White Bird (A Mayan 2012 Thriller)

by Tom Rich

  “What?” said Trish.

  “He’s…never mind. Hardly. I’ve learned exactly five words of Spanish. It’s the word-a-month plan. No, I’m at a pay phone. Cells don’t work down here and I’m all out of quetzales.”

  “Then let’s get the important stuff out of the way. I got your rent all caught up, so you’re cool with your landlord for now.”

  “Thanks, Trish, I owe you one.”

  “Don’t worry about that for now. We got how long until the end?”

  “Just before Christmas, 2012. Hey, what would you think about staying after I get back? You and me as roomies.”

  “Uhh, no. This place is way too small for two people. Besides, Clove has an apartment waiting for me above the bar. I could go for weeks without leaving the building. As you like to say, cars are killing the planet. I already abandoned my heap.”

  “Litterbug.”

  “Tree hugger.”

  “Huh. Should be glad I am.”

  “Overjoyed.”

  “One more piece of business. Have you seen him around? Him and that Dee-troit d-girl?”

  “You don’t want to hear it.”

  “Quince segundos.”

  “Wha-hut?” said Trish. “Is there a big clock down there counting down like the end of the Millennium?”

  “Blue?”

  “Right. You asked for it. His band took off with that new singer. A manager dropped out of the sky and got them a tour of Collegeburg, USA. Right now they’re rocking Ithaca in upstate Nueva Jork.”

  “That was supposed to be my gig.”

  “Such is rock and roll. It may have the strongest heartbeat, but it’s the shortest lived. See you in a month. Oh, one last quickie.”

  Aly felt she could crush the phone in her hand. She said, “I gotta go.”

  “So, playing wifey and all with the dig miester, don’t you have to go to the market? How do you deal with only five words? Are banana and avocado two of them?”

  “I got Tencho, woman. Lucky for me, I got Tencho.”

  “Ahh, the girl’s got Tencho. She’s all out of quetza-whatevers, but she’s got Tencho. And just what does that translate into up here? Maybe I need Tencho. Are batteries included?”

  “You know, it doesn’t translate. And, no!”

  The connection broke.

  Aly felt like beating the receiver against the wall, against Blue’s chest, so close could she feel his breath, his pulsing heartbeat. Wave after wave of his image on yet another and another and another stage with his dark-haired singer rolled through her mind. And all she’d done was run, run, run away, barely even trying to write a song about the overwhelming hurt. But isn’t that what artists do? How they come up with songs? By not running away, by staying and facing the music, ha ha, and maybe that’s why I’m all the way down here and the dark-haired singer is all the way up there.

  The telephone was only the messenger; why kill it?

  Aly hung up.

  8: Tree Hugged

  Aly stood at the edge of the forest gazing into the trees. They’d been her companions on the hike in, their leaves stirred by the morning breezes to applaud the brilliant success of the sunrise, their branches yielding up the hopping and singing birds. And so what if they weren’t hiding jaguars or housing howler monkeys. The strangeness of the land had kept those creatures peeking from the fringes of her imagination.

  Now each tree was traitorous stranger about to yield up a dark-haired Detroit d-girl into every shaft of slanting light. Aly imagined a black, patent leather boot swinging out from behind the nearest tree, planting itself, the girl leaning out, leaning back, a microphone thrust from behind, tilted back head easing to meet it, dark hair falling around her shoulders.

  “‘Exiled,’ didn’t you call my song?” Aly said aloud. “How perfect.”

  She sighed. “A twelve klik hike to a phone means a twelve klik hike back to the village.” She took a swig from her canteen. “But that’s a good thing.” After losing her car during the Cultural Integration Services debacle of her activism phase, Aly became an avid urban hiker. She’d found that striding a brisk pace always improved her spirits. She plunged into the forest.

  After three kilometers she felt no better.

