by Lyn Hamilton
“Whew,” Steve said, putting down his shovel. “Sure was worried the sun might go behind a cloud!” A titter of nervous laughter swept through the group.
“That was brilliant,” I said, admiration in my voice.
“Oh, I’m not just a pretty face.” He grinned. “But to think that just a moment or two before they arrived, I was cursing because the sun was so hot. They’re just bullies, that’s all,” he added. “Nothing to worry about, really.”
I wanted to believe him, so I did.
For the rest of that day, and the next, the work on the site progressed at a steady pace, with hopeful signs, according to Pablo, all around.
The following day, however, the second accident occurred. While we were working away, there was a crack, and the ladder on which one of the men, Jesus Silva, was standing to set up the camera, collapsed. Jesus was hurled into one of the pits and just lay there, conscious but groaning in pain. It was only with real difficulty that we were able to get him out. We stretched him out on the back of the truck, and I drove as carefully as I could into town. He had, as it turned out, dislocated his shoulder and cracked three ribs, and would be off work for the balance of the season.
It was about then that the rumors of evil spirits began to surface among the Peruvian crew. “This is a bad place,” I heard one of the men, Javier Franco, telling the others. “We should not be here.”
“I don’t believe in evil spirits,” Steve told me. “Come over here.”
I walked over to where he was examining the ladder that had collapsed under Silva. I looked where he pointed. There was a crack right below the metal hinge which held the two sides of the ladder rigid when opened.
“So it was defective, is that what you’re telling me?” I said. “I feel terrible. I bought that ladder, and I thought I’d inspected it pretty carefully before I took it. I must have missed the crack.”
“Look again,” he said, and after a moment or two I saw what he was getting at. There were no splinters at the break, except right at the end. In fact it was so neat a break that one would have to assume it had been cut, almost all the way through.
“Guerra?” I asked.
“He’d be our number one suspect, wouldn’t he?” Steve replied. “Maybe I’ll just go have a chat with the mayor and suggest to him that the police have a little talk with our friend Rolando.”
After that, though, the accidents came thick and fast. Ernesto Santo, another worker, cut his hand quite badly, a freak accident involving the metal mesh on the sieve that required several stitches. Javier himself, the fellow who thought the place was haunted, accidentally walked backwards too far and slid down the side of the slope, badly scratching his leg.
I put it all down to hysteria, self-induced accidents brought on by the belief in evil spirits, but the effect it had on the group was real enough. They were all petrified. Steve then hired Tomas Cardoso, Ines’s brother, who was also a chaman, a shaman, to help protect the site from evil spirits. That kept the team working awhile longer.
In contrast to all the drama around the accidents, however, the work on the site was going exceedingly well. About a week into the work on the summit, a loud shout and a cheer went up, and we all rushed up the hill. Even Hilda, who tended to supervise from down below, climbed up painfully but as fast as she could. And there it was, a circle in the earth quite distinct from that around it. “The mancha!” Pablo yelled.
“You’re right!” Steve exclaimed, after examining it closely. “We start digging down, here!”
I’d have been inclined to just dig straight down the shaft, but that’s not the way it works in archaeology. Earth is removed, layer by layer, inch by inch, everything carefully recorded before it’s removed. The earth was, as always, taken to the sieve, which we’d set up on top of the hill.
When I expressed some impatience to Hilda, she replied, “As you can see, archaeology is inherently destructive. When we’re done here, we will have destroyed a huaca that survived for centuries before we arrived. You can never put it back exactly as it was. So it must be done right the first time, or the whole archaeological record is lost.” I could see what she meant. We were removing a large portion of the side of the hill, cutting down from the top. “Safety is of paramount importance,” she went on, “particularly when we’re working on a slope. The back dirt has to be taken well away from the site, to a place where it can’t slide back onto the workers. Cave-ins are a real concern in these conditions. You have to ensure the walls are well shored up as you go.”
I hoped the workers wouldn’t hear her saying that. It was all they would need to really set them off.
