“Pretty much what they did to the natives.”
“Oh, the natives were good at going to hell all by themselves. But yes, there wasn’t a whole lot of cross-cultural understanding, then or now.”
Laughing at the dry understatement, Hunter handed her a bottle of water.
She braced the wheel with her knees and one hand and drank. A thin line of water dribbled down her chin and dampened the khaki blouse above one breast, slowly revealing the dark shadow of a nipple.
Hunter forced himself to think of someone who might be following them. A fast check of the side mirrors revealed that they were the only limestone dust cloud on the road. Not that he could see all that far with the jungle crouched around like a huge green cat.
“Without the cenotes,” Lina said, handing back the water, “the very ancient Maya would have died out long before the Spanish arrived. That and the fact that freshwater floats on top of salt.”
“Fire, water, earth, and air,” Hunter said. “All the rest is decoration. No matter where you are in the world, that doesn’t change.”
“The lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula could use more of the decoration called fertilizer,” she said wryly. “In the ceiba and copal jungle, the ground beneath our wheels is thin, crumbly, and poor. Survival is hard. Take the strangler fig tree. It lives by being supported by a host tree, using the host as a ladder to climb up to light. Eventually the fig vines harden, extend roots, and strangle the host. Despite its lush look, the jungle plants survive more by force of will than the generosity of nature.”
“Like the people. Still here. Still surviving, come hell, high water, and the Spanish. But then, we’re all survivors descended from survivors. The rest of them are buried in the dust of time.”
“Sometimes,” she said, “the weight of all that history is…crushing. And sometimes it’s so exciting to be a part of it that I want to dance.”
His fingertips trailed gently down her cheek. “I’ll dance with you.”
Dark eyes flashed gold when she looked at him and smiled. Then the rough road claimed her attention again. The dual tire tracks zigzagged around clumps of rock as the jungle slowly melted away into a different, sparser growth.
“We’re almost there,” Lina said. “I’ll park off in the scrub.”
“No problem with the locals and a rental car?”
“Not if it’s seen at the Reyes Balam estate first,” she said.
Hunter nodded. “You’ve got more guards than the ones in the compound.”
“We take care of the villages. They watch out for us.”
They got out of the Bronco, and she reached into the back and took out a wide leather belt. A machete dangled from a clip on one side of the belt.
“I’m stronger than you are,” he pointed out mildly.
“The path shouldn’t be too bad. It’s only been about eighteen months since I’ve used this route. But if I get tired, the big knife is all yours.”
“Knife?” He looked at the forearm-long blade that had been invented by natives for the sole purpose of whacking through jungles. “More like a sword.”
He followed her as she set out for a section of scrubby jungle—or jungly scrub—that looked no different from any other piece of the landscape. Trees struggled on the harsh land, lifting vine-burdened arms to the relentless sun. Bushes fought for their place in the light.
Lina slid sideways between several closely spaced, barely ten-foot-tall trees. Vines dangled only to be cut away by efficient strokes of the machete. She moved down the path like she wielded the machete, with an unconscious ease that came only from long experience. No hurry, no hesitation, just steady walking and random swings of the machete at whatever blocked the trail.
Hunter settled back to enjoy the walk. There weren’t as many bloodsucking clouds of insects as he’d expected. The rainy season had been light enough to deny mosquitoes the stagnant puddles they used to breed, and then breed again, repeating the cycle of life and death until the standing water dried up. The wind helped keep the insects down, too. At least when it blew enough to push insects under cover.
The path had only a thin layer of dirt, with limestone knobs shoving through like blunt teeth. Tree roots humped up. They were smaller and thinner than those deeper in the jungle, but enough to trip unwary feet. Plant growth waxed and waned according to a complex balance of light, water, and slope of the land. Birds and monkeys called in the distance, but a moving pool of silence spread around Lina and Hunter.
When predators walked, the jungle held its breath.
After ten minutes the amount of light gradually increased. Somewhere ahead there was a hole in the canopy.
Lina went still.
