“It didn’t take me long to recognize that the young girl named Angelina was a very special child. She didn’t speak and became a very good artist. She used her drawing to speak for her. Then two things happened that changed our lives forever. Her animal spirit, the spotted jaguar, showed up on the ranch. And, Angelina suddenly began to speak to me.”
“I didn’t know you could talk to her.”
I nodded that I had. “We talked as clearly as you and me. I tried to get her to talk to the others but she wouldn’t do it. She would only talk to me. She told me she had come to the ranch because of me.”
“What did she want?” George said.
I shrugged my shoulders that I didn’t know. “During our talks, I’d found out that she was descended from a long line of Mayan shamans. According to her, the Mayan gods had spoken to her and guided her here. She was supposed to save her people, but she didn’t exactly know how, being as young as she was. She just knew she was supposed to be here on the ranch and that I would help her.”
“Go on,” Clete said.
“She had everyone here on the ranch completely fooled. She was, like her name, angelic and just as sweet as she could be. Unfortunately for us, I wasn’t of a mind to be ordered around by a child, what with all that was going on in my life then. In hindsight, I should have just put her over my knee for good measure and then done what she asked. It would’ve made me feel better now. Things went to hell in a handbasket pretty fast after she used the spotted jaguar to kill my dogs. I told her if I saw the jaguar again I’d shoot him.”
I paused a moment to remember my dogs, Sadie and Sam, then shook my head at their senseless deaths. “I underestimated her powers to influence others. She used that power of hers over one of my dogs to kill his sister from the same litter, Sadie. We had brought the three dogs with us from Washington. The male, Sam, got Sadie by the throat and suffocated her just like a jaguar would its prey. That convinced me right then and there of her evilness.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Clete said.
I could see George was looking a little skeptical about the story.
“It wasn’t long after our confrontation that things between our two families started to go to hell and then Juan, his wife, and Angelina suddenly left for Guatemala. She’d convinced them to take her down there after I wouldn’t. She left her animal spirit, Buster, behind on the ranch to keep an eye on me.”
“Get to good part,” Clete said. “About Buster, I mean.”
I waved him off. Buster was dead and this wasn’t about him.
“We moved back to Washington State for a while and while we were gone Juan returned to the ranch. He said their truck had been washed away at a flooded river crossing somewhere in Mexico and his wife and Angelina had not been found. He wanted his old job back. When we eventually came back to Texas it didn’t take me long to see that the experience had changed Juan. He wasn’t the same man I knew for over twenty years. He was obsessed with killing the spotted jaguar and had in fact shot him.
A local veterinarian patched the jaguar up, along with Emily’s help, and the spotted jaguar eventually healed. Emily had a cat when she was young named Buster, so she called the jaguar Buster. By then I’d developed a relationship with the jaguar where we tolerated each other’s presence on the ranch.”
“He talked to Buster,” Clete said to George.
“It’s a bad habit on mine, talking to animals. People tend to think I’m crazy,” I said to help explain away the associated rumors for my talking to animals and other entities. “Anyway, the day of reckoning between Buster and Juan finally arrived and Juan lost. I found both of their skeletal remains deep in a stand of cedar trees on the ranch next to us. Buster had bitten Juan through the skull and killed him.”
“He shot the jaguar?” George asked.
“Not that I could tell. Buster just up and died. He was centuries old and the only way he could die was to kill a human, or so he told me. I think Buster was ready to end the curse that had kept him trapped in the body of the jaguar for hundreds of years and he killed Juan deliberately. Most people thought that Juan had gone back to Mexico so I buried his body on the ranch and that was that.”
“You did?” Cleat said.
“Yeah, next to the animals in the garden.”
“Well, I’ll be goldarned. I always wondered about that.”
“Oh, come on, Max. What, I’m the new guy, I’ll believe anything?” George said.
“I don’t blame you. It’s hard to believe. What Buster told me was that as young boy he was on a hunting party with other men including his father. My daughter-in-law, Ava, dated the details of his story to the early Classical Period of the Mayan Civilization. The hunting party had traveled many days into a new territory. They had killed a spotted jaguar for its pelt and the young boy found the mother jaguar’s kittens in her den. He wanted to save them as pets, but his father made him kill them for the skins as a gift to a royal family. Only royalty could wear the pelt of the jaguar. Anyway, his hunting party was attacked by another group on their way home and everyone was killed except the boy. The Shaman from the attacking group spared his life and cast a spell on him. He would live for eternity in the body of the spotted jaguar that had sired the kittens. The only way the jaguar could die, and break the spell, was to kill a human.”
“Really?” George said with obvious skepticism.
I didn’t blame George. “That’s what Buster told me.”
“A jaguar told you this?” he said with even more skepticism.
I nodded my head and realized how foolish it sounded. The poor boy was probably wondering why he had ever reached out to me and I was about to destroy any chance of a relationship with him. I decided to shut up.
“I don’t know, Max. That’s pretty hard to believe,” George said.
