Ford said, "Don't have far to go now, bubba."
The streets were crowded and he was driving slowly, arm out the window, taking pleasure in the look of the town and its people. Women in traditional Mayan dress, bright skirts and embroidered blouses, balanced water jugs on their heads while men in mauve-striped pantaloons and white straw hats sat by fountains selling the wares they had brought down from the mountains. "We can get some supper here, and I need to make a phone call. I guess we ought to think about spending the night, too. It'll be dark in a couple of hours."
Tomlinson was looking at the small notebook he carried. He was reading, leafing through the pages, then comparing his notes with the map he had spread over his knees. He had been going over his notes for the last half hour.
Ford said, "It may take me a while to get my call through. I have to call the States. You want to go ahead and find a place to eat?"
Tomlinson made no reply. He was reading, concentrating.
"Did you hear me? You want me to try and make my call, or do you want to order some food first?"
Tomlinson looked up suddenly, like he was surprised Ford was there. "Hey, you know where we are?"
"Sure I know where we are. We're in Utatlan. It's an interesting little town, but watch your step. The people are clannish, and you're a gringo in a country about to have a revolution—don't forget it."
"No, not that. Do you know where we are? This is it, man. This is the place!"
"What place? What are you talking about?"
"The fifteen hundreds, man. When Alvarado conquered the Kache and the Tlaxclen. He came from the north with his horsemen down through the central plain to a Mayan trading center built on the branching of two rivers. That river we came across was the Azul. And that river up there—" Tomlinson was pointing at a rocky riverbed ahead where green water flowed past women washing clothes on the bank. "—is called the Sol." Ford translated without thinking: the River of Blue; River of the Sun.
Tomlinson said, "This is the place where the Kache surrendered to Alvarado without a fight. This village, Utatlan. This is where the whole damn sad story began. Hey, pull over there by the river. I want to look at something."
Ford waited in the vehicle while Tomlinson got out, and then Ford got out, too. While Tomlinson looked at his map and looked at the mountains beyond, Ford began to lob rocks into the river: small round rocks good for throwing, but his arm was sore after the game yesterday. "See the valley way, way over there just below the clouds?" Tomlinson was pointing again.
"That must be the mountain pass where Alvarado made his forced march with the Kache. It was probably all jungle back then. Had to be a hell of a tough trip. Made them kill other Maya just so they could eat. That's the route they took when they went hunting for the Tlaxclen. The lake where you expect to find this Zacul character is just beyond those mountains, isn't it?"
"Right. About another twenty miles on the map. A heck of a lot farther by mountain road. "
"And that's the lake where the Tlaxclen priests lived?"
"So the story goes."
Tomlinson was nodding, smiling, pleased with himself. "See how it's all fitting, man? It's like some magnet is drawing us. Right down the path. Can't you feel it? Doc, I can close my eyes and hear the conquistadors' horses coming. I can hear their damn armor rattling. The Kache probably waded this river to get a closer look at this wild-looking Spaniard with long blond hair dressed in metal. Alvarado had to seem like someone from outer space to them, riding an animal they'd never even seen before. It's no wonder they thought he was a god. And they maybe stood right where we're standing now watching him and his little army coming with absolutely no idea in hell that the culture of a hundred generations would be destroyed within just a few weeks." Tomlinson's eyes opened. "There's something about these hills, man; something about this country. The jungle holds onto things. It absorbs events. Five hundred years is just a blink of the eye in country like this, and things echo for a long, long time. Go ahead. Try it. Close your eyes and listen."
Ford said, "I'll let you do the cosmic listening. I've got to make a phone call. "
"Suit yourself, man, but it's all still right here. A place like this, lost spirits linger."
They drove toward the heart of the town, then parked and walked because the streets were narrow and filled with people and slow-moving carts. Thursday was market day in Utatlan, a big event for all of the people who lived in the surrounding mountains; a day of bartering and drinking. The main street dead-ended in a plaza bordered by shops and old stone buildings. In the center of the plaza was a small park with a fountain, a few trees, and several stela—standing stone slabs covered with Mayan hieroglyphics. Traders had set up their booths in the plaza, and everything was for sale: live chickens, goats, wild mountain fruit, hardware, bolts of handwoven cloth, baskets of herbs, coffee beans; all these smells blending with the smoke of small cooking fires and the sharp odor of incense.
Forming the back of the plaza was a stone cathedral, four hundred years old, cracked by earthquakes, its stone steps scooped by the comings and goings of a million souls. Men in pantaloons and colorful shirts marched up and down the steps swinging censer cans of burning copal leaves while their women knelt on the floor inside the church lighting rows of candles and burning small offerings to gods known only to themselves. The mumbled chants in guttural Mayan added a percussion backdrop to the noise and wild laughter of the marketplace, and the smoke pall drifting over the plaza swirled in the cool mountain sunlight.
"The Catholic priests let them do that? Burn offerings on the floor of the cathedral?" Tomlinson's head was turning this way and that, trying to take in everything at once as they moved through the crowd, both of them a head taller than the earthen-faced Mayas who glanced up at them, expressionless. "Any way you slice it, that's paganism, man. According to the church, anyway."
"The priests leave town on market day," Ford said.
Tomlinson laughed, like it was a joke.
"No, I mean it. In these mountain villages, the priests physically leave town on market day. It's their way of pretending not to know about the religion the Indians practice. If the priests tried to put a stop to it, the Indians wouldn't show up at mass on Sunday. So the priests compromise by ignoring it. The one thing they won't let the Indians do is sacrifice live animals inside the church. Most of these little towns have some secluded spot for sacrifices. A place with an altar, a cross, and usually some kind of stone Mayan deity figure set up. When the Indians want to make a blood offering, they go there. "
"Catholicity. I like that. My respect for the church just went up a notch, man."
"I'm sure the folks in Rome will be relieved to hear."
"Hey, I've got a right to judge. I was raised in the church, man; furthermore, I liked it. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a monk; live in an abbey and sing Latin songs."
"That I believe."
"But then I found out about the Beatles."
"I believe that, too."
"Catholicism is great. They got a franchise everywhere."
"Uh-huh." Ford had stopped. "That little restaurant with the veranda look okay to you?"
"Sure, anyplace is okay with me. As long as they got beans and rice."
"Then why don't you go on in and order for us and I'll try and find the public phone."
"I'd bet long odds there isn't one. This little town is still in the bronze age, man."
"You'd lose. When Pilar was involved in the government, she saw to it that every village with a population of more than five thousand had at least one public phone, a public health facility, and a school."