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Patallacta is now believed to have been a satellite of Machu Picchu, a settlement where several hundred laborers resided and much of the food consumed at Machu Picchu was grown. We sat down to what may have been the first low-fat meal served there since the death of Atahualpa. Actually, it was more a low-fat style meal, since John noticed an empty can of condensed milk next to the suspiciously rich potato soup. “Looks like I better take an extra statin,” he said, pulling a vial of heart pills from his jacket.

After dinner, John went straight to bed. I put on my headlamp and followed Efrain into the blackness of the immense valley, across the river and into the ruins. The most impressive building at Patallacta was a sun temple with rounded walls, which looked like a rustic replica of the Torreon at Machu Picchu. There was even a small cave underneath.

“Come here, Mark,” Efrain said, pointing his flashlight into the crevice. The rock was charred and the ground strewn with the remnants of a fire. “Mountain people are very traditional. They come here to make offerings when the INC is away.” In the embers I saw candy wrappers, seashells and an empty wine bottle.

“This is the cheapest stuff,” Efrain said, picking up the bottle. The label said VINO FORTIFICADO—the Peruvian equivalent of Wild Irish Rose. “Supposedly they’re paying it to the Mother Earth, but they drink the wine themselves.” He poked the ashes with a stick. “A llama fetus is a very good offering. Sometimes you can find little metal shapes that represent things, like a new house or people getting married.” I’d seen these for sale in the market in Cusco. They looked like tiny Monopoly pieces.

We entered the Torreon, which, if less beautiful than the one in Machu Picchu, was more obviously utilitarian. Efrain pointed out two small windows much like those in the more famous sun temple tower. “June twenty-first is approaching, right, the solstice? The stars move counterclockwise. Right up there is the Corona Borealis. You see it?” The size of the night sky was—sorry, but there’s really no other word for it—astronomical. “The Incas had specialists who kept track of the stars. On the winter solstice you can see the Corona from this window, which points northeast.” He traced his fingers around the window to the left. I looked at the constellation through the thick stone frame. “By the summer solstice on December twenty-second, the Corona has moved to that window on the right.”

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve read about that anywhere,” I said, half hoping Efrain might direct me to a printed source. He kept a running bibliography on every topic that we touched on, from Inca weaving to Bingham’s skill as a photographer, and I’d already written down the names of half a dozen books that he thought I should read.

“A lot of people don’t believe things they can’t read in a book,” he said. “So many of the things I’ve learned in the mountains—like how to navigate by the stars—can’t be found in books.” The clear night air was freezing, and the stars’ brilliance deepened as the minutes passed. “What you might know as the constellation Scorpio, mountain people call the Condor. When you see those really thin clouds—I forget the name in English.”

“Cirrus?”

“Those kinds of clouds mean that there’s going to be frost. If you hear all the frogs singing, you can be sure it’s going to rain. If the birds put their nests near the water, it’s going to be a dry season. These are the sorts of things that fathers teach their sons.”

We wandered through the alleyways of Patallacta, then crossed back over the river to the cook tent, which glowed in the dark like a jack-o’-lantern. The six porters were huddled inside, laughing about something.

I’d been wondering something ever since Juvenal and Justo had complained about Mateo’s snoring. “Do these guys ever get sick of sleeping all together?”

“No way,” Efrain said. “If you made an offer to a team of porters or muleteers—‘Here, we’ll give you a tent for two people’—they’d always say, ‘No,