The Last Mayan (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Naturally,” Blackburn said, leaning back lazily. “All roads lead to the Maya.” He smiled wryly. ‘That’s why there are so damned many of us.” He leaned toward me. “Seriously, Alan, I’m glad you’re here. I really look forward to working with you, even if it’s only a couple of weeks. And this is the best crew I’ve ever had. Thanks for coming, fella.”

  I nodded, unsure whether he was patronizing me or just being a nice guy.

  Okay, I’d give the man a chance.

  That night, after a late dinner, Pepper and I walked along the rocky beach, hand in hand. Across the lake the burning field was a red glow and the sweet smell of the burning vegetation was heavy on the breeze. Behind us, the lights of the restaurant shone dim on the clifftop, but the cabañas below were dark.

  “So what did you think of Eric?” Pepper asked, as we turned back toward the cabañas.

  I shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  She gave my hand a tug. “Give him the benefit of the doubt, okay? For my sake?”

  “Absolutely. By the way, I see what you mean about Durán. He seems like a glum sort.”

  “But he wasn’t like that at first. Well, like you always say, ‘Everybody in Casablanca has problems.’ ”

  “Bogie said that, but I’ll take credit.”

  I stopped, cocking my head to listen. From somewhere in the distance came a dull drone. An airplane.

  “Somebody’s flying late,” I said, nodding in the direction of the burning field, where the red glow against the sky picked up a dark shape gliding in low from the east.

  “Rumor is every low-flying plane’s carrying a drug shipment,” Pepper said. “Don’t know if it’s true, but there are strips all over the jungle where bush pilots fly in supplies. If some of the supplies are drugs, who’s to know?”

  “God,” I breathed. “Everything really has changed.”

  “There’s still no place like it,” she said and I was about to answer when a sharp little cry split the night. We raced forward and I saw a form on the ground, getting up.

  The graduate student, April Blake.

  “April, what’s wrong?” Pepper asked, as I helped the girl to her feet.

  “Nothing,” April said, taking quick little gulps of air. “I was out walking and I tripped on a rock.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Do I have to account to you?” she snapped, jerking herself free.

  We watched her walk unsteadily away, back in the direction of her hut.

  “She’s drunk,” Pepper said.

  “Drunk on something,” I agreed.

  We waited until she was gone and then started forward again.

  Much later, after a midnight swim, we went back to the cabañas and lay together in the big hammock under the mosquitero. After a time I heard Pepper’s breaths coming in slow, even cadence, but I’d been bombarded by too many stimuli in the last twenty-four hours to be able to sleep.

  The breeze ruffled the palm thatch above us and every few seconds I stretched out my foot to give the wall a nudge and send the hammock into motion.

  I knew it was the emotional baggage I was carrying that gave me a sense of foreboding. I was the same old Alan, convinced nothing could come out right because it hadn’t in the past. I’d scored an incredible stroke of luck finding Pepper and being loved by her, but now I’d tempted fate by coming back to the very place where things had gone wrong between Felicia and me.

  But there were also the changes of fifteen years: The general sense in everyone I’d talked to that things weren’t right. Drugs, army roadblocks, the desperation I sensed in my old friend Geraldo. …

  I gave the hammock another gentle push.

  It would all work out, though. Pepper was here and so long as we were together everything would come out all right. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but just as I was drifting off I heard the sound of a plane motor again. Was it just my imagination, or was it coming in the other direction now, from west to east?

  SEVEN

  The next morning, Pepper, Hayes, and Blackburn took the project van to free the stuck Rover. The rest of us started for Lubaanah just after six in my rented Neon, having breakfasted at Geraldo’s on fried bananas and tortillas with copious helpings of black beans and chopped onions, washed down with freshly squeezed orange juice. The archaeological site was fifty miles west of the turn off to Chetumal and south of the highway that, running a hundred and sixty miles from Chetumal on the east to Escarcega on the west, splits the base of the Yucatán Peninsula. Turning off the highway, we went down an unpaved track for twenty-five miles into the jungle, nobody saying anything except for occasional comments by Minnie, who, squeezed into the backseat between April and Santos Canché, the Mayan field boss, kept trying to make small talk. But April just scowled and stared out the window and José Durán, next to me in the front seat, said as little as possible, except for occasional exchanges with Santos.

