Sacrifice

by Farris, John

  I knew who it was then—the man from Sweden I'd talked to in the cafeteria at Kan Petén, the one who was so sure I had a sister.

  Rita said, "I'm trying to locate as many of us as I can. We're getting together at Kan at four o'clock. I mean, I'm sick about Nils, but this could be the start of something we've been hoping would never happen. And the government troops won't be of much use to us, they already have their hands full in the Petexbatún."

  "I'll see you there," Glen promised.

  Rita gave me a wan smile and hustled out of the restaurant past Heckle and Jeckle, who didn't look at her. One of them was still reading his newspaper, and the other was dealing out cards for a single-handed game. Each time he laid one down, with a little flourish, sunlight glittered on what looked like a gold Rolex wristwatch.

  Neither of us wanted any more of our lunch. Glen clenched his hands and said, "I don't understand it. Maybe if he'd tried to resist them—but we all know better than to do something stupid like that. There's never been a killing like this down here. What a loss. Nils was one of the top men in our field."

  I thought of the friendly man in the wheelchair, how he'd looked me over in the cafeteria with his quizzical smile—in the back of the head with a machete. And for no reason an image of Bobby came into my mind: struck down from behind, in the back of the head with a rock. And I felt sick inside, hating all cowards and murderers who destroyed good people for no reason.

  Glen said, "You okay?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "I know. Let's get out of here, go for a walk."

  I told Glen a lot about myself that afternoon, as we wandered along the paths of the nature preserve near the Parador. It was a comfort to me; and he could listen as well as he could talk. I liked looking at him too, that shock of red hair and the reddish-brown mustache he'd probably have been better off without; but I suppose he wanted to look more mature. After a while it was time for Glen to put his arm around me, and he did. I just leaned against him, feeling secure for a change and almost happy, no longer needing to say anything. Before I knew it the afternoon was half gone and he drove me back to the hotel.

  "I don't know where I'll be; just somewhere near Usumucinta. It's a medical mission, there's a clinic for the Indians and campesinos."

  "I'll find you," he said.

  He kissed me on the cheek so that it wasn't just a vague promise, but a promise to keep; then I watched him drive away from the Ixtá Maya. And for the next twenty-four hours or so I was busy getting ready to move us down to Usumucinta, preparing myself for what good I might be able to accomplish there.

  The Randalls turned out to be big, blond, cheerful people who had met while they were students at Mercer University. They'd been missionaries since Cora Randall got her MD degree from Emory twenty-six years ago. Cora said they had raised three children in the field—the Cameroons, Boliva, and Guatemala, where they had established the Usumucinta mission eleven years ago. Naturally they carried a lot of pictures with them.

  "Pete's a lawyer in Cincinnati," Mr. Randall said, showing us a towheaded kid in a breechclout, "and Reg—Reg junior—is in his second year of med school in Birmingham."

  "Reg is the lawyer," Cora said, gently correcting him.

  "Oh, that's right," Reg Randall said. He was so walleyed he made me think of aquariums. He blinked a lot and looked as if he were having trouble waking up, although it was eleven o'clock in the morning. "Polly, Polly's going for her DCE. Where's that again, Mother?"

  "Oral Roberts University."

  Reg Randall blinked and blinked at me. It seemed to be uncontrollable. "You're a very pretty girl, chérie." Cora smiled, a little sadly, not needing to say anything. I assumed she'd explain later what his problem was.

  We all posed for more pictures in front of the Ixtá Maya. I wondered where Veronica was. I'd left word with Francisco that I wanted to say good-bye, but she didn't show up and finally we had to be on our way, in the Randalls' old Land Rover.

  Cora drove. "'Mine eyes fail from looking up,'" Reg explained, and seemed content to sit in back with Daddy, where he did most of the talking. Sometimes he lapsed into the Kekchi Indian dialect, and Cora would look back over her shoulder and shout, "Stick to English, hon!" I don't think Daddy cared. He was very tense.

