The Last Mayan (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Co’oneex,” I said to Santos, readjusting the straps of my backpack. “Let’s go.”

  We headed into the jungle.

  For the first two hours, as we followed a narrow, winding trail, I noticed heaps of stone on either side of us, half hidden by the vines and undergrowth. The overhead cover was too thick for me to get an accurate satellite fix, but I judged we’d made about three miles. Under the leafy umbrella, we were spared the full heat of the sun, but the canopy sealed in the moisture so that our clothes stuck to our skin and sweat rolled down our faces. Three times Minnie called a halt and we waited while she drank from her canteen.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, after the last halt.

  “Just a minute to rest,” she panted.

  Santos looked over at me and I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it, too: This was a bad place for someone to get heat exhaustion.

  “Should we go back?” he asked.

  She took off her straw hat and fanned herself. “I’ll make it. I’m sorry.”

  “Sure you will,” Pepper reassured her.

  “How much farther?” I asked Santos.

  He looked away and gave one of his little shrugs. “Far,” he said.

  “Two hours?” I asked. “Three?”

  He nodded. “Maybe more. It’s been a long time.”

  I tried to calculate: If we ended up on the trail at night, we could sling our hammocks, which each of us carried in our packs, along with provisions. But if it took us more than a day’s walk to get there, it would take us more than day’s walk to get back. And if Minnie was about to give out this early on, how could I expect her to make it the rest of the way and return?

  I was beginning to berate myself for having given in to her request to come.

  “We’ll go slower,” I said. “Anybody who’s thirsty or tired, say so and we’ll stop.”

  Minnie nodded gratefully, her face flushed.

  “I’m ready now,” she said.

  An hour later I noticed that the heaps of stone had become less frequent, so that now we seldom saw them. Santos was using his machete now, clearing a way along a path that had degenerated into little more than a game trail. Ahead, through the trees, I saw an opening, and when we reached it Santos considered it for a moment and pronounced it an old cornfield, now fallow and grown up in weeds.

  “Whose?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  I left the others to rest under a ceiba tree and walked out into the open space to get a GPS reading. Ten minutes later I returned to the shade and took out the map.

  Minnie sat on the ground, eyes closed, back against a tree, but Pepper peered over my shoulder as I plotted our location and made a little X on the map, sweat dripping from my arm onto the paper.

  “Shit,” I said and pointed to the spot I’d marked.

  In three hours we’d gone just eight kilometers—a bare five miles. And our pace wasn’t getting any faster.

  Then Santos told me he wasn’t sure we were on the right trail.

  “But how …?” I demanded.

  “I said it was a long time.”

  “What other trail is there?”

  “There was a fork half a kilometer back. I’ll go and see and come back.”

  I sat down with my companions and closed my eyes.

  There was nothing to do in this situation but wait.

  “Maybe there isn’t any site,” Minnie said. “Maybe Santos doesn’t remember right.”

  Ordinarily I would have argued, but not now.

  I’d let my enthusiasm get the better of me. I’d been so excited over the possibility of a new find I’d forgotten the lessons of the jungle, the first of which was to not go into it unless you were fit. And it wasn’t just Minnie who was wearing down—I could feel my own fatigue now, my energy sapped by the humidity. Our water supplies were low, and, though I carried a bottle of purification tablets, finding more water depended on discovering a cenote or sinkhole, because the only river was the Río Hondo, the border between Mexico and Belize, and it was fifty miles to the east.

  If there was a site of any size, of course, there would be a cenote, because the Maya only built their cities where there was a source of water. But now I was beginning to wonder if there was, indeed, such a city at all, and, if there was, whether we would find it.

  I opened my eyes and stared up at the foliage that hid the sky. Sweat rolled down from my forehead and stung my eyes. I checked my watch. Three-quarters of an hour. Santos had been gone long enough to decide whether we were on the right path. Or had he? Maybe he’d decided to follow the other fork for a ways, to see if he picked up any familiar landmarks. Or maybe …

  I didn’t want to consider the maybe. Santos’s behavior during all of this had been strange. First he’d told Paul there was no such site, then he’d revealed to me that the site existed and offered to take me there. But now, halfway along the trail, he’d vanished, claiming he wasn’t sure we were heading in the right direction. My assessment of the man was that he was hardworking and honest. Now, though, I wondered if he hadn’t determined to lose us in the jungle all along.

  But if so, why?

  Then I caught myself: What in the hell was I thinking? There was no reason to distrust Santos. He’d told me he hadn’t been to the site for a long time. He was just trying to help.

  “Maybe we ought to think about turning around,” Pepper said. “I mean, if Santos isn’t back in half an hour. He could have been bitten by a snake or something.”

  “Yeah,” I said and closed my eyes again. A mosquito buzzed around my face and I halfheartedly waved it away. The jungle was lush, the rotting vegetation smell permeating the air, and I knew it was the odor of growing things and life, but it was also the smell of death for those so careless as to take it for granted.

  I heard footfalls on crushed grass and opened my eyes again.

  Santos was back.

  “Ahead,” he said simply. “This is the way.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “This field wasn’t here before.”

