The Curse of the Lost White City

by James Gray

  “Yeah, next time I’ll do that. Hey, Chili-Chili, maybe you could tell me, is it true that stolen artifact trafficking is almost as lucrative as running narcotics up from Colombia?”

  “Sure, it is, and you get less jail time if you’re caught looting artifacts. You can even avoid prison. But the problem will not be with the police or the army. It will be with the locals. It’s really their territory. It’s important you look like simple tourists when we travel the river. And if anyone sees you with the camera, say you’re doing a movie about something less provocative, like insects or rare plants. The locals up there don’t like intruders, especially ones who are snooping around too close to a subject that no one really wants to talk about.” He raised his cap and rubbed a hand through his thick black hair. “But it’s not the locals that I’m worried about; it’s the new gangs. They come from the exterior, buy off the locals and move in.”

  “But how do they operate?” asked Cowboy George.

  “They travel on lancha, like us,” Chili-Chili answered. “They bring the artifacts out here to the coast, where they transfer them to boats even larger than yours. I hear they sometimes come in with helicopters and stonecutting machinery that can slice into the stone carvings like a knife cuts through a fat pig. A carved stone slab or a big limestone carving is worth big American bucks. Some even exchange cocaine for artifacts; it’s a different kind of money laundering.”

  “And what about the police?” Cowboy George inquired.

  “They’re in this up to their necks,” said Peter-Pedro. “They’re experts at looking the other way, and they’re no match for these gangs, anyway.” He shrugged. “Around here, an AK-47 can be bought for next to nothing. There is still a big surplus in Nicaragua and people smuggle them into Honduras all the time.”

  As Peter-Pedro spoke, I couldn’t help thinking about the Dog. The Dog probably had collaborators somewhere near Patuca or in other villages along the coast. Government patrol boats were few and far between. I knew all about Esmeralda and the way it had been modified for trafficking artifacts. With the big cargo hold and small crane on deck, it could load a few tons at a time without even making an effort at discretion, simply because there was nobody out there checking.

  Anton hadn’t said much all evening — he just added wood to the fire if the conversation started to fade. But then he said, “Ciudad Blanca is not too far from where my great-grandparents were born. When I was young, my grandfather told me that his father had grown up in a city carved in white stone. They called it Wahia-Patatahua in Pech, which means Village of the Ancestors. It is said the city was created by the Monkey God. When I was a child, the old people said that it was full of giant stone carvings of wild animals of various shapes, including statues of monkeys, since they believed in the Monkey God.”

  “But why would people abandon their city?” asked Valeska.

  “A long time ago,” Anton said, “I was told that when the Pech lived there, a shaman left Wahia-Patatahua after being mistreated by the community. After that, terrible disease and catastrophe befell the community. The Pech believed the shaman had put a curse on the city, so they left and moved downriver to a place they call Sakorska Uya, the Big Writing Stone. It is the site of a large and very ancient petroglyph that can still be visited upriver from Las Marías. Sakorska Uya is on the Platano River, just west of here. That is where my father was born. His family were better off at Sakorska Uya because it was closer to the ocean and the fish. But then a terrible hurricane came and destroyed everything. After that, my father’s family and most of the survivors moved here to Barra Patuca. This is a good place with even better access to the interior. Our ancestors entrusted this place to us, and all my life I have tried my best to do the most with the little we have.

  “But we have been pushed aside many times and our culture has been ignored. The lumber companies have stripped our mahogany forests, cattle ranchers burn our savannah lands, poachers are killing off the wild animals, and now people are raiding the sacred places that our fathers and mothers left in our keep. None of this could have happened without the help of our own people who have brought these intruders to the interior.”

