Elisha's Bones Part 5

The Andes are immense and verdant-as if color were a tool, focusing all of the world's ma.s.s into a landmark spanning seven countries, towering over national lines. In Venezuela the Andes split into two ranges: the Sierra de Perija that run the border between Venezuela and Colombia, and the Cordillera Merida that spread out along the east coast of Lake Maracaibo. It's this latter range we're crossing, on the way to San Cristobal.

I'm amazed that we got everything into the small plane-a plane vibrating with the violence of a wet dog shaking the rain from its fur. For a while I thought we might have to leave a good portion of our equipment behind and pick up as much as we could when we reach our destination. But the pilot, a man named Raphael, directed the loading of our gear with an expertise born of years with this or similar planes. It's cramped quarters, with eight people wedged into whatever free s.p.a.ce there is, and I'm growing more aware that bathing frequency is a subjective value, but I'm buoyed by a sense of purpose and, if truth be served, of being in charge of a team again. They don't look like much, but I have faith in Romero. He wouldn't provide me with subpar performers. At least three of them speak some English, and all of them took to loading the plane with an urgency that speaks of their pleasure at having a job. I know they will work hard when we arrive at the dig site, and yet I'm glad that Esperanza will be around for conversation and as a sounding board. There are other reasons too, but I'm still working through those.

She's in the back of the plane, in easy conversation with the laborers. I can't hear what they're saying over the engine noise, but she's laughing, and one of the men looks pleased at having amused her. I've always thought that Esperanza was the sort who could fit right in at a construction site anywhere in the world, unfazed by crude language or innuendo. She can take care of herself, and keep a smile doing it.

I sense that we're descending. Raphael gives me a thumbs-up and I notice the plane isn't shaking like before. Our pilot speaks decent English. He looks to be about fifty and has the hands of a farmer, someone who is used to hard work. His eyes squint even when the sun is not on them, like they are fixed that way.

He asks if I want a drink. I don't and tell him so and then watch as he pulls a flask from a compartment between us. I don't know what's in it but he seems to appreciate it as he takes a long draw. He offers it toward me and I again decline. Maybe I should be nervous about watching him drink as we get closer to landing, but I'm not. There's some understanding here that this is Raphael's world, his plane. His hands are steady. And it's not my first inebriated ferrying.

San Cristobal slides into view from out of nowhere as Raphael guides the plane over another ridge. The small city occupies a valley, like many hubs of human activity in this mountainous region. Had we not flown directly over the place, I might have missed it entirely. Looking down, I take in the city's buildings, streets, its muted whiteness.

Raphael is concentrating now and I see the sliver of land on which he plans to drop the Cessna. I watch his hands as he works the controls, noting the confidence on his face, and I feel at ease as I watch San Cristobal grow larger. In what seems just a few seconds later, we touch down and Raphael hits the brakes.

The next several minutes are a happy blur as I slip back into a role that is almost free of cobwebs. And I've got Espy to help with the particulars, such as working with the crew and coordinating the equipment transport. As I stand back, chatting with Raphael, I watch Espy, amazed at how much she resembles her brother in the way she manages the men.

We have two SUVs, both of which will be loaded down with equipment. I'm not sure what we'll need, which is why we're packing heavy. I'd thought about a backhoe, a dozer, and a few other pieces of earthmoving equipment, but that would have meant a larger team and a lot more time than I've got. I chuckle at that; Esperanza is right in that it's looking less likely I'll make it back to Evanston for the start of the new semester. Still, I'm not yet ready to give up on the original plan. For all that I'm enjoying myself, I'm not prepared to dismiss my role as educator. I have a whole life, stunted though it may be, waiting for me back in North Carolina, complete with friends, a paycheck, and my much-abused cactus. It might not seem like much, but it's what I've got. And I kind of miss my cactus.

As the last of our gear is off-loaded, I say good-bye to Raphael. I paid him on the front end with my magic card-the same one that bought our equipment. I'd joked with Romero that it was the first time I could remember having paid for supplies he procured for me. He'd frowned and then made a notation on the invoice.

"What now?" Esperanza asks, suddenly appearing at my side. "You want to find someplace to eat before we head out?"

"I'd rather not. The less time we spend here, the better."

I feel uneasy out on the tarmac, as if eyes are watching me. One of the gentlemen who would not be pleased to see me resides in San Cristobal, and my chances of avoiding an unfortunate meeting are slimmer if we don't linger.

