Authors: Gary Brandner
Hooker, Buzz Kaplan, Connie Braithwaite, and Alita, their wrists bound firmly behind their backs, stood at the base of the dais in the throne room of Holchacán’s palace and faced the king. There was no more of the smiling urbanity shown earlier by the tall Mayan chief. The veneer of civilization had been stripped away, and the anger of his Indian ancestors glittered in the dark, deep-set eyes.
A row of guards stood immediately behind the four captives. They were armed with the usual spears, plus mean-looking double-edged swords, and knives at their belts. Hooker, Kaplan, and Alita wore the white Indian garments provided for them. A loose-fitting cloak had been thrown over Connie’s shoulders and fastened in front to cover her nakedness.
Ranged behind the captives and their guards were some dozen Mayan men who wore robes of soft cloth in colorful shades and complex decoration to indicate their rank. Their dark faces were impassive.
Holchacán turned his glittering eyes on Hooker. “It was a mistake,” he said, “after I had given you the freedom of the city, for you to enter the sacred temple of my people.”
“Sacred, my ass,” Hooker said. “What your high priest was going to do when I walked in wasn’t any catechism.”
He broke off with a grunt of pain when a guard jabbed him in the kidney with the butt end of a spear.
“You will be silent until you are instructed otherwise,” said Holchacán. He turned to the assembled Indians and spoke for several minutes in their own language.
When he had finished his speech, the Mayan chief returned his attention to the captives.
“As I told you, we had planned a ceremony for this evening at which I hoped to have you as my guests. The ceremony will still take place, and I still expect you to be there, but as we know, your situation has changed.”
“Why don’t you get on with whatever your going to do and cut the bullshit,” Buzz said. He stood upright with difficulty, leaning awkwardly on a cane, his wrists bound together. His wooden foot was missing, and his face was a mass of bruises.
A guard raised his spear to Buzz, but Holchacán held up a hand, staying him.
“You are impatient, Mr. Kaplan. Don’t be. You will not have long to wait.”
“How about giving me my foot back?”
The tall Indian studied him for a moment, then said something in the Mayan language to the guard standing next to Buzz.
“Your foot will be restored to you,” he said in English. He waved a hand, and Kaplan and the women were taken away by a detachment of guards.
The robed Indians filed out after them, leaving Hooker alone, flanked by a pair of guards, to face the Mayan chief.
“You are a disappointment to me, Hooker,” said Holchacán. “I had hoped that as men of some experience and education, you and I could come to an understanding.”
“Why bother with the con?” Hooker said. “You never had any intention of letting of us leave here.”
“That is true,” the Maya admitted. “There was no possibility that the secret of Iztal would have remained safe had I allowed your party to return to the outside, and we both know it. I did, however, entertain the hope that you might choose to remain here and join me.”
“Join you in what, drilling holes in people’s heads?”
“Ah, yes, you found the Pit of Skulls.”
“I wasn’t exactly looking for it.”
“I’m sure you weren’t, but you were in a part of the temple no Maya, save myself and the high priest, would have dared to enter.”
“You should have put up a sign.”
There was no amusement in the Indian’s unreadable eyes.
“Speaking of your high priest,” Hooker said, “is screwing white women part of his job?”
Holchacán’s face clouded. “What happened in the temple today was not my doing. Zoaltl will be called to account for it in due time. Meanwhile, I suggest you do not concern yourself with our affairs.”
“I guess I do have enough other things to worry about,” Hooker said.
“Quite so.”
“Can I ask you about something?”
“Specifically?”
“The skulls with the holes where they shouldn’t be.”
Holchacán glanced at the guards, who stood alertly on either side of Hooker, understanding nothing of what was said but ready to slit a throat, their own or their captive’s, at a sign from the chieftain.
“I suppose it can do no harm,” he said. “You will carry no stories out of here. In ancient times, the Mayas had a highly developed understanding of medicine. Even then, they recognized insanity as an illness, while the so-called civilized people of the outside world were still blaming it on possession by devils.
“Surgical methods of the day were, of course, primitive. Yet through trial and error, the ancient Mayas discovered that in certain forms of mental illness, the symptoms could be relieved or removed entirely by an operation that involved cutting through the skull and removing the diseased portion of the brain.”
“Lobotomy,” Hooker said.
“In a very rudimentary way. Naturally, the percentage of cures was small, considering the rather unsanitary conditions under which the operations were performed. Nevertheless, enough of the patients recovered so that the risk was considered worthwhile. Especially when the alternative was insanity and death.
