The River of No Return

by Jon Voelkel

  “Here goes nothing,” said Lola, handing the machete to Lord 6-Dog.

  A vulture hovered above her, waiting for breakfast.

  Max watched in horror as she edged out on her stomach, her backpack strapped tightly to her back, crawling along like a snake. It took an age, but she made it.

  “Come on, Hoop! Your turn!”

  “I can’t do it,” said Max. “You guys go ahead; I’ll go back to Eusebio. We’ll meet you at the White Pyramid.”

  “No, young lord,” said Lord 6-Dog, “we stay together. The Undead Army is on our trail. To separate now would be suicide.”

  Max had watched enough horror movies to see the sense in his argument. But the bridge looked like suicide, too.

  “I will go ahead of thee,” offered Lord 6-Dog. “If thou hast need of it, hold my tail. Look straight ahead. Do not look down.” The distinctive blast of the conch shell echoed over the forest, much nearer now. “There is no time for hesitation, young lord. The enemy is at hand.”

  Max swallowed.

  Lola had done it. He could do it.

  “Art thou ready?”

  Max nodded.

  The surface of the tree was wet and slimy and rotten in patches. The slipperiness made it harder to hold on to, but easier to slide his body over—that is, if he could ignore the slugs and larvae that were living—and pulsating—in the rotten wood. As he pulled himself across, the log groaned ominously under his weight, but he kept going. Inch by inch, he focused on the black fur of the howler monkey in front of him, the hard little pads of his feet, the way he waved the machete like a buccaneer, the way his tail swished around for balance.

  “Nearly there, young lord,” called Lord 6-Dog.

  In reality, Max guessed, they were about halfway.

  A column of ants marched toward him, their antennae waving in excitement. He tensed. He’d been crossing a log bridge in the jungle once before when ants had bitten him and made him fall off. That time he’d landed in a few inches of muddy water; this time, he would plummet to certain death.

  Lord 6-Dog sensed his terror. “It is just a patrol of army ants. Pay them no heed,” he coaxed.

  “Army ants! Dad said they can dissolve a wild pig in two hours, snout to tail.”

  “The Undead Army works faster than that,” Lord 6-Dog reminded him, trying to squash as many ants as he could. “Move, young lord. Move!”

  Max edged forward. He could feel ants crawling under his shirt. He was sure he could feel his skin dissolving.

  Slowly, slowly, he reached behind him to brush off the ants.

  And crack! The tree trunk underneath him splintered, bending down in the middle.

  Max screamed as the center of the trunk dropped down several feet. He found himself at the midpoint of an increasingly U-shaped tree trunk. It was still weighted on the bank by its massive buttress roots but in a quick, desperate glance back, he saw that there was very little of the trunk now resting on the other side.

  It was only a matter of time before this log, the one thing between Max Murphy and certain death, split in two.

  The vultures swooped lower, waiting.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Max could see the rocky riverbed, far below.

  Far, far below.

  Lord 6-Dog came back to him. With creaking and popping noises, the trunk splintered more and dropped lower.

  “I can’t move,” gasped Max, his knuckles white from gripping the tree trunk.

  “Grasp my tail,” urged Lord 6-Dog, “I will hold thee.”

  “But what’s supporting you? This tree’s going to fall.”

  There were more blasts of the conch shell, louder now, and Max could hear the war cries of the Undead Army. He didn’t dare turn round to look, but he sensed that the vanguard was arriving at the other edge.

  An arrow hit the tree trunk and fell to the stream.

  Lola threw a rope to Lord 6-Dog and, miraculously, he caught it.

  “I will tie this around thee. Do not move, young lord.” (A spurious command, as Max was frozen with terror.)

  An arrow flew over the howler’s head.

  Having tied the end to a large tree, Lola looped the rope around Bahlam, and the jaguar heaved with all his might.

  “Stay low, young lord”—another entirely unnecessary command—“and keep moving. Thou canst not fall.”

  Max severely doubted the accuracy of the statement, but he clawed his way forward as bravely as he could.

  Ducking arrows, Lord 6-Dog bounded back to help Lola.

