like privacy. Please, Senora Fargo, will you pour for us?”
“I’m happy to,” Remi said. She took over the ceremonial role, pouring the tea and distributing the cups on saucers.
“Now,” said Father Gomez, “are you ready to tell me what happened when you went to visit Miss Allersby?”
Remi and Sam told him the whole story, beginning with Sarah Allersby’s visit to their house to buy the Mayan codex and ending with the ambush that awaited them at the burned landing patch outside the ancient Mayan city. “We’ve learned a lot about Sarah Allersby. She intends to use the map in the Mayan codex to locate and pretend to discover all of the most promising sites. We’re using the same information from Father Las Casas’s copy to get to each of the sites first. A professor at the University of California in San Diego uses our photographs and GPS data to register them with the international archaeological organizations before she can reach them.”
Father Gomez looked troubled. “I’m sorry that she has turned out to be such a selfish, misguided woman. Do you think the authorities will force her to stop letting narcotics traffickers use her land?”
Sam sighed. “I’m told by responsible people in Guatemala City that things will get better in time. The existence of the Mayan site near the fields is known now. And the fields themselves have been drawn to the attention of the national police. But improvements happen slowly, and Miss Allersby has some powerful friends who can make it even slower.”
“It was good of you to come all the way back here to report this to me,” said Father Gomez.
Sam held up both hands. “No, please. That wasn’t the only reason we’re here.”
Remi said, “We told you that we were rushing to verify, photograph, and register the Mayan sites in the codex. That’s the other reason why we’re here.”
“Here?” Father Gomez looked shocked. “Not in Santa Maria de los Montanas?”
“Not in the town,” said Sam. “We think it’s above the town, on a plateau. The map shows it as something that looks like a tower or a fort.”
“Very interesting,” said Father Gomez. He looked uneasy. “Would you please allow me to hire a guide for you? I’d hate to have you get lost up in these hills.”
“No thank you, Father. We have the precise location on GPS and also aerial photographs,” said Remi. “We’re getting good at finding these places. What would be helpful is if you could tell us where we can store our car safely.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “There’s Pepe Rubio’s garage. He’s the town’s mechanic and keeps cars overnight quite often.”
“That sounds perfect,” said Sam. “He can give us an oil change at the same time.”
Remi stood and began clearing the plates from the dining table while Sam and Father Gomez chatted. As she entered the kitchen, she caught Senora Velasquez stepping back from the door as though she had been eavesdropping. Remi smiled and handed her the plates, but Senora Velasquez didn’t return the smile.
They set out from the priest’s house, and Remi told Sam about Senora Velasquez. “I’m sure she was listening,” said Remi.
“No harm done. We would have been happy to have her join in the conversation.”
“I know. But I’ll bet a lot of people around here wonder how their secrets get out.”
Soon they found Pepe’s garage. They could see they had the right place from the cars parked all over the block and in front of the house. They found Pepe putting on a set of tires. Sam hired him to service their car and keep it safe.
Pepe referred them to the nearby house of the Perez family, who were willing to rent them a guest room for the night. In the evening, they ate at the small restaurant where they’d had breakfast with Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta on their first visit.
The following morning, as the sun grew bright, they set out on foot to find the structure they’d seen on the map in the Mayan codex. It was a beautiful day as they crossed the fields, cleared for planting corn and beans, and then entered the forest. After some searching, they found a path that led up the side of the plateau, above and beyond the town.
After climbing about a hundred feet on the path, Remi stopped. “Look at this.”
She stood at a place where the path turned upward and to the left. There was a steep incline to the next level, but they could see that it had been reinforced with slabs of rock laid horizontally like giant steps.
“I guess this means we’ve found the right trail,” Sam said. He joined her in climbing toward the turn ahead.
“That’s right,” she said. “But in all the other sites we’ve visited, the stone was all overgrown. This is exposed.”
They walked along the path, climbing steadily. Sam said, “This is closer to a place where people live than the other sites were. And it does make sense to use a perfectly good path when you find one instead of blazing a new trail.”
They climbed for a while, unimpeded by thick brush or centuries of fallen earth. Remi said, “The part I haven’t figured out yet is why.”
“I know,” Sam said. “Maybe there’s something else up there — good fields or something.”
“I’d hate to carry the harvest down this path,” Remi said.
“Then what do you think it could be?”
“I’m hoping it’s a shortcut to another village that has an air-conditioned spa and restaurant.”
“A good working theory,” he said. “I’ll accept it until we find something better. That’s the way we scientists operate.”
In ten more minutes, they reached the head of the path. They climbed up onto the level top of the plateau and looked around. There were several large mounds of earth that might be buildings, but they were not on the scale of the buildings in the cities they had found. They weren’t high or steep, and the plateau wasn’t large enough for monumental architecture. It was only about three hundred feet across.
They both noticed something else. The perimeter of the plateau had a low ridge around it like the rim of a bowl. They walked along the ridge, taking pictures, and then Sam stopped at a section that had fallen down. It revealed the ridge to actually be a pile of stones and earth.
“It’s a wall. It’s like the old Roman forts you find in Europe — low walls of stone piled up to stop an enemy attack. This was built for a battle.”
“It’s not like any of the other ruins we visited,” Remi said. “It feels different — not empty, somehow.”
They walked the rest of the way around the plateau. In the middle of the flat space, there were more low mounds of earth and stone, all of them overgrown with small plants. The only sounds on the plateau were the movements of the leaves in a soft wind and the calls of birds. At times, it was so quiet that Sam’s and Remi’s footsteps were the loudest sounds.
Remi said, “This isn’t a place where people would live. It reminds me of the cenote a few miles from here. The wall around it seemed to be made for a last stand too.”
“I know what you mean,” said Sam. “This and the cenote must be relics of a war between cities.”
They came across a trench about three feet deep and only wide enough for a man to stand in it and dig. It ran from the stone wall at the rim of the plateau for about a hundred feet and directly into one of the mounds. “Uh-oh,” said Remi.
“Do you know what that is?”
“I think it’s the kind of trench that pot hunters and grave robbers dig to find underground chambers and caches.”
Sam raised his satellite phone and took a few pictures of it, then sent them to Selma. He and Remi walked along the trench, looking into it. “If that’s what it was, it seems to have failed. It doesn’t lead to a bigger hole, where they might have found something and dug it up.”
The trench stopped at the base of the mound. When they reached the spot, Remi said, “It doesn’t seem to have stopped here. The rocks that are piled on the side of the mound are different. I think somebody dug into the mound and then covered the hole after they were done.”
“It’s puzzling,” said Sam.
“The word is ‘creepy,’” Remi said.