  We drove south on roads that quickly went from bad to awful, a jumping, jolting ride at less than thirty miles an hour. The right-hand seat was barely padded, and Cora bounced obstinately over rocks I would have tried to drive around. There was slash-and-burn devastation for miles on either side of the road, and a couple of shacky villages with the smell of smoldering garbage everywhere. We met only a few other vehicles and some campesinos walking a mule or a small herd of runty goats. After about an hour we came to an area where the forest was still untouched, and filled with mist near a murky river. It wasn't much cooler, but there was some relief from the sun.

  "Guess you wonder what you've got yourself into?" Cora said, the sun flashing off the lenses of her round glasses when she turned her head toward me.

  "Sort of."

  "Does the sight of blood bother you?"

  How much blood? I thought. "Oh, not really."

  "That's good. Mostly we deal with abscesses, breech births, rotten teeth, but the aftermath of a good machete fight or a chainsaw accident can be unnerving until you get used to the sight."

  I swallowed hard. Cora began singing a hymn I hadn't heard since I was in the children's choir at First Iconium: "Kum Ba Yah." She smiled at me encouragingly; I joined in, then looked back at Daddy, who was holding his bowed head with one hand.

  Cora hit the brakes while I was still half-turned in the seat, not holding on too tightly with my right hand. The swerving stop banged me against the dashboard, hurting my ribs. I looked around. There was a bridge ahead and a Jeep painted in camouflage shades of green blocked access to the bridge. I saw a couple of government soldiers, or maybe rebels, lounging against the back of the Jeep with assault rifles in their hands, and two more men sitting in the front seats.

  "No problem," Cora said. But she was frowning. "This goes on all the time."

  "How do you know who they—"

  "Sometimes you don't. They're probably okay. Just stay put and let me do the talking."

  Cora came to a complete stop fifty feet behind the Jeep. The two government soldiers, if that's what they were—they looked authentic, in fatigue caps and boots and baggy pants—sauntered toward us.

  "Patrol," Cora said. She looked a little more at ease. "There've been a couple of bridges blown down this way."

  The two men were young, at least one of them about Benito's age, and both wore mirror sunglasses. Cora greeted them in Spanish, asking them if it was okay to proceed, we were missionaries, etc. They took their time looking us over without commenting. One of them also looked into the back of the Land Rover, and tried to see under the tarp-covered roofrack, where our luggage and some boxes of medical supplies were stored.

  They spoke to each other; the one on Cora's side motioned with his head. They wanted us to get out.

  "What's going on?" Dad asked. "I don't like this."

  "It isn't anything," Cora said softly, and smiled at the one she'd been talking to. She didn't budge, and gave him a rapid-fire argument. He listened gravely, shook his head a couple of times. Cora ran out of arguments.

  "We have to get out," she said, "while they poke around. Don't worry, there's no chance we'll be molested."

  I wished she hadn't put it that way. I couldn't swallow at all. Cora put a hand on my forearm, reassuringly. I glanced at Daddy, who I thought was about to have a heart attack. He looked white around the mouth. It was very quiet on the road, except for birds back in the forest. I could smell the strong smoke of the dark-colored cigarettes the men in the Jeep were smoking. They hadn't paid much attention to us. One of them laughed and flicked his cigarette into the creek. He was wearing a gold wristwatch, shaped like one of the pricier Rolexes, which reflected the sun. There's something about the way
gold gleams in bright sunlight; I didn't think it was a cheap knockoff.

  Cora saw it, too. She was frowning again.

  They lined us up on the side of the road. Reg Randall said with a little smile, "'Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.'" Daddy held his tongue and fretted. The youngest soldier, the clean-cut one who reminded me of Benito, smiled at me.

  "¿Cómo se llama?" I asked him. He shrugged and glanced at the other, who told him curtly to unlash the tarp. The boy took out a knife.

  "Let me," Cora said, and moved toward the Land Rover. I guess she had tied the expert-looking knots.

  The older of the two soldiers lowered his rifle, one like Veronica's beloved Uzi but with blotches of corrosion, pointing it at her.

  Cora's face clouded with indignation and she said something on the order of, "That won't be necessary." Then she turned toward the Jeep and shouted, "¡Jefe! ¡Misioneros! ¿Podemos proceder en paz?"

