Quintana Roo (14 page)

Working swiftly and silently, the Mayas disarmed Hooker and the others and took charge of their packs. They examined the weapons with interest, sighting along the barrels of the rifles and expertly swishing the machetes through the air. They went through the clothing of all four, taking the knives from Hooker and Chaco and feeling over the women’s bodies somewhat more than was necessary. Connie kept her eyes averted, while Alita glared at their captors.

From the moment the spear went through Manuel, the Indians spoke not a word. They communicated with each other through grunts and hand signals. They made their orders clear with short, emphatic jabs of the spears they carried.

Chaco, the surviving
chiclero
, was the first of the group to react. He picked out the Maya who seemed to be in charge and began talking to him in the rapid, stuttering dialect Hooker had first heard him use.

Hooker moved close to Alita. “What’s the little fuck saying?” he asked.

Alita listened for a moment, then translated. “He is telling their leader that he is a friend and admirer of the Mayas and his only purpose in accompanying the gringos on this trip was to see that you did not desecrate any of the ancient holy shrines. He offers now to be of service to his new friends in anything they might desire.”

“I never did like that Indian,” Hooker said.

Two of the Mayas took a cursory look at Manuel, who lay on his back with the spear pointing to the sky. Already the
zopilotes
circled above. Assured that the big man was dead, they gestured to the leader, who nodded satisfaction. He grunted an order, and two of the Indians sprang forward with lengths of stout hemp twine to bind the wrists of Hooker, Chaco, and the women. The knots were tight, but they left enough slack for reasonable movement of the hands. Buzz was left untied and given his makeshift cane. The Mayas led them back through the brush to the trail. None of the Mayas said anything, but the way they handled the spears made conversation unnecessary.

At one point, Buzz, limping along in front of Hooker, turned to say, “I think I know where we’re going.”

“To the city?” Hooker said. “Iztal?”

“Looks like it.”

They were nudged into silence by the blunt end of a spear carried by one of the Mayas.

Up in front, Chaco continued to plead his case in a whiny voice to the leader of the Mayan party while gesturing as best as he could with his bound hands. Hooker kept his mind busy with thoughts of what he would do to the rotten little traitor if he ever got the chance.

The light was beginning to fail when they reached the wall of the city. It loomed suddenly before them out of the jungle, twelve feet high, made of perfectly fitted ancient stones. It was covered with lichens and vines but seemingly in excellent repair. It curved away from them, vanishing into the jungle growth again within a few feet. They were passed through a heavy wooden gate, which closed solidly behind them.

In seven years spent in Mexico, Hooker had seen his share of ruins — Aztec, Toltec, Mayan. But he never expected to see an ancient city like this in a state of perfect preservation and with people actually living in it.

Behind him, Alita, who had never been particularly religious, crossed herself and muttered a prayer. Connie Braithwaite gazed around wide-eyed.

Buzz turned and muttered, “This is the place. That big stone building over there, the one that looks like a pyramid, is the temple I told you about. They kept me in a hut way off to the right from here.”

In the failing light, Hooker could see all or part of a dozen good-sized buildings of stone and mortar. Along the perimeter of the wall were huts of upright stakes and interwoven palm fronds. Most curious of all was a network of leaves and branches suspended on poles so that it covered the buildings and as much as he could see of the surrounding wall. Hooker recognized it as a fairly sophisticated form of camouflage.

The five captives were herded into a round building with thick stone walls and a single entrance. The top of the doorway was so low that the two men had to stoop to enter. The heads of the women barely cleared. Two spear-carrying Mayas positioned themselves outside the entrance. A third came in with them and took up a station at the doorway.

Buzz sank to the floor with a sigh and began massaging his leg where the artificial foot was strapped on.

“You okay?” Hooker asked.

“Yeah. Just don’t ask me to kick anybody for a while.”

Hooker touched Alita on the arm. He nodded toward their guard. “See if you can talk to this guy. Find out what gives.”

“I’ll try.”

Alita walked over to the guard and spoke rapidly in the Mayan language. She punctuated her conversation with the choppy hand gestures the Mayas used, pointing to herself and to the others to emphasize what she was saying.

