by J A Kellman
The waiter returned with my wine along with a plate of fruit. “What if the Nuevo, eager to reestablish their ancient dominance, kidnapped him?” I asked, helping myself to slice of pineapple. “He was world famous, after all. They might have heard about him and that he had information about the ancient Maya. On top of it, he’d found that stele and the vulture pectoral. Maybe they didn’t know about the pectoral, but we can’t be certain. It’s reasonable to think they wanted to learn what he knew about their early ancestors, then get rid of him. He was a gringo; maybe he shouldn’t have any important Mayan knowledge at all.”
The idea of the vulture pectoral hidden in my spice cabinet gave me the creeps. What if the Nuevo or some other group interested in control of the Petén found out? I could end up like Ruston. I shoved the thought from my mind and plunged on.
“So, first, kidnap the guy at the airport. Take him to a tiny aldea on the far shore of the lake. Find out what he knows; maybe have him translate any material in their possession. Then a few weeks later, ferry him to the shore of Tikal, load him on a donkey, take him to a spot behind Temple Four, and kill him. The sacrifice of an important man would be a perfect statement of their power and presence, as well as a gift to the ancestors. And he’d be off their hands.”
Luis and Zoila nodded in agreement.
“Makes sense,” Luis said. “It’s a plausible explanation of Ruston’s disappearance. It didn’t have to be weird or mysterious at all. Just the same old Mesoamerican power, sacrifice, terror thing.”
Just as we gathered ourselves to leave the dining room, the toucan politely removed a final piece of banana from the edge of Zoila’s plate and tossed it down.
That night the wind came up, flapping the curtains and rattling the thatch on the cabanas around the pool. The howlers redoubled their efforts. Perhaps they were agitated by the wind. Maybe they needed to make themselves heard over the blowing trees.
~ * ~
On our final day in Tikal, after our farewell tour of the site, we sat on the porch with our drinks as we had the first evening, watching the jungle darken and the mist rise between the trees across the small lawn, listening to the high-pitched songs of insects and the hoots of other jungle dwellers. I stirred in my chair, still musing about what I had seen on Flores. Who were those young men? What did they know about their ancestors and the thousands of years of Mayan history? What did they have to do, if anything, with the people who lived here in the distant past?
“I’ve been thinking about the Nuevo, their hair, piercings, teeth, and something we talked about yesterday. Might there still be descendants of the prince and his followers living in the Petén, maybe mixed in with everyone else, but still remembering some of the old stories?” I asked Luis.
He thought for a moment. “Maybe.” He pulled himself up a little straighter in his chair with his good arm. “That period saw a lot of cultural change: from Olmec to Maya on the coast, trade across all of Mesoamerica, populations intermarrying, language changes in Tikal, populations coalescing into cities with heterogeneous population, and entire groups of people shifting from one place to another. The disappearance of a small group early in Tikal’s history would hardly be unusual. Their reappearance years later, perhaps elsewhere in the Petén, wouldn’t be strange either. That’s the way it worked.”
I nodded, visualizing the little group that left Tikal.
“It could have looked like this,” I said, plunging into a story. “Once the prince and his family decided returning to the coast didn’t make sense—they had kids to worry about—they began to build a community deep in the jungle: a small palace, plaza, and temple, houses for their retinue. They cleared land for crops as soon as possible and marked boundaries with little stele to separate their world from the untamed wilderness.”
“The group would include everyone necessary to begin a new community, too, everyone a village would need to start from scratch,” Zoila interjected.
“Yes, Tikal didn’t cover much territory then, and its population wasn’t very big, so the group didn’t have to go far in that rough environment to get away from the growing city and its soldiers. No way was anyone going to march through snake-infested swamps to attack them. They might as well have been on another planet, as far as Tikal was concerned.” It sounded plausible, at least to me.
“Their group could have been safe from the Spaniards years later, too,” Zoila said, taking up my tale. “The Spaniards probably weren’t any more eager to push through the swampy terrain than the folks in Tikal had been.
“Maybe they’re still here. Maybe those kids in Flores are part of that group. Maybe Ruston blundered into them. The Nuevo may be an offshoot of the original population. Or maybe they’re just wannabes.”
