by Ann Charles
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Dear Reader,
A long, long time ago in a college far, far away, I took a class called History of Mexico. My major was Spanish and I was fascinated with all things south of the United States border—language, art, food, and culture to name a few. Oh, and margaritas, iced or blended, I wasn’t picky. But I digress … in that history class, I learned about the Maya. I read about their famous cities, such as Tulum and Chichen Itza, and I viewed artists’ renditions of their grandeur-filled past as well as current day photographs. I soaked up stories about what their lives may have been like, the day-to-day challenges, the rituals, the architecture, and the sacrifices.
During that class I met Dr. Angélica García, the heroine in Look What the Wind Blew In. I was looking out the window at the blowing snow, wondering what it would be like to be an archaeologist at one of those amazing sites.
From the moment Angélica stepped into my daydreams, she was giving orders to her crew and searching through Maya ruins, determined to find key pieces of history. One hundred percent alpha-female, she needed someone to show her softer side—hence, her father, Dr. Juan García, joined her in my thoughts. Next came the need for a hero who’d give her a run for her money, an outsider she couldn’t control. A photojournalist maybe, working for a renowned magazine, going by the name of Wayne.
Thus, Look What the Wind Blew In was born.
I wrote the first draft while I was in my twenties. It was the second book I’d written at the start of my career. Needless to say, I was still learning how to write a good book (and still am) and it showed in that first draft. My critique partners would agree, because they hated my hero, Wayne.
It’s never good when your readers cringe at the sound of your hero’s name.
I set this story aside and wrote another book, improving my skills. Then I returned to Angélica’s story, excited to try once again to bring her story to life. When I started this second version, my critique partners made me promise to shove Wayne into a closet in my brain and throw away the key. So, Wayne went away, and Quint Parker showed up for hero auditions. He won the role hands down, and I rewrote the story. This next draft was nominated as a finalist in the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart national contest, but it didn’t win with the final judges nor several of the literary agents to whom I submitted it after the contest. The time was not right for Angélica and Quint’s story … not yet.
Putting the book aside to be fine-tuned again after I’d honed my skills some more, I wrote Dance of the Winnebagos and Jackrabbit Junction Jitters. Then I returned to Angélica, took another swipe at this story, and sent it off to the agent I’d signed with in the meantime. It fell through the cracks somehow, temporarily forgotten as I wrote Nearly Departed in Deadwood and launched my publishing career with the Deadwood Mystery Series starring Violet Parker, Quint’s younger sister.
Now, many MANY moons after I sat in that classroom looking out at the snow, it’s time to share this story with you. I have spent several months working on it, revising yet again. Finally, I feel like it’s the story I have always dreamed about, full of mystery, adventure, humor, suspense, and romance with just a sprinkle of paranormal.
And so, I present to you the first book in a new Dig Site Mystery series: Look What the Wind Blew In. Hold onto your Panama hat, because we’re venturing deep into the Yucatán jungle for some fun … and murder.
www.anncharles.com
For Jacquie Rogers, Wendy Delaney, Sherry Walker, the best Just-This-Side-of-Deranged critique group a girl could have. Fourth time is a charm, right?
For Kathy Thomas and all of those long walks when we talked about what would happen next to Angélica and Rover.
For “Wayne Coleman” who never made it past the first draft and whose name I’ve been banned from ever using again as a hero in a book.
Author’s Note
The following is what I chose to follow for this book:
The adjective “Mayan” is used in reference to the language or languages; “Maya” is used as a noun or adjective when referring to people, places, culture, etc., whether singular or plural.
(Source: http://archaeology.about.com/od/mameterms/a/Maya-or-Mayan.htm)
To learn more about some of the words at the beginning of each chapter, I recommend browsing the internet. There are so many wonderful Maya resources out there to explore.
Chapter One
Mal Viento: An evil wind that can cause sickness or death.
“It’s a curse.”