Instantly Hunter faded into the foliage close to her.
Muted voices came on the wind. The words Hunter could make out were in the local dialect. He watched Lina.
After a few moments the voices faded and she moved forward again, then stopped, framed by trees far taller than she was. She clipped the machete in place at her hip and motioned Hunter forward. When she felt him behind her, she took a half step left, letting him see ahead.
As Hunter squeezed next to her, he saw the breathtaking drop into the limestone cenote less than a yard beyond their feet. Trees crowded right up to the edge of the cliff and beyond, roots clinging to limestone ledges no bigger than his hand. Vines trailed from trees and rock alike, yet after the thousand shades of green that was the thickest jungle, the overall impression of the cenote was of muted pale cliffs and water that blazed blue under an empty sky. Where shadows fell, the water darkened to a murky shade of green.
Across the cenote, where the cliff was lower and less steep, a pale thread zigzagged down to the water. He estimated that the far side was about two hundred feet away, with a cliff perhaps twenty-five feet high. Where he and Lina stood, the cliff was at least ten feet higher, probably more. Without a point of reference, it was hard to tell. The mouth of the cenote was a rough circle left when the roof of an ancient limestone cavern had collapsed. Freshwater lay at the bottom of the limestone cliffs.
“Jase would be strapping on dive tanks,” Hunter said in a low voice. “You ever dive the cenote?”
“Not with equipment. The water is deep, but even deeper at this side than the other. We used to jump in over there,” She pointed to a place where the jungle at the top of the cliff had been cleared and covered with crushed limestone, creating a flat area. The cliff below was steep, almost overhanging the water. “Hundreds of years ago there was at least one altar there, but it didn’t survive the Catholic mandate. Generations of Maya have gradually restored the limestone causeway from the village to the cenote, though after we put wells in the villages, people no longer had to risk their lives just to get a drink.”
The red and yellow of heaped flowers announced the presence of a different, modern shrine near the edge of the limestone platform.
“Is that usually there?” Hunter asked.
She shrugged. “It varies, but it has become bigger, more permanent, than I remember as a child. It looks like it has doubled or tripled in size since the last time I really noticed it.”
Hunter weighed the presence of the shrine and decided that it could wait to be investigated. It looked like just one more really big pile of flowers nearly engulfing a long-armed cross. From the thin veil of insects that seethed over the place, it was a good bet that there was food and/or blood among the bright petals.
“What’s over there?” Hunter pointed to a gap in the cliff-side foliage that lay to the right of the shrine, just beyond the head of the ghostlike trail descending the cliff.
“The path from the estate. We have technicians who check the wells and the level of the cisterns so we know if water has to be rationed or pumped up from the cenote.”
“That happen often?”
“Only a few times. Abuelita doesn’t like pumping from the cenote. Once she made everyone haul water in buckets. Said it was better that way. In fact”—Lina put her hand on Hunter’s shoulder and leaned out, trying to see better—“I’ll bet that the pump doesn’t even work anymore. The pipe down the rim into the water is gone.”
Hunter absorbed the ancient cenote and modern shrine, the ghost path and cloudless sky. “Could be a long summer.”
“My mother’s mother had more underground cisterns built after the last drought. If we had to, we could irrigate enough of the estate crops to keep the villagers and ourselves alive. I barely remember my grandmother, but she was very determined that the estate be self-reliant.”
“Governments come and go. The need for food and water doesn’t.”
“We have other cenotes on Reyes Balam lands, but none of the size and accessibility of this one. Some are so steep that even a jaguar would get a workout on the way to water. Others are little more than ponds with muddy bottoms. A few archaeological divers mucked about in them, but didn’t find much.”
“Any divers in this one?”
“Philip dived it after he and Celia were married. He found the usual knives, faces, pots, figurines, jewelry—all of it broken during the act of sacrificing to the gods. What is given to the gods isn’t taken back.”
“People, too?” Hunter asked.