  The one with the gold watch turned his head slowly and looked at us. For a few moments I was sure I'd seen him before, without the officer's cap—but with the gold Rolex—and I flashed back to the restaurant at the Parador Libertad, lunch with Glen Hazen, Heckle and Jeckle at a table by the door passing the time, Jeckle dealing himself cards, a fancy Rolex on his wrist. I stared at his face, but I couldn't be sure, and it was so farfetched anyway.

  The one in charge gave a signal; the soldier with the knife started slashing through tarp cord while Cora glowered.

  Reg Randall said, "'Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.'"

  Cora said, "Shut up, Reg."

  "Obviously we have a problem here," Dad said.

  I had to go to the bathroom.

  Both men got out of the Jeep and came toward us, as if they had all day to kill. The two soldiers started pulling down luggage and boxes and stacking them in the road. One of the leaders reached into the Land Rover and pulled the keys from the ignition.

  "Hey!" Cora fumed, her temper snapping. She took a couple of long strides toward him. With the bale of keys in his fist, the man turned and hit her in the face.

  Cora fell down and there was blood all over, from a broken nose, from cuts around one eye where a lens of her glasses had shattered. Reg Randall wailed, a high-pitched sound that startled me just as shock had begun to turn me to stone.

  Then Daddy grabbed me by the arm, almost yanking me off my feet.

  "Run!"

  He half-dragged me off the road and through a low ditch. The forest was a few feet away. I have good balance, but Daddy was strong and pulling too hard. I stumbled and sprawled, Daddy losing his grip on me as one of their automatic weapons went off. Bullets spattered through the palm growth above my head like hard raindrops. I heard Daddy grunt, and looked around as I was getting to my feet. He was motionless, dark with his back to the sun, one hand extended toward me. His mouth was open in surprise.

  "Run," he said again, his voice choked. He sat down hard, still looking surprised. Behind him, on the road, I saw rifles aimed at us. They had stopped firing. I grabbed Daddy's hand, but I couldn't pull him up.

  One of them shouted an order; I knew they would be coming for us. Dad was shot, I knew that, too. I could've stayed there shaking from terror while they came to get me, or I could run. There was no deliberate choice involved. I don't think my mind was working at all. I'd been an athlete all my life. The ball was over the net, and my feet moved instinctively.

  It wasn't as dense and dark as the high forest that surrounded Kan Petén. A lot of sunlight penetrated the low canopy. The first thing I ran into was spider webs, which felt as thick as fiberglass. It would have made me hysterical if I'd had the breath for screaming. Then vines and more vines, blooming with purple and white flowers that attracted a cloud of butterflies. The air was filled with flying things, some as big as rhinoceros beetles, others so small they could only be seen in mistlike swarms. I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt of tough cotton and bush boots that gave me some protection from stinging bristles and thorns as I thrashed my way across rotted logs and stumbled onto a path, like a deer trail back home.

  I didn't know if they were following me: blood was pounding too loud in my ears for me to hear anything.

  After a couple of hundred yards or so I calmed down enough to realize I might be circling instead of going deeper into the forest. I had turned my ankle, which forced me to go slower. I stopped and held my breath so I could hear better. I didn't hear voices, only trickling water, cicadas humming, birds that sang and hawks that screamed. Almost like human beings screaming. What was happening back there on the road? If they had killed my father—

  I couldn't think about that; it would paralyze me. For now I was probably safe, if I didn't get bitten by something other than the bottle flies that were making me miserable. I remembered hearing that fer-de-lance vipers liked to sun themselves on jungle paths, looking like stripes of shade until you stepped on them. I had to think about how to get back to the road, then find help. My throat was burning up from bile; some little midges were flocking around my eyes, getting in my nostrils when I tried to breathe. It was better when I started moving again, toward the sun. As long as I continued in that direction, I thought I would probably reach the road eventually.

  Before long I came across the stream I'd been hearing. The water was muddy, which might mean a Milpa field nearby, or even a village. How many miles? I heard monkeys but didn't see them. Then, from a distance, came the unmistakable sound of a church bell at noon.

