Laughing at the dry understatement, Hunter handed her a bottle of water.
She braced the wheel with her knees and one hand and drank. A thin line of water dribbled down her chin and dampened the khaki blouse above one breast, slowly revealing the dark shadow of a nipple.
Hunter forced himself to think of someone who might be following them. A fast check of the side mirrors revealed that they were the only limestone dust cloud on the road. Not that he could see all that far with the jungle crouched around like a huge green cat.
“Without the cenotes,” Lina said, handing back the water, “the very ancient Maya would have died out long before the Spanish arrived. That and the fact that freshwater floats on top of salt.”
“Fire, water, earth, and air,” Hunter said. “All the rest is decoration. No matter where you are in the world, that doesn’t change.”
“The lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula could use more of the decoration called fertilizer,” she said wryly. “In the ceiba and copal jungle, the ground beneath our wheels is thin, crumbly, and poor. Survival is hard. Take the strangler fig tree. It lives by being supported by a host tree, using the host as a ladder to climb up to light. Eventually the fig vines harden, extend roots, and strangle the host. Despite its lush look, the jungle plants survive more by force of will than the generosity of nature.”
“Like the people. Still here. Still surviving, come hell, high water, and the Spanish. But then, we’re all survivors descended from survivors. The rest of them are buried in the dust of time.”
“Sometimes,” she said, “the weight of all that history is…crushing. And sometimes it’s so exciting to be a part of it that I want to dance.”
His fingertips trailed gently down her cheek. “I’ll dance with you.”
Dark eyes flashed gold when she looked at him and smiled. Then the rough road claimed her attention again. The dual tire tracks zigzagged around clumps of rock as the jungle slowly melted away into a different, sparser growth.
“We’re almost there,” Lina said. “I’ll park off in the scrub.”
“No problem with the locals and a rental car?”
“Not if it’s seen at the Reyes Balam estate first,” she said.
Hunter nodded. “You’ve got more guards than the ones in the compound.”
“We take care of the villages. They watch out for us.”
They got out of the Bronco, and she reached into the back and took out a wide leather belt. A machete dangled from a clip on one side of the belt.
“I’m stronger than you are,” he pointed out mildly.
“The path shouldn’t be too bad. It’s only been about eighteen months since I’ve used this route. But if I get tired, the big knife is all yours.”
“Knife?” He looked at the forearm-long blade that had been invented by natives for the sole purpose of whacking through jungles. “More like a sword.”
He followed her as she set out for a section of scrubby jungle—or jungly scrub—that looked no different from any other piece of the landscape. Trees struggled on the harsh land, lifting vine-burdened arms to the relentless sun. Bushes fought for their place in the light.
Lina slid sideways between several closely spaced, barely ten-foot-tall trees. Vines dangled only to be cut away by efficient strokes of the machete. She moved down the path like she wielded the machete, with an unconscious ease that came only from long experience. No hurry, no hesitation, just steady walking and random swings of the machete at whatever blocked the trail.
Hunter settled back to enjoy the walk. There weren’t as many bloodsucking clouds of insects as he’d expected. The rainy season had been light enough to deny mosquitoes the stagnant puddles they used to breed, and then breed again, repeating the cycle of life and death until the standing water dried up. The wind helped keep the insects down, too. At least when it blew enough to push insects under cover.
The path had only a thin layer of dirt, with limestone knobs shoving through like blunt teeth. Tree roots humped up. They were smaller and thinner than those deeper in the jungle, but enough to trip unwary feet. Plant growth waxed and waned according to a complex balance of light, water, and slope of the land. Birds and monkeys called in the distance, but a moving pool of silence spread around Lina and Hunter.
When predators walked, the jungle held its breath.
After ten minutes the amount of light gradually increased. Somewhere ahead there was a hole in the canopy.
Lina went still.
Instantly Hunter faded into the foliage close to her.
Muted voices came on the wind. The words Hunter could make out were in the local dialect. He watched Lina.
After a few moments the voices faded and she moved forward again, then stopped, framed by trees far taller than she was. She clipped the machete in place at her hip and motioned Hunter forward. When she felt him behind her, she took a half step left, letting him see ahead.
As Hunter squeezed next to her, he saw the breathtaking drop into the limestone cenote less than a yard beyond their feet. Trees crowded right up to the edge of the cliff and beyond, roots clinging to limestone ledges no bigger than his hand. Vines trailed from trees and rock alike, yet after the thousand shades of green that was the thickest jungle, the overall impression of the cenote was of muted pale cliffs and water that blazed blue under an empty sky. Where shadows fell, the water darkened to a murky shade of green.
Across the cenote, where the cliff was lower and less steep, a pale thread zigzagged down to the water. He estimated that the far side was about two hundred feet away, with a cliff perhaps twenty-five feet high. Where he and Lina stood, the cliff was at least ten feet higher, probably more. Without a point of reference, it was hard to tell. The mouth of the cenote was a rough circle left when the roof of an ancient limestone cavern had collapsed. Freshwater lay at the bottom of the limestone cliffs.
“Jase would be strapping on dive tanks,” Hunter said in a low voice. “You ever dive the cenote?”
“Not with equipment. The water is deep, but even deeper at this side than the other. We used to jump in over there,” She pointed to a place where the jungle at the top of the cliff had been cleared and covered with crushed limestone, creating a flat area. The cliff below was steep, almost overhanging the water. “Hundreds of years ago there was at least one altar there, but it didn’t survive the Catholic mandate. Generations of Maya have gradually restored the limestone causeway from the village to the cenote, though after we put wells in the villages, people no longer had to risk their lives just to get a drink.”
The red and yellow of heaped flowers announced the presence of a different, modern shrine near the edge of the limestone platform.
“Is that usually there?” Hunter asked.
She shrugged. “It varies, but it has become bigger, more permanent, than I remember as a child. It looks like it has doubled or tripled in size since the last time I really noticed it.”
Hunter weighed the presence of the shrine and decided that it could wait to be investigated. It looked like just one more really big pile of flowers nearly engulfing a long-armed cross. From the thin veil of insects that seethed over the place, it was a good bet that there was food and/or blood among the bright petals.
“What’s over there?” Hunter pointed to a gap in the cliff-side foliage that lay to the right of the shrine, just beyond the head of the ghostlike trail descending the cliff.
“The path from the estate. We have technicians who check the wells and the level of the cisterns so we know if water has to be rationed or pumped up from the cenote.”
“That happen often?”
“Only a few times. Abuelita doesn’t like pumping from the cenote. Once she made everyone haul water in buckets. Said it was better that way. In fact”—Lina put her hand on Hunter’s shoulder and leaned out, trying to see better—“I’ll bet that the pump doesn’t even work anymore. The pipe down the rim into the water is gone.”