Dawn had begun to break, finally. It was an extraordinary sight-clear pink and rose above a line of green. Jeff crouched there, watching, the shit-stained sheet of paper still held in his hand. Then the sun, all in an instant, seemed to leap above the horizon: pale yellow, shimmering, too bright to look at.
It was as he was stepping back into the vines to kick some dirt over his shit-pulling his pants up, fumbling for his zipper-that he felt his fingers begin to burn. In the growing light, he could see that there was a pale green fuzz sprouting across his jeans. His shoes, too. It was the vine, he realized; tendrils of it had taken root on his clothes during the night, so tiny that they still looked more like the spread of a fungus than a plant-diaphanous, veil-like, nearly invisible. When Jeff brushed them away, they crumpled, leaking their stinging sap, singeing his hands. He stared at the green fuzz a long moment, not certain what to make of it. That the vine could grow so quickly seemed extraordinary, an important development, and yet what did it mean? He couldn't think, couldn't decide, had to give up finally. He forced himself to look away, to continue forward into the day. He tossed the wad of paper onto the little pile of shit. The dirt was too packed, too dry for him to kick any free; he had to crouch and chop at it with a rock, sweat rising on his skin from the effort. He loosened one handful of the pale yellow soil, then another, scattering them across the mess he'd made, partially obscuring it, burying the stench; it was good enough.
Then it was back to the trail, where he stooped to retrieve the tape and pen, the notebook and the aluminum pole. He was just turning to resume his downward journey, when he hesitated, thinking, There should be flies. Why aren't there flies? He crouched again, puzzling over this, staring back toward his half-covered pile of shit, as if waiting for the insects to appear, belatedly, buzzing and swirling. But they didn't, and his mind kept jumping-too rapidly, without pause, like a burglar rifling a desk, yanking open drawers, dumping their contents to the floor.
Not just here but on Pablo, too. Flies hovering over his smell, crawling across his skin.
And mosquitoes.
And gnats.
Where are they?
The sun continued to rise. The heat, too-so fast.
Maybe the birds, Jeff thought. Maybethey've eaten all the insects.
He stood up, stared across the hillside, searching for the birds, listening for their calls. They ought to be awake now, flitting about, greeting the dawn. But there was nothing. No movement, no sound. No flies, no mosquitoes, no gnats, no birds.
Droppings, he thought, and scanned the surrounding vines, searching among the bright red flowers, the flat, hand-shaped leaves, for the white or amber splatter of bird shit. But, once again, there was nothing.
Maybe they live in holes, burrows they gouge from the earth with their beaks . He remembered reading of birds who did this; he could almost picture the creatures, earth-colored, taloned, hook-beaked. But he could see no sign of tunneled dirt, no shadowed openings.
He noticed a pebble at his feet, perfectly round, no larger than a blueberry, and he crouched, picked it up, popped it into his mouth. This was something else he'd read: how people lost in the desert would sometimes suck on small stones to keep their thirst at bay. The pebble had an acrid taste, stronger than he'd expected; he almost spit it out, but he resisted the impulse, using his tongue to push the tiny stone behind his lower lip, like a pinch of tobacco.
You were supposed to breathe through your nose, not your mouth; you lost less moisture that way.
You were supposed to refrain from talking unless it was absolutely necessary.
You were supposed to limit your eating, and avoid alcohol.
You were supposed to sit in the shade, at least twelve inches off the ground, because the earth acted like a radiator, sucking your strength from you.
What else? There was too much to remember, too much to keep track of, and no one here to help him.
He'd heard the birds last night. Jeff was certain he'd heard them. He was tempted to stride off across the hillside, searching for their burrows, but knew that he ought to wait, that it wasn't important. The sign first. Then back up to the tent, so that they could ration out the day's water and food. Then the hole to distill their urine, and the latrine-they'd need to get the digging done before it got much hotter. Then, after all that, he could find the birds, search for their eggs, string up some snares. It was crucial not to lunge at things, not to become overwhelmed. One task and then another, that was how they'd make it through.
He started down the trail.
The Mayans were waiting for him at the bottom, four of them, three men and a woman. They were crouching beside the still-smoldering remains of their campfire. They watched him approach, the men rising as Jeff neared the foot of the hill, reaching for their weapons. One of them was the man who'd first tried to stop Jeff and the others, the bald man with the holstered pistol. He held the gun in his hand now, hanging casually at his side but ready to be raised. Ready to be aimed, fired. His two companions each had a bow, arrows loosely nocked. There were half a dozen more Mayans along the far tree line, Jeff saw, wrapped in blankets, straw hats hiding their faces, sleeping. One of them stirred, as if sensing Jeff's approach. He jostled the man lying beside him, and they both sat up to stare.
Jeff stopped at the mouth of the trail, set everything down. He crouched with his back to the Mayans. It filled him with a fluttery sense of panic-he kept imagining the bows being raised, the arrows pulled taut-but he thought it might make him appear less threatening. He tore a blank page out of the rear of the notebook, uncapped the pen, and began to draw the first of his signs, a skull and crossbones, stark and simple, appropriately ominous. He went over and over it with his pen, making the drawing as dark as possible.
He tore off another page, wrote "SOS" on it.
Then a third page: "HELP."
And a fourth: "DANGER."
He pried up a softball-size stone, used it to pound the aluminum pole into the dirt, right at the edge of the clearing, blocking the trail. Then he duct-taped his signs to the pole, one beneath another. He turned finally, as if to see the Mayans' reaction. The two along the tree line had lain down again, their hats over their faces, and the woman by the fire had her back to him now. She was stirring the embers with her left hand, setting a small pot onto an iron tripod with her right: breakfast, Jeff assumed. The other three were still watching him, but with a much more casual air. They almost seemed to be smiling-good-humoredly, he thought. Or was there an air of mockery, too? Jeff turned, banged at the pole a few more times with his stone. Someone would have to come and sit by it later in the day, after the bus arrived in Cobá, but for now this ought to suffice. Just as a precaution, in case the Greeks somehow managed to appear earlier than expected. If they'd hitchhiked, say. Or rented a car.
Jeff retrieved the pen and the notebook and the roll of tape and was just about to start back up the trail, when he changed his mind. He set everything down again and-very hesitantly, very carefully-stepped out into the clearing, lifting his hands, patting at the air. The Mayans raised their weapons. Jeff pointed to his right, trying to show them that he just wanted to walk along the clearing's margin, keeping close to the vines: he wasn't going to try to flee. The Mayans kept staring at him, the bows drawn, the pistol aimed at his chest, but they didn't say anything, made no overt attempt to stop him, so Jeff took this as permission. He started slowly along the base of the hill.