We went to bed early that night. The next day was going to be busy—fly to Guatemala City where Luis’s and Zoila’s relatives would pick them up and take them home to Xela; I’d go into the city, spend a couple of days visiting museums, and then head to Antigua to see friends. Two weeks later, we would meet in the airport to begin our journey home.
The drive and flight the next morning were easy: the road had been graded, the plane was on time, takeoff and landing were smooth, and the plane was nearly empty.
We spotted Luis’s two brothers and their wives waiting in the arrival hall as soon as we got our luggage. After greetings and a flurry of activity, the men took the bags, the walker, the handles of Luis’s wheelchair, and swept Zoila and Luis away toward the exit, everyone talking at once.
I made a beeline for the taxi rank—first the hotel, then the Ixchel Museum. Maybe their exhibits of ancient regalia and clothing would be the keys to the meaning of the steles. After all, what else was there to see in those steles’ images besides ancient garments and stylistic conventions?
Guatemala City, Guatemala
The Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena on the campus of Francisco Marroquin University explores the Mayan traditions of dress throughout Guatemala; its collections of textiles and jewelry are known throughout the world. I’d spent hours poking through their collection when I was in grad school and could locate various materials in my sleep. I headed toward the rear of the lower level and the section on early dress that included a display of pre-Columbian coastal cultures’ garments.
Clearly the small exhibit had been redone into a diorama since I’d last visited. It portrayed the central market plaza in Takalik Abaj, according to the description on the nearby wall. The mannequins were dressed like characters in what must have been a daily scene in the busy Olmec-Mayan city that dominated coastal trade for more than a thousand years. The freshly painted background mural made the scene come alive—men trading bright feathers of jungle birds, elaborate pottery from far north, and pieces of jade for salt, and cacao. A young lord, looking a lot like the guy on the five-gallon bucket in Flores, was seated cross-legged in front of temple, watching the scene, wearing a jade vulture pectoral much like Ruston’s on his necklace. That retro guy. A jade vulture. I took a photo then headed for the director’s office.
Isabella Gutiérrez, director of the Ixchel, her black hair in an untidy bun, was seated on the floor of her office sorting through a pile of files when I knocked on the half-open door. She clearly hadn’t heard me coming because she let out a tiny squeak before floundering to her feet.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” I began. “I won’t take much of your time. I’m Ann Cunningham, retired professor of art and culture from Big Grove in the States. I visited your museum years ago. I can’t believe all the changes. Your new diorama of the market in Takalik Abaj is wonderful. What a great setting for those garments!
“The mural is spectacular as well. Could you tell me something about it? Who painted it? Is the artist from around here?”
“Come in,” she said, pushing the door wide. “Have a seat. I’m glad for a break. I’ve been sorting these files since I got in this morning; I’m trying to get organized, make more room for the paper that accumulates despite comp
uters. Paperless society, ha! I’m Isabella Gutiérrez, but I imagine you figured that out.” She offered her hand and we shook briefly before we both sat.
“The artist owns a studio in Antigua. She does most of the museum work in Guatemala and much of Central America. Her name’s Ruth Wiseman. Her parents immigrated here during the Second World War. I have her card somewhere,” she said, digging in a box on the top of her desk. “Here’s her address and phone number, if you’d like to know more. Tell her I told you to give her a call.”
“I’m going to Antigua in a day or two: I’ll get in touch with her then, but maybe you could tell me a bit about the coastal mural itself. Did you have input, or did Ruth choose the content?”
“A little of both. We discussed what I was thinking. She did a couple of preliminary sketches. I took a look, made some suggestions. She did a final drawing. I approved it.”
“I’m interested in preclassic garments and the work of an epigrapher named Ruston,” I said. “How about details like the lord’s pectoral? Did you suggest it or did she just include it? And how about the lord himself? Do you know who the model was?”
“I know before she started work she looked through our collection of jades and coastal garments. We don’t have a vulture, by the way. She did some research at the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, too. I don’t think they have a vulture there, either, but you might check, or you could just ask Ruth. As far as the lord is concerned, she said he was a friend, a guy she’s known a long time who was willing to pose.”
