The Last Mayan (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  At lunchtime, with the clouds darkening and the rumble of thunder ever closer, Eric left to try to call Mérida again. I found Minnie and walked back with her to her own excavation unit.

  “I’m not sure Eric didn’t jump the gun a little with his announcement,” I said.

  “It’s his enthusiasm,” Minnie pronounced. “He’s really excited about having you here, Alan. And I’m the mother goddess, you know. Everybody feels like they can confide to Minnie.”

  “Well, I haven’t made any commitments beyond the next four months,” I said. “I just agreed to help out in the crunch.”

  The older woman nodded. “Look at this,” she said, pointing to her unit, where excess dirt had been swept into little piles. “Sometimes I think I’ll never get the hang of this.”

  “It just takes time,” I said. “And a sharp trowel helps.”

  “Do you think that’s it?” She picked up her own trowel, a spade-bladed Marshalltown. “Maybe that’s what I need to do.”

  “Bring it by when you get a chance,” I said. “I have a file at our unit.”

  “Thanks, Alan.” I started away, but her voice caught me. “I gather Pepper isn’t very happy about this latest development.”

  “No.”

  “She really loves you, you know.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing.

  “She couldn’t wait for you to come down. She was so scared that at the last minute you were going to change your mind.”

  “The two of you must’ve talked a lot.”

  “Pretty much. There isn’t a lot else to do. You know, you’re lucky to have somebody like her.”

  “I’ve often thought so.”

  “Would you be surprised if I told you I was in love a long time ago?”

  “No.” I glanced up at the clouds, trying to decide if the thunder was nearer or whether the storm was beating itself out fifty miles to the north.

  “I met him while I was at the university, working on my master’s in library science. He was a lawyer. He was into all kinds of environmental causes and always taking cases that didn’t make him any money from people who couldn’t have afforded a lawyer otherwise.”

  I lowered my eyes from the sky to the tall, thin woman beside me, trying to imagine her young and in love.

  “But he didn’t want to stay in Iowa. He couldn’t make it on the work he was doing and he absolutely refused to start chasing ambulances. Then he got an offer from a major citizens’ action group in California. They were willing to pay him a good salary and provide benefits. Not anything like one of the major private law firms, of course. But enough to live comfortably on, and he could practice the kind of law he loved, helping people.”

  “What happened?” I asked, interested despite myself.

  “I’ll never forget the day he came and told me about the offer. He was so excited. He wanted me to come with him, of course, right then.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t. That’s what I told myself, anyway. I had to finish my coursework, about another year in residence. Then I’d join him.”

  “And?”

  “We wrote back and forth—this was before e-mail, of course—and we ran up huge phone bills. And I even flew out to visit him over Christmas. But it was funny—I noticed a change. Nothing big, just little things, like he wouldn’t meet my eyes, and sometimes he smiled or laughed too much. He seemed to be involved in his work, because that was all he wanted to talk about, almost as if it kept him from having to talk about us.”

  “Was there somebody else?”

  “You know, I never found out for sure? I just know I went back and the letters got fewer and fewer and it got harder and harder to get him on the phone, and when I did he always seemed preoccupied. He still loved me, he said. But there was always some case he was involved in, some deadline, some poor soul who was about to go under for the third time because of a greedy big corporation or government incompetence. I began to wonder after a while if he was using his work to keep me at arm’s length or whether he really was so wrapped up in what he was doing. All I know is his feelings toward me had very subtly changed. And when the year was up there was no reason to go to him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Some things aren’t meant to work. Some things are beautiful while they last, but they’re too fragile to stand the strain, sort of like a blossom with the first frost. It takes a very strong love to survive separation for long periods.”

  “Is this a message for Pepper and me?” I asked. “Or maybe just for me?”

  “I’m sorry. I tend to babble. I need to stuff a cork in my mouth.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “And I’ve been worried about Paul. I do hope he’s all right.”

  “Me, too,” I said and walked back to our unit. The storm, I decided, wasn’t going to reach us. The farmers would have to wait until tomorrow for rain.

  When Eric got back at three o’clock he said that Paul Hayes had still not turned up and he was about to notify the U.S. Consulate that a citizen was missing.

  A little chill ran through me. Surely if something had happened the police would have reported it by now and the consulate would know.

  Unless he’d been robbed and murdered and his body dumped in some out-of-the-way place. It wasn’t something I wanted to think about. It wasn’t the same Yucatán I remembered.

  We were packing our equipment to leave when Santos sauntered over.

  “Don Alan,” he said and I waited, knowing he had something to say.

  “Is it true don Pablo has disappeared?” he asked in Mayan.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “But he should be back now.”

  “He’s your friend, masimá?”

  “He is.”

  “He talked to me about the ruins,” the other man said. “He was looking for a site.”

  “Oh?”

  “I told him there wasn’t any site like that around here.”

  “Well, you’d know,” I said.

  He gave a little nod. “I showed him the cave, too.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  A shrug. “He was looking for something else. A site with big buildings.”

