Maybe, Mingolla thought, inhaling again, he would stay up all night and grow full of jungle profundity like Garrido. ‘So why you work for us if you don’t like us?’
Garrido blew smoke and coughed. ‘I’ll tell you a story.’
‘Oh, boy!’ said Mingolla. ‘Lemme grab the popcorn! What’s it called?’
‘I’ve never given it a title,’ said Garrido, an edge to his voice. ‘But I suppose you could call it “The Conquistador’s Ghost.”’
‘Sounds spooky!’ Mingolla leaned forward, making a dumb show of attentiveness. ‘I’m all fucking ears.’
‘This is my only answer,’ said Garrido stiffly. ‘Do you want to hear it or not?’
‘Sure do… I mean there’s nothin’ on TV, right?’
Garrido sighed, exasperated. Insects swarmed in haywire orbits around the coal of his cigar, flashing whitely across the glow.
‘Once not long ago,’ he began, ‘there was a hunter, a Mayan like myself, who lived in a village not far from the ruins of Yaxchilan. Every morning he would rise before dawn, breakfast with his wife and son, and head out into the jungle with his rifle. He would hunt all morning, tracking tapir and deer, avoiding the trails of the jaguar, and when the sun was high he would find a place to rest and eat his lunch. Then he would have a siesta. One afternoon he fell asleep in the shade of a buried temple, and he was waked by the ghost of a Mayan king, his ancestor, a man wearing a red cloth about his waist and a necklace of gold and turquoise.
‘ “Help me!” cried the king. “My enemy pursues me!”
‘“How can I help?” asked the hunter; he had no idea what manner of assistance he could render against an enemy immune to bullets and blows… so he concluded the enemy to be, for no one can harm a creature of the spirit world except another similar creature.
‘“You must let me lay my hand on your brow,” said the king. ?When I have done this, you will fall into a dream, and I will enter it and hide therein.”
‘The hunter was pleased to be of service to his ancestor, for he was a man who honored tradition, who had great regard for the old Mayans. He let the king lay a hand on his brow and immediately fell into a dream of a palace with labyrinthine corridors and rooms with secret doors. The king passed down one of the corridors and vanished from sight. The dream faded, and other, more ordinary dreams took its place.
‘Not long thereafter the hunter was waked by a white man dressed in a suit of armor with gold filigree, riding a black horse with fiery eyes and steam spouting from its nostrils. The ghost of a conquistador. “I know you have hidden the king,” he said in a voice like an iron bell. “Open your mind to me, and I will follow him.”
‘“No,” said the hunter. “I will not.”
‘The conquistador’s ghost drew his sword and swung it in a mighty arc that shivered the trees and left a trail of smoke in the air. But the Indian was not afraid, willing to die for the security of his traditions. When the conquistador’s ghost saw his lack of fear, he sheathed his sword, leaned down, smiled, and said in a voice like honey, “I will give you a golden coin if you but let me enter.”
‘Now this sorely tempted the hunter, for he was poor, his home a hut of thatch and brushwood, and though he provided his family with enough to eat, like all men he sought to improve the lot of his loved ones. But he resisted temptation and once again refused. His face twisted in rage, the conquistador’s ghost reined his horse hard, making it rear, and galloped off, dwindling to a point of darkness that flashed as red as a star in the instant it disappeared.
‘The hunter was pleased with himself, and that night he played happily with his child and embraced his wife with fervor, certain that his assistance to the king would bring him great good fortune. But the next day as he took aim at a deer, he heard a pounding as of iron-shod hooves, and out of nowhere appeared the conquistador’s ghost, riding straight at the deer and sending it leaping away into the cover of the brush. Laughing wildly, the ghost reined in his horse and vanished in the same manner he had the previous day. The hunter did not sight another deer and returned home empty-handed. There was food in his larder, however, and he was sure his luck would improve. But for two weeks thereafter, each time he made to kill his quarry, be it deer or tapir or agouti, the conquistador’s ghost would ride out of nowhere and give the alarm. Doggedly, the hunter persisted, but by the end of two weeks his wife and child had become ill from lack of food and he had grown desperate. He had no lunch to carry with him on his hunts, but he continued his habit of siesta, and on the fifteenth day after he had helped the king, the conquistador’s ghost waked him from a dream of skulls and said in a voice like ashes, “Let me enter, or I will haunt your days until your family dies of starvation.”
