The River of No Return

by Jon Voelkel

  “Massimo Francis Sylvanus Murphy, meet Lord Eek’ Kitam,” boomed Ah Pukuh, when the warrior stood in front of them. “In Mayan, Eek’ Kitam means Black Peccary. But for you, he means bad news.”

  At a nod from Ah Pukuh, Eek’ Kitam stuck his spear in the sand, took his ax, and, with jerky movements, swiped it lightly across Max’s cheek.

  A recent recruit to the Undead Army, he still had some flesh on his bones and patches of crispy brown skin.

  “Ow!” Max’s fingers touched blood.

  “Sharp, isn’t it?” crowed Ah Pukuh. “We Maya may not have had metal, but our obsidian blades were sharper than your steel scalpels. Now watch this.”

  Ah Pukuh took the ax and plunged it deep into the warrior’s chest.

  Eek’ Kitam didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. He didn’t bleed.

  He just calmly pulled the ax out of his wound and stood to attention.

  “Ta-da!” The god of violent and unnatural death turned to Max. “So you see, you cannot win. If the girl does not return the stone, I will send Eek’ Kitam to get it. And he will take both your hearts.”

  Eek’ Kitam smiled and nodded. He made a noise like a death rattle.

  “No! You can’t do this! You keep changing the rules! It’s not fair!”

  “It’s good to be working with you again, Max Murphy. I’ve missed your constant bellyaching. Remember how we rode the tour bus across Spain with the band? Those were the days, weren’t they? I think I could have made it in the music business.” Ah Pukuh’s ponytail bounced wildly as he rocked out to some air guitar.

  Eek’ Kitam tried to copy him, using his ax as a guitar.

  “Nice ax!” quipped Ah Pukuh. He nudged the zombie. “Get it?”

  Eek’ Kitam remained expressionless.

  “That’s the trouble with the living dead. No sense of humor.” Ah Pukuh turned back to Max and affected a rock-star drawl. “Still playin’ rock ’n’ roll, Maxie? Wanna get together and jam some time? Play some licks?”

  “I’m a drummer. I don’t play licks.”

  “No? Pity.” Ah Pukuh stuck out his fat tongue and wiggled it. “Licks sound like something I’d be good at.”

  Max looked away, disgusted. “Why don’t you just get out of my life?”

  “No can do, Maxie boy. And here’s something else I should make very clear. If you mention a word about this to your doting parents, I will drag them back to Xibalba faster than you can empty a room with one of your drum solos.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “You keep telling me what I can and can’t do. But the fact is, you’re on my turf now, and I can do anything I like.”

  As Max took in the bad news that once again his life was in the hands of this bloated bully and his deathly cohorts, gray rain clouds gathered and blocked the sun.

  “There’s a storm coming,” said Ah Pukuh. “You might want to take cover.”

  He nodded toward the sea, and the phantom army marched out of the water and lined up on the beach. The first rank somehow hoisted Ah Pukuh’s massive weight onto their insubstantial shoulders and bore him away, sitting cross-legged and holding up his palm-leaf umbrella like an Indian raja, with Eek’ Kitam leading the charge.

  Max leaned against the rock, his legs buckling beneath him. The smell of Ah Pukuh, the ferocity of Eek’ Kitam, the impossibility of what had just happened, made him feel nauseous. As the first raindrops began to fall, he put his towel over his head and trudged back up the path to the site.

  The first person he met at the top was his father.

  “Perfect timing, Max! Come and help me get this equipment out of the rain.”

  “Didn’t you see me down there, Dad? I was waving at you.”

  “Were you? I’m sorry. Must have had my reading glasses on.” His father took a closer look at him. “Are you all right, Max? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He noticed the blood on his son’s cheek. “Your mother’s not going to be happy about this,” he said. “What on earth have you been doing?”

  “Tell me again how this happened, bambino,” said Max’s mother that evening as she cleaned the cut on his cheek. “It looks like a knife wound.”