  As Max pulled his legs up behind him, a flurry of arrows embedded themselves in the place where his feet had just been, cracking the tree trunk further and sending large splinters into the gorge.

  “Nearly there,” urged Lola, holding out her arms.

  With one last push, Max grabbed her hand and made it, unharmed, to solid earth. He gave silent thanks that his traveling companion was a girl who always had a rope in her bag and knew how to tie slip-proof knots.

  As soon as Max was safe, Lola crawled back out on to the tree trunk and began chopping at it with the machete.

  “Come back,” shouted Lord 6-Dog.

  “Come back!” screamed Max.

  Bahlam growled, evidently saying the same thing in jaguarspeak.

  “Just give me a moment,” called Lola. “If I can weaken it a little more, it will break when they run across.”

  “Come back now!” commanded Lord 6-Dog. “That is an order.”

  Max watched in horror as more and more undead piled onto the bridge, pushing and jostling. A few of them fell into the abyss, but their fellow zombies didn’t seem to notice or care. They walked across slowly like tightrope walkers.

  Still Lola hacked at the wood.

  An arrow pierced her arm.

  She let out a cry of pain and dropped the machete. It fell to the river below with a silent splash.

  Max could see the fear in her eyes as she slumped down onto the tree trunk.

  “She’s going to fall,” said Max.

  But even before the words had left his mouth, Bahlam had padded out and grasped the collar of her shirt in his mouth. Lord 6-Dog went to his aid and, with arrows raining down around them, they half carried, half dragged her back to land and laid her in a thicket for cover.

  Bahlam gently licked her wound.

  “How are you?” Max asked her. “Does it hurt?”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  “We need to keep moving; they are almost upon us,” muttered Lord 6-Dog as he dressed her wound with a long thin leaf and a piece of vine.

  “Will she be okay?” asked Max.

  “This soursop leaf should hold off infection. It will not, alas, hold off the Undead Army.”

  Bahlam watched with anxious eyes, then turned and bounded back onto the log bridge. He positioned his heavy, muscular body at the weakest point, the spot where Lola had been cutting, and faced the advancing army.

  Lola opened her eyes. “Bahlam! No!”

  When the jaguar roared, the zombies froze in their tracks.

  There was a loud, horrible cracking noise. The trunk split in two under the jaguar, and both parts crashed to the bottom of the chasm, where they lay across the river, as tiny as matchsticks to Max’s eyes.

  Bahlam and the zombies fell with them.

  Stunned and grief-stricken, Lola dragged herself to the edge. “Where is he?”

  Max looked over. “I don’t see him,” he said. “There are so many zombie bones down there, it’s like a skeleton scrapyard.”

  “Ix Sak Lol!”

  Max had never seen Lord 6-Dog so angry.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” cried Lola. “Poor Bahlam. Do you think he could survive that fall? It was all my fault—”

  “Aye,” said Lord 6-Dog.

  “You think he survived?” Lola’s eyes were full of hope.

  “I think the fault was thine. Thou didst imperil us all. And brave Bahlam has paid the price for thine insubordination.”r />
  Lola nodded sadly. “It would have been better for him if I’d left him at the hotel. At least he would still be living.”

  “Thou canst not call that living.” Lord 6-Dog’s tone was softer now. “Better that he smelled the forest one last time.”

  Lola stared mournfully into the chasm. “We should say some words.”

  “Bahlam wants not thy words. He wants thee to live. That is why he died. Let us not squander his sacrifice. The bridge is destroyed, but the Undead Army marches on.”

  Max looked across to the other side. For each zombie warrior that had fallen, a hundred more lined the cliff edge, hurling spears and shooting arrows. Some of them had begun climbing down the rock face, intending to cross the hard way.

  Max stood up, but Lola remained sitting. She looked drained of life, like a rag doll. “I can’t go on,” she said. “I feel so tired.”

  Lord 6-Dog put a hairy hand on her forehead.

  “What is it?” asked Max. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “I fear that the arrow was dipped in the secretions of the poison dart frog.”

  “A poison arrow?” Max swallowed. “Is there an antidote?”