  “When was it that you last went to the site?”

  He waved his hand to show the passage of the sun many times. “Long time. Maybe twenty years. There were more people living back here then.”

  “And is the site much farther?”

  “If we leave now we should be there before dark.”

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Today was Thursday. If we reached our destination at dark we’d have to spent the first part of tomorrow in the ruins, taking pictures and making sketches, and that would mean spending a night on the trail and getting back to the site of the dig on Saturday. Not only would it cause worries, but Pepper was supposed to fly out of Cancún on Sunday, and that was three hours north along the east coast highway.

  Coming here hadn’t been a good idea and I said so to the others.

  Pepper shrugged. “I can always catch a later flight if it comes to that. It may cost an arm and a leg and I may have to fly to Houston or Atlanta, but it can be done. I think Minnie should decide.”

  The tall woman heaved herself up. “Then I say let’s go. I feel better now after the rest. I think I’m getting my second wind.”

  I pointed to the trail ahead and Santos started forward resignedly, machete slicing through a low vine.

  It was the second bad decision I made that day.

  The next three hours were the hottest part of the day. After a while the unremitting sameness of the jungle blurred into a green tunnel, with the buzz of insects almost indistinguishable from the heat-buzz in my head. I kept looking for a clearing, someplace where I could use the GPS to get a fix on our location, but the cover was absolute. When we halted for lunch—twelve-fifteen, according to my watch—nobody was hungry and we carefully marshaled our water. Conversation had dropped to an occasional monosyllable and even Santos seemed grim.

  In an hour I judged we’d come a mile and a half, what with the frequent rest stops. That put
us between six and seven miles from our starting point—maybe ten kilometers in. And according to Santos, our destination could possibly lie another ten kilometers farther on.

  By midafternoon the trail began to wind slowly upward, the gradient barely perceptible at first. Santos turned, nodding, and I sensed he was telling us he recalled this part of the journey. I called a halt and we rested for a few moments.

  “Close?” I asked, half afraid of his reply.

  But this time he nodded assent. “Close,” he said. “Maybe five kilometers.”

  Minnie groaned under her breath. “Did he say what I thought he said? Another three miles?”

  “Can you make it?” I asked.

  “After coming this far?” She gave a dry little laugh. “Hell, yes.”

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as we walked, the jungle light began to turn to a rich gold and I realized the sun was burning itself out in the west. The mosquitoes were worse now, despite heavy applications of bug spray, and we were all cursing and batting them away except for Santos, who’d broken out a pack of cigarettes and handed a couple of the smokes around. We’d torn the cigarettes open and rubbed ourselves with the tobacco, while Santos had lit up.

  “I never thought I’d see a use for cigarettes,” Minnie said, watching Santos puff out smoke to drive away the pests.

  “Well, if cigarettes kill people, just think what they do to bugs,” Pepper said.

  Minnie shifted her position on the ground. “Ow. This place is full of rocks.” She reached down and brought up a hard, gray-colored object. “Hey, this isn’t a rock.”

  She handed it to me and for the first time in hours my heart started to race. “It’s a piece of Mayan pottery,” I said. “Post-Classic, from the looks of it.”

  I held it up for the others to see and the Mayan’s face cracked in a thin smile.

  “Are you sure there’s a cenote, with water, at this site?” I asked him, daring now to believe we’d actually get there.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “There is.”

  An hour and a half later we saw the first ruin.

  The trail curved right and there it was, just around the bend, half concealed by the foliage. Nothing spectacular, just a set of stone blocks erupting from a small hill of earth split by tree roots. I sagged against one of the trees.

  “Is this it?” I asked.

  But Santos shook his head. “Maybe a kilometer more.”

  “We’re still not there?” Pepper asked.

  “Probably an outlier,” I said. “We should start seeing more and more ruins.”

  She consulted her watch. “We’d better hurry or we’re going to get caught in the dark.”

  “Minnie?” I asked, but the lanky woman didn’t answer, just nodded ahead at the trail, and we started forward once more.

  If I’d been more alert, less tired and thirsty, I would have noticed that the trail was wider now and less overgrown, and I would have asked myself why. Then, failing an answer, I would have asked Santos.

  My third mistake of the day.

  But Santos had noticed, because he called a halt on his own and told us to wait while he went ahead.

  We were all too tired to ask him why.

  An hour later the shapes of leaves and trees had become indistinct.

  “It’s going to be dark in half an hour,” Pepper said. “What’s going on with Santos?”

  I forced myself up. “I don’t like it. Before it was to see if we were in the right place but this time it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Should we go on and try to catch up with him?” Minnie asked. “He said we didn’t have but half a mile. Shouldn’t we try to make it to the ruins before dark? At least there’d be water.”

  “You’re right. If we meet Santos on the trail, fine. If not, we’ll at least be where we can fill our canteens.”

  “If there is a site,” Pepper said then.

  Minnie and I both looked at her.