‘The hunter saw that he had no choice, and he let the conquistador’s ghost touch his breast with his sword, at which point he fell into the dream of the labyrinthine palace. The ghost galloped down the corridor, and when the hunter waked he found a gold coin lying in his palm. His first impulse was to throw the coin away, but remembering the plight of his family, he took the coin and bought food. That night it did his heart good to see the color return to their cheeks as they lay with full bellies under the stars, but he felt shame over what he had done, and he wondered if he would ever feel otherwise.
‘The next afternoon he dreamed again of the palace, and to his amazement the king came to the front of the dream, begged to be released, and told him the secret of opening the doors of a dream. The hunter was delighted to have this chance to atone for his weakness and did as the king instructed. But moments later the conquistador’s ghost galloped from the depths of the palace and demanded exit. Gleeful, the hunter locked the doors of the dream and went about his business. But during his siesta the following afternoon, he fell into a nightmare of such vivid torment that under ordinary circumstances he would have waked screaming. He did not wake, however. Demons flayed his skin, insects with steel pincers fed each other morsels of his flesh and tweaked his exposed nerves, and still he slept on. And in the background of the dream he saw the conquistador’s ghost looking on and smiling, resting his arms on the pommel of his saddle. At last the ghost cantered forward and said in a voice like ice, “Give me passage, or I will make you dream your own death.” And again having no choice, the hunter opened the doors of his dream and let the ghost sally forth.
‘When he waked he found another golden coin in his palm, and he was so unnerved that he went to the nearest cantina and drank himself insensible. He understood that he had been chosen by the spirits as the ground on which to fight their ancient battle, and he could only hope this particular engagement would be brief. But the next afternoon the king once again begged entry to the hunter’s dream, and when a brief time later the conquistador’s ghost came into view, the hunter complied with his demands and, his heart full of remorse, accepted another golden coin. First months, then years went by. The hunter constructed plots against the conquistador’s ghost, but for each the ghost had a remedy. He grew wealthy due to the daily payments, and his family’s future now assured, he considered suicide. But his moral imperatives had been seduced by comfort, and he reasoned that if it were not he whose dreams served as the battlefield, it would be some other: how could he burden anyone else with this terrible conflict?
‘Then one day as the king fled the dream, he said to the hunter, “Friend, thank you for your years of service. I am leaving now to find a new dream, for the conquistador has delved all the secrets of the palace and I can no longer elude him.”
‘Stricken by guilt, the hunter asked forgiveness, but the king told him that there was nothing to forgive, that the hunter had provided him with the best hiding place he had ever had. He sprinted off into the jungle, and soon the conquistador’s ghost emerged from the dream. He, too, spoke to the hunter.
‘ “Of all the hunts I have known,” he said in a voice that rumbled like a volcano, “yours has provided the most intriguing of all. I am sorry to see it exhausted.”
‘The hunter trembled with hate, but limited himself to saying, “I am grateful I will never have to lay eyes on you again.”
‘The ghost’s laughter filled the sky with dark clouds. “You are an innocent, my friend. That which is fallow will one day be fertile again, and that which is valueless will grow to be priceless. Sooner or later you will dream a new dream, and we will return to have our sport within it.”
‘“Never!” said the hunter, ?I would rather die.”
‘“Die, then,” said the conquistador’s ghost in a voice of flame. “Perhaps your child will have the gift of dreams.”
‘The hunter was staggered by this possibility, and knew that he would do anything to spare his child this doom.
‘Again the ghost laughed, and lightning flashed across the sky, its forked values defining the thousand forms of terror in the language of the gods. “Here!” The ghost tossed a golden coin studded with emeralds at the hunter’s