The guard listened impassively, giving no sign that he understood. When Alita had finished, he answered in a burst of rapid talk, pointing for Alita to return to the others.

“Well?” Hooker said when she returned to his side.

“He speaks an ancient Mayan tongue that I do not know,” she said. “If he understands what I say, he gives no sign. I tell you one thing; he does not want to be friends.”

“I suspected that.”

Hooker became aware of someone sobbing. He turned to see that Connie had slumped to a sitting position, her back against the rough stone wall, head in her hands. He knelt beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Connie seized his wrist. “God, what a dumb, babyish thing to do. Give me a minute and I’ll be all right.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I might even join you.”

She took several deep breaths, wiped her nose, and looked at him. “Thanks, Hooker.” After a moment, she said, “What do you think they’re going to do to us?”

“We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, try not to think about it.”

“Sure, you can say that. You’re so damn tough. Doesn’t anything bother you?”

“Plenty bothers me. Being where we are right now bothers the hell out of me. But I know the calmer we stay, the better chance we have of getting out of here.”

He watched Connie compose her features and guessed at the effort it cost her.

“Okay, Hooker, I’ll do my damndest to stay calm, but if we ever get back to civilization, I’m going to spend the first day doing nothing but screaming.”

“Then I’ll join you for sure,” he said.

Through the entrance to their building, they watched it grow dark outside. After an hour or so, one of the guards came in with food. Another used a knife to cut the ropes that bound them.

“Oh, boy,” Connie said, massaging her wrists, “tortillas and beans. My favorite.”

“At least they’re feeding us,” Hooker said. “That’s a good sign.”

“I’ll try to look at it that way.”

They all gathered around the single bowl and dug in. Chaco darted in long enough to scoop out a double handful, then retreated to his spot at the feet of the guard. The others ate with an appetite that surprised them.

“Nothing like being tied up and marched through the jungle all day to make you hungry,” Buzz said.

No one laughed.

After they ate, pallets of straw were brought and laid out on the floor. A guard carried in the contents of their packs and dumped them in a pile. A quick look through told Hooker that anything that might have been used as a weapon had been removed.

Under the unblinking watch of their inside guard, the four of them stretched out on the too-short pallets and tried to get some rest. Chaco, determined to disassociate himself from the others, dragged his pallet over as close to the guard as he could.

Under any conditions, it would have been difficult sleeping on the hard ground after the free-swinging hammocks. Hooker imagined all manner of little creatures crawling into his clothes and wondered how the others were doing. At least, he thought, it might help them forget their bigger problems for a while.

Sometime during the night, the rain began. At first, it was just a whisper across the roof of their building, but it soon grew to an uneven drumming as the water spilled through the leaf-covered netting above them. The floor was raised enough so the water did not run in from outside, but the dampness of the air permeated everything. Hooker could not remember a more unpleasant night.

The entrance had lightened to pale gray when two Mayas came in and prodded the captives to their feet. They were lined up against the rear wall; then one of the guards went outside. He returned in several minutes with a wrinkled little Indian dressed in an ornate blue robe trimmed in silver. He wore a spectacular headdress fashioned from the bright blue feathers of the Yucatan jay. His eyes were invisible in the shadows of their deep sockets. He raised an ancient oil lantern and peered into the face of each of the captives.

Buzz spoke to Hooker out of the side of his mouth. “We’re in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the priest. The one I saw in the temple carving up the girl.”

One of the guards jabbed Buzz in the ribs, and he shut up.

Chaco moved away from the wall with his hands held before him in a supplicating position. He spoke rapidly to the Mayan priest, his voice quivering with emotion. The old Indian listened impassively, then motioned to the pair who had come in with him. The three of them stepped out through the doorway, the two guards holding a canopy over the head of the priest to protect him from the rain.

“The little snake begs mercy for himself,” Alita said. “He offers to help these people dispose of the rest of us in any way they choose.”

“They put the spear through the wrong
chiclero
,” Buzz said.

Chaco edged closer to the silent guard at the door.

