The Curse of the Lost White City

by James Gray

  Slowly, the river narrowed and the thick walls of vegetation began to close in on us from both sides. There were canopies of great wide leaves, tangled vines, and branches heavy with clusters of moss that hung down like living curtains. I wondered whether something curious was about to swing down from a branch to get a closer look.

  The further we went, the smaller I felt. Suddenly, the mosquitoes became fierce and macaws began to squawk. From overhead, howler monkeys threatened us with wild gestures and screams. Everything seemed to belong to something else, more and more like an immense mixture of chaos, where everything that crawled, slithered, flew, walked or hopped was just as close as my next breath.

  When the shadows began to lengthen, we hauled our boats up onto a sandbank, where a large broad-leaved tree blessed us with shade. Chili-Chili went over to a mound of earth and tossed aside a thick curtain of moss and vines. It was a stone petroglyph about as big as a refrigerator. A feathered serpent and a large four-legged bird with bat-like wings were engraved on the large flat rock. There was a large stone head nearby with etchings carved into a flat stone underneath it.

  “This is a territory marker,” Chili said. “I’ve seen others like it out here.”

  Kneeling, I brushed my hand over the stone. Then, looking down at my feet, I noticed an endless trail of thousands of red ants marching across the thick jungle soil, each one carrying a piece of green leaf that resembled a sail. They filed up the smooth bark of a large tree and disappeared into a split branch. Pedro frowned and said that ants usually did that before a heavy rain. I tried not to think of it too much, but the same question kept popping into my head. Was something brewing? If it was, there wasn’t much to do but keep on going up the river as far as we could before the sky fell.

  During the last hour of daylight, a few of us waded into the river up to our knees to wash, but we were careful because that time of the evening is perfect for an old crocodile to sneak over under the muddy surface and try his luck. I noticed that Chili-Chili and Cowboy George didn’t go in for a wash; they had another plan. Each one armed himself with a machete and a rifle, and they discretely went off along a narrow trail that ran along the riverbank then disappeared into the thick bush. Eddy followed close behind with the camera. It wasn’t often that one could see two Native Americans from communities thousands of miles apart hunting together.

  While I sat in the last minutes of daylight writing in my notebook, two long dugout canoes poled by wiry men approached from upriver. The boats were loaded with children, parents and grandparents sitting among sacks of rice, bananas and baskets of vegetables. They poled their boats over to where we were setting up camp and beached.

  These were Miskito returning to their homes, having spent several weeks working the more fertile land upriver. The women chattered and laughed, and handed out mangoes and melons to María as she unpacked our food box. One of the men offered us two large freshly caught fish wrapped in banana leaves. In an hour, our hunters returned with a large turtle and started a cooking fire. Soon the air was filled with smoke and the smell of supper roasting over the hot coals. In all we were eighteen, including six children. It was the children who fascinated me the most. Their large dark eyes watched our every move, especially when Eddy took out the camera and started filming. One child, a small boy perhaps six years old named Chicho, shadowed me all evening. Later, the boy came over and curled up and fell asleep on the sand just beside me.

  That evening, everyone slept on the sand between two fires that burned through the night. They were to keep the mosquitoes and predators away. It was a good thing too, because several times during the night I heard a growl coming from the jungle nearby. Chili got up and quietly stoked the campfires.

  “Chili, what the hell was that?” I asked.

  “Jaguar. Don’t worry, Señor Jack, they don’t like the flames. But if it comes too close, I’ll scare it off with this.” He patted the 30-30.

  When I awoke the next morning, the Miskito family with little Chicho had already slipped away. María was the only one of us who saw them leave. After breakfast, we packed our things and began Day Two of our expedition.

