TWICE A HERO

by Susan Krinard

  She snorted. Ghost indeed. No such animal.

  She tested her stamina by climbing the precipitous temple stairway to the platform at the top. From this height the other tourists at the site were little more than toy figures, too distant and indifferent to share her minor victory.

  She sighed a little wistfully and started back down. The morning mist was lifting. There was still a great deal to see at the site, and even with two days in one of the local hotels she had a lot of ground to cover. During that time she had to decide exactly what to do with the pendant. She hoped that some lightning flash of inspiration would strike.

  By early afternoon, following a quick snack of beans, tortillas, and a fortifying Dr Pepper at a comedor, she hadn't had a single bright idea. She'd seen two of the main temples and one acropolis, not to mention a number of steles and related exhibits. All of it was fascinating enough. But none of it had given her a clue. She felt as if she were in the wrong place entirely.

  As if she'd missed something vitally important.

  She wandered close to the dense border of trees surrounding central Tikal, as she'd done time and time again throughout the morning. Out there, perhaps, was what she was searching for—ruins that had yet to be excavated; ancient, overgrown paths untrodden for centuries; the deep green silence of eternal nature.

  "That's where Perry and Liam would have gone, isn't it, Homer?" she said. "Liam didn't die in Tikal. You think I should take a shot, however unlikely, at finding him."

  A shiver worked up her spine. An image of Liam O'Shea rose in her mind; she didn't even have to pull out the photo. It had long since been memorized.

  "Maybe I was premature about dismissing ghosts," she muttered. "I'm beginning to think Lucky Liam is haunting me. Is he up there somewhere egging me on, waiting for me to trip his curse? Is he doomed to wander these ruins for eternity until someone lays his bones to rest?"

  "Bones, señorita? No bones here. But I show you many things."

  The voice was young and masculine and accompanied the teenage boy who stood directly in front of her. Mac was grateful she'd never had much of a blush. The kid probably thought she was nuts, talking to herself.

  But he only regarded her with an open, earnest face that bore a remarkable resemblance to the murals and carvings of the Maya of ages past—strong, hooked nose, full lips, and high cheekbones. He was skinny enough to remind her of herself. On his belt, secured by a leather loop, hung a large and imposing machete.

  He grinned at her. "You want a guide, señorita? Into the jungle? I take you. Only five dollars."

  Five dollars. An absolute bargain. I'm beginning to believe this isn't just a coincidence, Homer.

  More craziness. Maybe the heat was doing funny things to her brain. She made a mental inventory of her supplies. Just enough for a day's wandering: map, small flashlight, repellant, canteen, matches, first-aid supplies, and a few other useful items. "What did you have in mind?" she asked the boy. "I'm not prepared to hike too far out into the jungle today."

  The boy's grin widened. "Not far. You want bones? Maybe I know where."

  Well, that was too much of an incentive to pass up. Not Liam's bones, she reminded herself. Not human either. I hope. But she fished in her wallet for a sweat-dampened five-dollar bill and set it on the boy's grimy, outstretched palm. Even if this proved to be a waste of time, five dollars was not exactly a huge investment.

  "You won't be sorry, señorita," the boy said, tucking the bill in the pocket of his own threadbare trousers. "I know the best place. Venga conmigo, por favor."

  Before she could ask a single question he was off, striding away from the carefully maintained area around the central plaza and toward the border of trees. He set a remarkably rapid pace for someone who must be used to dealing with sedentary turistas. The boy hardly waited for her to catch up before he plunged into a seemingly impenetrable mass of green.

  At first there was a trail that even Mac could see. On either side the jungle formed a living wall of small trees, palms, ferns, lianas, and a hundred unfamiliar species of flora. Overhead hung the upper canopy of larger trees, with the occasional great ceiba towering fifty feet above the rest.

  Only isolated cries of birds or monkeys broke the almost eerie quiet. Mac knew the jungle wasn't as noisy as fiction often painted it, but there was something in the quality of the stillness that made the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end.