  I stood there wiping tears with the cuff of my sleeve, smearing my cheeks, looking upstream where I would have to go to get help. If it wasn't too far, then maybe—

  The cabbage thicket behind me swished dryly; my spine almost jumped through the back of my neck.

  "Here you are," Daddy said.

  I stared at him as he came toward me. He was sweat-stained but not bloody. Smiling.

  "Oh my God!"

  "You led us quite a chase. I forgot you were in such good shape."

  "Daddy—you—how—"

  There was something in his hand the size of a pocket calculator, but with an antenna about a foot long. I heard a low-pitched beeping. He telescoped the antenna and dropped the gadget into a cargo pocket of his bush jacket as two more men in Army fatigues came out of the brush behind him.

  "Look out!"

  He turned casually, then looked back at me, still smiling. Ear to ear. Strange. A false-face kind of smile. His chest was heaving.

  "They're on my side."

  "What—do you mean—the Randalls—"

  "They'll be okay, although Cora's eye—"

  He made a sympathetic clucking sound. I saw the flash of a gold watch band as one of the men batted at an insect on his pock-marked cheek.

  "She move in a way I no 'speck," he said. "And I no pool my punch in time. Or I only knock her out a little while."

  "Let's do this quickly, Jaquez," Daddy said. "And get her out of here."

  The blood drained from my head so fast, drained to my feet, that I had the sensation of sinking into the ground. My skin was turning cold, and colors faded even as the sun blazed and blinded. Daddy was gone; he had simply vanished, somewhere. The young soldier who had reminded me of Benito took an olive-green canister like a shaving cream bomb from his rucksack and handed it to a man I didn't know, along with a cotton pad. I went for a slow-motion, numbed walk. The two men came toward me. I knew I should try to run, but I had no feeling anywhere except in my heart, which I thought was going to explode from pounding. They each seized an arm, pinning me rigidly between them. A muscle in my shoulder cramped; I screamed from pain, and screaming drained all of my strength.

  The man I didn't know looked up from what he was doing. The sun off his dark glasses went to my eyes like needles. His own eyes were wide-awake in that darkness, touched with fiery red.

  I realized them what it was all about. I had done this. Called up the devil with thoughts of lyi
ng with my father. Called him with an act of masturbation. I had sinned. I belonged to the devil.

  The man I didn't know soaked the cotton pad in something cold and fuming from the canister. Came up to me, the way figures move in a dream. Sweat ran down his cheeks. I saw myself naked and lustful in the mirrors of his glasses. I tried to move my head so I wouldn't have to look. But the horror, the sheer horror had locked me up tighter than the chains of hell.

  Tooth-gleam. The ecstatic smile. False. False-face. Devil!

  "Daddddyyy—!" But he was gone, had vanished, I had no father.

  The man I didn't know pressed the cotton pad over my nose. Already it was nearly dark inside my head. When I was forced to breathe, it got darker still. Dark and deep and silent, except for the faraway voice of he who knew my sins—

  Saying:

  "Good-bye, darling."

  BUTTERBAUGH'S NOTEBOOKS

  PART FIVE

  December-February, 199-

  No, I ever warmed up to that man. Although I made a sincere effort, I always believed that sooner or later he'd bring heartache to my daughter.

  "But this—this is ungodly!"

  Adrienne Crowder's face had darkened, and I could clearly see the pulse of the carotid artery in her neck. Living with infirm parents for the past couple of years had made me unusually sensitive to the frailties of old people, and I worried about a possible stroke. On the other hand, she was a whiskey drinker—George Dickel—and she looked pretty tough to me, in spite of her age. I waited, in the sunny family room of the Crowder home on Tchula Road, and didn't say anything else. For the most part I was relieved, because I had come this far on risky business, and obviously she had accepted my story.

  Dudgeon gave her a mild coughing fit, and the cough she soothed with another sip of Tennessee whiskey, which she drank straight. She looked toward the windows at the extensive gardens and orchard—the property included at least six acres. Some workmen were pruning big crape myrtles near a pond edged in December ice. The late afternoon light had the golden intensity you find in this part of the country on cloudless winter days.