  “Maybe he found it,” I said then. “Maybe that’s where he is. Maybe he found the site with big buildings somewhere north of here.”

  Santos gave a little smile and walked away.

  Late that night I was routed from sleep by a pounding on our door and when I roused myself I found a wild-eyed Eric Blackburn.

  He told me they’d found Paul Hayes. His car had missed a turn near Peto and turned over. Because of the fire, it had taken them a while to identify the body.

  SEVENTEEN

  No one wanted to work the next day but we struggled out to the site anyway, all but Eric, who used my rental car to drive up to Mérida for the myriad arrangements that attend the death of a foreign national in Mexico. José, arm still in a sling and assisted by a solicitous April, insisted on going with us to the site, but once we were there it was difficult to think about work.

  Early in the morning hours, after Eric had told everyone about Paul’s death, he’d taken me aside. “I’d like you to take over while I’m gone. It should only be a couple of days. Alan, I really need you now.”

  And for some reason all I could think was, Everything was going well enough until I came. Fifteen years ago a project went to shit, and now … Maybe I bring my bad luck with me.

  It’s easy to be irrational at two-thirty in the morning.

  Now, at the site, I stared dully at our excavation unit, trying to remember what it was exactly that we had to do. My hand went into my pocket and touched something hard. I drew out the little stone tablet Paul Hayes had given me to guard.

  He wouldn’t be needing it now. I might just as well throw it away.

  Maybe if I hadn’t been an archaeologist I would have.

  “You don’t have any choice now,” Pepper told
me, standing up from the excavation. For the first time ever I noticed dark smudges under her eyes. “I guess I was thinking about myself before. But Eric really does need you.”

  I nodded.

  “Have you talked to Minnie?” I asked.

  “I tried, but she’s pretty upset. I think she really cared for Paul.”

  Half an hour later I picked my way over the open field to Minnie’s excavation.

  “How’re you doing?” I asked.

  “Not worth a damn,” she said and threw her trowel halfway across the unit. “Goddamn it, Alan, why?”

  Then she was hugging me with both arms and crying and I was trying to tell her it would be all right, but I knew the words were meaningless.

  It was an hour later, while I was searching in the back of the van for a line level, that Santos approached me.

  “A terrible thing about don Pablo,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “We talked many times, don Pablo and I, about the books and the old stories and about the site with the nohoch muul, the big pyramid. He told me about a man who came here a long time ago, an American, I think.”

  John Dance Williams. Well, it was easy to confuse the two English-speaking countries.

  “He met an old man, don Pablo said, and this old man showed him this place, deep in the forest.”

  “That’s what he told me, too,” I said.

  Santos nodded. “Don Pablo said he didn’t tell any of the other dzuulob. But he would have told you. You know Mayan.”

  “And did don Pablo?”

  “Not as well as you, but more than the others. And he had books in the old Mayan writing, that he brought from his country. He showed me. But many of the words were different. He said they spoke differently then, in the time long ago.”

  I didn’t think I could explain the principles of linguistic change, so I just nodded.

  “He knew many of the h-menob, too. He used to copy down their stories and their prayers and their chants. He had a little grabadora, a tape recorder, and he played some of them for me and I helped him translate them into Spanish.”

  On an impulse I reached into my pocket and took out the little stone tablet. “Did he ever show you this?”

  Santos took it and turned it over in his hand.

  “He showed it to me,” he said. “He said it had ancient writing, but I didn’t understand it. Do you?”

  “No.”

  Santos exhaled and took out a cigarette. He squatted and took out a match and I sat down beside him. “Don Alan, many people have come here looking for the ancient sites.”

  “Many.”

  “It’s a good thing. Once, all the sites were hidden in the jungle. Now there are great tourist centers, like Tulum and Kohunlich and Becán and Xpujil and Cobá.”

  “Yes.”

  “When the arqueólogos come to excavate a site, they hire men and that means good pay. In the old days, when there was a drought, like this year, there was no corn and the people starved. In the días de esclavitúd, the slavery days. Now, when a site is opened for the tourists, they hire guides and groundskeepers and guards all year ’round.”

  “It’s a good thing,” I said, reflecting that my own nostalgia was of little consequence when it came to the survival of a people.

  “Don Eric pays me well for what I do. I am very grateful. I would not do anything to upset him.”

  “Why would anything you did upset him?”

  Santos shrugged, face impassive under the red baseball cap.

  “He’s spent two years here at this site,” Santos said finally. “Much work, much money.”

  “True.”

  “He asked me how far to the south the ruins went.”

  “And you said a kilometer.”

  He drew on the cigarette. “Don Pablo asked me the same question. He was looking for the site with the nohoch muul. I told him there wasn’t any.”

  “And?”

  “Tuzcep,” Santos said finally. “I lied.”

  I stared at our guide. “You mean this site continues into the forest?”

  He nodded. “It does. Small muulob, heaps of stone, for another five kilometers, maybe more. I’m not sure.”