After a moment, the priest came back in with the two guards flanking him. He pointed a bony finger at Chaco and beckoned him to come. The little man obeyed, and the guards immediately took up positions on either side of him. He flashed one quick smile of triumph back at the people left behind and walked out with the priest and his guards.

An hour after Chaco had gone with the Mayan priest and guards, a boy carried in a large bowl of gray mush. He set it on the dirt floor, and after a curious look at the light-skinned people, quickly departed. The inside guard gestured at the bowl and made a grunting sound.

“God, I think he wants us to eat it,” Connie said.

“I recognize the stuff,” Buzz said. “It was my main meal for months. I’ll guarantee you won’t like it, but it’s not going to kill you.”

“What do we use for plates?” Connie asked.

Alita made a cup of her hand and showed her. “We live with Indians, we eat like Indians.”

“Oh, swell.”

They ate without enthusiasm, deciding that Connie’s comparison of the gluey mush to library paste was closer than anyone else’s.

The boy returned with a clay jug of steaming liquid and a drinking gourd.

“Could that be coffee?” Connie said eagerly.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Buzz told her.

Alita sniffed at the jug and wrinkled her nose. “Smells like quinine.”

“Look on the bright side,” Hooker said. “At least we won’t die of malaria.”

Connie poured some of the dark, opaque brew into the gourd and made a face. “Right now, malaria doesn’t seem so bad.”

The attempt at lighthearted conversation died, and they finished the meal in silence. Connie wiped her hands on her grimy whipcord pants and looked around the bare walls of their cell. “I don’t suppose there’s any place around here a person could clean up and, er, attend to the other necessities.”

“You might be surprised,” Buzz said. “The Mayas are very clean people.”

To Alita, Connie said, “Do you think you can make our watchdog understand about the bathroom?”

“I’ll try.” Alita got the guard’s attention and made broad washing motions. He watched her without expression, then leaned out the doorway and spoke briefly to one of the outside sentinels.

“Well?” Connie asked.

“I think he’s passing on the request,” Buzz said. “Everything goes through channels here, just like back home.”

After five minutes, their guard was called outside for a short conversation. He came back in and repeated the washing pantomime Alita had performed. He spoke several brusque words and held up a finger.

“I think he’s telling us we can go one at a time,” Alita said. “Do you want to try it?”

“You go first,” Connie said. “It’s only fair since you got the message across.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Alita went out and was led away by one of the sentinels. The others waited nervously until she returned twenty minutes later.

Not only was she bathed and her hair freshly brushed; Alita was wearing a clean
huipiles
, the square white sack dress worn by Mayan women. Alita had added her own touch, belting the dress at the waist. She looked very fetching. Almost virginal.

“My God, what happened to you?” Connie said.

“We got lucky,” Alita said. “In one of the huts, they have a wooden tub and a kind of rough soap and stacks of clean clothes like this. One thing, though; I think we all have to use the same water.”

“Who cares?” Connie said. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a bath, I wouldn’t mind if the whole tribe used it first.”

She went out with the guard and returned scrubbed and glowing and wearing a
huipiles
like Alita’s. Buzz followed, limping somewhat more than usual after the strain the long march put on his leg. Hooker went last. The bath — even though the water was cold and had been used three times — felt great. He and Buzz were given soft pleated shirts and white native trousers that were even shorter on the Americans than on the diminutive Mayas.

“Well,” Connie said when they were back together, “here we are all clean and dressed. For what, I wonder?”

“You make us sound like turkeys at Thanksgiving,” Buzz said.

“That is a shitty thing to say.”

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t we quit trying to be cute,” Hooker said, “and just wait to see what happens. There’s not much we can do about it, anyway.”

• • •

The wait was less than an hour. The old Mayan priest returned with his two bodyguards. The four captives scrambled to their feet as the small man entered the hut. His headdress made him seem taller, but like most Mayas, he stood no more than five feet three.

He first gave Kaplan a long scowl, which Buzz returned, then pointed his finger at Hooker and beckoned.

“It looks like your turn, pal,” Buzz said.