  Lord 6-Dog didn’t answer.

  “It is what I deserve,” whispered Lola.

  Suddenly, Lord 6-Dog wheeled around. “Where is thy pack? Thou hast the White Jaguar?”

  “Is that all you can think about?” asked Max in disgust. “Lola is wounded, and you’re worried about a stupid Jaguar Stone?”

  “We can use it to save her,” replied Lord 6-Dog.

  “We can?” Max looked confused. “It’s … it’s in her backpack. But how …?”

  “We must make haste to the White Pyramid and use the stone to summon the goddess Ixchel. Among her many talents, she is a patron healing. She alone can save Ix Sak Lol.”

  “But she cannot save Bahlam,” murmured Lola sadly.

  “Rally thyself, Ix Sak Lol. What is done is done. Now thou must honor the memory of Bahlam by fighting the poison in thy veins. Wilt thou do it? For Bahlam?”

  Lola staggered to her feet.

  “Prithee, look after her,” Lord 6-Dog instructed Max. “Keep her walking and talking. Do not let her rest. This trail will take thee straight to Ixchel. I will go ahead to make preparations. Give me the backpack.”

  They watched as Lord 6-Dog swung away through the trees.

  “Can you walk?” asked Max.

  She took a step. “Do you hate me? I hate me.” Her voice sounded slurry.

  “Bahlam died trying to protect you—that’s what he was supposed to do, right? That’s what he would have wanted.”

  “But I was stupid. I endangered him. I should have listened to Lord 6-Dog.”

  “You can’t always be perfect.”

  “I miss him.”

  Max missed Bahlam, too. He’d been the symbol of everything they were fighting for, the one good thing they had to show for all the horrors of the past two days. Now he was gone. The last jaguar of the Monkey River had given his life for theirs, and Max wasn’t sure it was a fair trade-off.

  “Let’s just get to Ixchel,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want to go there. And we’ll have to use the Jaguar Stone, after I promised you that we wouldn’t use it. I gave you my word.”

  “It’s okay. No big deal. Let’s just get there.”

  “I broke my promise to you and I broke my promise to Bahlam.” Tears rolled down her face.

  “Just promise you’ll keep walking.”

  Lola trudged along in a wretched silence, her pace getting slower and slower.

  Remembering Lord 6-Dog’s instruction to keep her talking, Max began to ask her questions. “So remind me, who is Ixchel?”

  “She’s the moon goddess. She has a companion, a rabbit.”

  “The moon rabbit? I remember now. My mom told me about him. I used to wave at him from my bedroom window. But what does Ixchel do exactly?”

  “She sends floods when she’s angry.”

  “That’s it?”

  “She’s the patron of motherhood, healing, and weaving.”

  “She sounds busy.”

  “She’s also mythical.”

  “I think we blurred that line a long time ago. So tell me about the White Jaguar.”

  “Do we have to talk, Hoop? I have a headache.”

  “I need to know this stuff.”

  Lola sighed. “The kings of the Monkey River took the White Jaguar to Ixchel to commune with their ancestors.”

  “And how did they do that?”

  “There was something called the vision serpent, like a big snake. You see it in old wall paintings. It’s like the ancestors would appear in the vision serpent’s mouth.”

  “But what about—”

  “Enough, Hoop; I’m tired. Can we sit down for a moment?”

  “No!” Max was fairly sure that if she sat down, the poison would not allow her to get up again. He cast around for a topic that would interest her. “Hey, Monkey Girl, I just had an idea! Maybe you can talk to your ancestors at Ixchel!”

  “That’s not funny, Hoop. You know I don’t have any ancestors.”

  “Everyone has ancestors. You just don’t know who yours are.”

  Lola looked at him, her eyes suddenly wide. “You mean, this could be the day I find out who I am?”

  “Why not?” Max felt bad giving her false hope, but the thought was making her walk faster, and he was anxious to catch up with Lord 6-Dog.

  With Lola now pushing herself on, they covered the distance to the ruined city and soon emerged in the main plaza of the archaeological site. Apart from the main attraction—the soaring white pyramid of the moon goddess—very little of the site had been excavated. Most of the structures were just large green mounds covered in trees.

