“I…” she began, then stopped, wondering how to explain. “Where we’re going is very special. Villagers know about it, of course, but rarely visit.”
“Taboo?” he asked.
“Not exactly. Their lives and ceremonies center around the Jaguar Cenote, the Cenote de Balam, so there’s no reason to hike deep into the jungle. Village life doesn’t leave a lot of time or energy for sightseeing.”
“No tours?” he asked dryly.
“None, thank you very much. We don’t want this place trampled or loved to death. Leave that for the better- known sites, with their groomed grounds and guards and partially excavated ruins.”
“I’ll be more careful with the jungle than it will be with me,” Hunter promised.
Lina smiled. “The jungle thanks you.”
She turned and pushed gently through a barrier of young trees, vines, and shrubs struggling against one another in the small opening left when a copal monarch had fallen.
Watching, listening, Hunter followed, feeling like a water bug in a marsh. Everything was much bigger than he was, older, tougher. The vegetation’s struggle for light—for life itself—was timeless, all the more primal for its silence.
“Why didn’t the Maya worship the strangler fig tree?” Hunter asked. “It can kill the biggest of trees.”
“Many of the ceiba trees have just four main branches, like the four cardinal points. The roots are thick and obvious, their shoulders visible at the base of the trunk.” Carefully she picked a way through the thicket of shrubs and vines. “The ceiba trunk goes up and up and up, like a pillar separating the overworld from the underworld. No other tree is quite like it.”
Only after Lina and Hunter had passed through the tangle of plants did she unclip her machete. She checked her wrist compass, adjusted course, and set off. He followed her over rocky ground, around godlike ceiba trees growing taller and taller despite the weak soil feeding them. Some of them had grown together until their trunks were intertwined in unnatural embrace. The ground around them was sterile, sucked dry by the needs of the mighty trees.
The trail Lina followed was more unreal than real, better suited to four feet or wings. Claw marks reached above Hunter’s head on one of the copal trunks. Resin bled out, hardening in the air, ready to be used for the sacred, scented fire of Maya ceremonies.
“Jaguar,” Lina said, gesturing to the claw marks. “Though I don’t think we’ve had anyone on the estate grounds killed by one since I was a little girl.”
“You better be kidding.”
She smiled and then spoke with the softness the jungle seemed to demand. “I am. Mostly. Our entire holdings are protected land for jaguars. No hunting allowed. No scientific study either. Abuelita firmly believes the cats should be left alone as long as they leave the villagers alone.”
“What happens if a cat starts snacking on the locals?” Hunter asked.
“Then the family or the villagers take care of it. That’s as it must be. If the cats didn’t respect and avoid people, there soon would be no jaguars at all.”
The path became more obvious, although far from a well-beaten trail. Their feet made little noise and less impression on the jungle debris covering the ground. Only the occasional stain showed where boots had left marks on limestone rubble. The strident bird and monkey calls became part of the background, like an erratic heartbeat, noticeable only in its absence.
A striped iguana watched them, clinging to the side of a rock as big as the Bronco. There was a rough face carved on the stone, barely visible through an overgrowth of lichen and moss. Hunter couldn’t tell whether the face was a finished work or started and then abandoned because of one crisis or another.
Lina never paused. Nor did she find any need for her machete. Finally she clipped it back in place, deciding that Philip must have been on the path recently.
But she knew that sometimes Philip’s promises were forgotten before the echo of the words had died. He wasn’t treacherous, simply self-absorbed. Something else would claim his attention and mere words exchanged between people would fade to nothing at all.
The canopy above them rustled and a flock of macaws burst through, leaving in their wake a random rain of droppings and half-eaten fruit. Red and blue streaked by, like tropical fish fleeing danger through a green sea.
Gradually Hunter noticed a random scattering of modern debris mostly hidden among the vines and moss— cigarette butts, scraps of greasy paper, broken glass winking from beneath green leaves, petals where no flowers were blooming nearby. Some of the petals were fresh.
Lina paused, listening.
Faint voices came from ahead.
Hunter’s hand touched the small of her back. His lips brushed over her ear.
“More villagers?” he asked very softly.
“Sounds like.” Her voice wasn’t as soft as his. She was curious rather than wary. “Probably they’re including some of the old places in tonight’s celebration. It’s a very big moment for the Maya.”
Hunter was remembering Crutchfeldt’s words about grave robbers and a man whose name it was death to speak. All things considered, assuming El Maya was a legend wasn’t smart.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Hunter said.
She waited, listening. “They’re gone now.”
“The back of my neck itches,” he said.
“Use more insect repellent.”
“Lina—”
She held up her hand, stopping his words.
Nothing came through the jungle but silence.
She waited for a long ten count, then another. When the small and large sounds of the jungle slowly returned, she looked at him.
“They’re gone,” she said.
“So are we,” he said, turning back toward the Bronco.
“I’m on Reyes Balam land. The locals know me. As long as you stay with me, they won’t bother either of us. In fact, they probably left rather than disturb me.”
Hunter stood and smelled the air, listened, and waited.
“Smoke of some kind,” he said finally.
“The jungle is too wet to burn,” she said impatiently.
“Cigarettes aren’t.”
“I’ve seen the litter. We’ll pick it up on the way out. If it’s messy again in a week, Abuelita or Carlos will send someone to clean up. The locals can treat their villages like garbage dumps, but not the rest of the Reyes Balam lands, especially around ruins.”
With that, Lina headed up the trail once more, her stride purposeful. Hunter knew he had the choice of dragging her screaming back to the Bronco—dumb idea, considering the protective natives—or following her.
Muttering curses that could shrivel leaves, he walked quickly after her.
“It’s just over the next rise,” she said without turning around.
Hunter eyed lichen-covered rubble that was more green than gray. Emerald spikes of aloe plants dotted the ridge like a low fence. Where the limestone pushed through the thin soil in great lumps, shrubbery flourished in the sun beyond the overwhelming reach of ceiba and copal trees.
Lina pushed through the undergrowth, gathering new welts to match her old. Behind her, Hunter did the same. Neither of them commented on the small wounds. Both understood that the jungle was its own master and exacted its due from soft-skinned trespassers.
In tandem, Lina and Hunter climbed down to a low outcrop of limestone that overlooked a small clearing ringed with more of the misshapen ceiba trees. The roots were unusually gnarled and twisted, more like strangler figs than ceiba. Even for vegetation powerful enough to hold overworld and underworld together, life right here was a raw struggle.
At the center of a clearing Hunter saw a mound that had once been far taller than he was. Now it was about
