Juan of the Dead

by Jacalyn Boggs

  Leahonia lowered her pan. “I not sure that a good idea, Señor Juan. People, they hear stories. They think stories stupid and laugh or they think stories worth looking at. History speaks of people giving lives in search for gold city.”

  Jon waved his hands. “Oh now, none of that. You know that's why I'm here. I want to study this area, the culture that once lived here, how it influenced the culture today. Please share with us the story.”

  Dang, was he good. Even I believed him, and I knew why he was asking. It was more than idle curiosity. He'd probably already done whatever she was afraid of and here I was to prove it. I was just surprised she spoke such broken English but seemed okay with all those words he said.

  “Please put down the pot and come over. We really didn't mean to upset you.” I flashed her a winning smile. Maybe I could try to take her anxiety down a notch or two with some old-fashioned friendliness. Besides, I bet that would come off very not- monster-like.

  “Okay.” She put the pot down and came closer to us, but still held onto a safe distance from us. Did she suspect anything? Surely not.

  “What you want to know?” Her question's simplicity in form held almost no information, but she took the initiative to clear a spot to sit down.

  Holy cow there really was a table under this giant pile of stuff between Jon and myself. And her speed at straightening up books and properly stacking paper was nothing short of superhuman.

  Within minutes she seated herself on the edge of the table in her freshly cleaned space. Jon just stared at her, probably in shock. I bet he didn't know what to make of her quick tidy of his so-called system. I bet it was eating at him somewhere deep inside.

  “See, Bea. This is what I'm talking about. This is why I'm here. I love learning about these cultures. Leahonia, tell us anything. Like what upset you.” Looking back and forth between Leahonia and myself, he urged her to open up.

  And so, she began. What a way to fill in some gaps. Hindsight is 20/20, they say. By the time she finished, I would take any bet that he regretted giving me the wakeup juju. I was kind of questioning his raising me, even if it did mean saving me from becoming moldy worm food. Ick!

  Like any other indigenous story, it of course started a long time ago on a dark and stormy night. Okay maybe not a dark and stormy night, but you need your mood to come from somewhere, right?

  As it turned out, her story included a relative from way back in her family tree. But of course, who didn’t want to tell a story like that and not include a relative? Dearly departed Great whatever Grandpa was quite the rabble raiser. Someone at the high point of this area's civilization thought it would be a fantastic idea to wake the dead. Nice, sound familiar? I tried very hard to not look at Jon when she brought up that particular nugget. Instead, I tried the lay low play, and that meant no suspicious shared glances. As long as I drew no attention to myself, things would work out well.

  This guy tried really hard to find a way to sucker punch death in the face. Find a way around it. It turned out his wife died in childbirth and he couldn't cope.

  Sometimes people were like that, and they just didn’t take death well. Not many went around trying to raise their dead wife from the grave, though. Didn't they have wine back in the dark ages? I'm not sure who told this guy that he could haggle with the devil, but he tried it. ‘A’ for effort but things went bad so fast I he eventually scored a big fat ‘F’.

  The description Leahonia gave of what happened to this guy's wife was the stuff nightmares were made of. Horror movie villains with masks and axes had nothing on this stuff. At the time I thought the shivers up and down my spine might never stop. I was glad that Jon's efforts on my behalf didn't turn out that way. Yeesh. The wife came back but, let’s just say she didn't stop at eating her husband's brains. Oh, it was much worse. She didn't survive for long after rending him limb from limb, so there was a happy ending. To his part of the story at least.

  Of course, it didn't end there. Who thought it would? Turned out there were others in the tribe from many hundreds of years ago that kept the research going. I guess they were all a little touched in the head. Hopefully that particular gene was watered down and lost in the generations between then and now.

  Leahonia told us that even after the unfortunate attempts of the man, the leaders wanted to continue the efforts. The idea was to bring back fallen warriors, then they would hold the power to truly reap revenge on enemies. Still others liked the idea of resurrecting loved ones. Didn’t some people deserve second chances at life? Apart from me?