  Anton knew much more than he was letting on, and I had a strange feeling that he still didn’t trust us completely. To gain his complete confidence would take time, and time was something we didn’t have much of. Cowboy George had also been quiet most of the evening, but he now spoke his mind. “Since I stepped foot on your land, I feel I have known you before. Walking through your village feels a lot like my home in the North. Anton, I watched you make the campfire. It’s exactly the way my father taught me. María cooks in the same way my wife does. She learned from her mother. You talk about your land being taken away. We too have had our great forests plundered by logging companies and flooded by hydroelectric companies. Our cultural heritage was stolen from us by the government and by missionaries. Many of us have lost our own language. Our peoples are fighting for the same cause. Señor Anton, you can be certain I understand the significance of what you are saying.”

  THE LAST CALL

  As the first light of day began to chase away the stars, I got up, put on my headphones and caught the weather forecast on the portable Single-Sideband radio receiver. The local long-term forecast had predicted a week of thunderstorms mixed with fine weather, a little hotter than usual. Another tropical depression was brewing way out in the Atlantic. According to the NOAA forecast center in Miami, the storm was on its way toward the Grenadines, then northwest, before it headed down hurricane alley to the Yucatán Coast. That all sounded pretty far away, so at the most, we could expect some rain and a little wind. That wouldn’t bother Numada. We had doubled up on all the shorelines by running some heavy-duty hawsers over to some palm trees on the riverbank. It would take more than a little wind to cause any trouble there. We would be somewhere inland when it started to rain, and if it got heavy, we could always stop and wait it out. For the moment, we had a window. Not a great one, but open just enough to begin our expedition. After all, we were going into a rain forest where rain was normal, especially this time of year.

  Trying not to wake anyone, I tiptoed into the small galley and brewed a pot of coffee, then sat up on deck to watch the sun rise. It was our last day of preparation and there were still many details to cross-check. If all went well, this time tomorrow we would be on our way up the Rio Patuca.

  Valeska awoke at daybreak. She sat up and draped the white sheet around her body. When she saw me watching her, a soft morning smile crept over her face. It was early and everyone was still very much asleep, so I dropped back through the open deck hatch and joined her. The sunrise could continue without me.

  Eddy took the camera and grabbed some early morning shots in the village. Cowboy George got up much later, made himself a copious breakfast and then went off looking for Eddy. Around midday, we filmed George and Chili sitting by the river in the shade of a big palm tree. They were getting to know each other.

  Their conversation really got going when Chili told Cowboy George about two major hydroelectric projects planned for the river. If those projects went through, dams on the upper Patuca River would flood some of the last uninterrupted rain forests north of the Amazon. Furthermore, dozens of sacred Mayan ruins would be submerged forever. The electricity would be sold to industrialized cities throughout Central America.

  This reminded the Innu of how most of the great rivers in Northern Québec had been taken over and harnessed for power. Thousands of square miles of traditional hunting territory were now under water. As Cowboy George listened to Chili, he picked up a piece of driftwood he’d been playing with in the sand, and in a gesture of frustration, smashed it down on a nearby rock, breaking it in two. Then he whispered something in Innu language to the effect of: “Some people never get enough!”

  A little later, Eddy, Valeska and I took time to look through some of the material we’d shot since the beginning of the trip. Everything seemed fine technically; even
the night shots around the campfire had managed to capture some of the magical atmosphere.

  That afternoon, the entire crew carefully went over the lists of things to bring along before loading the two long river pipantes with boxes of food, bottles of drinking water, hammocks with mosquito nets, María’s pots and pans, tarpaulins, machetes, a first aid kit, and our two waterproof cases jammed with cameras and microphones. The obvious problem was how to fit everything into two boats. It took lots of packing and repacking, but once the loads were balanced, large waterproof tarps taken from Numada were tied over the material. We loaded umbrellas for protection from the sun and rain, and Chili brought two well-oiled Winchester 30-30 rifles, a stainless steel shotgun and a Smith and Wesson .38. Each piece had been carefully wrapped in a canvas sheath. He slipped the heavier hardware under the tarp at the stern of each boat, right next to the driver’s seat.

  He discreetly put the handgun and three boxes of shells into a plastic cooler underneath his seat.