"If the men are hungry, have them break into the rations. We can restock in Rubio."

Before long we have the trucks leaving the city, turning onto a road that winds up and around the mountains. Esperanza is driving one vehicle, while one of the hired hands pilots the other.

The airport is situated near the outskirts of the city and so I don't see much of it before both the mountains and the jungle, in a way that's uniquely South American, swallow us up.

"Have you ever been to Rubio?"

"No," she says. "My cousin is stationed at the army base near there and he says it's not much to look at."

"It's a nice little town. Quiet."

"Like Ellen, North Carolina?"

"Ouch."

She shrugs. "Sorry. I saw an opportunity and I took it."

"Are you going to do that for the whole time we're out here?"

"I'm not sure. Depends on how much of a jerk you are."

"I can always ride in the other truck."

She doesn't offer a response and I get the feeling the banter is a bit more than she can take right now. For all that she is making light of it, this has to be hard on her.

If I didn't know better, I would think her mood was affecting her driving. It seems to me that she's approaching reckless mode. These mountain roads are narrow and there are no guardrails. And with blind curves being the norm, as she navigates our way around each one, often the SUV is hugging the wrong side of the road. I stare ahead, cringing at the prospect of another vehicle careening toward us from the opposite direction. No amount of time spent in this region can make me more comfortable about the driving.

I glance behind me at the two men in the backseat. One looks like he's sleeping, his hat pulled down over his eyes. The other watches the jungle pa.s.sing beyond the window. If he has heard or understood our exchange, he gives no sign of it. I take a cue from his friend and pull my own hat down, settling back against the seat. It's a good hour to Rubio and I haven't slept in a while. If I don't conserve energy when I can, weariness will find me when I can least afford it. I have a sudden fear of Esperanza catching me in some heated exchange when I can barely keep my eyes open. The thought frightens me enough that, as I drift off to a b.u.mpy sleep, I give serious consideration to changing trucks once we reach Rubio.

El Oso Durmiente, the sign says. The Sleeping Bear. It's one of several brown brick buildings in this section of Rubio. Tin-roofed homes dot the outer ring of the town-single-family dwellings of dirt and clay. Most of the houses closer to the center of town are a stucco of some sort, many of them painted in a collection of bright and garish colors.

As I get out of the SUV, I try to steady my legs. Toward the end of the ride-that last little whip around the mountain- Esperanza punched it. I think that even the guys in the back were nervous. I reach for one of Duckey's cigars and clip off its end, then hold a match to it until it catches. Espy makes a face and walks inside. The others follow while I linger, leaning against the truck and regaining my equilibrium. A thought hits me and I pull out my cell phone and hit one of the speed-dial options.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Hey, Ducks."

"That you, Jack?" There's a burst of static. "I'm not getting a great signal."

"It's me. I'm just here enjoying one of the fine cigars you gave me. Thanks, by the way."

"Don't mention it. How's your vacation? No, don't answer. Let me guess. It's about one p.m. in your part of the world, so I'm betting you're in the recliner, in your underwear, and you're eating a bowl of Honeycomb." A pause. "And you smell horrible."

"I'll give you the part about the smell, so you're not completely wrong."

"Okay, so you broke into Angie's. Sort of an interapartment vacation."

"Strike two, my friend."

"Listen, Jack, my brain's on idle for the next several days, so don't toy with me. It pains me to have to unsheathe my razor wit."

I can hear family-type noises coming from Duckey's side of the connection and, even though most of them are lost in the static, they are happy sounds. I smile into my phone.

"I'm in Venezuela, Ducks. Merry Christmas."

The phone is ringing less than five seconds after I hang up. As I step into the eatery, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself.

It's dark inside, which is a defining characteristic of all even mildly disreputable establishments. It is late afternoon, maybe an hour past the end of siesta, and the bar is spa.r.s.ely populated. Two old men sit at a table in the far corner, nursing bottles of Maltin and smoking Marlboros. They look up as I enter. The dark is a comforting grayness that mixes with smells both familiar and odd.

My crew has gone to the teakwood bar, where the man on the other side-a large, serious-looking local whose face rings a bell-raises an eyebrow as I join them. Almost before I have claimed a seat, he supplies me with a Maltin. I pull out my wallet and extract several bolivars, going on the hunch that Reese's credit card won't see much use here. When I place the money on the bar, I see the bartender eyeing me with more than cursory interest. He knows he's seen me before. There's a sixth sense that all good bartenders have: they never forget a face. But he grabs the money without a word and then disappears into the kitchen.