The really good news was that there was no further sign during the daylight hours of Rolando Guerra and his pals, several of whom, I gathered from the talk among the workers, were members of the Guerra family. But the signs of his presence were evident almost every morning. One day it was a pig’s head on a pike stuck into the ground, another time a skull and crossbones painted on the side of the shed. Once the mancha had been found, Steve hired Gonzalo Fernandez, brother of one of the other workers, to stay in the little hut at night to watch the site. With Laforet in town, Steve reasoned, there’d be a surge in looting activity. For a few days, at least, the harassment stopped.
But we didn’t for a moment think Guerra was gone. Then one morning, there was the most terrible accident of all. There were signs that morning that someone had come onto the site at night, not from the trail but from the other side, from the road by the commune, climbing over the wall. From the top, a cap and jacket were spotted lying on the sand several yards up the incline. Someone had been digging on the far side of the huaca from where we were working. Fernandez, guarding the way from the trail and the side of the huaca we were working on, had heard nothing. Some of the back dirt from our excavation had been dislodged and had fallen down the back of the hill. Steve climbed down to have a look at the damage, as the rest of us peered over the edge. Then Steve began tearing at the earth with his bare hands, calling for workers with shovels to come right away. They cleared away the sand as quickly as they could. To no avail. Rolando Guerra was unconscious, buried in sand, his hands still clutching a little copper statue of a Moche warrior. He died later that day in the hospital, a victim of his own greed.
The Warrior Priest
The fanged god, the Decapitator, steps forward. The tumi is raised; gold flashes through the air. The Priestess raises the cup. Iguana and Wrinkle Face take their places at the head of the shaft. The great ceremony begins.
In the tomb, the sacrificed llamas, headless, rest on either side of the coffin, the Warrior’s dog nearby. The mummies of the female ancestors are placed in the tomb, two at the head of the coffin, two at the foot.
Iguana and Wrinkle Face, masks glinting in the light of torches, take the ropes and slowly lower the Great Warrior way down into the chamber. The body is placed in the coffin, head to the south, toward Cerro Blanco. With proper ceremony, the coffin is sealed with copper straps.
The guardians, those who will protect the Warrior through all time, go before the Decapitator. One is placed beside the Warrior, the other, feet cut off, in a niche above the coffin. Now the chamber can be sealed, the shaft filled.
The new Warrior Priest sits cross-legged on his litter, his standards to either side, his dog at his feet. The Bird Priest takes the cup of sacrifice from the Priestess and passes it to him. May our new Warrior save us from the water that rushes from the mountains, destroying everything in its path. He must: If he cannot, it is the end of our world.
13
Rolando Guerra’s journey to his final resting place was more seething mob than funeral procession, the animosity of his friends and relatives barely held in check by the solemnity of the occasion.
It looked as if half the town had crowded into the Plaza de Armas as the casket, carried by six members of the Guerra family, went into the plaza and up the church steps. Guerra’s wife and two small children followed the coffin, the wom
an sobbing, and the children, a little boy and girl, looking perplexed. An older woman—Guerra’s mother, I surmised—walked ramrod straight and dry-eyed behind them.
Mayor Montero had sent one of his policemen to the hacienda to urge us not to attend the funeral in order not to inflame the situation, and it was good advice indeed. The crowd was an angry one, threatening to erupt at any moment, I thought, as Puma and I pulled back into a lane and retreated to the market area.
“Bad scene,” was all Puma said. It was a bad scene indeed. While the Guerras were, I gathered, considered loners, Rolando’s death had played into the anxiety people were feeling about the approaching El Niño, which, together with the invasores that came with it, threatened their livelihood and their safety.
The marketplace where I’d taken Ines to get some supplies was abuzz. There seemed to be a general feeling that Rolando shouldn’t have been looting, but there was an almost universal resentment of people who came from somewhere else. A few of the shopkeepers glared ominously at me as I went by, and one old woman slapped a flyswatter rather menacingly in my direction as I drew near her.