  Apparently, the idea of a necropolis of undead became the hot idea of the area. Boy, aren't you glad you didn’t live here like a thousand years ago? Made you want to double check your locks at night.

  Attempts still ended with a lot of death and destruction at the hands of those returned from death. Guess scary movie ideas came from somewhere. It didn’t matter whose folklore you read or watched, those that crossed the line between life and death liked the idea of bringing more people across that threshold.

  Leahonia told us of whole tribes wiped out overnight. Whole civilizations like the one Jon enjoyed studying. It made me think of his mysterious recipe he found with no information after it. I bet it was from one of those civilizations taken out by hordes of zombies. Leahonia concluded that at long last attempts to raise the dead were halted.

  The nightmare brought to life needed to end, and I couldn't agree more. I wasn’t a fan of the grisly.

  When the Spaniards came to the Americas and began to really intermingle with the indigenous population, things changed in this area of the world. By then, many of the early American tribes were gone in this area of the world. They mingled with the Colonists, becoming like them while losing a great deal of what they were. But some legends would never fade.

  Thank goodness for those legends. I was glad that Leahonia's family still told them. I'm sure others would choose to abandon them, maybe only bringing them out for scary campfire tales.

  It sounded bad, but it couldn't have anything to do with my circumstances. I wasn't going all homicidal and taking out innocent women and children. I felt very much like my old self. Just more alert and with better eyesight. And apparently a slower heartbeat. Jon still lived and I didn't see any reason to hurt Leahonia.

  Maybe her legends dealt with something else. Goodness knew there were enough legends to go around out there. Vampires, werewolves, zombies. Everyone had a story and every tale was different. Sure, her story came from the right part of the world, but I bore no resemblance to anything she spoke of. I looked at Jon. He pulled out that book, the really boring one, the one that might have killed me a second time over. Flipping through the pages, he found something and turned the book towards Leahonia.

  “Was this what you were talking about?” I stretched to see what he was showing her and noticed a small picture of a dig site. Leahonia turned pale. Hard to do with her lovely natural tan coloring. No amount of tanning beds or sun worshipping ever gave me such a lovely hue. What could cause her to go pale?

  “Si, Señor Juan. That it.”

  A nice mysterious answer. I cleared my throat. A little fill in for the dead girl would be nice. Especially if it means warning me when I might go all hack and slashy on people.

  “That is most interesting. I didn't know you kept those stories going all this time.” While his tone sounded thoughtful, it didn't give me much insight.

  “Hey, what is that?” I asked. Pointing at the book I tried to give him my best 'help me understand, too' look.

  He turned his attention to me. “Oh, there's just this picture of a rubbing taken from a site in South America.” He brought the book my way. I took in what was on the bottom of the page, but it meant nothing to me.

  “And what does that mean? And are we close to South America?” Actual geography of Mexico was a bit fuzzy to me past the whole Mexico is between the US and South America. For all I knew a good hour in Jon's beater pick-up truck, and we could be finding our w
ay into South America. Or it could be a six-day drive.

  He looked at me and sighed. “We are on the Yucatan peninsula, Bea.”

  “The yuckawhat?”

  Yuck was right. Someone probably landed here and said, “Where the hell am I? Yuck! There's nothing here but sand and grossness.” Named it Yucatan and beat feet for home. Sounded like what I'd do, quite frankly. Kind of wish I had, now.

  “The Yucatan peninsula. You didn't bother to look to see where you were going before leaving on your trip?”

  “Um, it said 'cruise' and 'Mexico'. What more did I need to know? I wasn't navigating the ship. It was supposed to be a vacation, not a get lost and set up a new home sort of trip. A day here, a day there, but mostly a whole lotta lounging on the deck of a really big boat.”

  “I see.”

  Why did I get the feeling that was his way of dismissing me as stupid? I wasn't stupid. I just didn't happen to be up on geography of somewhere I did not live. Was there something wrong with that?

