by Stella Green
After quickly looking the boy over, he asked the child questions in Spanish, but he spoke only Mayan, a language the Stranger had not yet learned. The boy’s wounds were deep. Still, the Stranger believed the boy could survive. He pantomimed eating and sleeping, and when the boy pointed out a direction, the Stranger picked him up and began moving through the rainforest as fast as he could. A few hundred yards later he heard monkeys squealing overhead and stopped to look behind him for the jaguar. As the moments passed, the Stranger became impressed by the boy’s stillness and quiet. He was clearly a child of the jungle who understood how to hunt.
Pink orchids swayed even though there was no breeze. Behind them he could see the cat’s yellow eyes. If it hadn’t moved, the Stranger wouldn’t have been able to see it, because its jungle camouflage was amazing. As if it knew it had been spotted, the cat climbed a huge cedar tree and crawled out on a limb to watch them.
The Stranger knew the jaguar would continue to follow them and eventually attack from behind. With the child in his arms, the Stranger would not be able to fight. He had to end this now. He laid the boy on the ground and faced up to the big cat. The engravings in the ruined temples that he had seen showed the jaguars as gods. He could understand why the people had worshipped them and he didn’t want to harm the big cat, but he had no choice. When the cat snarled at him, the Stranger took aim and threw his walking stick like a javelin. It slammed into the Jaguar’s soft stomach. The creature screamed in pain as it fell twenty feet, and then lay motionless. If it was only wounded, death would be slow and painful, so the Stranger smashed it over the head with his walking stick. He had no time to mourn the loss of the great cat because the boy was still bleeding.
When he stepped out of the jungle and crossed a small cornfield near a village, the men tending the corn stared. His bloody arm and the boy’s very bloody torso must have made for a startling sight. The child called out to them and they all rushed over. In spite of his wounds, the boy continued to talk excitedly as two of them gently took him from the Stranger. A third tried to take the Stranger’s rucksack. The Stranger held on to his pack, but when they indicated he should follow, he did so.
The Mayan men came up to his shoulder, but they were strong, lean men who looked like they were used to hard work. Tall, healthy-looking stalks of corn grew in the field they had carved out of the jungle. As soon as the other villagers spotted the boy and the Stranger, people began calling out and speaking rapidly to one another and the small village swirled with activity. The women were dressed in brightly colored clothes with complicated patterns. As they rushed about in the colors of the jungle birds, the Stranger struggled to take it all in.
An older man stepped out of a hut. He wore white clothes with a vivid scarf tied around his waist. His hair was black, but his skin was deeply furrowed with wrinkles. Villagers moved aside to allow him through. After listening to the child, he gestured toward the thatch-roofed hut. Without asking permission, he examined the scratches on the Stranger’s arm. In Spanish he said, “I am a priest and I will heal you.”
The shaman prepared a poultice of plants. It had an unrecognizable, bitter smell, and the Stranger didn’t want it applied because he knew he would heal quickly without the reeking herbs. He pointed to the child, but the shaman was clearly used to people doing as he asked. He paid no attention and continued to treat his village’s guest. When he smeared the mixture over the gashes, it was cool and soothing, and the pain began dissipating until it was only a dull irritation. While the Stranger sat, the shaman stood above him waving his hands and reciting an ancient prayer. Every few minutes he stopped to toss herbs on the fire. The smoky herbs made the Stranger calm and drowsy.
The villagers brought him tortillas, some gamey meat he didn’t recognize, and wine in a dried gourd. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he dozed peacefully. In the morning light that filtered through the hut, he saw that the walls were simply straight tree branches tied together. Gaps between the poles made stripes of shadow and light along the dirt floor. He was surprised that the hut was so flimsy, but then he realized that he still thought like a man from a cold climate. In the jungle the spaces between the tree branches allowed cooling breezes through the hut, which was exactly what they needed here. Feeling a now familiar itch, the Stranger glanced at his arm and immediately slapped the mosquito that had just landed. A bit of blood smeared where the insect had been drinking. Of course, the mosquitoes, tarantulas, and scorpions found the gaps, too. The insects weren’t a problem for the Stranger because he would heal in minutes, but the villagers couldn’t escape them. The Mayans must be sturdy people.