  Max winced at the sting of the antiseptic. “There are some sharp rocks on the beach, Mom,” he explained lamely.

  “Stop fussing over the boy, Carla,” snapped his father. “The big question is, what about the looting in the pyramid?”

  “What looting?” asked Max.

  “One of the workers spotted signs of activity on the top platform. It looks like someone has forced their way in.”

  Or out, thought Max.

  “What I don’t understand,” said his mother, “is how this could happen in broad daylight?”

  “We’ll leave that to the police to work out.” Max’s father put his head in his hands. “This is such bad news. It will mean weeks of paperwork. I hope it won’t derail the dig. The workers are spooked enough as it is, without this kind of trouble.”

  “Calm down, Frank. There may be a simple explanation.”

  Max wished he could tell them that the culprit was almost certainly a dead Maya warrior called Eek’ Kitam. But Ah Pukuh had sworn him to secrecy, and the last thing he needed right now was to send his parents back to Xibalba. It had been hard enough to rescue them the first time.

  Besides, Max reasoned, by reporting a looting at the Black Pyramid, his parents might save themselves from Ah Pukuh’s clutches. The police would move in and the dig would be canceled and the Murphy family could escape to safety.

  But where was safety?

  It was a problem that Max was still mulling over, long after his parents had gone to bed. As he methodically snapped dry branches and fed them into the fire, the same questions went round and round in his brain:

  Did Ah Pukuh and the Death Lords really have the power to follow through on their gruesome threats?

  And if they did, should he try to find Lola and persuade her to give them the White Jaguar?

  Or should he be braver than any fourteen-year-old had ever been in the history of the world, and sacrifice his own life to make a stand?

  That last option made him feel sick to his stomach.

  Far across the plaza, the hulk of the Black Pyramid squatted like an evil toad, and even the shimmering moonlight couldn’t lighten its air of brooding menace.

  Max wondered if Ah Pukuh and Eek’ Kitam were in there now, high-fiving each other to celebrate a job well done. He could imagine Ah Pukuh’s many chins wobbling with mirth as he recalled how much they’d frightened the kid from Boston.

  He listened for a moment, half expecting to hear their cackles of laughter on the night breeze.

  But all he could hear was his father’s snores, the buzzing of insects, the snuffling of small animals, and the cries of night birds hunting. Way in the distance, the ocean crashed on the rocks of the headland.

  But what was that?

  Somewhere in the forest, twigs snapped and leaves rustled.

  Surely Eek’ Kitam was not on the prowl again?

  With a noise like a squealing of brakes, an animal burst into the clearing. It looked like a small hippopotamus with a bendy nose like an anteater.

  Max leapt up in fear, but the strange creature didn’t even notice him as it charged across the plaza and back into the undergrowth.

  Heart pounding, he sat back down at the fire.

  And then he heard the laughter.

  His blood ran cold.

  Someone was behind him.

  Very slowly, he turned around, braced to see Ah Pukuh, come to torment him some more.

  But standing there, hands on hips, long dark hair shining in the moonlight, backpack on her shoulders, huge smile on her face, was Lola. “Sorry if the tapir scared you, Hoop! He panicked when he saw me, and stampeded.”

  “Oh,” said Max, “it’s you.” He didn’t smile.

  “What’s wrong, Hoop? I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

  “How do I know it’s even
you? You could be a Death Lord for all I know. Tell me something only Lola would know.”

  “Like a memory, you mean?” She thought for a moment. “Like how you were jealous of Santino?”

  Max pretended to look puzzled. “Santino who? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Lola raised an eyebrow. “Santino García. We met him in Spain.”

  “Oh, him. The law eh-student. Why would I be jealous of that pretentious mommy’s boy?”

  “He e-mailed me the other day. He sent his greetings to the pelirrojo. That’s what they call people with your color hair, remember?”

  “He’s got a nerve. At least I don’t use a jar of hair gel every day.”

  And just like that, Max and Lola fell back into companionable bickering, like old times.

  “At least I know it’s you,” said Max. “No one else would stick up for Santino.”