“I’m not asking you to believe me, George. It’s a big pill to swallow. Even I have a hard time with it sometimes. It challenges one’s beliefs. I bring it up because a woman and a black jaguar were at the Pape Ranch. According to the caretaker there, they were looking for me. I suspect that Angelina is back in some form or another and wants to settle up with me.”
“What do you think she wants?” Clete asked.
“Whatever she wanted the first time she was here and didn’t get. She never told me what she was doing here. Now, I kind of think it might have something to do with the Spanish cistern we found and a death mask. I’d prefer to keep them out there in that part of Solms County with our families being here. So, don’t think about it. Just put that jaguar down if you see it.”
“I will, now that I know what’s what. I can understand why Buster lived so long. Big cats are smart. He’d have stayed away from humans that were a threat to him and knowing that if he killed one he would die too. That’s a heckuva dilemma to be in, when you think about it. To end the curse he has to die, but that goes against his animal nature and instinct to survive. Hell, I’ve seen coyotes chew their own leg off in a trap to survive, rather than starve to death.”
I wasn’t ready to get into the logic of it all with George sitting there. “Thanks. That wasn’t bad coffee, to spin a yarn with,” I said and grinned at the both of them.
George frowned like he thought I was putting him on.
“I stand in the shadow of the master,” Clete said and grinned right back at me.
I nodded. “We’ll see you later.”
. . .
George was notably quiet on the drive out to the Pape Ranch and I had the feeling I might never see him again. Who needed a crazy old man in their life? I was feeling a sense of regret that I had exposed him to the story of the spotted jaguar. It was a long time ago and most of my family, even the ones who had seen Buster, smiled politely and indulged the imagination of an old man. I had stopped trying to convince anyone of the truth of what I had experienced. It was just easier to smile back at them with the same indulgent look on my face that they gave me.
“You know why James Lee is in Hou
ston?”
“He said that was where the money was.”
“I suppose that’s true. The Güler family money is there. When Angelina came to the ranch James Lee was still listed as MIA and I had given up on the US Army ever finding him.”
“I’ve heard the stories from others at work. I don’t know him well enough to talk to him about Iraq. We don’t have that kind of relationship, yet. I’m working on it, though.”
“Good for you. I hope you get past him being your boss. He needs a family member he can talk to. He carries such a heavy burden. It was Angelina that told me James Lee was still alive and gave me the strength to go looking for him. Despite all that happened with Angelina, I owe her for that. It was because of her that I went to Iraq and eventually found James Lee.”
“That whole story sounds just a little far out there,” he said and then added “too.”
“Indeed, it does. Angelina is just one aspect of this find on the Pape Ranch that I have to deal with. I think the Spanish cistern and the vault below it are tied in with her for some reason; I just can’t put my finger on it yet. It’s more like intuition than anything else.”
Then it struck me. Hannah had said one of the glyphs on the capstone had something to do with Tikal, the same place in Guatemala that Angelina had wanted me to take her and where the young boy trapped inside the spotted jaguar had been from.
“I always follow my intuition.”
“It must run in the family,” I said. “James Lee is the same way. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that when I don’t follow my intuition, I usually end up regretting it.”
“Is that why you didn’t marry my mother? Your intuition told you not to?”
I can’t say I hadn’t expected that. I was just surprised at the bite to it.
“I guess to some extent, that’s true. Your mother had the good sense to leave Austin. When I found out she was going to get married, my intuition told me not to interfere,” I said. “And it was the right decision. You’ve turned out to be a fine young man.”
The truth was the truth and that couldn’t be changed. But George wasn’t looking for the truth. He wanted the confirmation that all children want. A child needs to know they are loved. Absence and past hurts can be set aside when you know someone cares about you.
“I loved your mother, George. Laura was an unbelievable woman. If I had known she was carrying you when she left Austin, I would have married her in a heartbeat. You and I missed a few years together, but it was through no fault of either of us. You’re my son and I’m glad to know you. I want you to be part of our family if you can manage it.”
We rode in silence for a few miles. I had probably said too much, too soon. I decided to give it a break for a while and my mind drifted back to Tikal. That was the common denominator in all of this. I had to tell Hannah.
After a few more miles, I said, “We’re waiting on a bid from an imaging company to send some probes down into the cavern below the cistern to see what’s down there. I’d thought at one time we could coordinate with some other tourist cavern sites in the Hill Country to establish a formal tourist trail and have the State of Texas promote it as a travel destination. You know, fly into San Antonio, rent a car, travel the trail of caverns, and then end up in Austin. It could be a package tour.”
“Like a wine country tour.”
“Exactly. Hey, that’s not a bad idea. We could promote Texas wines, too. I think the Spanish cistern over the cavern would give us an edge over other tourist sites on the trail. Heck, I could even see us coordinating the whole trail adventure with a fleet of tour buses and handling the travel reservations. I haven’t talked to Emily about it yet but that would be right down her alley.”
“It sounds ambitious.”
“Yeah, it does, I know. I get worked up about the idea even if it isn’t very realistic, financially. I’m gonna sell the ranch. I’m just dreaming while James Lee looks at the numbers.”