A woman brought him tortillas and beans for breakfast. She wouldn’t look directly at him or acknowledge him when he tried to thank her. He guessed she was shy. Her serene face didn’t give any clues to her age, and even though her bright clothes were bulky, he could tell she was petite and curvy. While he was still eating, the woman returned with a beautiful scarf. She placed it near him and began to slip away.
“For me?” He laid his hand on the cloth, which was smooth and finely woven.
She paused and looked up smiling for an instant, then hurried off. There was something mischievous and slightly naughty about that grin. She looked like she’d broken a rule and was pleased about it.
Normally he wouldn’t have accepted a gift from people who had so little, but the scarf was lovely and he sensed that something about it was special. When he gathered his belongings, he tucked it in his pack.
The shaman stood in the doorway, blocking his way. “You need to be here.”
The Stranger gave his thanks for the food and medicine even though he knew the healing had nothing to do with the shaman. It seemed better not to mention the cloth. “I have many miles to travel. I must leave.”
“To fight the jaguar god and survive is a sign.” Pointing to the rapidly healing scratches on the Stranger’s arm, the shaman nodded his approval. “This is the sign of a protector, a great warrior. Your destiny brought you here. I am a priest of the old gods. I read the stars. Two months ago the stars told me a northern man was coming. You will stay. Your name will be Sak Balan. It means White Jaguar.”
The Stranger found the shaman’s confidence almost funny. He wished he believed in this man’s powers, because if there was a seer who could read his destiny in the stars and point him toward the place he belonged, it would be a comfort. The Stranger had no such illusions. Every place he visited had evil people with putrid sores and decay. He didn’t know when the trouble would start, but it always did. The worst part was the suffering of the innocent. He had learned to stay away from people because something about his presence seemed to put them in danger. He could fight. Defeating evil was possible, but the cost was high.
“Your people will suffer if I stay.”
“The stars tell me a different story.”
“My story is very dark. You are waiting for someone else.”
“Tell me your story.” The shaman pointed to the ground near his hut.
The Stranger meant to leave, yet he found himself doing exactly what the shaman wanted. Again. He told the shaman that he had been battling evil for a long time. An evil being followed him and brought disaster to everyone he cared about or who helped him. “I can’t stay because he will find me, and you and your village will be the victims.”
The shaman listened, nodding as if the problem of a powerful evil spirit was serious, yet not unusual. “He is like Juan Noj, the mountain lord that enslaves men’s souls and makes their rotting bodies work for him. I do not know your demon, but I know how to fool him.” He explained that he could cast a spell of protection that would make it impossible for the evil spirit to find the Stranger.
The Stranger hadn’t spoken about decaying people. He kept that a secret because no one else could see them festering and he was worried that people would think he’d gone mad. Still, the shaman seemed to understand what was happening. He also had a potent talent for persuading others.
Maybe it was fatigue or the herbs, or maybe it was the charming little Guatemalan woman who had brought him food, but the Stranger agreed to stay.
The entire village spent the next day preparing for the protection spell. Huge amounts of corn were ground, vegetables were chopped, and dried meat was made into stews. In the morning everyone loaded themselves with sacks or gourds and followed the shaman through the jungle to a cave, which contained an altar with elaborate carvings. First the shaman built a fire at the altar. Then the men danced for hours while the women watched. The women feasted separately, but everyone drank together. There was much wine. The entire group, including the children, stayed awake through the night and the next day. A heavy perfume filled the room every time the shaman tossed a lump of plant resin on the fire. The resin was followed by herbs and plants. During the entire ceremony, the shaman chanted and prayed. The woman who had been bringing the Stranger his food brought her own offering of three candles and another lump of resin.
“That is the mother of the boy you saved.” The shaman pointed to her as she lit her candles.
“She’s here? Her son was horribly bitten.”