“Unfortunately, or so they thought at the time, there were certain side effects to the operation that appeared with marked regularity.”
“Aha,” said Hooker.
“You are ahead of me?”
“It’s just a guess, but do these brain operations of yours have anything to do with the walking dead men … the
muerateros?
”
“It was observed in that long ago era that sometimes, even though the victim’s condition was relieved by the operation, he was turned into something like a walking vegetable. Through the ages, the surgeons among my people became more skillful in bringing about exactly this result. They discovered that by severing certain nerve endings in the parietal lobe and removing minute portions of tissue from the motor area of the brain, a willing, if insensible, slave could be produced.
“When it was done properly, the subject would come out of the operation with enormous strength and absolutely no sense of pain. He could be given simple orders, which he would follow even if it meant his own destruction.”
“And with your premed work at Stanford, you learned how to do it,” Hooker said.
“I did return with certain refinements to the operation, which was still being performed in the crude manner of my ancestors. I also saw the value of keeping alive the legend of the
muerateros
, the walking dead. Mayas throughout Yucatan, even the most civilized of them, are surprisingly willing to make donations to the ancient city of Iztal to assure themselves immunity to the
muerateros
.”
“Nice racket,” Hooker said. “You collected protection money, and you built your own army of goons.”
“Ideal as it sounds, there is a flaw. You see, even with the refinements I brought back with me, the operation causes a rapid degeneration in the subjects that I have been unable to check.”
“Rapid degeneration,” Hooker repeated. “That means the walking dead men quickly become real dead men.”
“Bluntly stated but true. Some of them last only a matter of days; others, several weeks. In some instances, they continue to exist for months, but always the decay is there, and it is irreversible.”
“So you need a constant supply of raw material.”
“Fortunately, that is not a problem. Quintana Roo has long been a hiding place for renegade Mexicans — murderers, bandits,
chicleros
. When one of them disappears, no one ever comes looking for him.”
“Do any of your own people ever get the treatment?”
“Only for the most heinous crime. That is why we
have
no crime in Iztal. You have seen the
muerateros
. Would you take the chance of breaking a law that might sentence you to become one of them?”
“Not likely,” said Hooker.
“Quite so. That is why outsiders are the ones who are chosen.”
“I suppose that’s another story you wouldn’t like spread around.”
“I don’t think it would make much difference. Oh, I would like to keep superstition of the
muerateros
alive, but even if the people knew we were creating them by drilling into the skulls of some worthless Mexicans, I doubt they would rise up and march on Iztal. You must have noticed there is a reluctance among Mexicans, even Yucatecans, to enter Quintana Roo.”
“Yeah, I found that out,” Hooker admitted.
“I thought you might have. I admit that some of the fearsome tales of Quintana Roo may be exaggerated, but others, I assure you, are most horribly true.”
“One thing still puzzles me,” Hooker said. “Even if you collect from the peasants in every village of Yucatan to keep the
muerateros
away from them, you could hardly have made enough to fix the city up like this. There must be another source of income.”
The eyes of the tall Maya were lost in shadow. His mouth compressed into a thin line. “That is one question too many,” he said.
Holchacán spoke briefly to the guards, who moved in to seize Hooker by the arms. They spun him around and marched him down the length of the throne room and out of the temple.
• • •
Back in the dwelling where he had been briefly housed with Buzz, all the homey touches were gone. No cozy fire in the fire pit, no bubbling pot of savory stew. No Mayan maiden, brown teeth or not, waiting to do his bidding. Despite his situation, Hooker had a momentary regret that he hadn’t at least tried Xita out on something simple.
The only pieces of furniture remaining were two of the stretched-hide chairs. Buzz Kaplan sat slumped in one of them, his hands still bound behind him. The wooden foot had been reattached to his leg.
“Find out anything?” Buzz asked as Hooker’s guards prodded him into the room.
“A few things. All bad. What’s been happening with you?”
“Same old shit, only nobody’s friendly anymore. They took the women away again and clapped me in here. At least the bastards gave me back my foot.”
The two Mayan guards who had brought Hooker from the palace shoved him into the remaining chair and took up their stations at either side of the door, relieving the one who had been watching Buzz. The guards stood with their spears in a sort of parade-rest position, while their free hands rested on the hilts of their swords.
“I don’t think we’re going to fake these guys out,” Hooker said.
“That’s what I was thinking. They look a little tougher than the whittlers.”