Angélica García frowned at her father over the beam of her flashlight, wondering if the heat had fried his brain. “It’s not a curse, Dad.”
“Go over it again, gatita. And this time, use plain, old English.” Juan García reached out and gently tweaked the tip of her nose. “Not all of us speak Mayan in our sleep.”
Angélica wiped away the sweat trailing down her cheek. She tilted the flashlight beam slightly away from the temple wall, grazing the surface so the shadows added depth to the blocks of Maya glyphs.
She pointed at the first set. “This shows Yum Cimil, the Lord of Death. It says he rode in on the wind with a traveler.” She moved to the next. “Here, the king is performing a sacrificial ceremony, offering his blood for the lives of his people. And in this one, Yum Cimil has turned his back on the king’s sacrifice and is devouring the village.”
“What about that last set?” Juan asked.
“It shows the Lord of Death crouching inside a temple. It says he ‘waits.’”
“Waits for what?”
“It doesn’t show.”
“Sounds like a curse to me.”
Angélica aimed the flashlight at her father.
He stared back at her, all traces of his usual grin absent. His silver-haired sideburns glistened with sweat.
She shook her head. He couldn’t be serious. “You’re losing it.” She pointed the beam back at the first glyph set. “Look here. The Lord of Death rode in on the wind with the traveler. That means the proof we need is at this site. I just have to find it.” She skimmed her fingers over the warm chiseled stone and smiled at him. “I knew Mom was right.”
“I still think it’s a curse,” he said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “You shouldn’t have read it aloud.”
She growled in her throat. After almost four decades of digging in tombs and temples throughout the Yucatán Peninsula, northern Guatemala, and Belize, how could he still believe in curses? “Be serious, Dad. That Lord of Death Waiting glyph is just the Maya equivalent of a ghost story.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “What makes you so certain it’s not a curse?”
Angélica scrubbed her hand down her face. She couldn’t believe they were even having this discussion.
“Listen, child,” Juan started.
“I’m almost thirty-five now, Dad.”
“Maybe so, but I’ve been on this earth—in temples just like this one—a lot longer than you have. It’s time you …”
She crossed her arms over her chest, bracing herself for the usual I’m-your-father speech.
He paused, glancing down at her arms then back up into her face. “And now you’re giving me that look,” he snorted. “I don’t know why I try to tell you anything. You never listen anyway. One of these days you’re going to learn that I’m almost always right.”
“Almost being the key word there.” Her grin took the sting out of her words.
Juan chuckled, patting her on the head. “You’re getting more and more like your mother every day.”
Tilting her head, she batted her eyelashes several times. “You mean intelligent and beautif
ul?”
“Mouthy and obstinate.” He pointed at the carvings on the wall. “Whether you like it or not, this curse could mean trouble.”
Angélica heard a nervous-sounding groan from the shadows behind her father. She shined the flashlight over Juan’s shoulder into the wide eyes of Esteban, a nineteen-year-old Maya boy from a nearby village who had worked for her off and on over the last few years. He must have finished recording the artifacts in the other chamber and slipped into the room without her hearing him.
“Shit,” she said under her breath. The last thing she needed right now were rumors spreading through camp that an ancient curse had come back to life. She turned back to Juan. “Dad, it’s not a curse.” Clearing her throat, she glanced pointedly toward her Maya crewmember. “It’s merely an artist showing a grim vision of the future.”
“Call it what it is, gatita. It’s a curse warning whoever sees it that death is waiting for its next meal,” Juan argued.
Esteban visibly shivered. “Are we its next meal?”
This was going from not good to really, really bad in seconds. “Can we talk about this back in my tent? Alone?”
Juan stared at the glyphs and rubbed the back of his neck. “If only Marianne were here.”
“If Mom were here, she’d say you always were more superstitious than logical.” Angélica grabbed her father’s arm. It was going to take physical persuasion to get him to leave the temple.