"What were you doing out there?" Esperanza asks. She has a gla.s.s of ice water in front of her and stands with one shoe resting on the bra.s.s foot rail.

"I called a friend."

She nods and looks away. In a minute the bartender emerges from the back, his arms and hands laden with plates.

"I ordered for you," Espy says.

The food inventory yields two pizzas, a large basket of tortilla chips, a platter of burgers, and one order of nachos, which the unsmiling ogre of a man places in front of me.

"Thanks," I say, belatedly hoping that both the bartender and Esperanza infer the expansive nature of the sentiment.

"Don't thank me. You're paying for it."

There's a general silence as we eat. Romero's men are content to enjoy the free food and let either Esperanza or myself direct them. Espy and I, though, exist in some odd detente in which the past is sublimated but still very real. There is something forced in the dialogue, even in the way we stand.

It reminds me of the last time I spoke with her all those years ago. It was just before I left for Egypt. I thought I would be gone for at least a year. After that, who knew where my job would take me? It was a conscious choice to leave Espy behind-to make pursuing peer accolades my primary goal. Oh, I threw other reasons out there too, but the crux of it was the insatiable pride of youth.

The last of the nachos disappear and I'm stuffed and riding the carbohydrate high that will eventually send me into a semicatatonic state. That's probably why the sudden feel of cold metal against my neck does not provoke the reaction normally a.s.sociated with mortal danger, save for the s.h.i.+ver that travels the length of my spine.

"You owe me money."

It's certainly possible. I owe a lot of people money. It's one of my many faults. Practicing archaeologists, even successful ones, don't make a great deal. Grants barely cover the costs a.s.sociated with an excavation. Still, I pride myself in seldom owing money to more than one person in any single geographical area.

"h.e.l.lo, Henry," I say.

It's taken Esperanza and the rest of the crew a few seconds to sort out what's happening. Espy looks past me and I can tell that she sees the gun positioned just behind my left ear. I give her a wink, just to keep her calm. The others remain still. This isn't their argument.

"By my recollection, you still owe me seventy-five dollars."

Esperanza's reaction is one for the ages. There is a morphing of emotions on her face, taking her from the initial nervousness, to confusion, on through anger, and, finally, disgust.

"Seventy-five dollars?" she snaps. "You skipped out on seventy-five dollars?"

"And eighty-three cents," Henry adds.

I shrug, and the gun tickles my neck. "Let's be reasonable," I say. I take a napkin from a stainless-steel container and wipe cheese off my fingers. I turn then and find myself looking down the barrel of a .357.

Eduardo "Henry" Sanchez may well be the ugliest man I've ever met. He stands maybe five-seven, carries around close to 230 pounds, and has a nose that looks as if it's been affixed to his right cheek with clear tape.

I met Henry during the initial study and excavation of the temple. It was midmorning and I was busy unearthing what would turn out to be a cooking pot, manufactured circa 1992 by the Able Steel Works in Able, Pennsylvania. Henry, one of the locals investigating the unprecedented activity, fell into a fresh hole. When I found him, he looked like a turtle on its back. He wouldn't let me help him until he'd exhausted himself trying to get out on his own. Over the next several weeks, as he spent more time at the work site, I surmised that he made most of his money working with various smuggling operations, running drugs through San Cristobal. He had a nice house, a new car, and a lovely family, and I had dinner with them a time or two. When working in a foreign land, it's wise to cultivate good relations with the indigenous people.

"I was a little short of funds at the time," I try, with my most magnanimous smile.

Henry uses the gun to scratch his leg, then the side of his face.

"You hurt me, Jack."

"That's kind of his thing," Esperanza says.

It's nice that the two of them are discovering a camaraderie based on mutual disappointment, but there's still the matter of the gun. I'm reasonably confident that Henry won't shoot me-intentionally. But the way he's waving the thing around, gesturing, scratching, makes me nervous.

"I'm good for the money, Henry."

Both he and Esperanza laugh at the same time.

"I trusted you once, Jack. I'm going to need the money now."