  Aly stopped for a breather at the top of a long, steep descent. The trail below switched back and forth through tall sapodillas and the silky canopies of ceiba trees. Near the bottom she glimpsed the rear end of a pack animal. Possibly a horse bearing a campesino. Or a goods-laden burro being led home from market. Whatever, the animal would not be strolling the trail without an owner. A second glimpse confirmed a bushy tail swinging between high, brown haunches.

  The distance wasn’t so great as the crow flew. But switching back and forth would keep her from overtaking a potential companion. Aly plunged off the trail.

  After two minutes of bushwhacking and only ten feet traveled, her left foot became wedged in a tangle of vines and undergrowth. She couldn’t pull it free without bending to use her hands. In order to bend in the close quarters she had to lift her right foot onto a higher clump of growth. It also became caught. She reached overhead to pull on a tree branch and managed to loosen her left foot. When bringing it up even with the right, her weight shifted so that she dropped several inches and got her hands caught. Another two minutes of struggle left her hanging upright and spread-eagled. Oddly, the position felt comfortable. She decided to rest a moment before extracting herself. When she couldn’t get a hand to the canteen hanging by her waist, feelings of foolishness yielded to panic.

  Aly recalled being told about the strangler fig. Birds drop its seeds onto the tops of other trees where they take root. The strangler fig then works its roots and branches downward, strangling all the way, until finally reaching the forest floor and cutting off its reluctant host from the outside world.

  “God, even the trees hate tree huggers!” yelled Aly. The exertion made her feel more tightly bound.

  Her potential companion would be off the mountain and into the cacti by the time she got herself out. If she got out! “Okay, okay, no tree works that fast.”

  High above, Aly heard a single, crinkled chirp.

  The note cued an afternoon reprise of the morning breezes. The bending treetops rustled. A shudder of energy traveled downward through the network of vines and into Aly. She laughed. “Just another white chick stuck in the bush.”

  Her brooding over Blue now seemed ridiculous.

  “What could be more ridiculous than a white chick stuck in the bush!” Aly shouted into the forest. “I’ll tell you what! A man who would give up all this for a PLAYTHING FROM DETROIT!”

  For this, Aly expected the forest to burst into applause.

  Instead, she spotted a snowy egret tilting through an open patch of sky. Its wings leveled. The bird soared out of sight over the treetops.

  Gone too fast.

  It circled back into view.

  Then was gone.

  A moment of beauty followed by a beautiful ache.

  Aly continued to gaze as if the white bird’s bold prominence against the blue sky had left a vapor trail. When the blue deepened from the apparition, Aly felt a warm flush.

  Ten minutes later she was out of the tree and switching back and forth down the trail, convincing herself that even though no one else may ever want to here it, she was meant to create a soundtrack for her life. “Maybe writing lyrics for Blue was jumping in too deep too soon,” she said aloud. “And I certainly can’t do heartbreak. Hmm, roll it back to nursery rhymes? Maybe not that far. How about drudgery? There’s drudgery in the housework I do for Arby. Hovel-work, more like it.” She liked the way that sounded. “Hovel-work.” Ten feet further along, “Hovel-work!” She broke into song: “Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a Hoover duh duh. All the Mayans have uh uh, I must have me one. Work hard all the daytime with no ’lectricity. Hmmm. Worked hard all my lifetime just to save a tree. ‘Dialing for Quetzales’ is trying to find me.”

  She hiked on, her Weird Aly
parody carrying her home.

  Aly was working out rhymes for “pyramid” when she entered her village. The sight of two men standing outside her hut silenced the music and stopped her cold.

  The men stood at oblique angles with each other, as if they had different ideas about what move to make next, but were definitely ready to make a move. Both were short and dark, like the natives. But they wore brown uniforms instead of the customary brightly colored clothing. One man bore a long scar that started near the top of his left ear, cut deep into his cheek and ran all the way to his chin, then curled up to meet the corner of his mouth. If he smiled, thought Aly, his mouth would connect with the scar and the whole side of his face would open into the world’s largest grin. On first impression, she sensed little likelihood of that happening.

  “You are the American woman who works with Phillip Arbanian,” said the un-scarred man across a thirty-yard gap.