“Another child watches him. I told her he will be healed. Why should she not celebrate? It is lucky to have the mark of the jaguar. Her son will be strong and favored. He did not fight a jaguar like you, but it is still a good sign. She is a widow in need of a husband.” The shaman tapped him on the chest before returning to the altar and slitting the throats of three chickens. Singing loudly, he sprinkled the blood into bowls and across the altar.
The next few days in the village felt lazy and sinful. The men refused to let him hunt or farm. The women were busy weaving and grinding corn. He could hear them all gathered together laughing and swapping stories, but when he came near, they went silent. With nothing else to do, he spent hours kicking a round gourd with some small children. But he wasn’t a babysitter.
He saw the shaman watching with a smile. “Your people are scared of me.”
“They are grateful that you are here.”
“The men don’t trust me with their weapons or farm tools. The women won’t even look at me.”
“We all have our purpose, and all are important. Yours is to protect, not to hunt or farm. A good Mayan woman does not talk to strange men. You must give them time. White men have not been good for our people or the land. The Spanish did not bother us much here, though. The jungle was too hard for them.” He laughed.
“I can’t just lie around and let them feed me. I’m not a lazy man. I can protect and still work.”
So the next day the Stranger went into the forest and began learning the art of hunting monkeys. Part of the hunt was a prayer before the killing. When he borrowed a spear and brought down a mule deer without saying a prayer, the others knelt down and left a gourd of wine where the animal fell. The deer was so large it meant a communal barbecue for the village. The shaman must have spoken to the women, because when the hunters returned, the women didn’t avoid the Stranger anymore. The boy’s mother greeted him and handed him a gourd full of wine.
While the mule deer roasted in a pit, the wounded boy stepped out of his hut for the first time. He walked slowly, supported by his mother. The others called out happy greetings, and the shaman translated as the child thanked the Stranger. Then the shaman pointed to the mother and said, “This is Itzel. Did I tell you she is a widow? But still young. She can have more sons.” With that he gave the Stranger another thump on the chest.
A month later the Stranger married Itzel and became a farmer. The soil was good, the corn grew fat, and the forest provided game from tapirs to spider monkeys that Itzel cooked in their barbecue pit. She also wove beautiful cloth and filled their hut with her laughter. She taught him Mayan and explained the meanings of the designs in her cloth. All the women of the village wore blouses covered with the village’s design. When they met other Mayans for trade, everyone knew one another’s villages just from their clothes. Over time he realized that the shaman had healed him—not from the scratches of the jaguar, but from the ones in his heart. Eight happy years passed.
During the harvest in the eighth year, a Mayan man from across the valley, dripping blood from several wounds, limped into the village. He and some others had been taking cloth and corn across the mountain to trade and had stopped to rest and gossip at a nearby village. In the middle of the night, a band of Salvadorans had attacked. Two of them had guns, and they shot many people before burning the huts and leaving the survivors homeless. The man told them that even though the whole village fought back, there were still many robbers left. “They killed us like mosquitoes.” He urged the villagers to flee.
The Stranger, who now spoke excellent Mayan, picked up his walking stick. “Where are these men?”
In spite of his wife’s protests, the Stranger headed off alone to find the invaders. As he left, he could hear the shaman calling him back, and even though the shaman sounded desperate, he kept going. The old man’s rituals took too much time. Some of the villagers ran after him, but they couldn’t keep up. He had to stop the criminals before they got near his village. Besides, he did not need a protection spell in order to fight. He had more than a century of experience battling evil men.
Smoke from the burned huts led him to the carnage. The attackers were still there among the ruins—not just evil, but also stupid, because they had no shelter, either. One was on the ground, shirtless and snoring loudly. As the Stranger got closer, he could smell the wine on him. Some gourds of liquor, a bit of corn, and some pretty cloth: that was all these people had to steal, and yet a village had been slaughtered. The man’s chest, covered with peeling gray skin, rose and fell with his snores. Black beetles were devouring his dead flesh and mating on an exposed rib. Out of his open mouth dripped globules of pus. It had been years since the Stranger had seen people covered with proof of their evil. The Mayan villagers weren’t free of bad behavior, but their crimes were petty and caused by emotion: jealousy, anger, and fear. There had been no murders, no rapes, and no acts more serious than a fistfight or the theft of a gourd of wine. The shaman judged the offenders, punishment and restitution were ordered, and life went forward with forgiveness.