  At eight we reached the tiny village of Ah Cutz, where the laborers lived, and I relaxed slightly as I saw traditional pole-sided thatched houses and women in flowered huipiles. Maybe, I thought, there were still a few real Maya left.

  The site itself was only a kilometer beyond the end of the dirt road. It consisted of a scatter of jumbled mounds in what had once been a cornfield. Excavation units had been placed atop some of the mounds, with Visquine-roofed shelters on poles protecting the excavators from the brutal sun, which even now was beginning to burn a hole in the summer sky. Most of the fifteen-worker crew was already milling about, gourd water carriers over their shoulders, and after a perfunctory conference between Durán and Santos, the Mayan field boss set out ensuring that each group of workers was in the right place. Then Durán turned to me.

  “This was a trading site,” he mumbled, as though this were a newspaper interview. “Although there is a late post-Classic component, most of what we have found dates from the late Classic period, about eight hundred years after Christ, and there are features of the Peten Classic sites such as Tikal and Uaxactun but also certain features common to Rio Bec and Chenes architecture. The ceramics …”

  My mind wandered as he lectured, pointing to an excavation unit here, a collapsed wall there.

  Suddenly I realized he was staring at me.

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “I asked if you had visited this site during your survey of the southern peninsula in 1985.”

  My mind jerked back to the present. “Oh. I don’t think so. I’d remember the name Lubaanah, ‘fallen house.’ And I’m sure back then the site was just a few piles of stones in the forest.”

  He nodded. “You are correct, of course. The villagers call the place simply ti muul, the place of the mounds, which describes most of Yucatán. Dr. Blackburn was the one who gave it the name Lubaanah.”

  I smiled. “Well, it’s not the first time the excavator’s given the place its name. I can’t say I blame him for that. It’s probably better for publicity.”

  “Yes,” Durán said. “But Eric didn’t invent the name.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’ve heard of John Williams.”

  “Sure. He was an Englishman, explored lots of this area in the late 1930s and wrote a travel book about it.”

  The Mexican nodded. “Correct. It was Williams who found a site he called Lubaanah. He said it was a major Mayan ceremonial center, but he never went back there.”

  “I remember now. Little matter of the Second World War getting in the way.”

  “Yes. Like most foreigners, he claimed to have discovered the site, as if the people hadn’t known it was there all the time.”

  “A problem,” I said, sensing offended Mexican pride.

  “Anyway, that’s how this site got the name,” Durán said and started walking.

  We passed a fallen stone column and stepped over a line of army ants on their way to some feast.

  “So is this Williams’s lost site?” I asked.

  “Eric thinks it is. It got him grant money.
Who can argue with that?”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “It’s not necessary that I be. I just have to be sure that he does a good job and that the Instituto Nacionál is satisfied. If the site produces good data, it won’t matter.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  I wiped the sweat off my forehead and stood beside Durán as he talked to Santos, a squat man in his forties with a face that could have come from the portraits on Mayan bas-reliefs. I edged my way over to an excavation pit where some of the laborers worked to clear rubble from the sides of the unit, while others, above, sifted the debris hauled up in buckets through a wooden frame with window-screen-sized mesh. They were talking among themselves in Mayan and I heard one of them ask the other who I was.

  So I told them my name.

  Santos smiled, but Durán looked discomfited and I realized it was probably because he was from central Mexico and had never learned Maya.