She herded Juan and Esteban back toward the exit, a hole in the wall just big enough for them to squeeze through. “I may not be able to interpret glyphs as well as Mom could, but I can decipher the gist of what they’re showing. I’m positive this is not a curse.” She stared into Esteban’s eyes as she delivered that last line.
“How can you be so certain? You know as well as I do that odd things happen when you’re rooting around in the past.” Juan grunted as he lowered onto the hard-packed dirt floor and eased headfirst through the hole.
Esteban slid through next. After his feet disappeared from view, Angélica squatted and peered through the hole. “Tell me,” she coughed on some temple dust, “how can a piece of rock over a thousand years old contain a force released simply by verbalizing the hieroglyphic inscription chiseled there by a human?”
Without waiting for an answer, she snaked through the hole. Esteban lent her a hand on the other side.
Juan took the flashlight from her as she brushed the dust off her tank top and khaki pants. He led them through a narrow passageway. “Maybe I am too superstitious for my own good.” He looked back at Angélica. “But bad things have happened at this site.” His tone sounded ominous.
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she stole the flashlight out of her father’s hand and walked past him. It wasn’t the time, let alone the place, for this argument.
Angélica reached the ladder and climbed to the main level. Juan followed, and then Esteban.
After he stepped off the ladder, Esteban’s gaze darted around the pitch-black corners of the room. “What bad things, Dr. García?” the boy asked, his voice a whisper.
She shot her dad a now-look-what-you’ve-done glare.
Juan shrugged. “Several things, actually.”
“Please, Dad. Don’t start with that whole ‘something stole my maps of the Temple of the Water Witch, filled my notebooks with gibberish scrawls, and left a sacrificed wild turkey outside of my tent’ crap again.”
Juan took the flashlight back from her. “Well, Miss Skeptic, all of that did happen.” He started down the passage that would lead them outside. “But I’m not talking about those incidents,” he said over his shoulder.
“What then?” Angélica followed him.
“I’m talking about Dr. Hughes.”
She puffed her cheeks with a sigh. “Here we go again.”
“He’s been missing for twenty years now, you know. And the last time anyone saw him was at this very site.”
“Maybe Death ate him,” Esteban spoke from behind her, sounding like an extra from a Boris Karloff film.
“My point exactly,” Juan said.
She wrinkled her nose at her father’s back. “Honestly, you sound like a pair of delusional paranoids.”
Juan stopped several feet inside the entrance, waiting for Angélica to reach his side. Esteban pushed past both of them, his shirt soaking wet and smelling like he’d sweated through his deodorant hours ago. She watched him go, noting his rush to escape the temple’s thick shadows.
“All I’m saying, gatita, is that maybe you should think twice before being so quick to rule out this cu—”
“Dr. García!” Esteban cried.
A high-pitched scream cut through the heavy air.
Angélica and her father raced to where Esteban stood frozen in the temple opening.
She gasped at the sight in front of her. Tree limbs smacked against each other, debris tumbled across the ground, tents buckled and ripped free of their stakes.
Dust particles stung her cheeks as she stepped out into the strong gusts. She shielded her face, frowning. Where had this windstorm come from? An hour ago, the air had been still and thick enough to drink. She looked up at the sky. And why weren’t there any clouds?
Angélica turned to her father in time to see Esteban lean closer and yell something to Juan over the cacophony of the thrashing jungle. Juan nodded in agreement.
“What?” Angélica moved closer to her father. “What did he say?”
“Mal viento,” Juan hollered and grabbed Angélica’s arm, dragging her back into the safety of the temple and out of the howling tempest. “He says the evil winds have come.”
“Evil winds?” Angélica squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Must you insist upon scaring the hell out of my crew?”
Esteban screamed in pain from somewhere outside.
Angélica’s heart stopped for a second.
“I told you it was a curse.” Juan pushed past her toward the entrance.
“Dammit!” Following on his heels, she leaned into the gale, dodging a flying tree limb. “It’s not a curse!”