  It was as if the very jungle were holding its breath.

  Mac rolled her eyes as she tripped over a root across the path. Great. Are you putting these crazy ideas in my head, Homer? I sure as hell don't remember thinking this way before…

  "Cuidada, señorita. I cut a path now."

  She barely avoided walking into her guide as he deftly pulled the machete from his belt and began to slash at the growth into which their path disappeared. Mac glanced back the way they'd come. One part of her—the familiar, practical part—told her that it wasn't such a good idea to cut through the jungle away from the marked paths.

  There was another part of her that snorted in derision at her caution. It was the part that Homer had remembered from her childhood, that had once confronted a neighborhood bully. The part that followed the Sinclair blood. The part that could see a mere photo of Liam O'Shea and respond on a level that made no logical sense.

  "This way, señorita."

  She blew out her cheeks with an explosive puff of air and followed. The pace was much less rapid now as the boy hacked his way through the tangled mass of greenery, wielding the machete with consummate grace. Mac had more time to consider how hot it was, and notice the black flies that seemed to have suddenly discovered the presence of easy prey. She considered digging out her insect repellant and giving herself another dousing.

  But it took concentration to keep up with her guide, who exhibited a preference for scrambling through the roughest and swampiest patches of ground. Mac had been careful to come to Guatemala during the canícula—August's two-week "dry" period in the midst of the rainy season—but there was still plenty of mud. And mosquitoes. And plants whipping her in the face.

  Any number of things to discourage all but the most intrepid of adventurers.

  After almost an hour of walking, Mac was beginning to feel rebellious.

  Homer, are you watching? This had better be worth it.

  It was. One moment she was floundering in her guide's wake, and the next she walked into a tiny clearing and came face-to-face with a vine-covered ruin.

  The place bore little resemblance to the great ruins of central Tikal. A thousand years ago it had been part of the great Maya city-state, which had sprawled over fifty square miles. Now it was a crumbling collection of unexcavated minor buildings. Such places dotted the Petén, Guatemala's lowland jungle, a dime a dozen.

  But it had a very peculiar effect on Mac. She stopped and caught her breath, mesmerized. She forgot to slap at flies and mosquitoes, or brush the sodden hair from her eyes. She eased out of her backpack and crouched where she was, taking it all in.

  Wild. Ancient. Untamed in a way Tikal proper no longer was. And Mac's heart came alive as it hadn't done in the spectacular but well-trodden Maya city.

  This was what Tikal had been like when Perry and Liam O'Shea had come to the Petén. This must have been what they felt when they made a discovery, knew they could be the first Americans to see what the jungle had hidden.

  Hah. That's not you, Mac. The kid's probably brought plenty of tourists here. But nothing could dampen her strange excitement.

  This was exactly the place to enact her little ceremony of contrition for Sinclair transgressions. This could even be the place where they found the pendant. Another crazy thought that no longer felt quite so crazy. She wiped sweaty palms on her khakis and reached for the piece of carved stone that hung around her neck.

  It was warm. Hell, everything was warm here—but she'd expected stone, at least, to be cool.

  She released the pendant and stood. "I never
caught your name," she said to the guide, who'd moved off somewhere behind her. "Do you know what this place is called?"

  Overhead a macaw shrieked. Mac turned around. The boy wasn't there. She pivoted. No sign of him at all.

  "Great," she said. "Hello? Hola?"

  A mosquito whined next to her ear. She waved it away and started back down the path the boy had cut. Not a single swaying leaf hinted that he'd been there any time recently.

  "O… kay." She planted her hands on her hips and looked up through the forest canopy at the sky. Still light for several more hours, anyway. At least the kid had made her a trail to return, even if he hadn't considered an escort back to Tikal part of his five-dollar fee.

  "I should have paid him ten," she muttered. But this way he wouldn't be witness to what the crazy gringa was about to do.