  I took notes and just tried to take it all in. At one point, I dozed off. When I opened my eyes, they focused on a condor soaring gracefully in the sky high above. I also noticed that a layer of thin white clouds had moved into the upper levels, and a distinct ring circled the sun. Were the rings around the sun, the red ants moving to higher ground, and the stray blue butterfly that had landed on old Anton’s hand nature’s way of telling me that bad weather was approaching? If a serious storm did hit the coast, the old man would have to move fast to get Numada into the mangroves for protection. I just hoped that I hadn’t made the wrong decision. Well, it was too late now; I just had to live with the choice that I had made and believe in that old man — and myself.

  As we travelled on, it became obvious that the dense jungle lining both riverbanks was closing in. Valeska saw it as an infinitely complex shelter for a mass of living, crawling, prowling creatures. But for me, it was a single entity, ready to strike. She pointed out dozens of half-submerged crocodiles that blended in perfectly with sunken tree trunks. I couldn’t begin to imagine what other creatures were hiding beneath that slimy murk. Further on, we passed small clusters of thatched huts on the muddy banks of the great river, homes of the Pech people who worked the soil, fished and used the river for transport. This was the first group of many scattered along the Patuca. Eastern Honduras and part of Nicaragua had been their homeland long before the first European explorers rowed ashore on the northern coast of this wild land.

  Our two boats came close to a dozen children playing with a half-inflated soccer ball on a strip of sand. They waved at us. Nearby, a group of women were seated on round boulders near the riverbank washing clothes. They lifted their heads, watched us pass by and returned to their scrubbing. A mile or so upstream, our boats met more dugouts overflowing with families and children of all ages. Some of these pipantes were loaded with so many bananas, coconuts and passengers that only a few inches of freeboard made the slim difference between reaching the next destination and sinking. As always, somebody constantly bailed water from the boats, and more than once, we slowed so our wake wouldn’t swamp a boat coming the other way.

  Late that afternoon, Chili-Chili guided us into a small creek. Our boats rounded a bend, and we came across a few worn-out pipantes and some small huts on a narrow white sand spit that jutted into a wide spot in the stream. As we approached, the distinct musty smell of burning cedar filled the air. Children playing in the shallow water yelled and waved, and shortly afterwards two men came down and helped us pull up the boats.

  The two families who lived here were Barra Patuca Miskito, also friends of the Lopez brothers. There were twelve in all, including the children and grandparents. They worked the small plot of land behind the camp. The land on the coast was notoriously infertile. For months on end, family clans like theirs tended small banana plantations and grew beans, rice and maize inland.

  Yago, a well-built, brown-skinned fellow of about thirty, was the younger of two brothers. Abel appeared to be about ten years older and was roundish. They grinned and shook hands with us awkwardly. Right off, Chili-Chili asked if they had any gasoline to sell, since we only had about twenty gallons left. Chili-Chili had arranged in advance to pick up more gas here, but there seemed to have been a problem anyway.

  “Gasolina, no hombre, no hay,” said Yago. (No, man, I don’t have any.) He shrugged his shoulders and looked kind of embarrassed.

  Chili didn’t look too happy. But as tradition goes among the river people of Mosquitia, the problem was forgotten in a few minutes. Yago offered us an empty hut to hang our hammocks for the night. It didn’t take long before our gang had settled in and the fish we’d caught along the way were roasting on the fire. After we ate, we sat around the brightly burning flames near our boats. Yago brought out a bottle of guifiti, a dark homemade brew spiced with pep
pers, seeds, twigs, cinnamon, marijuana and other, unidentifiable ingredients. From the warning look that Chili-Chili gave me, I was waiting for something strongly alcoholic, but when I took a slug, it burned my mouth. I had to laugh as I watched the others take swigs from the big bottle. A few minutes later, the stuff started to kick in. It was as potent as it tasted, and soon we were all high as frigatebirds.