  While final touches were being made on the two pipantes, I showed Anton and his grandson where I kept my extra-long dock lines, just in case a storm blew in and they needed to double up. They helped me place two other anchors on deck, and then I showed the old fisherman how to start the engine. For years, Anton Lopez had worked on various fishing boats and he was no stranger to diesel engines, but I made sure he understood there was a keel underneath Numada that drew almost seven feet of water. If he ever needed to move Numada, it was an important detail to consider.

  “Seven feet, that’s not a problem,” he said. “But please be aware of the weather as you head up the river. Nature will warn you and you must react as soon as it does. You cannot fight the weather, and you cannot ignore the signs that the gods give you.”

  Drizzle fell lightly that evening, so we ate together on board the schooner. After dinner, I took out the chart and laid it on the cabin table. Chili-Chili leaned over and studied it for a few seconds.

  “We are here,” he said and tapped a finger on the spot where the Rio Patuca emptied into the Caribbean Sea. “And we are going way up here.” He tapped his figure again on a place up the river. “Tomorrow night, if all goes well, we’ll sleep on this small point of sand. It’s a good place to make our first camp. The next night, we’ll try to reach this camp where friends of mine live. Good people. We will stay there for a night. After that, we’ll head up to Casa Tio, my uncle’s old camp. It’s a day’s travel from the second stop.”

  “Just one question. Casa Tio? Doesn’t Tio mean uncle?”

  “Yes, since we were very young, we’ve always called him Tio or Uncle Tio”

  “That’s a good bilingual name,” I said.

  “We thought so too and it’s easier to say than Tio Elí Arroyo Lopez.”

  “Yeah, you can say that again.”

  “Now, to get back to business, within four or five days, we should be at the ruins of Ciudad Blanca,” he said with a distinct air of confidence.

  “Sounds like a good plan. Now let’s talk supplies.”

  We were about finished going over the details when Anton leaned into the narrow companionway just above us. In the dim light that came from the lamp above the table, we could only see his face and part of his shirtless torso. He looked almost one-dimensional. “Ciudad Blanca is the wahia-patatahua in the old language, or the place of the ancestors. It is the place where the ancient gods have gone. I repeat, you should not disturb these spirits. People have been cursed for this. Horrible things have happened to them. Remember, this place has been sacred for many years.” At that moment, a large silver and blue butterfly hovered by and landed on Anton’s left shoulder. It must have been attracted by the cabin light. Anton felt its presence and opened his hand beside it. The butterfly moved onto the palm of his hand, and Anton, somewhat like a sorcerer, held it in front of his face and gently blew on its wings. The insect stayed there, immobile. I’ll never forget the impression the elder gave me, as if suddenly he was somewhere else, above and beyond the here and now. “Mariposa is tired and doesn’t want to fly anymore,” he whispered. “Strange, I’ve rarely seen this kind before. It has struggled in a strong wind and comes from far away.”

  “Africa?” I asked.

  “No, from South America,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the blue Morpho menelaus.

  Around 11 p.m., the Lopez family returned to their house on the riverbank while most of Numada’s crew enjoyed their last night’s sleep in a real bunk. Before I followed suit, I had to check the weather forecast on the Single-Sideband radio receiver. It had stopped raining, so to escape the hot, muggy atmosphere below, I sat up on deck and waited for broadcast time. Outside, a perfect silence reigned and the distant roar of breaking waves seemed almost soothing. I turned on the radio. The signal from NOAA was broken up, but I understood that the tropical storm out in the Atlantic had changed track and was now moving toward the Dominican Republic. It would probably not amount to much more than heavy rains. But there was a new tropical depression forming in the Southern Caribbean, just off the coast of Colombia. It was moving northwards and could possibly turn into a tropical storm in a day or two.

  A hurricane almost never forms in the extreme Southern Caribbean, so I told myself it was probably just a freak pocket of bad weather. It would likely blow itself out in a few days. And the longer we waited at Barra Patuca, the greater our chances of getting bogged down in the jungle by the late October rains. The next day, come hell or high water, we were going to leave the coast.