  Aly looked back and forth between the two. The one who spoke was missing two fingers and the thumb of his right hand. His serious, rapid-fire delivery made him sound as if he’d learned his words phonetically and speed was necessary to cover mistakes. The sun caused the red in his broad face to cast its own light, which contrasted with the other man, whose color seemed drained by his fishhook scar.

  “Fine, how are you,” replied Aly. She thought it best to close the gap as if their presence had no affect on her. She managed only two small steps.

  “Que?” said the scarred man.

  The two conversed in Spanish. “My apologies,” said the first speaker. “I am Hernandez of the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture.”

  Aly waited for an introduction to the scarred man. None came. “Okay. You got two out of three right. American. Woman. But I work for Dr. Arbanian, not with him.”

  She moved a step closer, but stopped when she saw Tencho step out his door, then zip back in. Her first thought was why wasn’t he out in the field working his crops. That’s where the other villagers would be this time of day. Was he taking a break? Had he gotten far enough ahead that he could spend time working on his unfinished house?

  Tencho had arrived to the village just days after Aly and Dr. Arbanian. He’d owned a shop that sold traditional candies in the town of El Estor, near Lago de Izabel in the north. Disillusioned with city life because of a rising crime rate, Tencho sold his business for almost nothing to start over as a subsistence farmer as far from population centers as he could get. His wife and four small children were waiting for him in El Estor while he spent his days clearing and farming a patch of forest, and his nights building a small house. As the only other English speaker in the village, Tencho often helped Aly negotiate language and cultural barriers when Dr. Arbanian was out working his site. Which caused Aly’s second thought. Why wasn’t Tencho coming out to help her deal with these two?

  Hernandez continued. “Phillip Arbanian is here now. He is in this village.”

  Aly assumed that to be a question. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. I’ve been to make a phone call. A little town just this side of Esquipulas. I got back the very minute you saw me. Arby’s most likely at the site he discovered. If he’s not here, I mean.”

  The afternoon heat reached its peak.

  “You just came from being with Phillip Arbanian.”

  Aly found it amusing that written Spanish had question marks at both ends of an interrogative sentence. But this guy, inquisitive as he was, had no use at all for question marks. “No. I went to use the telephone in a village just short of Esquipulas. I made a call to the States.” She paused. “It’s what we Americans do every day. Call the CIA to let them know we’re okay, that they don’t have to charge down here to bail us out of a jam.” She wondered how stupid that sounded.

  The two men conversed in a language other than Spanish. Hernandez continued to address her. “This telephone call. It would not be difficult for us to… There will be records we can review to determine if you are lying.”

  “Hey, be my guest. I made the call about noon, local time. Payaqui was the town I called from. I’ll write down the number, if you like.”

  Hernandez did not consider her offer of good faith. “The people of Guatemala do not take kindly to artifacts illegally removed from their country. If Philip Arbanian is doing so, you could be considered his accomplice.”

  “What? No way, man. I’m just a volunteer. I’m not even sure what all he does out there. I just stay behind and pack his lunch. I say, ‘Have a nice day, honey.’ And when he comes home, I serve him a hot yam and wash out his socks.”

  “You expect him to return soon.”

  “Could be tonight. Could be a couple of days. You know how those professor types are. They get totally involved and lose track of what century they’re in.”

  “He tells you about the work he does.”

  The guy was awfully good at making questions sound like demands. And was Fishhook holding back to crack that huge smile when it came time to bring out the Good Cop? “He’s filled me in on a few things. Like how your ancestors spent a thousand years building cities, then thought it’d be fun to mysteriously disappear just to amuse the scholarly types.”

  The men conferred. Aly recognized traces from one of the Mayan languages the archeologists in Tikal dabbled with.

  “It would be a mistake to not take us seriously, Miss Roarke. Guatemalan prison is no joke. Dr. Arbanian has taken you to the site he has found.”