Conversation drifted off to other topics: the Ixchel’s recent acquisitions, Ruston’s demise, and the recent disappearance of yet another scholar, Polop. It was after four o’clock when I left, too late to go anywhere but back to the hotel. The Archaeology Museum could wait till tomorrow.
~ * ~
I got to the Archaeology Museum as soon as it opened the next morning. At that hour, I had the place to myself, which made my life easier. I could take photos without having to dodge tourists and school kids on a field trip. Everything that looked like a vulture—carved in limestone, painted on ceramics, hinted at in jade, painted in murals—I documented in excruciating detail, with my camera as well as in my notes. I didn’t have much luck finding a jade vulture pendant until just after noon.
In a dark corner of an exhibition hall, in a poorly lighted glass case full of early classic polychrome ceramics, a cylinder-shaped vessel caught my eye. Around the center portion, under a border of glyphs, a lord leaned forward to accept a bowl of chocolate from a high-ranking woman with a jade necklace.
The only thing strange about the otherwise ordinary court scene—with a seated lord, petitioners bearing gifts, and a servant standing behind the lord with a fan—was the lord wasn’t human: he was a vulture. What the hell? Hundreds of years after the date on Ruston’s stele, a Vulture Lord crops up again, and this one is wearing a vulture pectoral, too.
I nearly dropped my camera in my excitement. Once I calmed down and recorded every scrap of information I could find on the label and in the guidebook, I took photos from multiple angles. I could chase this thing down when I had more time.
If I’d missed anything here, it wasn’t because I hadn’t been looking, I thought, as I headed for the exit.
~ * ~
I didn’t spot the car following my taxi in the dense city traffic on the way to my hotel later that afternoon. I didn’t see it pass my cab and turn down a dusty side street of workshops, garages, and small businesses a block beyond my hotel, either, but it must have been there. How else could anyone explain what happened next?
Two men dressed in jeans and black T-shirts, wearing sunglasses blank as welder’s goggles, rounded the corner of my hotel, just as I started toward the front entrance.
“Uno momento, señora,” the tallest man said as he crossed the short distance between us.
I turned, startled. Something wasn’t right. I grabbed my purse strap with one hand and balled my other into a fist. Men don’t stop women in the streets in Guatemala. Young men don’t accost older women, especially. And why were they dressed like killers in a cheap thriller? And why their urgency? If it was a joke, it wasn’t funny.
I turned to face them just in time to be hit square on the cheekbone by the shorter man and to be engulfed in the choking grasp of the taller one as he grabbed my neck and tried to wrench my bag from my shoulder. My purse, one of those steel-reinforced, impossible-to-read-credit-cards-through, don’t-screw-with-me travel bags, wasn’t going anywhere. Its heavy strap crossed my body from shoulder to hip. The steel-reinforced band sawed on my shoulder like a cheese slicer. They’d have to kill me to get it off; it was a bad thought to have as I was being assaulted.
“Where is it, bitch?” the tall man snarled, tearing my blouse open with a single jerk.
“Fuego! Fuego! Fire, fire!” I yelled as I kicked the short guy in the shins as hard as I could—according to my periodic training with Bill, calling “help” makes people nervous and they run; yelling “fire” draws them in. I felt a bone crack in my hand with a tiny jolt as I slammed my fist into the tall man’s nose. I didn’t care. His nose wasn’t in good shape, either. I screamed and punched and kicked for all I was worth as my defense lessons—bless Bill’s Navy SEAL’s aggressive little heart—swung into gear. Those afternoons Pat and I spent with him behind Burr Oaks were paying off.
I rammed my knee into what I hoped was a crotch just as the doorman–hotel guard jumped into the fray. There wasn’t much else he could do but join in, since the three of us were rolling on the cement like brawling dogs, and he couldn’t use his gun without running the risk of shooting me.
Once the fight included the guard, though, the men, seeing their plan had gone awry and they were losing ground, broke away and ran like hell. The guard, stopping long enough to make certain I was okay, ran after them, unsnapping his holster, pulling his gun, and firing in one smooth practiced motion, but by then the thugs had rounded the corner.