  “Okay, fine. Yucatan. I get it. I take it we're not that close to South America?”

  “Well we're closer than the States are, but eh, not particularly close. We can't just run over there for a taco if that's what you are asking.”

  Actually, it was, but I wasn't about to let on. Not when he was talking down to me. Jerk.

  “Okay, fine. How far away is this place the rubbing thing is from?”

  “Pretty far, really. I find it interesting that the tales are the same,” Jon said.

  “Señor Juan? It is these stories; this is why we have celebration this week. Honor the dead so that the dead no come back for us.”

  Say what? They are gonna do what with the dead?

  Jon smacked himself in the head. “I totally forgot that this week was Day of the Dead. Yikes.”

  “What the hell is Day of the Dead?” I asked. It sounded to me like today was Day of the Dead since here I was, dead girl walking and talking in the day. Somehow, I didn't think that's what he meant.

  “Si, Señor Juan. Tomorrow we all celebrate Dia de los Muertos. We remember the bad times and hope for better times. We honor our dead. My family travel far to where we once from. We must honor the dead, so they honor us.”

  “Hello? Clueless here! Day of the Dead? What is that?”

  “Sorry, Bea. It's a celebration here. It is the first of November. Their way of celebrating the Halloween time. It comes from the ancient Aztec civilization's traditions of honoring the dead. It's actually really interesting. They choose to honor their dead.”

  “Spooky. Guess it fits with Halloween.”

  “Yeah, it coincides with All Saints Day which is the way the Catholic Church decided to accept ancient pagan rituals at this time of year. I could go into more detail-”

  “Naw, that's good. I got the basic gist. You said it's like now?” I said, interrupting him.

  “November 1st. I was here last year and travelled with Leahonia and her family for their celebration. It was really great. Thanks again for inviting me, Lea.”

  “Is no problem, Señor Juan. You come again or you busy?” With her last word she looked at me. I wondered if that was an invitation or not.

  “No, not busy. In fact, I think I should go. Bea, you up for a trek?”

  Was I? Depends on how much walking me and Jimmy Choo would have to do. And what I could do to make myself a little more presentable. This was ridiculous. But, yeah, why not. Some celebration for dead folk? I liked to party, and I was technically in some sort of dead-like state.

  “I guess. But what about my problem...?”

  “No worries. This will help us in trying to figure out your problem.”

  Oh, the beauty of code. How do you go about saying someone is dead and you wanna find out what that means without actually saying those words? Yeah, that's always fun. Lucky for us, Leahonia here wasn't fully fluent in English. Maybe she'd just rack up her confusion on the language barrier.

  “Yeah well there's my other problem.” Oh yeah, lets confound the code some

  more.

  He looked at me with a question in his eyes. “There is?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hello? Do I really look presentable? How can I go

  anywhere looking like this.”

  Leahonia, ever helpful, piped up. “Oh señorita, I take and wash your clothes if you want. I maybe fix, too?”

  Just what would I wear if she did that? It was warm in Mexico for this time of year but running about in my birthday suit might draw a little too much attention for my comfort.

  “I had an accident in the earthquake. This is all I have. Thanks for the offer, but I don't think I can really take you up on it.” Not a lie in there at all, right? Good. I wasn’t real hot on telling lies. Unless it meant getting into a party that's rumored to be high on the legendary scale. Her mouth formed an 'o' again, just like before. No doubt her mind was all sorts of places I didn't want to contemplate.

  “I can maybe help, señorita. I bring you some clean clothes I have. You wear those and I see what I can do with these.”

  That was awful sweet of Leahonia. Given her fear over our previous topic of conversation I wondered if she'd be as kind if she knew my secret. Probably not. She'd most likely take off screaming and we’d never see her again. Or she'd return with villagers with torches and pitchforks.

  “Thank you.” Until I got a handle on things, I needed to rely on the kindness of strangers. Though Jon hardly felt like a stranger anymore, even though it'd only been a few hours since I first woke up on that altar.