  “Hey, man, I’m just making a point. There’s no way he’s into smuggling. He’s devoted to the stuff. He doesn’t care about money. All the stuff he deals with is for what it tells him about the past. Any money he might make would be from a book about the stuff. And believe me, it would be no page-turner. Well, for you, maybe.”

  “He has shown you this stuff.”

  “He’s talked about it some. In boring technical terms. He has a real thing for stela. I think he goes out there in a sweaty tee shirt and stands at the bottom of that pyramid yelling… Eh, never mind.”

  The two consulted quietly. They turned to leave.

  “That’s it? I don’t get a number to call if I see something suspicious?”

  Hernandez looked over his shoulder. “We will remain in this area. We will soon again be in contact with you.”

  Aly now saw a machete hanging in a sling across Fishhook’s back. “Hey! It’s not like I’m running from the law back in the States!” she yelled after them. “I had a bad breakup with a cheating boyfriend!” She expected the two to tilt their heads together and laugh over some machismo comment. Nothing. She crossed her arms and absently patted her shoulders as the men headed from the village.

  They stopped. They turned without consultation and charged Aly with long, quick strides. The abruptness and urgency of the about face froze her like a deer in headlights. They were on her in seconds.

  “There will be no warrants, there will be no phone call, there will be no public defender,” rattled off Hernandez. “There will only be a dark cell. And if you do have a companion, it will be a rat. Are you familiar with the Guatemalan rat, Miss Roarke?”

  Even though it was Hernandez speaking, Aly could not take her eyes from Fishhook. The scar, now inches away, made him look as if he had been jerked from his element by a large hook. Not from deep in the ocean, but from somewhere deep in the past. And he struggled for breath in this foreign element. Not like when the fish initially thrashes on the boat deck, but the moment when the physical protest of bewilderment gives way to anger. And calculating a way back.

  “I don’t know what you want!” blurted Aly. “I don’t know what you want!”

  “What we want is for you to prove you are not a smuggler,” said Hernandez. “What we want is for you to prove you have not been stealing artifacts from the people of Guatemala. What we want is to not have to leave you in a cell where you will be forgotten. And how will this be made possible, Miss Roarke? What is there you can do? We offer no suggestions.”

  Aly gasped. She wiped her palms on her shir
t, then stopped, thinking that made her look guilty. “I…I could take you—”

  “If Phillip Arbanian has implicated you without your knowing, that is something we would be willing to understand. If that is his method, then tell me what you owe to him.”

  “No! There’s no way he’s smuggling. And he wouldn’t do that to me even if he was. And he’s not!”

  Hernandez’s voice softened. “And how will you prove this to us, Miss Roarke?”

  “Okay. Okay. But you gotta keep in mind he’s a researcher and explorer. He’s the one who found the pyramid. But it’s not like he’s planning to keep it to himself or profit from it or anything. He’s keeping it a secret temporarily because…I don’t know. He wants to check it out thoroughly before it gets trampled, I guess.”

  “The day grows short,” said Hernandez.

  “Now? You want to go there now?”

  Hernandez held out his left hand, his good hand.

  “Man, I’ve been walking all—” Aly looked at Fishhook. What would he care about her having twenty-four kilometers on her legs for the day? “All right, let’s go.”

  She led them from the village.

  They hiked the trail in silence, Aly in front, not remembering the order of the other two, nor feeling comfortable about looking back.

  She wondered how Dr. Arbanian would deal with these two when they found him inside the pyramid. He’d probably pull his nose out of some dank glyph on the wall, turn the beak of his Dodgers cap back to front, and start a conversation right in the middle of whatever thought he already had going. And he wouldn’t stop lecturing, even if they took hold of him and forced him back up the trail, Arby yakking away as if escorting two students through a hallway after class.

  They reached a narrow path along the side of a cliff. They sidled until they came to a boulder wedged between two outcroppings. “I think this is it,” said Aly. “This big rock.” She looked at her companions. “I have to climb up to make sure.” The men stared at her. “If it has the marker, the trail starts just the other side. But I have to get on top to make sure.”