  The remainder of the morning I spent with Minnie, at her excavation unit, fingering ancient bits of pottery and flakes of obsidian that had been tossed out of a Mayan hut over a thousand years ago. Once, a shadow fell into the pit and I looked up to see Santos, smiling a gap-toothed smile.

  “Where did you learn Maya, Nohoch Dzul?”

  “Here,” I said. “A long time ago. But I’ve forgotten most of it.”

  His smile widened and then he was gone.

  The van reappeared in early afternoon, followed by the Rover, and our three companions had returned. Pepper sidled over.

  “Is it all coming back?” she asked.

  “Little by little,” I said.

  That night we didn’t hear the plane again and there were no encounters with April Blake. Nor did I see the ponytailed man called Jordan, which made me just as happy.

  When we left our cabaña for a beach stroll, however, the light was still on in Blackburn’s hut, on the end, though it was almost midnight. A thin thread of classical music wafted out on the night air and I recognized it as Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony.

  Oddly, we liked the same kind of music. Or was there anything odd about it at all?

  We came to the diving board and looked up at the restaurant on the cliff above us.

  Pepper gave me a mischievous smile. “Let’s,” she declared.

  “Jesus, there’s no telling who’s liable to …”

  “We’ll swim out into the darkness if anybody comes. They’ll never know.”

  She was already stripping off her clothes. What else could I do but follow suit? Or without suit, that is.

  Nobody discovered us, fortunately, and when we clambered out half an hour later, giggling like children, and headed back to the cabaña in our wet clothes, I noticed Blackburn’s light was off.

  The next day was Saturday. Though it was usually a workday, Eric had accepted Pepper’s request for a day off. So, while the others worked, we would have a lazy, late breakfast and then take off in the rental car to revisit some of the famous sites along Highway 186, toward Escarcega.

  But it didn’t work out that way, because the sun had hardly come up before we were awakened by shouts and Pepper and I had to throw on our clothes and stagger out to see what had washed up on the beach.

  EIGHT

  The little crowd parted as Pepper and I approached and when we looked down we saw what the furor was about.

  It was an orange blob that I realized was a body, floating in the lagoon face down. It nudged the black rocks of the shore, the brightly colored life jacket keeping it afloat. Don Geraldo arrived a moment later, wringing his hands and shaking his head.

  “Pull him in,” he cried. “We can’t just leave him in the water.”

  A couple of his workers dragged the body onto the rocks and turned him over.

  I stared down and then turned away quickly. Though the bloated face bore bruises, I sensed I had seen it before.

  The innkeeper raised his hands to heaven. “Caráy. The pobrecito must have been murdered by the narcotraficantes. Did anybody see anything?”

  Nobody had, it turned out, except for the houseboy, who had been sweeping the steps and had just looked down to see the gruesome cargo bobbing on the waves. I turned around to see if any of our people were present. Minnie O’Toole was hurrying toward us, face worried, but none of the others were in evidence.

  “Do you think he was pushed out of a boat?” someone asked.

  Geraldo frowned. “Caráy, these scoundrels tortured the poor man. They probably threw him overboard like that, before he was even dead. Didn’t want him to sink, so they left the life jacket on him so he’d be found.”

  “Why?” Pepper asked.

  Geraldo shook his head. “As a warning to others.”

  Don Chucho Cantu, I thought. Was that who was responsible?

  “This is horrible,” the innkeeper wailed. “Now we’ll have to call the judiciales. They’ll be all over the place, asking questions, expecting to be fed.” He looked up at me. “Doctor …” Then he shrugged. “Desculpe. Why should I blame you? You didn’t do it.”

  I patted his shoulder.

  “What happened?” Minnie asked. “Is somebody hurt?”

  Pepper told her and the tall woman winced.

  “I wonder who he is?” Minnie asked.

  Pepper shook her head. “Probably a drug smuggler who had a falling-out with his friends, right, Alan?”

  “Yes.”