  An overgrown path to the main pyramid led them by the cenote, its water green and inviting.

  As Max skirted the edge, he tried to imagine that terrible day when his parents had been working at this site. With a little help from the White Jaguar, that innocent-looking pool had become a gateway to the underworld. Under attack and panicking, his parents had jumped right in and found themselves taken prisoner by the Death Lords.

  Max tried to remember if there was a cenote anywhere at the Black Pyramid. He hoped not. He hoped his parents were keeping out of trouble. They seemed to have a knack for unleashing the forces of chaos and leaving their son to clear up the mess. And this mess was still a long way from cleared up.

  “This is it,” he said to Lola, “the place where all this trouble started.”

  “I’m sorry to make you come here. But something good is going to happen today. I know it.”

  Her face looked yellow and waxy, like melon rind, and tinged with sweat.

  “How do you feel?’ he asked her.

  “My arm hurts. But it’s worth it to meet my mother. I’m so excited, Hoop!”

  “Whoa! What’s this about your mother?”

  “I thought it through on the trail. Ixchel is the goddess of motherhood. Why else would Bahlam have brought me here?”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t get your hopes too high.” But Max could tell from her feverishly glittering eyes that she wasn’t listening.

  “We better hurry,” he urged her. “Lord 6-Dog will be—”

  “I will be what, young lord?”

  Max jumped out of his skin as Lord 6-Dog dropped down from a branch above their heads. “I was about to say that you’d be waiting for us.”

  “Indeed,” replied the howler monkey. “I have done what I can to prepare for the ritual. All is ready at the top of the pyramid. I came down to look for blood.”

  “Blood?” echoed Max weakly.

  “We might summon Ixchel without candles and incense, but we must have blood to charge the Jaguar Stone.”

  “What, you mean we have to kill something?” asked Max, horrified.

  “Why not?” came a voice from the undergrowth. “It is a good d
ay to die.”

  An old man stepped out of the bushes. He carried a large woven bag across his shoulder. The shawl around his head had come unfolded, and his long white hair fell free. It had bits of leaf litter caught in it, as if he’d spent the night in the forest.

  “Grandfather?” said Lola weakly. “Is that you?”

  Chan Kan’s milky, almost sightless eyes were filled with fear. “Who are you? Are you a spirit come to seek my punishment?”

  “Don’t you know me?” Lola looked like she might faint at any moment.

  “Don’t get upset,” Max whispered to her. “He’s crazy, that’s all. You know that.” Remembering Landa’s words in the beauty salon, he gave Chan Kan a look of contempt.

  Chan Kan turned to the sound of his voice. “Are you her husband?” he asked.

  “No,” said Max coldly. “You’re confused.”

  Chan Kan waved an ancient finger at him. “You are wrong. For the first time in many moons, I am not confused.”

  “What are you doing here?” Max challenged him.

  “I have come to see Ixchel, to make an offering before I die.”

  “An offering?” cut in Lord 6-Dog. “Art thou a shaman? Hast thou blood for the ritual?”

  “The howler monkey talks?” asked Chan Kan in astonishment. “Is this Xibalba? Am I dead already?”

  Lord 6-Dog rolled his eyes impatiently. “Hast thou blood?” he repeated.

  Chan Kan nodded fearfully. “If you please, Lord Monkey, these days we use a mix of chili powder, copal, and palm oil. I also have candles, matches, and incense.” He patted his bag to show that everything was inside, and provoked a squawk of protest like the one Max had heard at the dock in Limón.

  Lola’s eyes lit up at the sound.

  “Wait, is that—?” began Max, as Chan Kan opened his bag and pulled out a small bamboo cage containing a mangy, almost bald, little chicken. “It is! It’s Thunderclaw!”

  It was the first time Lola had smiled since they lost Bahlam. She gripped Chan Kan’s arm. “You’re not going to sacrifice him, are you?”

  “We are old and tired and battle-scarred. The end is near for us both.”

  Lord 6-Dog peered into the cage, then jumped back in alarm. “The Chee-Ken? He is here?”