  She turned to the ruins once more. Here she was, living an adventure—alone, in the jungle, with a piece of three-dimensional history smack-dab in front of her. Homer would be proud.

  And Liam O'Shea was waiting.

  The thought sobered her. She walked toward the ruins, picking her way over rubble and low brush. She crouched to examine massive fallen stone steles, patterned by Maya glyphs. Beyond was the first of several buildings, blackened by time, covered by moss and lichen and every kind of tropical vegetation that could gain a foothold.

  She walked around the nearest building. From the rear she could see something that hadn't been completely visible before—another, larger structure, and the gaping black maw of an entrance. Temple or palace; she wasn't enough of a Maya scholar to know what the building might be. The narrow-stepped stairway leading to the top of its platform did not rise very high as such buildings went. The rear of the building was butted up against a limestone ridge, and jungle growth had nearly obscured the roof and walls.

  The black square of the entrance seemed to lead right into the steep hillside. She knew that the Maya had considered their temples to be artificial sacred caves, their portals gates to the world of the gods. The doorway drew her with its mysterious promise of secrets hidden from daylight.

  On impulse she crossed the hundred yards to the building and paused at the entrance. Cooler air brushed her cheeks. She leaned against the stones and peered into darkness. There was no hint of light inside, but obviously the way had been cleared by someone, and not too long ago. That meant anything of value within would have long since been looted.

  But there was a feeling deep in her gut that her ritual must be enacted here, a place held sacred so long ago. She had to go in.

  Mac squared her shoulders and clasped her pendant. It was no longer merely warm, but almost hot to the touch. The stone must have remarkable properties of heat transference if it could take on her body's temperature so quickly and hold it so well.

  She considered removing the pendant to see if it would cool off again, but somehow she felt the need to keep it where it was until she was ready to consign it back to the earth. Superstition, she thought. But what if it was? No one was around to know she'd taken the first dangerous step from solid reality into a realm of uncertain fantasy.

  The next step was physical. She dug out her flashlight, switched it on, and started into the entrance. She didn't expect to go very far. There would probably be a series of smallish rooms, all dark and damp, where once priests or lords had carried out sacred ceremonies. She shivered a little in spite of the heat, remembering tales of human sacrifice and self-mutilation. Maya lords had routinely drawn their own blood from body parts as gifts to the gods…

  "Okay, Homer. You used to love telling me those stories when I was a kid, but they don't scare me anymore." She swung the flashlight beam back and forth, surprised that she still hadn't reached the rear of the building, or even a partition. Instead the walls came closer together the farther inward she advanced, until she was in a long, narrow tunnel.

  By now she had to be under the limestone ridge itself. She stopped to run the flashlight beam behind her, along the uneven floor and up and down the walls. Plain and bare, as she'd suspected. Disappointment washed over her.

  What did you expect? There wasn't likely to be some fantastic altar conveniently available for her ceremony. Still, the urge to keep going was too strong to resist.

  "I know what you'd say, Homer. Get to the end before you turn back." At least the flies and mosquitoes hadn't followed her. She focused the flashlight dead ahead and kept walking. And walking. Something was definitely crazy here. She'd never in her life read about underground tunnels among the Maya ruins. If such a discovery were to be made, it would have been done long since.

  She glanced at her watch, grateful for the illuminated dial. Ten minutes she'd been walking, albeit at a very plodding pace. This was crazy. If she didn't hit a wall or something in the next few yards, she was going back.

  At the requisite few yards, an instant before she turned away, her flashlight beam splashed against a wall. Stone rose in front of her, solid and implacable.

  And not plain. No, definitely not plain. The entire surface was crowded with Maya glyphs. Undefaced, unchipped, uncracked, as if time itself had stood still within this strange hallway.