We had a conference that evening, in what we’d named the war room that heady night, which now seemed so long ago, when, flushed with enthusiasm for what we saw as the absolute rightness of the cause, we’d planned Operation Atahualpa, our invasion of Cerro de las Ruinas.
This time, sitting around the dining room table after Ines had left for home, we had to decide whether to go on, after this latest grisly discovery, or to close up for the season, pack up the lab and head home.
“I don’t know,” Hilda said, her voice even raspier than usual. “I just don’t know. Part of me wants to go on, the other…” Her voice trailed off.
“We’re so close, Hilda,” Steve said. “I can just feel it. We’re going to find something big.”
“I know you think so. But is it worth the risk?” she replied.
“Of course it’s worth it!” Steve exclaimed. “Are you saying we should just give up and let the looters have it all? Hilda, you’ve been working toward this your whole career!”
“Maybe I picked the wrong career?” she asked with a tight little smile.
“I’m with Hilda,” Ralph said. “Yes, it’s important, but not worth getting killed over. And just carrying on as if nothing has happened. Unseemly, really. Guerra, for all his bluster, was just trying to make a living.”
“So was Al Capone, Ralph,” Tracey snorted. “Surely you’re not condoning looting.”
“Your comparison is odious,” Ralph snapped back. Everyone’s nerves were on edge. “I’m not condoning it. I just think we have to be sensitive to the people around here. Capone, I can only assume, lived in a nice home in Chicago, ate well. Guerra probably
lived in a hut. And it’s a terrible way to go, choking on sand. My God.”
Ralph and Tracey glared at each other.
“Enough!” Steve sighed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s hear some arguments pro and con, lay them out on the table, and then we’ll vote, okay? I’ll start. On the pro side, I think we’re close to finding a tomb, maybe an untouched one.”
“And maybe we’re not,” Ralph said morosely.
“Well, that pro and that con pretty well cancel each other out, I’d say,” Steve said. “Anyone else?”
Tracey put up her hand. “Guerra’s gone, so there should be no more incidents, should there? That’s a definite pro, wouldn’t you say?”
Everyone nodded, except me that is. I thought they were wrong. I’d seen firsthand the mood in town. In the first place, Guerra was not the only one involved in looting. His whole family was famous for it, and the rest of them were still among the living. It may have been obvious to everyone else what had happened. Guerra had been tunneling into the side of the huaca. His back dirt, the dirt from the tunnel he was digging, was piled up for all to see. He’d been in a hurry, and therefore careless, and hadn’t moved the dirt far enough away, or even on the right angle, to prevent it from sliding back into the tunnel. While the police were already calling Guerra’s demise death by misadventure, the unfortunate but perhaps predictable end of a careless huaquero, I was pretty sure the rest of the Guerra family didn’t see it that way.
By the end of the evening, everyone agreed to stay on, except Ralph, who was wavering. He said he’d think about it overnight.
Later there was a light tapping at my door. Steve stood outside with two glasses and a bottle of scotch. “Can we talk?” he whispered. “Downstairs?”
I nodded and followed him down the steps. The power was out again, so I lit a couple of candles while he poured the drinks.
“What do you think of all this?” he asked as we settled into armchairs.
“I’m not sure what to think,” I said. “The mood in town is pretty ugly.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Do you think I’m crazy to encourage everybody to stay? Or do you think I’m just plain crazy?” He smiled wearily.
“Maybe,” I said. “To both.” I was kidding, of course, but he looked so pained, I felt bad. “Look,” I said. “They’re grown-ups. They can make up their own minds.” Why, I wondered, was he talking to me, instead of Tracey?
As if he could read my mind, he said, “I suppose you know about Tracey and me.” He paused. “You do know we are…?”
“Yes.”
“I guess you couldn’t have missed all the creeping around in the night.” He laughed ruefully. “I feel kind of silly,” he went on. “A guy my age with a woman like that, twenty years younger. One of my students to boot!”
“She’s very attractive,” I said sympathetically. At least I tried to sound sympathetic, a difficult feat.
