12.21

reverence, if you have followed his guidance about what to prepare on your hearth.”

“I have followed his guidance for twelve moons,” Volcy said, his eyes softening again when he saw she understood. “He has shown me the souls of the animals of the jungle and how he watches over them. He told me how no human shall destroy them.”

Stanton cut in. “What is he saying?”

Again Chel ignored him. She had earned back Volcy’s trust, and she needed answers of her own before he faded away again.

“Was it the hawk who led you to the great temple, to the place where you could provide for your family?” she asked. “For Janotha and Sama?”

Slowly he nodded.

“How far from the village was this temple Chuyum-thul led you to?”

“Three days’ walk.”

“In which direction?”

He didn’t answer.

“Please, you must tell me in which direction you went three days’ walk.”

But Volcy had shut down again.

Frustrated, Chel shifted gears. “You followed the guidance of Chuyum-thul for twelve moons? What was his guidance?”

“He commanded I subsist for twelve moons, that he would give me guidance to bring splendor to the village,” Volcy said. “Then he led me to the temple.”

When she heard the words, Chel was confused. Subsist for twelve moons?

How could that be?

Subsistence was a practice that went back to the ancients, in which shamans would retreat to their caves to commune with the gods and survive on only water and a few fruits for months at a time.

“You have subsisted for twelve moons, brother?” Chel asked Volcy slowly. “And have you kept that oath?”

He nodded.

“What the hell is he saying?” Stanton demanded.

Chel turned to him. “You said this disease came from meat, right?”

“All non-genetic prion disease comes from meat. That’s why I need to know what kind of meat he’s eaten. As far back as he can remember.”

“He hasn’t been eating any meat.”

“What are you saying?”

“He’s been on a subsistence diet. For our people that means no meat.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I’m telling you,” Chel said. “He says he’s been a vegetarian for the past year.”

SEVEN

VOLCY’S MOUTH, HIS THROAT, AND EVEN HIS STOMACH WERE AS dry as if he’d sowed plots for two days straight. Like the thirst Janotha said she had felt when she delivered Sama, a thirst that couldn’t be quenched. The lights flickered in and out as he opened and closed his eyes, trying to grasp how he’d gotten into the bed in the first place.

I’ll never see Sama again. I’ll die here, and she won’t know I took the book from the ancients for her, only for her.

When the drought came, the shaman chanted and made offerings to Chaak every day, but still no rain came. Families broke up, children got shipped off to relatives in the cities, elders died from the heat. Janotha worried her milk would dry.

But you—the hawk—would never let that happen—never.

When Volcy was a boy, and his mother would go hungry to feed the children, he would creep across the floor of their hut while his parents slept, sneak out of their house, and steal maize from a family with more than they needed.

The hawk, never afraid.

Years later, Volcy had heeded the call of his wayob when his family was in need again. While he fasted, the hawk heard the call that would lead him to the ruins. He and his partner, Malcin, traveled three days into the forest, searching. Only Ix Chel, goddess of the moon, gave light. Malcin was afraid they might anger the gods. But slivers of pottery were being sold for thousands to white men because of the coming end of the Long Count cycle.

The gods had led them to the ruins, and, between towering trees, they found the building with walls wrecked by wind and rain. Inside the tomb was glory: obsidian blades; stucco-painted gourds and crystals; beads and pottery. A head mask and jade teeth on skulls. And the book. The cursed book. They had had no idea what the designs or words on the bark paper meant, but they were mesmerized.

Now Volcy was alone in the darkness—but where? The man and the Qu’iche woman were gone. Volcy reached for his water glass again. But the glass was empty.

He threw his legs onto the floor and lurched away unsteadily. His limbs were failing him like his vision. But he had to drink. He dragged the pole he was attached to into the bathroom, got to the sink, threw the handles wide, and shoved his head under the stream, forcing gulps. But it wasn’t enough. Water doused his nostrils and mouth and ran down his face, but he needed more. The curse of the book was sucking him dry, parching every inch of his skin. He had let the white man’s obsession with the Long Count compel him to sacrifice the honor of his ancestors.

The hawk lifted up from beneath the faucet and saw his face in the mirror. His head was soaked, but his thirst was still there.

* * *

STANTON, ON THE PHONE with Davies, paced in the courtyard in front of the hospital. Red and blue lights flashed everywhere; LAPD had been called in to hold back the metastasizing press. The leak about John Doe and his mysterious medical condition had apparently come from an orderly, who’d overheard Thane talking to an attending physician and posted something in a mad cow chat room. Now every major news organization in the country had dispatched reporters here as well.

“What if John Doe is lying?” Davies asked.

“Why would he lie?”

“I don’t know—maybe his wife’s some kind of rabid vegan, and he doesn’t want her to know he’s been chowing down on Big Macs.”

“Come on.”

“Okay then, maybe he got sick before he stopped eating meat?”

“You saw the slides. He got sick much more recently than a year ago.”

Davies sighed. “Your translator said it’s possible he could have had cheese or milk, right? It’s time to start talking about dairy.”

They had only the testimony of one patient up against decades of research, and Stanton was still skeptical of a vector other than meat. But they had to explore the possibility. E. coli, Listeria, and salmonella had all been found in cow’s milk, and Stanton had long feared that prion could get into the dairy supply. Per capita beef consumption in the United States was forty pounds a year; dairy was over three hundred. And milk from a single cow was often used in thousands of different products over its life-span, making finding the source that much more complicated.

“I’ll see what infrastructure the Guatemalans have for tracking their dairy,” Davies said. “But we’re talking about a Third World health service investigating a disease they won’t want anyone to know came from inside their borders. Not a recipe for good epidemiology.”

“How’s the hospital search here going?”