The Book of True Desires

by Betina Krahn

  Scrambling for a response to his abominable insight, she pushed to her feet and brushed the dirt from her hands.

  “Really, Goodnight.” She quoted him: “My business is none of your business.”

  “So there was someone. Spill it, O’Keefe.” Then he quoted her: “I’ll get it out of you sooner or later.”

  Alarmed that he remembered their exchanges so well and that the fact made her heart beat faster, she turned and headed for her tent.

  “Later is better for me.”

  She felt his gaze on her bottom as she walked away and was chagrined to realize it was a source of guilty pleasure for her.

  She had to stop this continual tête-à-tête with him, she thought. She had to get control of herself and the situation. The last thing she needed was having to explain herself to Goodnight, especially now that part of what she had to hide was her susceptibility to him. Clearly, the less he knew about her, the better off—

  A sudden movement caught her eye and she halted just outside the entrance of her tent, her senses coming alert in the predawn haze. She looked toward the trees at the edge of the clearing and saw nothing unusual. She was about to dismiss it as the activity of an overtired mind when she saw it again. Something was moving in the grass near the edge of the clearing. She held her breath, watching, searching… afraid of what she might see.

  And there it was. The line of a back… the curve of a tail…a swarm of moving spots. And just as she convinced herself it was really there—it was gone.

  February 5, Day 16

  No expenditures. Am taking off this damnable money belt. For good.

  Chaffed and rashy all over. Snakebite is killing me. Looks worse every day. Almost out of aspirin. Could use a bath. We all could. Especially Valiente. Even mosquitos won’t come near him.

  Villagers pointed us to some ruins. Longest day of my life, getting here.

  Caught O’Keefe in the jungle staring down a jaguar. Took years off my life. Damned thing just watched her and sniffed her. She just stood there, preacher-in-the-parlor polite. As curious about it as it was about her. Cool as a cucumber after. The woman doesn’t have a nerve in her body. Me, on the other hand——I was hysterical. Had visions of her being pawed and mauled. Made me physically ill. If there was ever a reason to get drunk…

  Loaded a rifle from O’Keefe’s stores. Not letting it out of my hands for the rest of this cursed ordeal.

  Later, I heard sniffing and panting around the tents after we all went to sleep. Felt like somebody stepped on my grave. Could have sworn I saw spots lurking around O’Keefe’s tent. Investigated and she nearly shot me——again.

  Delivered a burro colt in the dead of night. Now have appalling acquaintance with female burro anatomy. They named the thing after me. My “Jr.” has four legs. Should write the parents, they’d be thrilled. In moment of weakness, told O’Keefe about the family. She didn’t take it well. Probably a good thing. Less of a chance I’ll be pawing or mauling her myself in future.

  But dammit——the way she looks at me. Sometimes I see a scared, hungry little girl inside her and want to pull her into my arms ——other times there’s this wild, brazen Amazon. Other times, there’s a smart, resourceful, witty——

  Dammit. If the woman would just put on some skirts.

  Almost forgot: the most amazing array of botanical specimens all around. Vanilla orchids something of a disappointment. No promising medicinals.

  Note: Food terrible. Thank God for bananas.

  The fruit, not the guides.

  The hills did have doors.

  The strange, half-buried ruins cast no less a spell by the light of the searing tropical sun. They seemed to huddle under their blanket of earth, waiting for a signal to throw off that mantle of neglect and come to life again. As Cordelia and the others walked around the conical mounds it was clear that the villagers had been accurate in describing them as hills with doors. There were stonework openings tucked under the brow of each; some mere stone niches, others sizeable openings. The professor proposed that these were likely the tops of the taller buildings in the city or complex of structures, and the openings might lead to inner chambers.

  They assembled their equipment—lanterns, picks and shovels, rope, and materials for recording their findings— and began to climb, crawl into, and peer into all of the openings they could reach. It soon became clear the smaller mounds were too buried or deteriorated to yield much without major excavation.