  “My pleasure. You friend of Juan's. I want to help. He good to my family. I good to his friends.”

  Well, I guess you could call me a friend of Jon's. Whatever worked. He did save my life in a way.

  I mumbled another thank you and contemplated her kindness. Would I be as willing to help some stranger? I couldn't be sure.

  “Leahonia, that is very kind of you. Why don't you go ahead and go take care of that? You didn't have much more here, did you?” If I didn't know better, I'd think that Jon was trying to get rid of her. Then again, I did know better. I bet he was trying to get rid of her.

  “Si, Señor. I go now. I finish here later.” Leahonia stood and made her way for the door. Jon followed her while I decided to sit like a lump.

  How awkward. I didn't mean to disrupt everyone's life. She had a job to do and now she was going to have to go and find me clothes. He probably needed to do far more interesting things than try to give me a crash course in an ancient people doing crazy voodoo crap. And me? I longed for the simplicity of my life.

  Everything would be okay. Then I'd straighten up. No more drinking binges, no more partying all night, no more spending all my paychecks on fabulous shoes and handbags and clothes. I'd give back to the world. Hey, wasn’t bargaining one of those steps of grief? If I could bargain my way out of this mess, you better believe I'd go for it.

  c

  chapter eleven

  There I sat, on the verge of tears, when Jon returned. Leahonia, off to find ways to help me that I didn't deserve, was no longer in earshot. We could speak freely once more, and he didn't waste any time. Which was fine, I relished the distraction that would help me keep the tears at bay. He had a new book in his hand when he sat down, and didn’t take his eyes off it as he leafed through the pages.

  "When she mentioned Day of the Dead, it reminded me of something. There are many ancient legends from before the Spaniards arrived. Many of the ancient American cultures seem to relate to this one core legend... armies of undead used to cause terror and greater swaths of destruction."

  He paused then and thumbed through a few more pages before he found what he wanted. He spun the book towards me and pointed at a large drawing of natives. Whatever they were doing went right over my head, but not before I noticed the skulls they held in their hands. It looked almost like they might be dancing about holding the skulls. Now that was downright creepy.

  “What is this? Doesn't look lik
e anyone raising undead armies from the depths of Hell or anything.”

  “This was found on a dig on the northern half of South America. The general consensus is that it predates the Spanish settlers’ arrival and it shows an unaffected Day of the Dead celebration. The Spaniards came to the Americas and were settling here at the same time as their Inquisition in Europe. They had a definite religious agenda. You can only imagine the things they did here.”

  “Really? I gotta admit, history is not my strong suit. What happened? Did they force everyone to become Christian or something?”

  “Pretty much. Maybe not right away, but over time as the Spanish settlers gained more and more of a foothold in the Americas, they slowly pushed out the native population. Or they brought the population in by marriage. It was an interesting time, but it is also sad because of how the way of life changed. The natives were worshiping a new god, eating different foods, and speaking a new language. You name it. Not much was the same at all.”

  “Wow. Just like in America. I remember that from History. What was it, the trail of whatever..”

  “Trail of Tears. Thank goodness the Spanish don't have any sort of persecution quite like that, but they have their own negative stories.”

  “Nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition!”

  He grinned. “Exactly. They came here and they plundered the land. They searched high and low for some famed city of gold. They killed people for being in the way. Brutal.”

  I shook my head. “I guess so. Wow. What happened to Day of the Dead that's changed?”

  “See, I'm not altogether sure. This passage and picture make it look like quite the festival, but the Spaniards wouldn't let anything remotely pagan occur. We know they morphed the Catholic holiday, All Saints Day, and that made it easier for the population to bite. It's still a celebration, it just honors the deceased. I want to learn about what it was before that, and that's part of why I wanted to travel with Leahonia. Maybe we'll get more insight at the festival."

  “Do you think there's really any hints for helping me out? Most of what I know at this time of year is kids in costume begging for candy.”