When Uman turned to look at her, a calm had come into his face that she hadn't seen in days of travel with the quiet man. It impressed her, but she was envious of his peace. Hers was disintegrating with every passing minute.
Balam was up the temple's tumbled steps in four leaps. Suzanne took rather more time and effort to gain the top. She surveyed their surroundings once more before turning and entering the small chamber, with her flashlight in hand. McCoy swore at her again when he saw it.
The chamber was in remarkably good shape. It looked safe in the small circle of light that she shone around the roof. The center arch high above them was intact. As she played the light across the walls, all three were startled by the murals. Incomplete, but still holding much of their original bright color, scenes of battles and the courts of the gods were divided by bands of inscriptions. The musky scent of puma only added to the alien feel of the site. Alien to McCoy and herself. Uman could have been one of the men pictured here. What she noticed most were the recreations of the royal courts presided over by gods, but containing rabbit scribes and other animal advisors. That part was familiar to her.
"You know, Menotti, when you smile, you actually look part human." McCoy dumped his belongings on the bench running across the back wall of the room. He was careful to avoid scuffing the art.
"Being around you, McCoy, doesn't give anyone much reason to smile." It was a half-hearted slam. Suzanne sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor. "Jose, can you read any of the hieroglyphs?
"Some are familiar. Others are too different." He rubbed his left arm unconsciously. "A different time, another world."
His words, shaded by a millennium and a half of pain and loss, echoed in the room. Suzanne clicked off the flashlight.
"Let's get some rest."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Balam's cry woke her, shattering her sleep from inside and outside her skull. It had to be about four AM. Dark outside. The moon was setting. Moving as little as possible, she prodded Uman awake with her foot and hissed at McCoy, sleeping on the ledge. Suzanne watched the guerrillas approach the temple from all sides. They were surrounded. Balam had scaled a tree to escape. The soldiers were ignoring her. It was the only positive aspect of the situation. The guerrillas had come from upwind, alerting few of the animals. Suzanne had simply missed the other warnings.
In her mind, she retraced their steps, searching for any trail they might have left. If the guerrillas were on routine patrol - and no one thought to check the temple - they might come out of this alive. Then she remembered Uman's ceremony. The odds got much longer. He had cleared away the main debris, but the burn marks were left on the stones to be washed off in the morning. Another stupid mistake. She put her head down and hoped Uman's gods had paid attention the night before.
Now that she was fully awake, she used the eyes of some howler monkeys to watch the rebels. To her disgust, the point man surveyed the temple steps and immediately spotted the remnants of the tiny sacrifice. He motioned to his captain. The captain looked up at the temple and waved five of the dozen men up the broken stones to the top of the platform. Their guns, a mix of Uzis and M-16's, were aimed squarely at the doorway. Before they could rush in, Suzanne stood up and walked out into their midst. The weapons snapped up to point at her.
"I am alone," she told them in her worst Spanish. "An archaeology student."
"Buenos noches." The captain was female, much to Suzanne's amazement. She had not known the guerrillas were quite so gender-blind. Suzanne winced as the captain ordered four of the men to search the temple. Without an altercation, Uman and McCoy were escorted out of the temple. The remaining moonlight was reflected from the limestone of the ruins as the captain looked back at Suzanne, who shrugged, the barrel of an Uzi four inches from her head.
The rebel who acted as the point man drew the captain aside. She thought that they had to be discussing Uman, given the looks in his direction. When they came closer to inspect the hieroglyphs on his body, they were more respectful than she would have expected. She and McCoy were well-guarded but otherwise ignored. Suzanne took the opportunity to examine the guerrilla team. The mix of uniforms included traditional clothing. Usually, she understood, the Marxists and Maoists tried to break down tribal identity as being counter-revolutionary. But there were two ladinos among the other ten indigenas. The captain herself was four feet, eight inches of solidly-built Maya, a woman she could have imagined seeing in Chotol. Without the Uzi. She was dressed in standard military fatigues that were a couple of sizes too big for her. But the turban and a thin band of embroidery across her shirt seemed to indicate she still followed some traditional ways. Suzanne couldn't see the embroidery sufficiently well to even guess at a people, but she guessed Kekchi from her face.
Her attention moved on to the point man. At first, she thought he had painted his face with spots like an ancient Jaguar warrior. When he came over to search her, she saw instead that he was a joker. His body was covered in short fur, marked like the jungle cat's. When she moved too abruptly during his pat-down body search, retractable claws sprang from between his fingers to stop her. She was jealous.
While Suzanne and McCoy had been body-searched Uman was simply asked if he carried weapons. When he indicated his machete, the captain removed it from his belt, but did not search him further. Nor did she check the bag he carried. Her pack, and McCoy's bag and cameras had been confiscated. What kind of rebels were these?
Balam tracked them as they were led away to the north down the hidden trail the guerrillas had used to enter the small temple compound. Not fifteen words had been exchanged during their capture. Even McCoy kept his mouth shut. Suzanne and McCoy had their arms bound in front of them. Uman was unrestrained. The captain deferred to him in setting the pace. Watching them, Suzanne felt sure that the two guerrillas who walked beside him were more bodyguards than captors. Curiouser and curiouser.
What was the affiliation of these rebels? They shouldn't have been in the Peten. With so few people down here, there were neither potential converts nor army patrols to fight. It was too far from the war zones of the Highlands to be a staging area. On the other hand, it was much safer than being guerrillas in the mountains. But these people were not playing at it. They were serious, well-trained and well-disciplined. If they were involved with smuggling, they would have killed them immediately. Thinking about the Kaibile unit following them, she wondered if they were about to get all the trouble they could ever have imagined.
After four hours of jungle trekking, the prisoners marched into a broad clearing in the midst of the forest. The trees here were huge, fifty feet high. Their crowns nearly joined overhead. Where gaps might have revealed the camp below, camouflage netting had been stretched. Half a dozen shafts of sunlight still penetrated the foliage to add an almost unnatural golden glow to the scene stretched out before them. Fifty or more tents stood below the giant trees. A more traditional thatched roof, supported by six columns, stood at the far end in front or what looked like a temple mound. That was their destination.
Children walked between the tents, carrying water and firewood. They were as serious as their elders, but they looked well-fed and happy, making games of their work until they saw the strangers. Older people left their tents to watch them. Uman occasioned many comments, but she caught only a few dissociated words in Quiche as they walked past. Women cooked tortillas on their comales throughout the camp, and the pat-pat of their hands against the dough made Suzanne think of Chotol. A crowd fell in behind them as they passed among the tents.