  There was no other word for it than awesome. She didn't have an expert's ability to decipher the ancient symbols, but she recognized the glyphs that represented the passage of time, and dates, and the vaster measurements by which the Maya had calculated the march of eons. They had been obsessed with time, those ancient ones—time far before their first civilization, and time to come long after they had vanished.

  She stroked the light down the surface of the wall to the more conventional relief carved under the rows of glyphs. It showed a man—a lord—in full-feathered Maya regalia. But though everything else in the scene was perfectly depicted, there was something wrong with the man's figure. It seemed to be cleanly cut off halfway through the body. He was shown walking purposefully, in profile, directly into a wall. And the wall bisected his body, as if half of him had melted into it. She'd never seen anything like that before, not in any book or exhibit or in Tikal itself.

  She moved cautiously forward again; her toe brushed something that rattled and rolled under her foot. Instinctively she aimed the flashlight down, expecting rubble, though the floor here was clean of it.

  Instead, she found bones.

  Human bones.

  Mac had never been the flighty sort. She didn't jump back or scream. That kind of stereotypical female behavior had been left out of the mold that had shaped her sturdy, too-rangy body.

  So she only looked. That the bones had been here for some time was evident by their condition. There was not a scrap of flesh left on any of them, and only traces of rotted fabric that must once have been clothing.

  She followed the loose trail of leg bones to where the torso had collapsed close to the wall. Somehow the rib cage, vertebrae, clavicles, and skull had fallen in almost a straight line. Or perhaps someone had laid them out there.

  Morbid curiosity brought her closer. The bones were large; masculine, she guessed. Someone who'd been tall, well built. She winced at the grinning skull. Why did people refer to them as grinning, when there was nothing funny about the end of a once-vital life?

  She gripped her pendant again, comforted by its inexplicable heat. Who were you? A guide like that boy who led me here? A tourist who made a fatal mistake in the jungle?

  She knew there were things that could kill, even so close to a tourist center. Jaguars were too shy, and there were few predators, but nature could set traps for the unwary. And diseases. And violence, for Guatemala was not yet an easy nation.

  Mac found herself rapidly losing her enthusiasm for the adventure. Wasn't she here to mourn the death of someone who'd died in a place just like this? Whose bones might be lying, untended, where no one would ever find them—

  Her thoughts dwindled to incoherence as the beam of her flashlight came to rest at the base of the skull. Something lay among the vertebrae—something slightly darker, mo
re regular. Familiar. A stone chip, drilled through the top, the remains of a rotted leather cord twisted through it.

  Mac dropped into a crouch and leaned closer, careful not to disturb the bones.

  And she knew. She knew before she saw the chip close up, before she dared to touch it and lift it to her eyes.

  She knew exactly how it would match her own pendant, how it would be the other half of a whole once broken in two. When she pressed the irregular edge of the chip against that of her own, it fit like a hand in a glove.

  "Oh, God," she said hoarsely. "It can't be. The world doesn't work this way."

  No. Life didn't do things like this—make it so easy, so convenient, giving you a guide to lead you right to where he'd died, so close to Tikal, in a place a hundred others would have seen before you. This could not be Liam O'Shea.

  But she knew it was. She knew with a certainty beyond reason.

  "Liam," she said, tasting the name. This was all that remained of that handsome, arrogant, alive young man she'd seen in the photo.

  She'd done what Homer had asked, and more. She'd found Perry's partner. The man he'd murdered.

  She felt as if she'd been kicked hard in the solar plexus. Her knees buckled. There, face-to-face with hard reality, she bent her head and mourned. And, in her hands, the two halves of the stone chip burned and burned.

  The brief ceremony she'd planned was no longer something simple and far away. It was as real and inescapable as Liam's bones.

  What now, Homer? Do I bury him along with the pendant, and hope that will be enough? But she knew it wouldn't be, somehow. Even apologies would never be enough. Now she understood the weight of guilt Homer had felt near the end, as if Peregrine Sinclair's evil act had come to rest on her own shoulders. And only she could set it right.