“Last night, Sunny told me about Kevin. Is he going to drop out of school?”
“I don’t know, George. The boy doesn’t talk to me anymore.”
“You really kicked him out?”
“He isn’t entitled to anything in this world. The sooner he understands that, the better off he’ll be. I just gave him a fatherly nudge out the front door to discover who he is. A boy will never become a man until he knows what he’s made of.”
“Yikes,” George offered.
I guessed now he was really having second thoughts about being part of our family.
. . .
After we finished the walk-thru in the ranch house, I saddled two horses for us and we headed up to the mesa. I had taken my rifle out of the truck to take with me considering all that had happened on the ranch. I needed to buy a riffle scabbard for the saddle I reminded myself.
I let George get ahead of me on the trail through the Penny Pasture so I could get a look at him in the saddle. He had looked uncomfortable. I could see the stirrups were two short for him. He was a tall and lanky with longer legs than the last rider. I had an interesting thought; I should introduce him to Sabine and I would have if she had been a younger woman. As it was, I figured her to be in her thirties. After we dismounted, I showed him how to adjust the left stirrup and then let him do the right one.
“I heard you should only mount a horse from his left side,” George said.
I decide to let that old chestnut go and not tell George the truth of it. I didn’t want to come across as a know-it-all with him. His great-grandfather had always mounted from the right side. It just depended on how the horse was broke and trained. “Good thing to remember,” I said.
“So, what’s the story on Hannah McCoy?” he asked after a few minutes on the trail.
“What do you mean?” I asked him, knowing full well what he meant. I didn’t blame the boy at all, except that I was already rooting for Shane.
“Is she and Shane a couple?”
“She’s working with me to develop the cistern site. She’s also in graduate school at Texas A&M University and wants to do her dissertation on the Jesuit Journal we found. She has a home in San Antonio and outside of being as sweet a girl as you’d ever want to meet, I don’t know that for a fact. I think they are a couple, but you never know with today’s younger generation.”
Normally, I’d say a little competition would be good for Shane. Competition sharpened a man’s awareness and appreciation for a woman. But my instincts told me no good would come of my son being interested in Hannah. Just to be on the cautious side, I offered, “James Lee would probably tell you it’s not good to think about dating someone who works for us-you being family and all that.”
“I was just asking.”
Once on top of the mesa we were above the morning haze that hugged the ground like a blanket. We could see parts of sprawling San Antonio on the horizon above the haze. I was glad I wouldn’t be around to have to deal with the urban encroachment moving northward toward Solms County.
I left George looking south and walked over to the eastern side of the mesa toward the cistern.
“Come over here, I want to show you something,” I said and waved him over closer to the edge. “That hill over there is where we found the cistern. It gives you a different perspective from being on the ground.”
“Cool.”
“The cistern is hidden in an arroyo that feeds into the Guadalupe River. You might not be able to see the river though the haze; it’s pretty low right now. One of those arroyos is rumored to have a Spanish conquistador’s burial site hidden in it, but I don’t put much stock in the old rumor anymore. I’ve been looking for it and haven’t found any signs.”
“You think the treasure is on the ranch?”
“I don’t think so. Any treasure would have come after the conquistadors passed through here, but it all goes into the mystique of the ranch. By the time we get back to the ranch house it’ll be lunch time and I want to hook up with Hannah and Shane for lunch so we can talk.
Have you seen enough, George?”
“Sure. I lived my whole life in San Antonio and never really saw the Hill Country like this.”
On the ride down, while we were still on the switchback, Sally began to act nervous. Now was not a good time for her to get skittish going downhill on the narrow trail, so I leaned over and stroked her neck. “Easy girl,” I said to calm her. She wouldn’t have any of it and began to make noises that I knew were a signal that she was uncomfortable about something. I wasn’t going to ignore her. I stopped her as soon as I had the room and dismounted less than a foot from the edge of the trail. I held onto a stirrup then ducked under her neck to get to her side closest the mesa wall. I walked her down the rest of the way, with George still in the saddle and following us with his eyes opened wide.
When we stopped at the pool in the dry creek to water the horses, I understood why Sally was nervous. Under a mesquite tree, further down the edge of the creek, someone sat watching us. I eased the bolt back on the rifle to see if a round was in the chamber. There was. I wasn’t much for flashing a weapon that wasn’t ready to use.
I scanned the trees, then the area around the creek, but didn’t see a jaguar.
“George,” I said softly.
“Yes.”
“I want you to do something for me. Saddle up and ride back to the ranch house. Stay on the trail and you’ll see the ranch house after about twenty minutes. I’ll catch up to you in a little while.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“We have an uninvited visitor and I don’t want you involved.”
“Where?”
“Over by that tree,” I said and pointed to it using the rifle as in extension of my arm.
“I see him. Is he an illegal?”
“Probably,” I said. I couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman. Whatever their gender was, they looked to have something on their back, like Tomás had described. I tied the reins around the saddle horn and then led Sally away from the creek. “You go ahead. Sally will lead you back.”
The Turbulence of Butterflies (Max Howard Series Book 6) Page 21