Hooker flexed his wrists, which were cramped behind him against the back of the chair. The tough henequen cord was too strong to break, the knots too tight to budge. There was no object within reach that had any kind of an edge to saw through the cord.
“Any suggestions?” Kaplan said.
“Yeah, let’s hypnotize the guards and make ourselves invisible like the Shadow.”
“Why the hell do you want to make jokes now?”
“To keep from crying, buddy. To keep from crying.”
• • •
At dusk, another pair of guards showed up, and the four of them yanked Buzz and Hooker to their feet and marched them out of the dwelling and along the path that led into the city.
“What’s up, do you think?” Buzz said.
“The chief invited us to a show, remember?”
“I only hope we’re not in it.”
They were led into the temple through a different entrance from the one Hooker had used earlier in the day. The corridor was similiar, with the oil lamps at intervals for illumination, but there was no black curtain at the end. Instead, they were taken directly into the amphitheater.
The stone benches were filled with silent, watchful Indians. Hooker spotted Connie and Alita down near the front. Their hands were bound, as were the men’s, and each had a guard for company.
The two men were led down the aisle to seats directly behind the women. Hooker leaned forward and whispered, “How’s it going?”
Connie started in surprise and turned to look at him before the guard forced her to face front again. “It’s going shitty,” she said. “At least we’re still alive.”
Alita tilted her head back. “Are you all right, Johnny? I was so worried.”
“I’m fine,
chiquita
. Considering.”
The guards made menacing gestures toward their mouths, and the captives fell silent.
Into the amphitheater from a hidden floor-level entrance came a procession of the robed Mayas they had seen earlier at the palace. Bringing up the rear was the aged high priest and Holchacán himself. The priest’s robe was an elaborate garment of dark blue with silver thread woven throughout. By comparison, Holchacán’s simple yellow smock was almost drab. Yet his carriage and his height gave the chief an air of majesty. A murmur went through the crowd when he entered.
First the priest, then Holchacán, addressed the assembled Indians in the Mayan language. Hooker understood none of it, but he recognized the tone. It was solemn as death. He shuddered in spite of himself, drawing a warning glance from the guard.
When Holchacán concluded his remarks, he turned toward the entrance and made a small gesture with one hand. Immediately, two sturdy Indians came in. They supported between them a thin brown man wearing only a white diaperlike garment. He trudged along between the other two without any show of resistance. His head lolled as though he were drunk or drugged. The head had been shaved and the naked scalp oiled until it gleamed under the light of the lamps.
As the man was escorted toward the altar, his face turned toward Hooker and the other captives. Although he showed the effects of drugging, there was enough reason left in the eyes to reveal his unutterable terror.
“Jesus,” Buzz whispered, “it’s Chaco.”
The shivering, near-naked little man with the shaved head bore little resemblance to the arrogant
chiclero
who had once tried to put a knife into Hooker. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He seemed unable to resist as the two Indian attendants stretched him on the altar and fastened the straps to his wrists and ankles. A block of wood with an indentation on one side was placed under his head. His chin was forced down almost to his bony chest.
Holchacán walked around to the end of the altar where Chaco’s head now rested on the wooden block. Zoaltl, the high priest, stood behind his chief. The two attendants took up positions on either side of the helpless little man. There was a tense silence in the amphitheater as though no one dared breathe.
The Mayan chief reached down on the other side of the altar out of Hooker’s line of vision. He brought up a long, thin metal object and held it at eye level, turning it so the light of the oil lamps was reflected off the blade. A scalpel.
“What’s he going to do?” Connie whispered.
The guard at her side gripped her shoulder and squeezed hard enough” to make her wince in pain. She said nothing more.
Hooker watched with a terrible fascination as Holchacán held the scalpel poised for a long moment over the shining scalp of the little man on the altar. Then, with a deft movement of his wrist, the Mayan chief etched a semicircular cut from just behind one ear, up across the crown of the head, and back down behind the other ear. The point of the scalpel traced a thin red line as it sliced cleanly through the layer of skin that capped the skull. A scarlet bead of blood rolled down the back of Chaco’s neck and dropped onto the white stone of the altar. A second followed.
Chaco pulled in a lungful of air. His eyes rolled wildly for a moment, but he made no sound.
Holchacán lay the scalpel aside and picked up another instrument, this one shaped like a gently curved spatula. He began to work the blade, concave side down, between the skin and the skull at the point where the slice had been made.
Sitting on the stone bench in front of Hooker, Connie retched. For a moment, he thought she was going to vomit. If there had been anything in her stomach, she probably would have. Hooker was not feeling so well himself.