  As the fire burned on and the bottle was passed around, we got talking about our destination until, finally, Yago opened up. “Not too long ago, maybe three weeks back, Abel and I went upriver to buy seed from a Tawahka friend who lives near the border. On the way back, we decided to go hunting. There are deer up there, and there were lots of fresh tracks on the riverbank.” The firelight illuminated his face and his dark eyes sparkled. He gazed straight into the flames. “We left our boat and followed some fresh deer tracks into the jungle. That’s when we came across the ruins. At first we didn’t realize how big they were, but then we saw. There were stone blocks everywhere. People had obviously been digging. There was a large pyramid. There were tools everywhere — shovels, saws and all kinds of equipment to cut stone.” Yago paused and looked at Abel. “This was the place that we had heard about so many times before. It was the center, the center of the Ciudad Blanca. Everywhere we looked, we saw jade carvings, statues and pottery all over the ground. Someone was there taking away the treasures.”

  “They had even removed the head of a statue partway up one of the structures,” added Abel.

  “Claro,” said Yago. “We’d found a looters’ camp. Then we heard voices. The only thing we could do was climb a tree and hide. We would have been shot right there if they had seen us. I have never been so afraid in my life.”

  Yago took another slug of guifiti, then leaned over, picked up a stick and poked around in the fire. Sparks flew up into the night sky. He placed a pile of green leaves on the flames and thick smoke filled the air.

  “These hombres were outsiders, maybe six in all.”

  “Si, and two of them had AK-47’s,” Abel added.

  “Military?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. But they had some military equipment, and their boss talked a few times on a telephone that he had with him.”

  “Probably a satellite phone, that’s the only thing that works around here,” said Peter-Pedro.

  “There we were,” Yago continued. “All we could do was wait and watch, and hope that they wouldn’t see us. Si, amigos, we remained up there hiding in the branches like macaques while the looters worked below. They started packing the artifacts in wooden crates. But there was something else, too. Before they crated the artifacts, they placed some packages of what seemed to be cocaine in each container. Then after putting in false bottoms, they loaded each crate up with artifacts and sealed it tight.”

  “They must have been smuggling cocaine. But where did it come from?” I asked.

  “That’s easy, it comes from upriver. They bring it in from the Nicaraguan side. It’s a safe route; no one thinks about bringing narcotics in this way.”

  “Yeah, no one except this gang.” I looked over at Valeska, and she was staring at the ground. Had she known all along?

  Yago pointed downward as if he was still perched in the tree. “The one who seemed to be the boss talked on the telephone part of the time. Once, he yelled at his men when the sculpted rock they’d been cutting out of the wall split in two. After a while, I needed to change positions because I had a cramp in one leg. And my brother wasn’t doing any better. Just before dark, the men below stopped work, picked up the most valuable pieces, and left. Later, we saw that their camp was just around a bend. When we were certain we wouldn’t be spotted, we climbed down the tree, grabbed a few small artifacts that had been left behind, and snuck off to our boat on the riverbank.”

  The bottle of guifiti went around the circle again and we all agreed that the brothers had been lucky. Yago asked his wife to show us a sample of what they had brought back. She got up and went into the woods, returning shortly with a jade carving about sixteen inches high. It was a monkey, wonderfully proportioned, its two arms crossed on its chest. Slowly, the statue was passed from hand to hand.

  The Russian artifact dealer in Québec City had had his catalogue open to a page filled with photos of similar statues. He’d quoted five thousand dollars for one very much like this one. But this particular monkey was probably worth even more. It was bigger and with more elaborate carvings. That was more money than this little clan of subsistence farmers had ever seen.

  According to Yago, many local people felt that selling pilfered artifacts was the only way to escape poverty, so it was understandable that they had no qualms about looting these sacred tombs. In the Mosquitia, a statue like this one could bring its finder around one hundred dollars, about a month’s wages. But the guys that Yago and his brother had seen were working on two fronts: narcotics and artifacts. The weapons, military duds, the satellite telephone and rambling ruins of white stone certainly added up. This seemed to be typical Dog Barker strategy: a two-for-one deal.

  It had been a long day, and as the night grew older and the bottle emptier, the idea of curling up in a hammock seemed increasingly attractive. Valeska and I went down to the water’s edge to wash. I had to ask her. “Valeska, did you know about the cocaine?”