“Don’t wait up,” Hooker told them, and left the oval building with the priest and his men.

The rain had eased to a steady, depressing drizzle. Bright colors seemed to have drained out of the world. Everything was a shade of gray or dark green.

The little procession skirted the temple Buzz had pointed out and continued along a path bordered by flowers and a wall of white stones. At the end of the path was a large building that was not visible from the other side of the temple. It was of pink-tinted limestone, intricately carved with Mayan dragons and deities. The entrance was a heavy mahogany door inlaid with silver and what looked like precious stones. Hooker had seen drawings like it where artists had imagined Mayan palaces as they looked before falling into ruins.

The door swung open at their approach. The two escorts remained outside while Hooker and the priest entered. A diffused light inside came from narrow windows in the ceiling and oil lamps positioned around the walls. The room they entered was as wide as the building and three times as long. A thick woven carpet stretched from the entrance to the far end of the room. There a man wearing a robe of pale yellow and a headdress even more ornate than the priest’s sat in a high-backed chair carved from a single block of stone. At a signal from the man in the chair, Hooker and the priest approached.

As they drew nearer, Hooker could see that it was more throne than chair. The intricate carvings in the stone meant nothing to him, but he recognized that they were ancient Mayan glyphs.

The seated man watched them approach with interest. He leaned forward, bringing his face out of the shadows. His skin was Mayan light brown, his hair long and glossy. The individual features were strong, with a more pronounced chin and higher forehead than the typical Mayan face.

At each side of the throne, a young woman knelt. They wore short white tunics, colorfully embroidered at the hem and neck line. At a gesture from the man on the throne, the women slipped silently away.

The priest spoke first. Although Hooker understood none of the words, he recognized the submissive tone, in sharp contrast to the authority with which he spoke outside the palace. The man in the chair answered briefly in a rich baritone and waved the priest away.

When the two of them were alone, the seated man stood up. To Hooker’s surprise, he was six feet tall, a giant among his people, with broad shoulders ard bare muscular arms showing beneath his robe.

“Mr. Hooker,” he said. “Welcome to Iztal. I am Holchacán.”

Hooker was so surprised to hear the tall, regal Maya speak English with no trace of accent that he stood for a moment with his mouth open, unable to think of anything to say.

“Perhaps we would be more comfortable over here.” The tall Indian stepped down from the dais and ushered Hooker off to one side where a stone table was flanked by two padded benches.

They sat down across from each other. On the table was a large silver bowl of fruit — oranges, guavas, sapotes, and a pink fleshy fruit that came from the chicle tree. A smaller dish contained dried seeds of the calabash that were considered a delicacy on Yucatan.

“Please help yourself to the fruit,” said the Mayan. “I apologize for the quality of food you and your friends have been served, but you see we weren’t prepared for visitors.”

Hooker pulled an orange apart and popped a section into his mouth. It was bitter, but a welcome change from the tasteless mush. He chewed slowly and swallowed, watching Holchacán. “Does anybody else here speak English?”

“I am the only one. I considered teaching it to some of my people but decided against it. It would be one less distinction between me and them, and a king must maintain a certain distance from his subjects. Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, sure,” Hooker said. “Is that what you are here? King?”

“King, chieftain, god … take your choice.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as you’re the guy in charge.”

“Quite right. Now perhaps you will help me practice my English by allowing me to ask some questions.”

“Why not? I’d like to ask a few myself.”

“I’m sure you would, but let’s hear mine first, shall we?”

“You’re the chief.”

Holchacán smiled, showing even white teeth. “As you say. First, I am curious about what brings you and your friends into Quintana Roo. We get very few sightseers.”

“I can believe that,” Hooker said. “We’re here because one of my friends is Mrs. Nolan Braithwaite. She hired me to look for her husband. Another friend is Buzz Kaplan, who has been here before. According to Buzz, your people found him and Braithwaite not long after their plane crashed.”

The Mayan chief placed his palms together and touched the tips of his fingers to his mouth. “I rather expected someone would be along. I’m afraid I have bad news for Mrs. Braithwaite. Her husband died within days of his arrival here.”