  Shifting their attention to the three tallest mounds, at one end of the clearing, they chose one and entered. Cordelia insisted on going first, since she was the lightest and could test the floors as she went. At Goodnight’s insistence, they tied a rope around her waist so they could rescue her if the surface gave way or she got into trouble.

  The first mound was more collapsed inside than she expected and yielded no further opportunities for exploration. The second mound was in better condition, but equally stark, showing chisel marks on some surfaces that indicated things had been removed, but giving no indication of what.

  The final and largest mound was their only hope of finding something to guide their search. The sizeable opening was littered by rubble from the crumbling exterior, but inside, the stonework was in better condition. The professor, Hedda, and Goodnight joined Cordelia one at a time in a rectangular room that had collapsed on one end.

  If they were indeed standing on the top of a buried pyramid, according to the professor, this would be the temple chamber at the summit and it was unlikely to hold any great revelations. These ruins—he looked around sadly and fingered the now familiar chisel marks—had been stripped of valuables centuries ago. All that remained was a carcass for scholars to pick.

  To one side, they found a half-crushed stone table stained and blackened over the years. They might have left then, if Cordelia hadn’t tripped on an uneven paving stone and felt it rock under her weight. With some effort they levered that stone aside and discovered steps leading down into the heart of the pyramid. Their spirits rose as they lighted lanterns and began to descend, picking their way past the litter of stray stones and debris from the small animals that had called it home over the years. Spiderwebs draped the passage, which descended into a forbidding gloom and was partially blocked below. It took major effort to roll a large block of fallen stone up the steps and clear the passage.

  It was midday before they had could proceed, but what they found at the bottom of the steps was worth the wait and effort. Ducking through a narrow doorway, they entered a chamber decorated with faded but still amazing paintings that echoed elements they recognized from their jaguar arch rubbings.

  Near the entrance, their lanterns illuminated a fierce portrayal of a huge snake breathing flames that soon faded to the tops and bottoms of the panels as a decorative motif surrounding a procession of large, ornate human figures, which the professor identified as a succession of kings. Each king carried weapons and was accompanied by hordes of small, stylized figures representing warriors and in some cases conquered royalty and prisoners.

  The professor was beside himself with excitement. This was a record, he crowed, of the royalty of the area centuries ago. Hedda sat down immediately on a rectangular stone in the middle of the chamber and began to sketch what they saw. The professor proceeded around the chamber pulling out salient details about the rulers until he came to one that was holding a snake, who from his posture and fierce expression was locked in deadly combat with it. As they fought, the snake’s fiery breath flowed down around the ruler’s feet to engulf his warriors and the palaces near his feet. Impatiently, Goodnight shone his lantern on the corner ahead and froze.

  There, facing that tableau of destruction and chaos, another painting depicted a large human figure with the head of a cat, a huge, spotted chimera of legend, with his claws sunk deep into a massive snake who spit flames. The four of them collected before it and stood in silence, taking in the energy and passion of the portrayal, feeling chilled by the violenc
e it represented.

  “The jaguar…he fights the fiery serpent…he saves the people,” the professor whispered, removing his hat and touching the painting with reverence. “This is so magnificent…so…exquisite…so…” His voice thickened and for a moment he struggled to conquer his emotions. “Do you see?” he finally was able to say. “It tells the story of the Jaguar Spirit saving mankind!” He grabbed first Cordelia’s, then Goodnight’s arms, rocking the lanterns, then threaded his arm through Hedda’s and whirled her around and around in boyish glee.

  But Cordelia hurried past that corner to the final wall of the tableau, where she found a single scene of glory and bounty. Fields of maize and vegetables and orchards filled with fruit bloomed over the earth, and pyramids and cities were a testament to the prosperity of the people. But the rays of light carved across the landscape originated not in the pale, subservient sun, but in the head of the jaguar, who sat on a throne in the mountains above it all.

