung her head; not wanting to look at her husband. She was sitting on one of the large rocks beside him. She was rocking back and forth. She put her hands over her face and placed her face on her knees; trying to shut out the world.

"Oh, you have a choice, Miss Jenny. Doesn't she, Mister Stephens?" Raul tried to hide the snarl in his voice. He tried to hide the smile on his face.

Joe wouldn't look at either of them. "Tell her, Joe."

Joe was silent. He couldn't bear to speak.

Jenn looked up, hoping against hope that he would tell Raul to "Go fuck yourself."