  She looked at me and answered right away, “No, but I was suspicious. Once Dog had told me that it would be a good front. But I never really took him seriously.”

  “What about your uncle? Could he have been in on it as well?”

  “No way. He didn’t need the money or the problems. He was in it strictly for one purpose, to create a new world-class archaeological site. He made a big mistake teaming up with Dog Barker.”

  Then we were quiet for a while. I wondered if Valeska was telling me the truth.

  In the dim light, we could just barely see a few night herons, knee-deep in the creek fishing for minnows. Somewhere in the trees on the other side, an owl hooted, seeking a friend with whom to converse. There wasn’t a breath of wind, nor a human sound, only the mantra given off by an army of frogs and geckos. No Venus, Mars or bright white moon hung overhead, nothing but darkness and the oppressive, dank, humid heat of a night in the heart of the jungle. But we had access to fresh water, and washing up in the creek felt good.

  “This is how I like it,” said Valeska in a low voice. “Just listen to that chatter.”

  “Yeah, but if only we knew what they were saying, we might not want to hang around.”

  “It’s probably just … how do you say? Small talk.”

  “Lucky those critters are as tiny as they are. We’d go mad with the racket if they were as big as us. It would be like being in a Québec City bar on a Friday night.”

  “What’s Québec like?”

  “Tame compared to here. Maybe I’ll take you there sometime.”

  “No hurry; just get me to Ciudad Blanca for now. We’ll see about Québec City later.” Valeska slapped a mosquito that had started to drill on her shoulder.

  “Let’s go. If we stay out here any longer, we’ll be eaten alive,” I said.

  Back inside the hut, it was almost like a sweat lodge, but the heat didn’t keep anyone from sleeping. It was too dark to see who was who, but by the sound of the snoring, we knew exactly where Cowboy George’s hammock was. Valeska put in her earplugs, climbed into her hammock, curled up and drifted off to sleep.

  But my day was not quite finished. It was almost time for the weather forecast from Miami. Maybe there would be news about that depression off the Columbian coast. I put on my headlamp and started to look around inside the equipment cases for the trusty Single-Sideband radio receiver. No luck. In the last-minute rush before leaving the schooner, I must have left it on the chart table. What a dumb mistake. Keeping an eye on the weather was essential. Perhaps there really was something brewing offshore, but without a real forecast, how could I be certain?

  In the middle of the Mosquitia, how
could I have known that a massive tropical depression had begun to move northward, spinning, expanding, and gaining strength as it picked up speed? Then again, I reasoned, people had been living here for thousands of years without NOAA’s sophisticated tropical storm predictions. I lay face up in my hammock and listened to the chorus of frogs. For a while, sleep was impossible. The storm gods were starting to make me nervous.

  Around 4:00 a.m., the sound of rain falling on the thatched roof woke me up. I climbed out of my hammock and went outside. The light shower felt good and the air was fresher, almost bearable. If it stayed that way, we would have a good day to travel. Beyond the trees to the southeast, I noticed the odd flash of lightning — radiating from huge cumulus clouds stacked up at least fifteen thousand feet into the predawn sky. We were probably in for a good soaking. I returned to my hammock with the sound of the jungle fading to a whisper, as if the hoard of living things were secretly making plans for the new day. When I brushed up against Valeska’s netted cocoon, I realized she too was awake.

  “Jack, I just had a horrible dream,” she said in a low voice.

  “What?”

  “Someone faceless was chasing me through the jungle. He kept yelling at me. Then I fell into a hole full of mud and insects, I couldn’t breathe, I was drowning. Then I saw Dog. He was laughing, watching me drown.”

  “Valeska, Dog isn’t anywhere near here, and even if he were, he’d be dead meat if he ever lay a finger on you. Try to get a little more sleep. It’s going to be another long day on the river. Bad weather is moving in.”

  There was a long silence. Just as I was about to doze off, she whispered, “Jack, you have to film Yago’s story about the looters. It’s too important to miss.”