“My wife left me last year. For a younger man. Twelve years younger, in fact. I don’t know why it should be more humiliating to have your wife leave you for a younger man than it would be for one the same age or older, but it is. Maybe humiliating isn’t the word. Demoralizing would cover it better, perhaps.”
“That’s too bad,” I said. I thought of the dying days of my marriage to Clive and the parade of younger women I’d put up with for a while. Suddenly I was feeling genuinely sympathetic: humiliating and demoralizing indeed. “Been there,” I added.
“Have you? Really?”
I nodded.
“You probably won’t believe this, but the affair wasn’t my idea. It was hers. I was flattered, of course. I mean, it didn’t take much to persuade me. I gave it a couple of nanoseconds’ thought, I confess.
“But now…” he said softly. “Now I’m wondering why she… I mean, maybe this is the anxiety of a middle-aged guy, but I’m wondering if she did it for some other reason, to displace Hilda on the project or something.” He stopped. “I’m sorry, I have no business burdening you with this.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “But I don’t think you should assume that. You’re an attractive man, and you both share the same interests.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this, actually. Why would I ever try to convince Steve that everything was okay with Tracey, I wondered, when I found him rather appealing myself? But the fragility of the middle-aged man’s ego never ceases to amaze me, and I felt I had to say something to make him feel better, even if it wasn’t in my own best interests.
“Thanks,” he said. We talked for a few more minutes about the work, about his children of whom he was obviously very proud, about the approaching El Niño. Then he got up from his chair and came over to mine. Leaning over, he kissed me. It was a nice kiss, the kind that makes you think you might not mind making the guy’s breakfast for a while. We parted company at the top of the stairs, leaving me wondering what was going on. I like to think I am not lacking in self-confidence, but I try to temper it with a firm grasp on reality. The point was, a contest between me and Tracey for a man was not one I’d expect to win. Was I doing the same thing I’d thought Steve was doing, having self-doubts about a member of the opposite sex, or was there something more calculated happening? There was
something about the conversation, I thought, that didn’t ring entirely true, but perhaps it was just that there was so much left unsaid.
The Hacienda Garua contingent hung in. Even Ralph decided to stay. The trouble was, most of the Peruvian crew wouldn’t come back to work at the site. If they’d thought the place evil with a few relatively harmless accidents, this latest incident hadn’t improved their impression of the place one bit. Pablo stuck with us, as did Ernesto, surprisingly enough, the fellow who’d cut himself so badly. I’d heard he had a wife and four children, so maybe a few evil spirits were not enough to deter him from earning his living. Tomas too agreed to stay on. The students all stayed, with the exception of Robert, who said he’d had enough and headed back to Lima.
The one positive aspect of all this was that I was able to get Puma a real paying job. When the Peruvian workers disappeared, Steve tried to carry on with the small team he had, but the work slowed considerably.
“I’ve just got to get more manpower out here,” he groaned. “We’ll never get this done.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “How about Puma? He couldn’t do the technical work, but he can carry the dirt and work the sieve. He could sure use some money, if there was some way we could pay him.”
“I pay the Peruvian crew,” Steve said, “and with several of them gone, there’ll be some money. When can he start?”
The answer was right away. “Amazing!” Puma said. “Working on an archaeological site! Do you think we’ll find treasure?”
“You never know,” I replied. “And even if we don’t, this way you’ll be able to make sure we don’t unleash some terrible curse.”
I’d meant it as a joke, of course, but Puma heartily agreed with me.
Puma, as it turned out, was a willing and hard worker—when he showed up. In the first place, he wasn’t an early riser. While the rest of us started work as soon as it was light, Puma usually turned up a little rumpled-looking, late in the morning. Some days he didn’t show up at all. It was annoying because we were sorely shorthanded, and everyone left had to pitch in. Steve didn’t seem terribly perturbed by it: He said it was pretty standard behavior for a boy that age, and that Puma would be paid when he showed up, and not when he didn’t.