However, these men dripped evil—just like the ones in the life he had left behind. They had murdered people who would have happily shared. Guatemalans treated their guests well. The smoldering houses and the massacred bodies of the villagers, including children, filled him with rage. These could be his people. A bloodied, naked child cried as she wandered through the smoke. Behind her a man whose face was covered with fuzzy blue mold yelled at her in Spanish to be quiet. When she continued to cry because she didn’t understand him, he threw a rock and knocked her down. The Stranger moved quickly and surprised the man with a blow to the head strong enough to kill him. He pulled the child to her feet. “Run.” She seemed too scared to move, so he pointed toward the jungle and repeated, “Run!”
Using his walking stick, the Stranger poked the snoring man on the side where his skin still looked normal. The drunk just rolled over. Before the Stranger could give him a harder poke, he heard noise behind him. Two others were advancing toward him with machetes. The Stranger turned to face them, and when they were close enough he brought the stick down with a swooping swing that clipped one in the solar plexus and the other in the knees. Then, reversing the arc of the swing, he brought the stick back from the other direction, hitting the first one in the side of the neck and breaking the vertebrae. Continuing the swing, he flayed the other across the ribs.
A bullet whined past. The Stranger dropped to the ground and crawled behind the ruins of a hut. He had been warned about the guns. Around him the ground thudded as four shots were fired at the burned-out home. The shots were spaced out rather than rapid—they were conserving their ammunition. He took cover in a barbecue pit and pulled a nearby section of roof thatching across it. Charred bits of wood crunching under the men’s feet told him they were advancing. When they got c
lose, he heard them reload and quietly separate so they could come at him from both sides. The Stranger lay still until one of them was almost on top of him. Then he brought the walking stick straight up into the man’s groin. The man gasped, in too much pain to scream. He would not father any more children. One more hit and he was unconscious. The second shooter fired, so the Stranger pulled the gun out of the first one’s limp fingers. The robber had no cover, but the Stranger was protected by the barbecue pit. Throwing down his gun, the man put his arms up. At that point two Mayan men with stone hatchets stepped from the jungle. One sliced the surrendering man’s throat while the other picked up the gun. As the Stranger watched, more Mayans materialized from the jungle and quickly killed the wounded attackers. For the drunk, death came so quickly that he did not even fully wake up.
The stunned and confused villagers walked through the debris searching for their loved ones. Wails of suffering and grief came with every gory discovery. The Stranger felt an evil presence that he hadn’t encountered for years. Mr. Dark was close. The thought filled him with dread, and an icy coldness gripped him deep inside his chest. A few survivors tried to thank him, but the Stranger had no time. Running toward his village, he crashed through the jungle with no regard for his body. He suffered more wounds from trees and tangled roots than from the fight with the robbers.
When he reached his village, there was a creepy silence—no happy chatter, no children playing, no corn grinding. He hoped they had fled into the forest, but as he entered, he saw the bodies lined up, side by side, and stacked neatly in the center of the village. They had been gutted and decapitated, butchered like animals. He knew them all so well that even mutilated he could recognize them. His family and the shaman were not there. As overwhelmed as he was by the day’s death and tragedy, he still had hope that his wife and child had survived. Looking up from the corpses, he saw a body hanging from a tree. The head was still attached, so it was easy to recognize the shaman. The Stranger walked toward the body with a growing sense of despair. The shaman’s belly had been hollowed out, butcher-style, just like the rest. Inside him, where his stomach used to be, was Itzel’s head. The Stranger staggered backwards and tripped over a bloody metate. His hands landed in piles of intestines. Scrambling to his knees, he retched until his stomach was raw. For hours he howled out his mourning. Even after he lost his voice, he continued the raspy roar of pain.