  When I turned the radio off, I realized that Valeska was sitting just behind me. “Sounds like bad weather is on the way,” she said. “So what’s the plan?”

  “No change.”

  “That storm off Colombia, doesn’t it worry you?”

  “Sure, but we’re ready. If it comes this way, it will just be rain and we’ll be well up the river by then.”

  “But Anton said that the river could be dangerous if we get too much rain.”

  “I know, but, Valeska, this may be the only chance we get. It’s now or never.”

  She looked at me for a few seconds, saying nothing.

  It had been almost a year since I had decided to look for Ciudad Blanca, and after everything, the morning had come. I could finally say, “Today, we are going.”

  I slipped out of bed without disturbing Valeska, pulled on my shorts and lifted myself up through the hatch. The deck was covered with pearling drops of dew. I stepped off the schooner, walked down the narrow jetty and turned to look at Numada sitting motionless on the water. The long shadows of the schooner’s masts stretched across the river. The light, the stillness, the reflection, everything seemed almost too perfect. There wasn’t a whisper of wind anywhere, not even a flutter. The only movement came from the lazy current gliding by on its way out to sea.

  Already the heat pushed me into the shade. In the muck under the dock, a few crabs were also heading for cover. A flock of parrots passed overhead on their way to a mango tree and nearly collided with a V-shaped squad of pelicans flying the other way. Nature’s morning rush hour had begun. Wisps of bluish smoke emanating from cooking fires rose straight up toward the sky. For most, it was just another typical morning at Barra Patuca.

  I should have been eager to start, but I felt as nervous as a stage actor waiting for the curtain to open. Everyone had worked so hard to put the pieces of this expedition into place, and, at last, we were ready to leave on the river. That was sufficient to make anyone a little shaky. Maybe the legend had started to affect my reasoning. Maybe it was just nerves. Maybe it was the latest forecast from Miami. Maybe it was Ernesto, the bartender in Guanaja, and his story about the film crew swallowed up by the jungle. Something my father once said came back to me in a flash: Every man chooses his own poison.

  I walked to the far end of the dock, dropped down to the water’s edge, and sat on an overturned dugout, observing my associates from a distance as they stepped out on deck to greet the new day. The first one out was
Eddy, who stretched and went up to the bow to look down at the water. Cowboy George came out next. He joined Eddy, and they exchanged a few words, laughed and of course, shared a pre-breakfast smoke.

  Valeska appeared a few moments later. “Breakfast and coffee …”

  We ate a light breakfast together in the cockpit while going over last-minute details. Everyone seemed almost as nervous as I was. Then it was time to embark on the two long dugouts and say goodbye to the sleepy village of Barra Patuca. As we motored upstream, I looked back to see Anton standing on the end of the dock. He raised an arm in the air and pointed toward the sky. As we rounded the first bend in the river, I looked over at my friends and grinned. Chili-Chili, María, Cowboy George and Eddy were in one boat. Valeska, Peter-Pedro Lopez and I were in the other. Here we were, finally heading up a river that had a story around each curve. I just hoped that the gods would treat us kindly.

  PART FOUR

  The Patuca runs gently out of the Sierra Mountains. It begins as a stream and finishes deep and wide where it empties into the Caribbean Sea. At first glance, the surface looks slow and lazy, but underneath, it is treacherous, alternating deep reaches with rock patches and great banks of red mud. The water is the color of raw amber. In places, it forms whirlpools, creating undertows that can swallow whole trees. As we paddled our way through savannah and thick jungle, steep yellow sandbanks sometimes appeared in the most unexpected places. From time to time, we could see clearings on either bank. Gigantic trees hung right over the water. From time to time, someone would point out something special, like an osprey or a crocodile.

  Our long narrow boats passed through a small collection of grassy islands. As we left the low-lying savannah, the purr of our outboard motors startled parrots and long-legged cranes. The further inland we travelled, the thicker the jungle grew, and the odor of rotting earth smelled almost morbid. Ashore, there was the incessant chatter of monkeys, and often we could see howlers and ringtails swinging from tree to tree.