  They stood before it awed. The head of the jaguar in the painting was identical to the carving of the jaguar that dominated the arch in their rubbings. At the ruler’s feet lay the dead serpent, stretching out from the throne, across the land, to a mass of blue at the bottom.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Goodnight breathed. Then he turned to Hedda. “Do you have a copy of the snake curve—from the river?” She produced a copy that he hurried to compare to the conquered reptile. Tracing the smaller curves on the drawing with his finger, he enlarged and transferred them to the larger figure of the snake in the painting. They fit perfectly.

  Cordelia stared at the wall panel, then at Goodnight, astounded by his intuitive grasp of the symbols and their correlation to the real world. It would have taken her hours—days—to see what had occurred to him in a second.

  “We need a map,” she declared, catching Goodnight’s eye and holding it. He nodded and she couldn’t help the brimming smile that came over her before she broke away and headed for the steps.

  Twenty-two

  Minutes later, she returned with the maps Gonzales had sold them, on which she had faithfully traced their progress along the river in red pencil. Eerily, the painting on the wall seemed to be a more complete version of the map spread on the floor for study. The city shown as a complex of pyramids on the wall map corresponded with the location of the very ruins they were standing in, and from there they could extrapolate on their map the supposed location of the throne of the Jaguar Spirit. Ringing the mountain retreat of the Creator Spirit were a number of villages, from which people carried offerings toward the jaguar on his throne. The scale was difficult to calculate, but the location of the throne seemed to be only a few days away.

  As if Goodnight hadn’t been helpful enough, he noticed and commented on the precision and regularity of the rays of light radiating from the jaguar across the landscape. Cordelia stood looking at him for a moment, trying to master the confusion boiling up in her. How did he always manage to discover things no one else would have considered? Did his mind just work so differently? Was he really as rare and exceptional as she was beginning to think?

  “Isn’t there a way of measuring those angles geometrically to see if they are significant?” She turned to Goodnight, who thought about it and nodded. “These artists seemed to have taken pains to be precise. Perhaps these rays meant to indicate more than just a general location.”

  Hedda, accompanied by the professor, spent the better part of the day sketching the murals in what they came to call the Hall of Records. Goodnight retreated to camp to do some calculations, and with Cordelia’s help to plot a course from their present location toward the mountain throne that dominated the landscape. They consulted with the Platanos, who said they had not been as far as that particular mountain, but that they had been to a village at the base of those mountains and could probably find it again.

  Afterward, Cordelia and Goodnight stood together staring at the snowcapped peak that sheltered the answers they sought. Would it be the end of their adventure, or mark the start of something even more fascinating?

  “Well, enough of that,” Goodnight declared, handing the maps back to her. “I have things to do.”

  “You do? What?” she demanded, watching him disappear into his tent and emerge a minute later with his journal and what she had learned was his collecting box. “Where are you going?”

  “Out.” He picked up his rifle and tucked it under his arm.

  She watched him striding toward the dense vegetation and found her gaze settling on his taut buttocks and sliding down his long, muscular legs.

  “But what if you run into—” She bit her lip and thought of her second jaguar sighting in the wee hours of that morning. She had no doubt about what she had seen, but she had withheld it from the others, knowing they would think she was just overtired and imagining things. The thought of Goodnight out there alone, coming face to face with… thinking he might try use that gun…

  “You’re not going without me!” She headed for her tent, grabbed her hat, and went after him.

  Some minutes later, she came up behind him as he stood in a lush patch of ferns, and she paused, looking around, trying to see what he was seeing.

  “How do you know what you’re looking for,” she asked. He turned with a scowl, acknowledging her, then turned back to whatever he was contemplating.

  “I know,” he said tautly.

  “Enlighten me. Because from here it looks like you’re just roaming around the jungle munching anything that looks interesting.”