  “Well, I’m glad you told me now,” I said. “At least we can plan for next year. But Santos, why did you hold it back?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time, just continued to smoke until the cigarette was a stub and then he flicked it onto the ground.

  “Some of the h-menob thought don Pablo asked too many questions. They’ve met foreigners before. At first they thought the foreigners would bring things to help them, but now they see that the foreigners just want to ask questions. But I should have told don Pablo. I should not have lied.”

  “Maalob,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “I told him this site ended a kilometer to the south. I didn’t tell him that it went farther because I was afraid he and don Eric would want to go there. And then, if they went too far, they would find the site with the nohoch muul.”

  I waited for the import of what he’d said to sink in. Maybe I’d heard him wrong. My Mayan was rusty and I was tired.

  “There’s such a site?” I asked slowly, this time in Spanish.

  “Sí, hay,” he replied. “The place with the heads.”

  “The heads?”

  “Yes, of the ancient kings. There is a door with seven of them.”

  I tried to contain my surprise. “Have you actually been to this place?”

  “A long time ago,” he said. “When I was young.”

  “And it’s not far from here?”

  “Twenty kilometers, maybe thirty, to the south. Pura selva.”

  All jungle. Which meant it was probably still hidden from the satellites that had been photographing this area for decades now.

  “Who knows about this place besides you?”

  “Villagers, but there aren’t so many these days. Sickness drove them out years ago. Paludismo. And chicleros.”

  “And it hasn’t been looted?”

  “Sure, parts of it. But the heads are supposed to still be there. That place is too overgrown. Only jaguars can get through the vines.”

  “How do you know, if you haven’t been there?”

  “Be bin,” he said in Mayan, looking away. “That’s what they say.”

  I tried to think how to proceed. He’d obviously told me all this for a reason. Maybe it was guilt, a feeling that Paul Hayes would still be alive if Santos had told Paul what he was telling me now. But I also sensed that his mind was not completely made up, that he was testing me to see how I responded.

  “What do you think we should do?” I asked in Spanish.

  “Quien sabe? Maybe sometime, though, we should go there.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “When do you think that should be?”

  “I don’t know. When you have time.”

  “Is there a road to the place?”

  He shook his head. “Ma tech. You have to walk. There’s a trail through the jungle.”

  “Can we do it in one day?”

  “One day, maybe less.”

  “Will you take me and Doctora Pimienta?” I asked, using the Spanish translation the workers used for Pepper’s name.

  “Sure.”

  “When?”

  He looked up at the sky, where more rain clouds had gathered, accompanied by rumblings.

  “Zamal, uale. Early. Before it gets hot. Before the rain.”

  “And if anyone else wants to go?”

  Another shrug. “Why not?”

  That evening, at dinner, I told the others about the site, holding back only Paul Hayes’s fantastic theory about pre-columbian visitors.

  “José, I’d like to have the Instituto Nacional represented.”

  The Mexican sighed. “Doctor, I’d be more of a burden than a help. Besides, I’ve heard stories like this before. You may just be going for a long, thirsty walk.”

  “It occurred to me,” I said.

 
“No, April and Minnie and I will stay here and do the work we’re being paid for.”

  “But if I find it—” I began.

  “—I’ll expect a full report for INAH,” the Mexican said dourly.

  “Of course.”

  Minnie reached across the table then and put her hand on my own. “Alan, I want to go.”

  “You?”

  “Why not? I’m in good physical condition. And I cared about Paul. I feel like I owe it to him to carry on somehow.”

  I looked over at Pepper, but she was already nodding.

  I turned back to Minnie. “All right,” I said. “Tomorrow. We’ll see if there’s a lost site out there in the jungle.” I raised my beer glass. “Meanwhile, let’s drink to Paul Hayes.”

  EIGHTEEN

  We left at five, while the mist still wreathed the cabañas. Geraldo wished us well and wrung his hands a few more times about Paul. Twenty-five miles west of the Chetumal turnoff we passed a roadblock and I saw Tapia sitting in one of the Humvees, looking his usual glum self. But they were checking traffic headed east from Escarcega and paid us little attention.

  In Ah Cutz village, Santos was waiting for us, his machete slung over one shoulder in a leather scabbard, chiclero style, and a gourd of water hanging from the other shoulder by a piece of cordage.

  We drove the half kilometer to the work site, started the Mayan crew to work, and then said our good-byes to José and April.

  “If we’re not back by tomorrow,” I joked, “you can send the army.”

  José’s eyes met my own. “If you’re not back tomorrow, I’ll come for you myself.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was a promise or a threat.

  The trail, Santos told us, led south, across the vast open space of the fallow field, past the grove of poplars with their sinkhole, and into the forest beyond. Where we were going was shown on the map only as unrelieved green, and the GPS I carried on my belt was little use in pinpointing a location we didn’t know, but I took coordinates at the edge of the forest, marked them on the map, and then gave a last look across the open space to the shimmering green of the grove.

  It was eight-fifteen and Santos said we had ten to twenty kilometers—six to twelve miles—to go. I hoped the first estimate was closer to the truth, but there was only one way to find out.