The Mayan spectators leaned forward, eagerly watching as their chief worked the spatula in deeper under the skin, separating it from the skull. The connective tissues made little tearing sounds as the spatula blade pried them free.
The blood trickled out steadily now until there was a small pool around the block that supported Chaco’s head. One of the Indian attendants used a cloth to soak it up. Chaco tried to turn his sliced-open head to see what the man was doing, but the second attendant gripped him by the jaw and held him still.
When he had forced the curved spatula back far enough to free the half-moon of skin from the skull, Holchacán took the front edge of the flap between the thumbs and fingers of both hands and peeled it back. The yellowish skull was laid bare in the light, streaked with rivulets of blood.
There seemed to be no special sanitary precautions taken. But what the hell, Hooker thought, in the end, it wouldn’t make much difference.
The next instrument the Mayan chief picked up looked something like a shoemaker’s awl or a short ice pick. It had a wooden handle and a needle-sharp metal point four inches long. Hooker doubted that anything like it would be found in a legitimate operating room.
Holchacán began to work the point of the instrument delicately into the exposed bone of Chaco’s head. For more than a minute, he gently screwed the point into the skull. When he had made a tiny hole, he picked up still another instrument. This one looked much like the awl, but the long, thin blade was flat and had tiny saw teeth. The tall Indian began to saw through Chaco’s skull.
Hooker heard Buzz Kaplan groan beside him. He looked over and saw his friend’s face was the color of oatmeal. Buzz looked back at him, and Hooker realized his own color must have been just as bad. The guards grasped each man by the chin and jerked his head around, forcing them to face front.
The sawing went on for what seemed an endless time. Blood dotted the yellow smock worn by Holchacán. Chaco lay perfectly still. Only his eyes moved, darting from side to side as though in search of some escape. His mouth hung open, the tongue lolling to one side.
At last, with a little click, the quarter-size hole in the skull was completely sawed through. Holchacán picked out the plug of bone gently between thumb and forefinger and held it up for the spectators to see. There was a murmur of approval, the first sound since the operation began from the Mayas seated in the rings of stone benches.
The chief turned toward the four captives seated in the first two rows. “As you can see, until now, everything has gone smoothly. Now we come to the really delicate part.”
He put down the pointed saw and selected another scalpel, one with a much narrower blade than the first. He held it up to show Hooker, looking pleased with himself.
“First, I must remove just the right portion of the motor area of the frontal lobe to prevent the subject from making any future decisions on his own. A millimeter too much or too little and the results would be unfortunate.”
With a rock-steady hand, he sliced away a portion of gelatinous yellow-gray brain the size of a thumbnail.
“There, I hope that will do it. You understand that under the conditions, there is rather a high likelihood of error.”
“Oh, my God,” Connie breathed, so low as to be barely audible. The guard heard her, however, and clamped a hand over her face, squeezing her lips until tears rolled from her eyes.
“I must impress upon you again,” said Holchacán, “the necessity for silence.”
He bent down to bring his face close to the desecrated head of the
chiclero
. “Next, I must sever certain nerve endings in the sensory area. This is of supreme importance to the patient, as it will prevent him from feeling pain ever again. As you can see, our friend is currently anesthetized, but the effects will soon wear off. The brain itself has no feeling, but the business of cutting through the skull would leave him with a severe headache.”
Holchacán began to probe with the thin blade into the brain of the man on the stone slab. Several times his fingers twitched as he cut something inside.
“The pain center in the brain is located in the thalamus,” the Maya continued, lapsing into a lecture-room tone. “It is a small area just behind the cerebrum. In normal conditions, it is here that the sensitivity to pain is modified in a way that allows men to perform under great stress without experiencing the natural level of pain. An example would be the boxer who, during the fight, shakes off the effects of blows that should have hurt him terribly.”
He continued to make tiny probes with the needlelike scalpel. No emotion showed on the dark Indian face.
“The difficulty of this stage of the operation is the proximity of so many functional portions of the sensory and motor areas in such a compact area. Naturally, the auditory and optic nerves must not be destroyed or we render the subject useless for our purposes.”
Holchacán made one more cut inside the brain of the man on the slab. Chaco’s body arched and bucked as though a powerful jolt of electricity had gone through him. He ripped loose from the heavy leather straps on his wrists and ankles as though they were paper.