  “I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “Above my pointy little head, is it?” She watched him reach for a twig, snap it, and sniff it, and tried to keep him from popping it in his mouth. “Stop it! I won’t have you using yourself as a guinea pig for whatever plants you think may do something to the body. What if you come across something potent and deadly—something that puts you into a coma? Then where would we be?”

  “A coma?” He made a notation in his journal and moved on along the old animal trail. “How do you know about comas?”

  “I know a lot of things,” she declared, annoyed by his cavalier attitude toward his own safety. “Including some fairly reliable medical tidbits.”

  “Oh? And where did you learn these ‘medical tidbits’?” His tone was back to familiar upper-crust condescension.

  “From my father. He was a physician.” Her voice softened in spite of her. “Who contracted typhoid while combating an outbreak in a small town near us and died in spite of everything my mother and the doctor he went to help could do. I used to spend time in his office, helping with his records, tidying his medicine cabinet, running for help when he needed to set a bone. He let me watch when he did surgeries.” A smile tugged the corner of her mouth as a memory worked its way free. “He said that he’d never seen a little girl who appreciated the sight of blood as much as me.”

  “It’s a wise father who knows his own daughter.” He looked at her.

  “So, I started picking up tidbits. After he died and I was older, I worked in a pharmacy and studied books on medicines and anatomy, thinking that—” His strange expression stopped her, then jolted her back to her senses. What in heaven’s name was she doing rattling on about the dark ages?

  “Look, are we going to do this or not?” she said, jamming her hands on her waist and glancing irritably at the foliage around them. Spotting some large plants with long phallic-looking bracts, she headed straight for them.

  “We’re not doing anything,” he insisted. “This is my hunt, my project.”

  “Yeah? Well you may not have the last word on that, Goodbody.” She ripped off part of one of the big, striped leaves, rolled it up and took a bite. It was bitter and drew her mouth like alum. She gave it a chomp, then another.

  The identity of the plant struck him as she took that bite.

  “Stop! Spit it out!” He dropped his equipment and rushed to her, grabbing her jaws and squeezing to make them open, yelling, “Spit it out! D
ammit—that’s dumb cane—spit it out!”

  She felt a strange numbness in her mouth, but managed to open it and tried to do as he said. Her mouth felt thick as she tried to clear it of the leaf.

  “Don’t swallow! Whatever you do, don’t swallow!” he ordered, tilting her head back to see if they’d gotten all the leaf out. In the process she gasped and inhaled a trickle of saliva and leftover juice that caused her to cough, then to wheeze. “Shit!”

  He grabbed her by the hand and started to run with her back toward camp, yelling over his shoulder. “Breathe— just concentrate on breathing.”

  They crashed through underbrush, ignoring bends in the trail and sliding down one short, muddy slope. Her throat felt strange and her tongue seemed twice its normal size. She felt her lips with her fingers and knew they were swollen, which kicked her into a near panic—that became a full panic when she felt her throat tighten further and tried to tell Goodnight what was happening.

  She couldn’t utter a sound.

  Then suddenly, he stopped dead on the path ahead of her. She crashed into him and pounded his arm trying to get him to turn and see what was happening to her. He kept pushing her around behind him, and she fought free and lurched around him—only to stop dead herself.

  On the path in front of them was a jaguar. Standing. Watching. It’s yellow eyes shifted from him to her as she came into view. The big cat stood squarely on the path between them and their camp. For the longest minute in the history of time, they were forced to stand there, breathing, steaming, frantic…waiting to see what the beast would do.

  It turned slightly, took two steps toward Cordelia, and stopped, watching her with a look that would have given Goodnight a chill if he hadn’t been panting and sweating like a horse. It was a piercing, knowing look. Worldly. Acquisitive. Claiming. Just short of hunger.

  And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it slid away through the underbrush and was gone. Her breathing was constricted, but it wasn’t the effect of the dumb cane that made her knees feel rubbery. He pulled her toward him by the shoulders, his eyes filled with anxiety.