“Kaplan said he was in good shape after the crash.”

“So he appeared, but there were internal injuries. Slow bleeding in the abdominal cavity that did not affect him for several days. When the hemorrhaging did show up, it was too late for our medicine to help him.”

“But you did help Buzz.”

“We were able to fashion an artificial foot for him. Crude, perhaps, by civilized standards, but quite acceptable in the jungle.”

“Buzz was here for months,” Hooker said, “but he never mentioned you. I can’t believe he would forget you.”

“He never saw me. Your friend’s belligerence made it necessary to treat him as a captive. A king of the Mayas does not personally involve himself with a captive of lesser rank.” Holchacán permitted himself a smile to show that although he did not personally approve of these customs, he was expected to abide by them.

“Does that mean that my friends and I are not captives?” Hooker said.

“That is open to interpretation. Let us say for now that you are my guests.” He picked up a tiny bell from the table and rang it. The silvery tinkle was surprisingly loud in the big room. Immediately, one of the young women appeared, carrying an earthen pitcher and two cups. She poured a cloudy liquid into each of the cups.

“Coconut milk flavored with peppermint,” said Holchacán. “Really quite refreshing. Sorry I can’t offer you anything stronger, or do you take alcohol?”

“On occasion,” Hooker said. He took a sip of the concoction and found it not bad at all. “Now that you know what I’m doing in Quintana Roo, maybe you’ll tell me what
you’re
doing here. You don’t exactly fit in, you know.”

“Ah, you’re wrong there, Hooker. My father was a Mayan chieftain, and his father before him. I was born to be a Mayan chief. It is the path I traveled getting here that makes me different.”

Hooker pulled out a fresh pack of Luckies he had rescued from his old shirt. For a moment, he hesitated.

“Please go ahead,” said Holchacán. “It is not one of the habits I picked up while living among your people, but I do not object to it in others.”

“Thanks.”

“My father was the chief right here in Iztal. The so-called legendary city of the Mayas. However, it was not then the city you see now. Scarcely more than a poor village built among the ruins of the great city of ancient times. The future here, even for a king, was sorely limited. Knowing this, my father sent me to the United States to get the best education he could afford. He was giving me the chance to make something of myself in the
civilized
world.” The Mayan chief gave the word an unpleasant emphasis.

“At the age of ten, I was enrolled in a boarding school near a place called Ojai, in the state of California. Perhaps you have heard of it — a delightful little town of artists and shade trees and big comfortable houses. The school was very exclusive and very expensive. And very white. The color of my skin set me apart from my classmates … until I convinced them that I was smarter, faster, and stronger than the best of them. It is remarkable how quickly one is accepted when one proves to be the best fighter in school.”

“I’ll bet,” Hooker said.

“But I won’t bore you with a catalogue of my childhood trials and triumphs. When I was eighteen, I enrolled in Stanford University. Their athletic teams are called the Indians, but I suppose you know that. I thought it was quite fitting. In a college atmosphere, I found skin color to be much less important than it was in the boarding school. I was good at my studies and graduated with honors and a degree in business administration. I had started with the idea of going on to medical school, but even the coffers of a king have their limits, and my father gently suggested I re-evaluate my course of study. Nevertheless, I did come out with no small knowledge of anatomy and physiology, although these failed to impress prospective employers.

“In 1923, the attitude in the United States was still one of self-congratulation for having won the Great War. The feeling was that everything was going along just fine, and nothing should be done to rock the boat. Putting dark-skinned people in responsible positions would definitely have rocked the boat.”

Hooker ground out his cigarette in an empty bowl and waited for Holchacán to continue. The chief seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice, and there was no reason to disturb the mood.

“After two years, the best I could achieve was a job as shipping clerk in a San Francisco department store. I had failed in the land of opportunity. It was then I received word my father was dying. My choice was between staying in the United States, where I would be just another educated Indian, or returning to Quintana Roo, where I would be king of my people. No choice at all, really.

“In the years since, I have rebuilt and restored Iztal to something approaching its former glory. And I have restored to my people a pride in their heritage. Not a small accomplishment, would you say?”