  Lola ignored this gibe. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me something only Hoop would know.”

  “I can tell you that I’ve had a really, really bad day. Ah Pukuh sneaked up on me on the beach, and he showed me the whole Undead Army standing in the sea, and then this one guy, who’s an unstoppable killer zombie, cut me with his ax and—”

  “It is you!” said Lola, clapping her hands. “Only Hoop whines like that.”

  “Oh, ha-ha. It’s actually not funny. And you’re in big trouble, too.”

  “I know.” She groaned. “It’s all starting up again, the whole thing with the Jaguar Stones. I’m so sorry you’ve been dragged back into it.”

  “So why weren’t you at the villa when I got back?”

  She avoided Max’s eyes. “I needed to think things through. The Death Lords have been pressuring me.”

  “Look, it’s okay. I know the deal. They told you that if you don’t give up the White Jaguar, I can say good-bye to my heart.”

  She nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “So, did you think things through? What did you decide?”

  Lola didn’t hesitate. “They can have it.”

  “My heart?”

  “No, of course not. The White Jaguar.”

  Max stared at her. “You’d do that for me?”

  She blushed. “It’s for me as well. I’m sick of it, Hoop.”

  Max breathed a sigh of relief. “Me, too,” he agreed. “Besides, if you don’t hand it over, Ah Pukuh will stop at nothing to get his hands on it. So we really have no choice.”

  They sat in silence, staring at the fire.

  Max tried to process what it felt like to stop fighting, to surrender, to take his chances with the rest of planet Earth. It didn’t feel nearly as good as he’d hoped. “But it’s the right thing to do,” he reassured himself, thinking aloud. “We never could have won.”

  Lola nodded. “I feel that way, too.”

  Max looked at her curiously. “You do?”

  “When we first got involved with the Jaguar Stones, I thought we could outwit Ah Pukuh and the Death Lords. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s hopeless. We’re just two kids. What do we know? The world will have to save itself.”

  “Wow, you have changed. What’s the matter, Monkey Girl? Where’s your fighting spirit? You sound so down.”

  “It’s the Death Lords, Hoop. They’ve got to me. They appear every night in my dreams and they taunt me about having no family. They tell me I’m worthless.”

  “But—”

  Lola cut him off. “And you know what? They’re right. I’m nothing. I’m no one. I don’t even know my real name. Who am I to stand up to them?”

  “What? That’s crazy talk. What’s happened to you?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a Maya thing. Ever since the first kings claimed to be descended from the gods, bloodline is everything to us. And I haven’t got one.”

  “It’s an ancient Maya thing.”

  “Things change slowly around here, Hoop.”

  “Anyway, you do have family. You have your adopted family in Utsal. You told me yourself that Chan Kan is like a grandfather to you.”

  “But he’s not my blood.”

  “Why is it always about blood with you guys?”

  “Whatever.” Lola sighed. “I just want it to stop.”

  “So what does Hermanjilio say? He’s the one who risked everything to steal the White Jaguar back.”

  Lola shrugged. “I haven’t asked him. He’s been out of town.”

  “What? When’s he coming back? We only have until the next new moon to—”

  “I’m waaaaay ahead of you.” Lola opened her backpack and extracted a football-sized object wrapped in deerskin. She pulled back a corner to reveal a glimpse of alabaster stone, as creamy white as the moon itself.

  “You stole it from him?”

  “Hermanjilio isn’t the one getting threatened. Besides, he’s really busy at the university. He has a lot to catch up on. He won’t even notice it’s gone.”

  “He will when Ah Pukuh activates all five Jaguar Stones and all hell breaks loose.”

  “Then he shouldn’t have left me in charge of it.”

  “Can I … can I touch it?” Max asked.

  She passed him the deerskin bundle. Gently, as if there was a real cat inside, he unwrapped it and stroked the carved jaguar head of cold white stone. “This is it,” he said. “This is the stone that started everything. This is the stone that my parents activated at the White Pyramid, and kicked off this whole mess. Then they disappeared and I came to San Xavier looking for them, and then I met you.” He smiled at her. “Funny to think we would never have met if it wasn’t for the White Jaguar.”