  “What I mean,” she explained, “is maybe this is just an isolated group of ruins, a couple of little temples, and he was wrong. Maybe he mistook these for the beginnings of the site and it turned out there wasn’t anything else. Maybe he went three or four more kilometers looking for the main ruins and never found them. Maybe he’s lost, or as confused as we are. Or maybe he’s scared to come back and tell us.”

  “Maybe,” I said, not wanting to admit she could be right. “Another half mile and we should know.”

  But it didn’t take half a mile for us to find out.

  We began to smell it only a hundred yards farther on.

  “What’s that?” Minnie asked, nose wrinkling. “It smells like …”

  “Something died,” Pepper said. “Maybe a deer or a big snake.”

  I stopped to listen. There was a buzz in the undergrowth ahead and then I heard movement, like something scratching.

  “Wait,” I told them. “I’ll go see.”

  “I’m coming,” Pepper said, but Minnie slid down into a sitting position against a tree trunk.

  Too tired to argue, I pushed forward, stooping under a low vine and then halting as a scamper of feet made off into the jungle.

  There were more buildings ahead, gray, ghostlike hulks in the deepening evening, breaking a background of green, and between them was a row of monoliths leaning at crazy angles.

  But I was barely aware of the temples or the stelae, because I was staring at the thing in the middle of the trail.

  The scavengers had left little more than bones, and a trail of ants were still feasting on what was left.

  I turned away, my gorge rising.

  “Don’t come here,” I told Pepper, but she ignored me and then I heard her give a little gasp.

  “Oh, my God. Who?”

  The only thing I recognized was a fragment of blue cloth from the guayabera now covering white ribs.

  “Felipe Jordan,” I said.

  “But how?”

  I never got a chance to answer because the men with rifles stepped out of the forest then and opened fire and something slammed my head.

  The last thing I remembered was the ground rushing up, and then all the sounds died away and the world went black.

  NINETEEN

  When I opened my eyes everything was still black and I thought for a moment I was dead. Then I heard my name, whispered rather than said.

  “Alan.” Hands touched me and I tried to think where I was.

  “Alan, it’s Minnie. Can you hear me?”

  I started to groan and a hand went over my mouth.

  “You have to keep quiet. They may be nearby.”

  My head throbbed with pain. Something nearby stank and flies buzzed. The hand moved off my mouth and I took a deep breath.

  “You’ve been shot,” she whispered, mouth close to my ear. “We need to get you out of here.”

  My lips moved, but no words came out.

  “I heard the shots and hid in the jungle. When they were gone I came to see what happened and found you.”

  “Pepper …” It was more a croak than a word.

  “I think they took her. We have to get you out of here. It’s night. They won’t see us now unless they come back this way, and I don’t think they will. But if we’re still here when it gets light, they may kill us both.”

  She put something against my lips and I tasted wetness.

  “Drink. Just a little bit. There.” She lifted the canteen away. “If we can get you far enough away from here, maybe we can find a plant or something with water in it, like in the movies. Can you move at all?”

  I tried and felt my toes move inside my boots, but when I tried to move my body my head felt like it was inside a tornado, twisting and whirling.

  “I’m going to feel your wound. I’ll try not to hurt you.”

  Her fingers touched my head, felt backward, and I gasped as pain stabbed me. She moved her hand away.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I think you were shot in the head, on the left side. But I can’t tel
l how badly because it’s dark and I don’t want to probe and make things worse. It may have just grazed your skull. I hope that’s all, anyway.”

  “I feel dead,” I said.

  “But you aren’t, and that means something: There are places a bullet can go and miss everything. I read about it in a medical book once.”

  “A medical book?”

  “You’d be surprised what all I read while I was a librarian.”

  I lifted my own hand then and tentatively touched my wound. My fingers came away sticky and a wave of nausea rocked me.

  “Can you stand?” she asked.

  She reached under my shoulders and helped me sit up. The world started to spin, concentric waves of black against the even darker night.

  “Hell,” she said.

  “You’d better leave me here,” I told her.

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I can’t do anything. I can’t walk. I can’t even stand.”

  Silence, and I heard her panting from the effort to pull me upright.

  “Who do you think they were?” she asked. “Guerrillas? Part of that uprising thing in Chiapas?”

  “No. They don’t ambush foreign nationals. And they sure don’t kill DEA agents.”

  “What?”

  “Jordan,” I said. “Everybody thought he was a drug peddler. I think he was DEA.”

  “I thought there was some sort of law about them not operating in Mexico.”

  “That was under the old regime. Who knows what’s really going on now? Or what secret arrangements have been made? I think Jordan was down here trying to get the goods on this don Chucho character. But Jordan was supposed to contact somebody and there was a screwup.” I gulped in the warm, moist air, trying to maintain my train of thought. “He thought I might be his contact. So he tried some kind of recognition code using the expression snowbird. When I didn’t pick up on it, he knew I wasn’t his man.”

  “Who was the contact?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think the contact ever got here. I think they found out the real spy, killed him, and left the body where it would wash up on the beach to warn Jordan and anybody he might be working with. That’s why Jordan wanted to get to Chetumal: He needed to get away, slip over the border into Belize. I should have taken him.”