"We who, kemosabe?" McCoy helped Uman to gather his bag and clothing. She noted with some bemusement his patience with the elder Maya.
"I know the trails." She paused for a moment to use her other eyes, ears and nostrils throughout the nearby jungle. "I won't have you endanger these people. Uman doesn't know the area and he can't keep stopping to check the omens for every right turn. Come on."
Suzanne threw a pair of black jeans and a couple of dark T-shirts into her backpack, followed by her maps and a flashlight. Two canteens of water were joined by a package of leftover tortillas, some chilis, salt and beans, wrapped in leaves. She was figuring on giving the men a day's lead over the army, then coming back by some circuitous route. Her machete and down vest hung by the door and she grabbed them as they left. She never carried a gun of any kind.
The night was bright and cold at their elevation. It was only a few days before a full moon. McCoy followed her out first. The shaman paused in the doorway, hieroglyphs dancing across his body. His eyes were closed and his right hand touched his left shoulder as if to confirm the message he felt internally. Last night, he had performed rites that he claimed would tell him more about how they would escape the army's net. He had not, however, been forthcoming about the specifics. The moment ended quickly. If Suzanne had not turned at that precise instant, she would never have seen it. She looked down at the jaguar back at her side. Balam would stay with the people as added protection. The taltuza had climbed back to its accustomed perch and would go with her. This could be an interesting day.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
They had put kilometers between themselves and Chotol by the time she allowed them to rest with the coming of dawn. Uman amazed her with the steadiness of his progress. Despite his body, he had kept up with her. Even McCoy had managed to stay with the pace she set. She looked up from her wide-ranging reconnaissance of the forest to catch Uman's eyes on her.
"I think it's time I knew why an ajk'ij and a reporter are running through the Guatemalan Highlands in an attempt to escape from the army." Suzanne sat down with some gratitude herself, although she would never admit it to the others. She handed out one of the canteens of water. McCoy stopped cleaning the lens of his Minolta and glanced at Uman before continuing the operation with extreme concentration.
"A little trouble up in the Altiplano, further up in the mountains." He put the camera up to his eye and sighted. "Hard to stay out of trouble in the Highlands. Genocide brings out the worst in people, you know."
"I told you I wasn't political. If I wanted to play those games, I would have stayed in New York." Suzanne scowled out at the jungle. "I love this country, these people. I'd do anything for them, but I won't blindly follow anyone's party line. You norteamericanos always have some agenda - even if it is just assuaging your white liberal guilt."
"We norteamericanos." McCoy barked a laugh.
"It is not a political question for us." Uman entered the conversation, ending his revery. "It is our survival, the survival of our traditions. You must know this."
"This is not answering my question. Okay, I know about the struggle, the defeat and murder of the Hero Twins at Nebaj last year, the destruction of the town, the imprisonment of most of the Maya separatists who weren't killed. It's not fair and it's not right. But why you? And why the Kaibiles?"
"There's a village in the Altiplano, like Chotol, but maybe four or five times as large. Was a village, until a week ago." McCoy had switched to English. He lay back on the ground and stared up through the dark green canopy of treetops toward the now light-blue sky. It was still cool. The heat would not come until the sun was higher.
"It was a little place, but pretty. Good people. Ixil Maya. Jokers, some of them. But, you know, I never saw jokers who were so accepted by their community. Doesn't happen in New York. I'd heard about Uman through some contacts of mine possibly associated with the EGP."
"So you are involved with the Army of the Poor?"
"Jeez, I know some people. It's my job to develop contacts. I'm not a freakin' Marxist, all right?"
"So you found a nice photogenic joker. Just the thing for a little Newsweek human interest piece? Oooh, maybe a cover story. That must pay well." Suzanne used English as well. Uman had looked up when McCoy began, but had not reacted since. Not all that many Maya spoke Spanish, let alone English. It was why she spent so much time teaching the children. Communication of the situation in their country was the only way she saw that could protect them from their ordained future. She dug into her pack and passed out tortillas and beans.
"Uman, did I come to do any harm?" McCoy appealed to the shaman in Spanish.
"He wanted to study our ways of time, past and future." Uman added salt and chilis to his food, as did she. McCoy ate his plain. "He is no anthropologist."
Suzanne smiled despite herself. Few Maya enjoyed the company of the graduate students in anthropology who threatened to overwhelm them every summer. She held up a bite to the taltuza, who snatched it away.
"Uman was able to use the ancient knowledge with rare accuracy. I was curious as to whether that was related to his joker nature. I have a personal interest in that." Suzanne looked over at him, but he did not explain. He had not said it with any of the hatred or revulsion she expected. His tone had been sad. Someone in his life was a joker. Or had been. "Anyway, I wanted to know more, and in my experience, the more light that can be shown on something and the more people who become interested, the more pressure can be put on the government from outside the country."
Suzanne glared out into the jungle. Casting her mind out over the land around them, she perceived no danger. She wished she knew what was happening in Chotol.
"So what happened last week?"
"The town was surrounded by the Guatemalan Army. So what else is new, right? But this time they brought a few new friends along with them. And a little experiment. They used their helicopter gunships to fog the town with some chemical, a biological weapon. Have you ever heard of 'Card Sharks?'"
"No."
"Well, they're pretty simple people to understand. They want you dead. Because you're an ace or something like it. But they're equal opportunity. They want jokers like Uman dead too." McCoy followed her gaze into the trees. "Their calculations were a little off this time. They killed everyone. Jokers, nats, kids, adults. Very effective. Bastards."
"So how did you and Uman survive?"
"We were praying in a cave in the mountains, asking permission for me to study a little of Uman's knowledge. Uman felt something was wrong. We left the cavern and began hearing the howls of the people. But by the time we got back, it was all over. The bodies were covered in their own blood; it looked as though they had hemorrhaged through their skin. They were lying everywhere. Blood ran in streams in the street. The walls had the imprints of hands and bodies and even faces, where the dying had thrown themselves in their agonies. I've covered wars and natural disasters all over the world and I never before saw anything like this." McCoy shivered although the heat of the day had begun to penetrate their shelter.
"We hid on the hillside above the town. The army had already cleared it once. They controlled the roads, so they weren't looking for anyone else to get there. A few people actually survived the first onslaught. The Kaibiles shot each of them in the head. It must have been quick dispersal; they weren't even wearing gas masks when they came in. They thought there was no one left. But we were there and I had my cameras.
"I got the army officers, the Kaibiles, the bodies, the torching of the town and its final destruction by the gun-ships. And I got the most important shot of all. Etienne Faneuil. They used to call him the 'French Schweitzer,' you know - before the Kenya joker massacre. He's supposed to be dead. But I've got shots of him arguing with some Guatemalan general. The good doctor wasn't very happy. His trial had failed. This junk is just as deadly to nats as to wild card victims. All he wanted to do was get back to his lab."