I know it must be a matter of principle for him. Seventy-five dollars is hardly worth the ha.s.sle, even in a poor country. And I didn't mean to stiff him. We'd been chased out of the site by the government, who'd finally caught wind of our activities, but I'd paid off enough of the right people so they let us leave instead of tossing us into prison. On our way back to San Cristobal, I'd brought the team here to let off a little steam. Most of them were young and on their first a.s.signments. Some of them weren't even being paid, except with degree credits. I'd come up light in the wallet when all was said and done, and Henry had floated me the balance, unaware that we were on our way out.

I raise my hands in helplessness. "I'm not carrying that kind of cash on me, Henry. So unless you can take a credit card, there's not a lot I can do for you."

I think I'm off the hook. While Henry looks like a mean sort, the odds are in my favor that he won't shoot me.

"We can take a credit card," says an oddly high-pitched voice from behind me. "We just got a machine."

I turn around and the bartender is pointing at the technology in question, a proud smile on his face. The machine sits next to the manual cash register. I must have missed seeing it earlier.

"How about we run it through for a hundred and fifty? Cover your lunch, too?" He holds out a large hand that is incongruous with a voice which sounds as if it should belong to a cartoon character.

I know when I'm beat. I pull Mr. Reese's card from my wallet and hand it over. There's a part of me that wishes I could be in the same room with his accountant when the charges come through.

As I watch the man swipe the card and punch in the numbers, I try to ignore Esperanza's satisfied smile.

CHAPTER 8

The first thought to enter my mind as we drive the trucks out of the jungle and into the small clearing is that if age could be a physical property, it would be the crumbling limestone walls of this temple. Quetzl-Quezo, or what's left of it, is something set apart from the timeline, as if it died before the world began, and everything else has grown up around it.

It was once the tallest structure for hundreds of miles in any direction, the only one that could be seen rising above the trees. It doubtless gleamed under the a.s.sault of the hot sun; to the people who saw it from afar, it might have seemed to glow.

I feel now as I did when I first saw it, when whispered rumors among my colleagues hinted at its presence and drove me to find it first. It felt like holy land. It demanded reverence. It was-it is-beautiful.

It looks much like the Ruins of Palenque, but in miniature; and Palenque was not built when this structure was crumbling. There is no roof comb, no corbelled arch, and only three sets of steps, and yet many other elements are so clearly Mayan that it seems absurd to me that anyone could believe anything else. I dated the ruins to 800 b.c., a full two hundred years before the construction of anything like it on the Yucatan Peninsula. That tells me it is an extraordinary fledgling attempt at pre-Cla.s.sic Mayan architecture. The builders didn't get it quite right, but they took much of what they learned here and applied it to the later, larger work.

Esperanza sits next to me in the truck's front pa.s.senger seat, and I glance over to see how she's taking this. She hasn't done a lot of fieldwork. Books, rather than shovels and sc.r.a.pers, are her tools. I'm rewarded to see her eyes wide, her mouth open just a bit. I think she's barely breathing.

I cut the engine and step out onto gra.s.s, into the humid and bug-filled air. Another door opens behind me and the two men who rode with us emerge from the air-conditioning. I look at them and see much of what I saw in Esperanza's expression, and something else: fear. These are city boys, as modernized as any American, and they're not prepared for such a tangible connection to their ancient history.

"Dios yudanos!" one of them, I think his name is Antonio, says.

"G.o.d help us, indeed," I answer.

The other SUV pulls up next to ours and, after a few moments, the rest of the team joins us. Even Esperanza gets out and walks to the front of the vehicle, standing near the ticking engine.

Quetzl-Quezo sits in the middle of a man-made clearing. When we, the experts, swarmed the ruins, we cut and pulled down hundreds of trees with the heavy equipment we brought with us down the trail we'd beaten through the jungle-the same path we followed today, inching along, driving through overgrowth, clearing a path by hand when necessary. There are several mounds of earth piled in haphazard fas.h.i.+on around the site, like giant prairie-dog holes. They're the places that showed the greatest potential for harboring old tools, cooking implements, and bones.

At the base of each temple wall is a pile of crumbled limestone further eroded into smaller rocks and dust. I've long harbored an irritation that limestone is abundant in the region, making it the most logical building material. It's a comparatively soft rock that does not bear up beneath the ravages of time.

I take a step and stop at Esperanza's side. She is quiet for several beats until, without taking her eyes off the temple, she says, "Thanks."

I know what she means and nod.