“Apparently. This cenote was an important center for the lowland Maya, especially after the Spanish came. Philip dredged the cenote for a sample of what was on the bottom. He recorded the length and type of bones, the variety of artifacts, and then threw the bones back.”
“Surprised he didn’t study them.”
“Some of the villagers were angry at Philip’s ‘violation’ of the cenote, so he returned the bones, concentrated on ruins, and everyone settled down.”
The sound of more voices came on the wind.
“Busy place,” Hunter murmured.
“The wheel of time turns tonight. The Long Count ends and the Fourteenth Baktun begins. It will be a lot more quiet after that. Until then”—she shrugged—“we’ll leave the cenote to the villagers. It costs us nothing and pleases them.”
“And they’ll be in church on Sundays and holy days.”
“Their lives, their choices.”
“A very modern point of view,” Hunter said quietly as he eased back undercover. “Neither the Maya nor the Spanish were so broad-minded. For a lot of cultures, religion is a blood sport.”
Lina followed Hunter’s move to leave. As she started to go back, her body stroked over his. Even if the trail hadn’t forced them close, she still would have touched him. She’d wanted him since her first breath this morning. Face-to-face with him, she paused, absorbed in how the silver in his eyes reflected the green shadows of the enclosing plants.
The voices from the other side of the cenote became louder, then faded, absorbed by the jungle.
“We haven’t really been alone since we left the estate,” Hunter said quietly in English. “That’s why we’re not finding out just how hard a limestone mattress is.”
She hesitated, not even a breath away from him, and switched to English. “We’re being followed?”
“Does your neck itch?”
“No more than usual in the jungle,” she said wryly. “Getting used to the insects takes me a week or two.”
He nodded. “But you know that we’re being watched. Not by the same people, but we’re never alone for more than a few minutes at a time.”
She shrugged. “There are three villages within several kilometers. Cenote de Balam is sacred, and this is a big holy day for the Maya. I’d be surprised if there weren’t people gathering around the area. Plus, I’m a Reyes Balam with a strange male at my side. Naturally they would look out for me.”
For a long moment Hunter weighed what Lina had said. Then he nodded. “So much for my fantasies of jungle sex.”
Lina smiled. “C’mon. Maybe we’ll get lucky in the ruins.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’ve never had so much fun in my life,” she admitted.
“Will you enjoy it as much when you figure out it’s not a game?” he asked softly.
Before she could find an answer, Hunter was moving down the trail, away from the cenote.
And Lina.
H
UNTER STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE SMALL CLEARING
where Lina had parked the Bronco. The vehicle looked undisturbed, yet they had rarely been without the presence of voices on the wind.
“Wait,” Hunter said as Lina headed for the Bronco.
He circled the vehicle, saw nothing suspicious, and waved her over. After they got in, he watched Lina back the Bronco until she found a place to turn. She hadn’t said a word since the cenote.
“You drive very well,” he said.
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“I’m mad at the situation, not you.”
She got the vehicle straightened out and gave him a long look.
He smiled gently.
After a moment she put the Bronco in gear and headed back toward the main road.
“I’ve been driving estate roads since I was old enough to see over the dashboard,” she said. “Philip liked having someone to run errands for him on the digs. That way he didn’t have to leave a site for months at a time.”
“The villagers don’t drive?”
“Once a dig is set up, Philip doesn’t allow any vehicle but his own in the area.”
Hunter smiled thinly. “That puts the brakes on the size and quantity of what people can steal.”
“We have very little theft here.”
Crutchfeldt’s words about grave robbers at work on Reyes Balam lands echoed in Hunter’s mind, but he didn’t say anything. Whoever or whatever El Maya was, he terrified people to the point that outside artifact poachers apparently didn’t set foot on Reyes Balam lands—or if they did, they died.
“Loyalty is good,” Hunter said, “but not all humans are.”
“If theft occurs, it’s punished the Maya way.”
“Which is?”
“If the thief is from outside the estate lands,” Lina said reluctantly, “the villagers beat him. Savagely. If the thief is from one of our villages, he gets the beating after his right hand is chopped off with a machete.”