The Yucatan, Mexico
18 GAMAY WAS REGRETTING HER STAR Trek comment. The HumVee hurtled along the narrow two-lane road at warp speed. Chi seemed to navigate with an advanced type of radar. Since he was too short to see over the top of the steering wheel, there could be no other explanation for the ease with which he whipped the wideframed vehicle around potholes and suicidal armadillos. The woods on both sides were a verdant blur.
Trying a ploy to slow him down, Gamay said, 'Dr. Chi, how is your Mayan dictionary coming along?'
The professor attempted to talk over the loud whir of the heavytreaded tires and the rush of air around the boxy vehicle. Gamay cupped an ear with her hand. Chi nodded his understanding. His lead foot came off the accelerator, and he switched on the AC.
Refreshingly cool air flowed from the vents. 'Don't know why I didn't do this before,' he said. 'Thank you for asking about the dictionary. Unfortunately I've abandoned work on the project for the time being.'
'I'm sorry to hear that. You must be busy at the museum.'
His response was an amused glance. 'My duties at the museum are not what I'd describe as demanding. As the only fullblooded Mayan on the staff I rate a sinecure. I believe they call them 'noshow' jobs in your country. In Mexico these are timehonored positions that command great prestige. I'm actually encouraged to be out in the field away from the office.'
'I don't understand, then. The dictionary?'
'Must play second fiddle to the greater need. I spend most of my time fighting the looters who are stealing our heritage. We are losing our historical artifacts at an alarming rate. A thousand pieces of fine pottery are taken from the Mayan region every month.'
A thousand,' Gamay said with an uncomprehending shake of her head. 'I was aware you had problems, but I had no idea things were quite so bad.'
'Not many people do. Unfortunately it is not only the quantity of the stolen goods that. is frightening but the quality. The traffickers in contraband don't waste their time on inferior work They take the very best. Codexstyle ceramics of the Late Classic period, A.D. 600 to 900, command top dollar. Beautiful pieces. I wouldn't mind having some myself.'
She stared out the windshield, lips pursed in anger. 'That is a tragedy.'
'Many of the looters are chicleros who work the chicle plantations. A very tough breed. Chicle is the sap used to make chewing gum. In the past when Americans chewed less, the chicle market dropped, the workers turned to looting, and we lost more of our culture. But it's worse now'
'In what way, Dr. Chi?'
'The chicle market doesn't make a difference now. Why break your back working in the fields when you can sell a good pot for two hundred to five hundred dollars? They've become used to the money. Looting is organized. Groups of fulltime looters are hired by traffickers in Carmelita, in Guatemala. The artifacts are channeled there, loaded on trucks, and taken across the border to Belize: Then by ship or air to the U.S. and Europe. The artifacts bring thousands of dollars in the galleries and auctions. Even more from museums and private collectors. It's not difficult to provide source documentation.'
'Still, they must know many of these artifacts are stolen.'
'Of course. But even if they suspect this, they say they are preserving the past.'
'That's a lame excuse for erasing a culture. But what can you do about it?'
'As I said earlier, I'm a 'finder.' I try to locate sites before they can belooted. I make their location known only when the government can assure me that the sites will be guarded until we get the artifacts out of the ground. At the same time I use my connections in the US. and Europe. The governments of the affluent countries are the ones who can bring the traffickers to jail, hit them where it hurts by confiscating their property.'
'It seems almost hopeless.'
'It is,' he said gravely. And dangerous. With the stakes so high violence has become commonplace. Not long ago a chiclero said instead of sending Mayan artifacts out of the country, leave them alone where they are and bring the tourists in to see them. It would mean more money for all.'
'Not a bad idea. Did anyone listen to him?'
'Oh yes.' His mouth curled in a dark smile. 'Someone heard him loud and clear. He was killed. Whoops!'
He hit the brakes. The HumVee decelerated like a fighter jet deploying a drogue chute and swung to the right in a twelve-G turn.
'Sorry!' Chi yelled .as they bumped over the shoulder and plunged toward the trees. 'I get carried away Hold on, we're going in!' he shouted over the din of snapping branches and the roar of the engine.
Gamay was sure they were headed for a crash, but Chi's sharp eye had seen what she hadn't, a barely discernible opening in the dense forest. With the professor hanging on to the steering wheel like some mad gnome, the lumbering vehicle crashed through the woods.
They bounced along for nearly an hour. Chi followed a route that was entirely invisible to Gamay, and she was surprised when he announced they were at the end of the track. The professor maneuvered the vehicle around, taking down at least an acre of vegetation, pointed out, and switched off the motor.
'Time for a stroll in the woods.'
Chi exchanged his straw hat for a Harvard baseball cap, worn with the visor facing backward so it wouldn't catch on branches. While he unloaded the packs Gamay changed from shorts into jeans that would protect her legs from thorns and briars. Chi slipped his arms through the straps of the rucksack holding their lunch, slung the shotgun over his shoulder, and hung the machete from a scabbard tucked into his belt. Gamay carried a second pack with the camera and notebooks. With a quick glance at the surfs position to get his bearings, he set off into the woods in a groundcovering scuttle.
Gamay had an athletic figure with long legs, small hips, and medium bust. She was a tomboy as a girl, always running with a gang of boys, building tree houses, playing baseball in the streets of Racine, Wisconsin. As a grown woman she became a fitness nut, deep into holistic medicine, and running and biking and hiking during family fourwheeling trips into the Virginia countryside. At five-ten, Gamay was nearly a foot taller than the professor. As lithe and fit as Gamay was, she had trouble keeping up with Chi. He seemed to melt through branches she had to push aside. His quiet passage through the forest made Gamay imagine she must sound like a cow crashing through the bushes. Only when Chi stopped to hack away with his machete at vines barring the way did she get a chance to catch her breath.
On one such halt, after they had climbed up a small hill, he pointed to broken pieces of limestone layering the ground.
'This is part of an old Mayan road. Raised paved causeways like this run between cities all over the Yucatan. Good as anything the Romans built. Traveling should be easier from now on.'
His prediction proved true. Although the grass and bushes were still thick, the solid underpinning made for easier walking.
Before long they stopped again, and Chi indicated a low line of fallen stones that ran through the trees. 'Those are the remains of a city wall. We're almost there.'
A few minutes later the forest thinned, and they broke out of the trees into the dear. Chi slid the machete into its sheath.
'Welcome to Shangri-la.'
They were at the edge of a plain about a half mile in diameter, covered with low bushes and broken here and there by trees. It was unremarkable except for odd-shaped, steep-sided mounds hidden under dense vegetation that rose from the grass between where she and the professor were standing and the tree line on the far side of the field.
Gamay blinked in the abrupt change from shade to bright sunlight. 'It's not quite how I pictured utopia,' she said, wiping the sweat from her eyes.
'Well, the neighborhood has gone downhill in the last thousand years or so,' Dr. Chi lamented. 'But you must admit it's quiet.'
The only sound was their own breathing and the drone of a million insects. 'I think the term is deathly quiet.'
'What you see is the area immediately around the main one-acre plaza of a fairsized settlement. Buildings stretched out for three miles on each side with streets in between. Once this place bustled with little brown-skinned