Chapter Two
Xtabay: A bewitching woman or female demon with a frigid touch and a lethal embrace.
A week and a half later …
Holy shit it was hot.
A face melting, sweltering version of Hell kind of hot.
Quint Parker lifted his Panama hat and fanned himself with it, staring across the dirt parking lot at the rippling waves rising under the sun’s blasts. Chickens would lay hard boiled eggs in this heat.
He grimaced as a drop of sweat trailed down his spine. Damn. The good ol’ steamy Yucatán Peninsula. Two decades ago he’d sworn never to return, yet here he stood … dripping. Coming down to this jungle again was crazy for more reasons than the miserable temperatures.
Jamming his hat back on, he looked around for his escort to Dr. García’s dig site. The only sign of life was a round, well-wrinkled Maya woman tugging a rusted Radio Flyer wagon across the parking lot. Strapped to the wagon was a large cage jam-packed with live chickens, their beaks poking through the wire mesh here and there. The wagon wheels squeak-squeaked under the weight of its load.
Speaking of chickens … Quint snorted. Was this today’s lunch special at the village’s only hotel? Maybe he should rescue one and ship it home to his niece. Her pet chicken ruled the roost, which made his sister growl and grumble.
He checked the time. His ride was a half-hour late. A drop of sweat splattered onto the face of his watch. He blew out a breath, frustrated with more than this stifling pit stop that had liquefied his deodorant five minutes after he had put it on. His shirt was ringed with sweat, his jeans damp at the waistline. So much for giving a good first impression to the highly esteemed archaeology professor from the University of Arizona.
He leaned back against the stucco-covered wall of the tienda, the only grocery store around for miles and miles of thick forest. Unscrewing the lid of the water he’d bought inside, he watched as a brown ch
icken feather escaped the cage, caught sail in a light breeze, and floated toward the grassy plaza on the other side of the parking lot.
What would Dr. Juan García be like in person? Quint sipped some lukewarm water, pondering. So far he’d only spoken to Dr. García on the phone. Their conversations had been short, polite, professional. But he’d read plenty about the professor and his work on this particular site and learned even more about his accomplishments, including his many accolades and grants awarded over the years.
A movement near his boots drew Quint’s gaze. A gecko zipped in front of him, zigzagging across the parking lot toward the Poultry Express wagon. He capped his water.
From out of nowhere, a wind whipped up, swaying tree limbs as it grew in strength, churning closer. Dust eddied across the dirt lot, coating the chickens and Maya woman in a layer of powder.
He grimaced on her behalf.
Instead of ebbing, the wind intensified, sucking up more dirt into a whirling dance. In the midst of the sudden squall, the Radio Flyer tipped over. The cage of chickens crashed to the ground and the door popped open.
For a moment, there was only the whistle of the wind in Quint’s ears, then an uproar of squawking filled the air.
Dirt swirled faster, the vortex doubling in size. It reminded him of the dust devils he’d seen a few months ago in the Nevada desert while writing a piece on the old ghost town of Goldwash.
The whirlwind surrounded the Maya woman and her freed flock. Feathers filled the air.
The distinct rumble of a diesel engine made Quint’s chest tighten. A tour bus turned into the parking lot. The driver was looking down at something, not paying attention, the bus moving too fast toward the cloud of dirt.
Quint pushed away from the stucco wall. “Hey!” he yelled, stepping out into the late morning sunshine waving his arms. The bus driver didn’t look up, didn’t veer, didn’t even slow.
“Hey! Stop!” Quint tried again, and then raced into the churning dust cloud. He had seconds to drag the Maya woman out of the way before the dust devil and loose chickens became the least of her problems. Dirt peppered his face and arms. He stepped on one chicken and stumbled over another. Inside the whistling, swirling mix of dust and feathers, he found the old lady. She was clutching two chickens to her chest while she searched the ground for more.