  “My people believe that everything was meant to happen,” said Lola. “If we met, we met for a reason. If we say good-bye, we will meet again.”

  Max studied her in the firelight. She had shadows under her eyes and hollows in her cheeks. She looked thinner. She looked small and sad and flat and cold and empty.

  By contrast, the White Jaguar in his hands was feeling warmer and heavier. It seemed to settle in his arms and rest its weight on him.

  Afterward, he thought it must have been the Jaguar Stone that gave him courage.

  Because what he said next was so out of character he knew that, if he lived past the next new moon, he would spend his whole life reliving this moment. All he knew was that the old Max Murphy of Boston, Massachusetts, would have done everything he could to avoid another confrontation with the ghouls of the Maya underworld. And, last time he checked, the new Max Murphy was of the same pacifist opinion.

  But looking at Lola’s huddled form, something inside him disagreed and he found himself clenching his fists in anger. Up to this point, it was usually Lola who was the brave one, the fighter, and Max (often reluctantly) followed her lead. But now he understood very clearly that she needed his help. If he could not convince her to stand up to the bad guys, the battle was already lost. Lola was the strongest person he knew. If the Death Lords could break her spirit, they could break every man, woman and child on the planet.

  He cleared his throat. “Were you planning to give the White Jaguar back tonight? Is that why you came here?”

  “I came here to talk to you. And then … yeah … I guess … I thought … maybe … we could give it back together.”

  “Is that really what you thought? Or were you hoping I’d change your mind?”

  “What? No! Why would you even—?”

  “Here’s the thing. The Death Lords are wrong. And you know it. You’re not worthless. You’re the opposite of worthless. It’s not about who your family is, or how rich they are. You, Lady White Flower, are the coolest person I have ever met. You’re”—he searched for the word—“invincible!”

  Max did not like where this was going. He wanted to stop himself talking. But somehow the White Jaguar was egging him on.

  And Lola was listening. “Are you saying we should fight?” she whispered.

  Max felt himself nodding.

  Even as she said, “No, Hoop, it’s
over, we can’t do this,” he could see the spark coming back to her eyes.

  “Sure we can do this,” he heard himself saying. “Think about what we’ve done already. We changed the weather. We floated in time and space. I played in a rock band, and you almost became Queen of Spain or whatever your title would have been. And let’s not forget that we took on the Maya underworld—not once, but twice—and we won! We did amazing things, and it didn’t have anything to do with our blood or our genes or our families. We did them because we worked together and we trusted each other, and when one of us lost heart, the other one was brave enough for both of us. I couldn’t have done any of this stuff without you. If I’d been on my own, Ah Pukuh would’ve rolled me up in a tortilla and eaten me on day one. After everything we’ve been through, I just don’t think we’re meant to give up.”

  Lola sighed. “This isn’t your fight, Hoop. You’re not Maya—”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re a team. Like those trees Eusebio showed me, the ones that always grow together.…”

  “Poisonwood and gumbo-limbo?”

  “Yeah, one hurts and one heals.”

  “Which one am I?”

  “My point is that we don’t have to be the same to work together. Being different is sometimes better.”

  Lola laughed. “That sounds like something I’d say.”

  “I’ve been paying attention, Monkey Girl. You’ve taught me a lot.”

  Lola raised one eyebrow. “Like what?”

  “Like when you told me that if the Maya had stood together against the Spanish, they would have been invincible.” Well, it seems to me that Ah Pukuh is trying to do to Middleworld what the conquistadors did to the Maya. He’s trying to split us up and play us off against each other. He’s a bully and he needs to know that humankind is not going to take it anymore.” Max gulped. He knew this speech had only one ending. “It starts with us, Monkey Girl. Right here, right now.”

  “You really think we can do this?” Lola looked half scared, half thrilled.