12.21

them impassable for much of the year.

The plan was to stay for the night in Kiaqix and set out again at dawn into the jungle in the opposite direction of Lake Izabal, recreating the path that the Original Trio had taken here but in reverse. The five-mile path from the airstrip was so rutted that Stanton could barely get the jeep out of first gear. A light rain fell. Though they drove over cleared land, the sounds of the jungle were always near: the shrill calls of the keel-billed toucans, the monkeys making their wolflike cries.

Even as they drove through the darkness, Stanton tried to make out what little plant life he could identify around them for any sign of whatever might have protected the king and his men from the disease. On the way down he’d studied the flora that grew in this tropical forest, and he recognized a few trees by their shapes in the headlights: Spanish cedars with their coupled leaflets that looked like outstretched arms, vanilla vines that climbed up the small, thin trunks of copal.

“Where do we stay tonight?” Stanton asked, wiping the blinding sweat from his forehead. He had never been this far south, and he couldn’t believe the wall of heat that greeted them when they landed.

The heat wasn’t new to Chel, but with this much humidity, even she felt like she was seeing the world underwater. “Maybe with my mother’s cousin Doromi. Or with one of my father’s sisters. Anyone will let us stay with them. They know me.”

Neither of them dared mention the fact that there wasn’t any telling what they’d actually find in Kiaqix. But not even those dark fears could keep Chel from feeling some of the excitement she always did when she made this drive. Kiaqix was as vivid in her memory as the streets of L.A. The long causeways, the aroma-fi lled market, rows of thatch, wood, and concrete houses, like the one she was born in. Then there were the modern stone buildings built recently: the stained-glass church, the expansive meeting hall, the multi-room school.

The medical facility on the road in, for which Chel had helped raise the money, would be their first stop. The twenty-bed mini-hospital was built at the edge of Kiaqix a decade ago. Once a month, a doctor flew in to administer vaccinations and antibiotics. Otherwise it was run by the elder women of the village and a shaman who dispensed traditional remedies.

The road bisected a patch of mahogany trees. Some spots between them were covered with unripened stalks of maize. Though it was drizzling now, there had been a terrible drought in the Peten. Even where tree stumps were too large to uproot, the villagers had planted around them. They were clearly desperate for fertile land.

Soon the medical facility came into view. The villagers called it ja akjun, Qu’iche for doctor’s house. To Stanton, it looked more like a Medi-terranean church than a hospital. Wooden columns buttressed a white roof, and an outdoor spiral staircase led to the second floor—an architectural touch that could be found only in a place where it never got cold.

The last time Chel arrived here, nurses had swarmed her, eager to show how the modern and traditional remedies were brought together under one roof to treat machete injuries, complicated births, and the myriad other ills that were part of life in Kiaqix. Now there wasn’t a person to be seen. The red door to the hospital stood open, and the only sounds were of the jungle giving over to night—trees whispering in the wind and those eerie cries of the spider monkeys.

“You ready?” Stanton asked her. He squeezed her hand and they got out of the car. He stopped to pull two flashlights out of their supply bag and, as casually as if pocketing car keys, tucked his Smith & Wesson into his waistband.

Once they both had on eye shields, he led them toward the open door.

Something felt wrong right away. The entrance was pitch-black. Stanton scanned the room with his flashlight. It was the clinical bay. Curtain rods separated one examining area from the other. Splintered wooden chairs marked where patients usually waited. There was no life here, and it didn’t feel like there had been for a long time.

“In ri’ ali Chel,” Chel called out as they stepped inside the darkened room, her voice echoing. “Umyal ri al Alvar Manu.”

I am Chel, daughter of Alvar Manu.

No response.

Rounding the corner into the examination area, their flashlights caught paper strewn across the floor. Then chairs, turned over, soaking in puddles of antiseptic that had been spilled on the ground. A ceramic container was shattered, and shards were mixed with soaked cotton balls and long Q-tips. Flies the size of quarters buzzed around them. The space reeked of ammonia and what smelled like excrement.

Stanton reached into his pocket and pulled out two pairs of latex gloves. “Don’t touch anything with your bare hands.”

As she struggled to maneuver her sweaty hands into the gloves, Chel called out loudly again in Qu’iche that she was the daughter of Alvar Manu and that she had come to help. Her own voice sounded weak to her, but it echoed in the empty room.

Continuing through the building, her worry grew. These rooms were not just abandoned—they had been vandalized. Beds lay on their sides and the stuffi ng had been ripped out. There was glass everywhere. Stanton opened the cabinets and rummaged through the drawers, looking for the medical supplies: Someone had taken most of them.

At the far end of the hallway, Chel pushed open the doors to the small chapel. She scanned her Maglite across the front and saw that the large wooden cross had been pulled from above the pulpit and smashed into pieces. The beautiful stained-glass window was in shards on the ground, and ripped pages from Bibles and copies of the Popol Vuh were strewn over the pews and into the aisles.

Then she saw a familiar symbol, and all Chel’s remaining hope vanished.

Chel heard Stanton come into the chapel behind her. “Even the indigenas believe it now,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s true.”

He said nothing, but Chel felt his hand squeezing her shoulder. When she reached up to take it and her glove made contact, she noticed the hand was bare.

She whipped around. “Who are you?”

The stranger didn’t answer. He was tall. He wore a hooded sweatshirt with a rust-colored stain splashed across it. And he wasn’t Maya.

“Que esta haciendo aqui?” she said in Spanish.

How or why a ladino was here now, Chel didn’t know. Her mother’s words of warning echoed in her ears. Her heart pounded as she backed away. “Estoy aqui con un medico. Gabe! Gabe!” She screamed, but her voice felt so weak. She couldn’t breathe.

The ladino lunged at her and pulled her down. He ripped off her eye shield and jammed his hand over her mouth. She tried to scream again, but she couldn’t. Chel pawed at his face, but he bore down, wrapping his other hand around her throat. She knew what could be on his hands and squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could. Only it was no use: She’d be dead long before she was sick.

I am Chel Manu, daughter of Alvar. Kill me like you killed my father.

That was her last thought before the gun went off.

THIRTY-TWO

STANTON’S HANDS SHOOK AS HE TURNED THE KEY IN THE IGNITION and started the jeep. He’d killed a man. The gun he’d used was on his lap, ready to be used again. There had to be others infected out there in the darkness ahead. But it seemed better to start moving again than to stay here.

Chel slumped in the passenger seat next to him, numb. It would be some time before they would know if her attacker had managed to infect her before Stanton killed him. Even the rapid blood assay wouldn’t tell him anything for a few more hours.

Tiny clouds of mosquitoes swarmed the headlights as they drove down the road leading on to the village