The Mayan chief spoke sharply in his own language. The two Indians who had brought Chaco in stepped prudently clear. The spectators in the amphitheater gasped and leaned forward.
“What the fuck is happening?” said Kaplan.
This time, the guard made no move to silence him.
Chaco, babbling nonsense syllables, flopped off the altar to the stone floor. His limbs kicked and jerked, seemingly trying to tear themselves from his body. His face contorted into a series of hideous masks unlike anything human. The loose portion of his scalp flapped like a misplaced mouth.
Drops of flying blood speckled the floor. Chaco soiled himself with urine and feces as he continued his mindless jerking.
The tall Mayan chief spoke once sharply to the high priest. Zoaltl reached beneath his rich blue robe and drew out a flat-bladed dagger. He edged over to where the helpless
chiclero
flopped about like a stranded fish and hovered over him, poising the knife. Swiftly as a snake, he struck. The dagger’s point sank into the stricken man’s neck just above the collarbone. There was a
pop
as the carotid artery was severed, and bright scarlet blood splashed over the floor.
Chaco’s helpless bucking ceased. He lay on his back, burbling softly like a contented baby as the blood continued to pump out of his throat. He twitched for a moment longer, then lay still, his skin pallid, his eyes looking off toward the dim ceiling where there was nothing to see.
The high priest stepped back, holding the bloody dagger well away from him. He flicked in annoyance at spots of blood on his robe.
At an order from Holchacán, the two Indian attendants produced sheets of heavy, absorbent cloth, with which they mopped up the pool of blood that had drained from the throat of the
chiclero
. The sopping crimson cloths were dropped into a basket, and water from a large urn was sluiced over the stone where Chaco had bled and allowed to drain through a hole in the floor. The pale, bloodless body was taken away, and in a matter of minutes, there was no sign that the little man had ever been there.
The Mayan chief turned to face the captives. “What you have seen is one of the more unfortunate results that can occur during the operation. Actually, I was trying out a new procedure on tonight’s subject. Obviously, it will take more study.
“If such things must happen, and I fear they must, it is well that they happen to someone as distasteful as your friend the
chiclero
. I have no stomach for turncoats. He would have betrayed me as readily as he did you. The world is better off for his absence.”
Having made this pronouncement, Holchacán clapped his hands sharply and nodded to the guards who sat flanking the captives. Connie and Alita were prodded to their feet and herded up an aisle between the seated rows of Mayas. Seemingly relieved of the need to hide their emotions, the Indians chattered excitedly as the women were led away.
Hooker and Buzz went next. They were taken up a different aisle from the one used by the women and led out a different door. The dark little eyes of the assembled Mayas watched avidly as they went.
The Mayan guards gripped the cords that bound the men’s wrists and yanked them up roughly, forcing the men forward at an uncomfortable trot. They were taken this time to one of the Mayan huts of stakes and thatched palm leaves. The inside was bare except for two stout poles, as big around as a man’s thigh, that were driven deep into the ground and extended to the roof of the hut.
Working swiftly, the guards bound the two men, in seated position, to the poles. Many turns of the stout henequen cord from forehead to belly held them immobile. The guards tested the knots, found them satisfactory, and went out of the hut.
“Hooker,” Buzz said, “you’ve always been smarter than me. What are we going to do now?”
“If I’m so goddam smart, why aren’t I back in Veracruz drinking tequila at El Poche.”
Both men fell silent as the minutes ticked by. Then Kaplan said, “That Chaco was a slimy little bastard, but what they did to him … shit.”
“I know.” Hooker could not think of anything more to say.
The two guards returned, bringing with them Xita, the Mayan maiden who had once been offered to them as a servant. The smile on the girl’s face was different this time, as she showed a cunning cruelty far beyond her years. She carried a bowl of greasy liquid.
While the men watched Xita, one of the guards drew the knife from his belt and stepped behind the pole to which Hooker was bound. He reached around with his free hand and grabbed Hooker by the hair.
Before he could draw a breath to protest, Hooker felt most of his hair hacked away by the knife blade. From the corner of his eye, he saw the second guard do the same to Buzz.
The guards worked on them until both men had only an uneven stubble where their hair had been. Then they stepped back. Xita came forward with her bowl of gooey liquid and began rubbing it on their scalps. The Mayan guards watched, thumbing the razorlike blades of their knives.
Buzz spoke through a dry throat. “Jesus, Hooker, they’re going to shave our heads.”
Hooker looked straight ahead and did not respond. He was seeing the thing with its skull drilled open flopping around on the floor of the temple.