  The federal police arrived an hour later, in the form of a paunchy uniformed sergeant, followed by a pair of detectives in guayaberas. They looked at the body, took pictures, and asked if anyone had seen anything. When nobody answered in the affirmative, they sent for an ambulance, watched while the body was loaded into it, and left with it for Chetumal, the state capital, which was a couple of miles to the south. Nobody had asked me if I knew the victim and I kept my knowledge to myself. I wondered how many others on the beach were doing the same thing.

  By the time the police had finished, it was noon and too late for our planned trip to the ruins. The others, meanwhile, had left for the site, except for Eric, who said he had reports to write, and April, who claimed illness. Paul Hayes seemed to regard the incident philosophically, and as for Durán, it was hard to say if he cared or if his mind was on getting to the site as soon as possible to make up for time lost by the affair. Minnie alone seemed truly saddened by the fact that a person had died, and once, just before the crew left, I glimpsed her standing on the patio behind the restaurant, staring thoughtfully down at the body and the huddle of investigators.

  And Pepper? I’d realized a long time ago that her cool exterior was only a mask for her essential vulnerability.

  “I can’t help thinking I’ve seen him before,” I said.

  “But where?”

  I shrugged. “You tell me. Maybe you’ve seen him, too.”

  She glanced away. “You’re going to laugh.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Promise?”

  “More or less.”

  “I didn’t look at his face.”

  Later that night, while Pepper was sleeping, I went down to the beach myself. The fire across the lake had burned itself out and the night was black, except for the few lights from the restaurant above. I looked up at the stars, icy points on a dark field, and thought about the Mayan celestial cosmology, with the maize god journeying by canoe to the place of creation, between the constellations Orion and Gemini.

  I was still staring at the sky when I heard a noise behind me and turned.

  “Got a match?” a voice asked in English and I recognized the man with the ponytail, leaning on the iron railing, cigarette in hand.

  “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

  “Probably better for your health,” the man sighed. “But I can’t break the damn habit.” He straightened up.

  “You’re one of the archaeologists. My name’s Felipe Jordan. I’m from Brownsville, Texas. Ever been there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Border t
own. Lots of snowbirds in winter. That’s what we call the retired folks who come down to get away from the cold weather. Where you from?”

  I told him. “I’m a contract archaeologist. I do environmental consulting.”

  He nodded. “Make money?”

  “I get by.”

  “We all get by. Except the poor bastard on the rocks.”

  I waited for him to come to the point.

  “What do you think happened?” Jordan asked.

  “You’ll have to ask whoever killed him.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “That wouldn’t be my guess.”

  “I hear some of the snowbirds even come down here.”

  “Probably. Is that what you are?”

  “Me?” he chuckled. “Not hardly. I’m just down here to soak up the culture.” He stuck the pack of cigarettes back into his pocket. “Well, good digging. Your buddies are all up at the restaurant getting drunk, if that’s who you’re looking for. Maybe you ought to go up there and make sure nobody falls down the steps.”

  He turned and walked away down the beach. I started to follow, then changed my mind. Was Jordan trying to tell me that I should check out the others? Was something going on up at the restaurant? If so, why did it matter to him? Why had he even stopped me in the first place? I didn’t for a second believe it was for a match. It was more like he was sizing me up.

  I didn’t care what the others were doing up at the restaurant. I walked back the way I’d come, fifty yards behind Jordan, until he was out of sight, and then I climbed back into the hammock with Pepper, but even with the door closed and bolted I no longer felt safe.

  NINE

  Over the next few days the tragedy on the beach receded in significance and I saw no more of Felipe Jordan. I settled in beside Pepper to work in her excavation unit, carefully clearing away each level and placing the loose material in buckets to be screened by workers at the top. Hayes came and went on his own in the Rover, explaining that he was finished with the villages between Bacalar and Carrillo Puerto and now would be concentrating on those to the west. Blackburn, too, came and went, but that was the nature of being project director: The leader never had the luxury of settling into a work routine.