"I got scared,” she murmured into his shoulder.
"Well, no wonder. I was a little on edge myself."
She didn't respond except to burrow a little deeper into his shoulder.
"That was a pun,” he pointed out. “On edge?"
"Not funny."
"No, it wasn't,” he said softly. “Sorry.” He stroked her smooth, fragrant hair and held her a while longer. “Feeling better?"
He felt her head nod against his chest. “Come on,” he said, “let's head back."
On Julie's insistence they stopped to report it to the khaki-clad official who seemed to be the Chichen Itza security force and custodial squad in one. At the moment he was busy stacking the chairs and trying to shoo off a knot of people standing around enjoying a smoke after the performance. The brief interview was not highly successful from Gideon's point of view, partly because his rudimentary Spanish was barely up to its demands, and partly because the official's priorities differed from his own; most of the time was taken up with an admonitory lecture about watching the show from unapproved areas. He took their Mayaland address, however, and promised to file a report with the proper authorities. Gideon would no doubt hear from them in due course.
"About trying to kill you,” Julie said on the walk back to the hotel, “are you really sure that's what he was trying to do?"
"No,” Gideon said truthfully. “But he almost brained me with some kind of heavy chain. And he was trying like hell to kick me over the edge. At least that's the way it felt."
"But why? What possible reason could he have? You don't suppose…” She stopped walking. “That threat? The one you said couldn't mean anything, that was just so much bluster?"
He shrugged. “Maybe I was wrong."
"Did you get a look at him at all? Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"
"No, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear. The whole thing caught me by surprise, and it couldn't have lasted more than five seconds. Most of which I spent trying not to roll over the edge."
"But you must have been able to tell something. Was he big? Small? Skinny? Fat?"
"I just don't know; he seemed pretty strong, but there really wasn't any way to tell. I never got my hands on him."
They began to walk again, preferring not to fall too far behind the group of people that had been ousted by the guard. Gideon's ear was beginning to ache, his ribs to pulse with pain. The adrenaline-generated anesthesia of danger was starting to wear off.
"I know what you're thinking,” she said. “You're thinking it was somebody from the dig."
That's what he was thinking, all right.
Julie jerked her head. “Gideon, I just can't make myself believe it was any of those people. The threat-all right, maybe. But to actually attack you…with a chain -anyway, how could they even know we were going to the sound-and-light show? We didn't tell anybody."
"No, but any of them could easily have been following us. They could have trailed us to the show, and then when I went up the stairs they might have sneaked around to the far side of the wall, climbed up, and edged their way along it during the performance. And the whole crew went to the show last week. They'd know just the moment when I'd be blinded-"
He sighed. “Would you say this lacks a certain plausibility?"
"Just a little.” She turned her head to look up at him. “Gideon, don't get angry, but isn't this beginning to sound just the tiniest bit paranoid to you? You can't even be sure it was an American. Maybe it was someone who never saw you before. Somebody nutty, or a wino or dope addict who was spending the night up there."
Gideon thought it over. “I suppose it could have been."
"Isn't that a more reasonable explanation?"
Gideon put a hand on either side of her waist. “Yes,” he said with a smile, “it is."
"After all, you said you smelled wine, didn't you?"
"Yes, that's true."
"And if it only lasted a few seconds before you scared him off, and it was dark, and you were scuffling, how can you be positive he wasn't just trying to rob you?"
"You're right, I can't."
"And do you really believe all this, or are you just humoring me?"
"I'm just humoring you,” Gideon said. “Somebody was trying to kill me."
Chapter 12
When Gideon awakened the next morning he stretched before thinking, then followed it with an immediate and heartfelt groan.
"Feeling a little achy?” Julie murmured beside him.
"If you call an inability to move without excruciating pain a little achy, then I suppose you could say I'm a little achy. God, I feel like the Tin Man after a year in the rain."
Julie kissed him sleepily somewhere near the left eyebrow and rolled out of bed, yawning. “I'll get you some aspirin."
"Thanks. About forty should do it."
While she rummaged in the toiletry kit that had been placed on the bathroom windowsill but not yet unpacked, Gideon lay on his back, careful not to move. Although he rarely fell back asleep once awake, this time he drowsed, slipping into a troubling dream, perhaps the continuation of a dream he'd been having when he woke up.
He was a child again, lying on an operating table, alone in an immense, cold room. He was frightened, his heart in his mouth. Something awful was going to happen to him. There was an ominous grinding noise, and the table, which had wheels, began to slide over the linoleum floor, slowly at first, gradually building up to a blurred speed, then coming to halt in another huge room. There, silent, elongated figures in white surgical gowns and masks glided as if on skates. The smell of ether was strong in Gideon's nostrils.
Terrified, he held himself perfectly still. He stopped breathing. He shut his eyes.
But they saw him all the same. One of the tall, slender figures approached, holding a scalpel in a rubber-gloved hand. The figure mumbled something. As he spoke the mask fell away and Gideon could see that there was no human mouth beneath it; no human flesh at all, but the curved, bony jaws of a fish.
The figure towered over him. The scalpel had changed to a flint knife. He lay the point against Gideon's collarbone and pressed. Screaming, Gideon kicked out at him.
"Ow!” the monster cried.
Ow?
His eyes flipped open. Julie was sitting on the side of the bed, her hand gently touching his shoulder, fingertips on his collarbone. “Are you okay? I think you were dreaming. Here's your aspirin."
He took the two tablets, swallowed some water, and fell back onto the bed, trying to hold onto the dream's fragmenting images.
"Julie,” he said slowly, “it was an American."
"You were having a dream, Gideon,” she said soothingly.
"No, last night. The guy that jumped me. He was an American."
"Last night? But how could you tell? I thought he didn't say anything."
"He grunted. He said ‘ow.’ I just remembered. Damn, how could I be so stupid?"
There was a brief pause while she frowned down at him. “And Mexicans don't say ‘ow'?"
"No, they don't."
"What do they say?"
"I'm not sure, but even if they said it, it wouldn't come out the same. The initial vowel-the ah sound-would be farther back in the palate, and the glide to the second one wouldn't be as marked. It would sound more like two separate vowels, not our kind of diphthong."
"It would?"
"Sure.” He demonstrated.
"Come again? They wouldn't say ‘ow,’ they'd say ‘ow'?” She was far from convinced.
"They'd say ‘ah-oo,'” he repeated patiently, “if they said it at all. But they don't."
"I don't know about this, Gideon,” she said doubtfully. “It sounds pretty subtle to me. He was grunting from a punch in the stomach, after all, not reciting a speech, and I doubt if you were listening too carefully to his diphthongs at the time. Besides, are you sure your Spanish is that good?"