The rest of the action was a blur. The guard hauled me into the hotel and seated me in the nearest chair. He called the police. The manager called an ambulance. A hostess from the restaurant brought ice wrapped in a towel for my hand and a sweater to cover my ruined blouse. Finally I fainted, carried away by the receding wave of adrenaline.
Fifteen
Tikal National Park, Guatemala
Ríos had been discussing the month’s duty roster with Ochoa in the rangers’ headquarters early the following morning when the phone rang. “What? What? She what? No!”
He put his hand over the phone as he turned to Ochoa seated across from him. “It’s the American Embassy. A pair of thugs attacked Ann Cunningham when she got out of her cab in front of her hotel late yesterday afternoon. She was coming back from the Archaeology Museum.”
“No! Now what?” Ochoa asked. “Ann assaulted in broad daylight in front of her hotel. Is she okay? What the hell is going on? What can we do?”
“She’s banged up, but fine except for a broken bone in her hand. They kept her in the hospital for observation, but she’ll probably be released this afternoon. The embassy can’t reach the Velascos—the phone reception is terrible in that part of the Highlands. They’ve contacted two of her friends in the States, but it is going to be a couple of days before they get here.” Ríos listened to the person on the other end of the phone for another minute before ending the call.
He turned back to Ochoa. “Embassy folks want us to stay with her till the friends arrive, since Ann knows you. We need to keep an eye on her safety, too, since they’re shorthanded. No one knows what happened, maybe just a random mugging, maybe something else, given what has been happening to people who have anything to do with Ruston and his stele. Jesús!”
Ochoa thought for a moment. “Listen. I have an idea. Why don’t Esperanza and I go? Esperanza can stay with Ann. I can keep my eye on them both and poke around till her friends show up.”
Ochoa was already making a list of things t
o take. One thing for certain, since this was an official assignment, he’d wear his uniform and take his weapon. He wasn’t going to be much of an official presence if he didn’t look like one. He’d need extra magazines, Mace, his bulletproof vest. This sure as hell wasn’t going to be like delivering a lecture on the fine points of early Tikal architecture. Who knew what kind of weirdness was going on?
~ * ~
By the time Bill and Pat showed up two days later, Ochoa hadn’t learned much more. He’d checked the police reports—nothing. After all this was, by police standards, a nonevent, especially in Guatemala. Besides the hotel doorman, there was only one other witness, the elderly woman who sold atole on the corner at a small temporary stand—one crate with her supplies and a stool for her customers.
“Two men jumped out of a car at the corner as soon as that woman left the taxi, the atole woman said,” Ochoa told Bill later as they drank beer in the hotel bar. “They ran at Ann. One grabbed her purse. The other hit her in the face and ripped her blouse. She screamed. She wouldn’t let go of her purse. They dragged her down the walk by the strap, but she fought like a jaguar, according to the woman. When the hotel guard came out, the men ran. One was bent over limping; the other was holding his hand over his bleeding nose. The atole woman enjoyed the hell out of the spectacle.
“I figure it was the two men, plus a driver. A well-planned attack. And they didn’t get what they wanted. Who knows what they thought was in Ann’s bag, unless they wanted her research notes and camera. And what did they think was around her neck so they needed to rip her blouse open? I don’t have anything to go on. Zilch. At least Ann and Esperanza enjoyed their visit. Oh, Ann told me she recognized the model for a lord in a mural she saw in the Ixchel. That’s something.”
Sixteen
Big Grove, December
It was the first day of December, another cold night in a string of steel-cold midwestern evenings, the kind that made people close the curtains and put on their warmest sweater and slippers. It was made more miserable in the Bloomingdale Road neighborhood with dirt from the nearby parking lots blowing across the road in eddies and peppering exposed skin like buckshot. A white panel truck with Texas plates pulled off I-74 and stopped in front of the self-storage business that marked the edge of Saint Patrick’s immediate neighborhood. The driver punched in the business’s entry code and turned the truck toward the units at the opposite corner of the facility, stopping in front of the last space.
