Aces Abroad

"Madre de Dios-we have to keep moving." The teacher hauled at him. "They'll bring up the artillery. You're good with bullets, but can you fend off rockets?"

"I don't know…" Xbalanque stopped to think about this for a moment.

"We'll figure it out later. Come on."

Xbalanque realized that the man was right, but it was so difficult. With the fear of death gone, he felt as though he had lost not only the new power but also his regular strength. He looked up the street toward the forested mountainside so far away above the houses. The trees were safety. The soldiers would never follow them into the forest where guerrillas could be waiting to ambush them. The- flat sound of a shot brought him back.

The teacher pulled him away from the house and, keeping his hand underneath Xbalanque's arm, steered him toward the green refuge ahead. They cut left between two small houses and moved sideways along the narrow, muddy alley that divided the clapboard and plaster buildings. Xbalanque was moving now, sliding and skidding in the slippery brown mud. Past rear gardens, the alley turned to a path leading up the steep hillside into the trees. The open ground was at least fifteen meters of utter exposure.

He ran into his compatriot as the other man stopped and peered around the corner of the house on the left.

"Clear." The teacher had not relinquished his grip on Xbalanque's arm. "Can you run?"

"St."

After a frightened dash Xbalanque collapsed a few yards into the forest. The rain forest was thick enough to prevent their being spotted if they stayed still and quiet. They heard the soldiers arguing below until a sergeant came by and ordered them back to the square. Someone in the village would die in their place. The teacher was sweating and nervous. Xbalanque wondered if it was for their unwitting victim or his own unexpected survival. A bullet in the back was not as romantic as a firing squad.

As they trudged deeper into the wet mountains seeking to avoid the soldiers, Xbalanque's companion introduced himself. The teacher was Esteban Akabal, a devoted communist and freedom fighter. Xbalanque listened without comment to a long lecture on the evils of the existing government and the coming revolution. He only wondered at where Akabal found the energy to go on. When Akabal at last slowed down, panting as they worked their way up a difficult trail, Xbalanque asked him why he worked with Ladinos.

"It is necessary to work together for the greater good. The divisions between Quiche and Ladino are created and encouraged by the repressive regime under which we labor. They are false and, once removed, will no longer hamper the worker's natural desire to join with his fellow worker." At a level section of the path both men paused to rest.

"The Ladinos will use us, but nothing will change their feelings or mine." Xbalanque shook his head. "I have no desire to join your workers army. How do I get a road to the city?"

"You can't take a main road. The soldiers will shoot you on sight." Akabal looked at the cuts and bruises Xbalanque had incurred on' their climb. "Your talent seems very selective."

"I don't think it's a talent." Xbalanque wiped off some of the dried blood on his jeans. "I had a dream about the gods."

They gave me my name and my powers. After the dream I could do-what I did 'in Xepon.

"The norteamericanos gave you your powers. You are what they call an ace." Akabal examined him closely. "I know of few others this far south of the United States."

"It's a disease actually. A red-haired alien from outer space brought it to Earth. Or so they claim, since biological warfare has been outlawed. Most of those who caught it died. Some were changed."

" I have seen them begging in the city. It was bad sometimes." Xbalanque shrugged. "But I'm not like that."

"A very few become something more than they were. The norteamericanos worship these aces." Akabal shook his head. "Typical exploitation of the masses by fascist media masters."

"You know, you could be very important to our fight." The schoolteacher leaned forward. "The mythic element, a tie to our people's past. It would be good, very good, for us."

"I don't think so. I'm going to the city." Chagrined, Xbalanque remembered the treasure he had left in the jeep. "After I return to Xepon."

"The people need you. You could be a great leader."

"I've heard this before." Xbalanque was uncertain. The offer was attractive, but he wanted to be more than the people's-army figurehead. With his power he wanted to do something, something with money in it. But first he had to get to Guatemala City.

"Let me help you." Akabal had that intense look of desire that the graduate students had when they wanted to sleep with the Mayan priest-king; or as one of them had said, a reasonable facsimile thereof. Combined with the blood now caked on his face, it made Akabal appear to be the devil himself. Xbalanque backed off a couple steps.

"No, thank you. I'm just going to go back to Xepon in the morning, get my jeep, and leave." He started back down the trail. Over his shoulder he spoke to Akabal. "Thanks for your help."

"Wait. It's getting dark. You'll never make it back down at night." The teacher sat back down on a rock beside the trail. "We're far enough in that, even with more men, they would not dare follow us. We'll stay here tonight, and tomorrow morning we'll start back for the village. It will be safe. It will take the lieutenant at least a day to explain the loss of his truck and get reinforcements."

Xbalanque stopped and turned back. "No more talk about armies?"

"No, I promise." Akabal smiled and gestured for Xbalanque to take another rock.

"Do you have anything to eat? I'm very hungry." Xbalanque could not remember ever having been this hungry, even in the worst parts of his childhood.

"No. But if we were in New York, you could go to a restaurant called Aces High. It is just for people like you… " As Akabal told him about life in the United States for the aces, Xbalanque gathered some branches to protect against the wet ground and lay down on them. He was asleep long before Akabal ended his speech.

In the morning before dawn they were on the trail back down. Akabal had found some nuts and edible plants for food, but Xbalanque remained ravenous and in pain. Still, they made it back to the village in much less time than it had taken them to toil up the trail the day before.

Hunapu found that wearing the heavy cotton padding while he was walking was clumsy and hot, so he wrapped it up and tied it to his back. He had walked a day and a night without sleep when he came to a small Indian village only slightly larger than his own. Hunapu stopped and wrapped the padding around himself as Jose had done it. The dress of a warrior and a ballplayer, he thought proudly, and held his head high. The people here were not Lacandones and they looked at him suspiciously as he entered with the sunrise.

An old man walked out into the main path that led between the thatched houses. He called out a greeting to Hunapu in a tongue that was similar but not quite the same as that of his people. Hunapu introduced himself to the t'o'ohil as he walked up to him. The village guardian stared at the young man for a full minute of contemplation before inviting him into his home, the largest house Hunapu had ever entered.

While most of the village waited outside for the guardian to tell them about this morning apparition, the two men spoke and drank coffee. It was a difficult conversation at first, but Hunapu soon understood the old man's pronunciations and was able to make himself and his mission known. When Hunapu was finished, the t'o'ohil sat back and called his three sons to him. They stood behind him and waited while he spoke to Hunapu.

"I believe that you are Hunapu returned to us. The end of the world comes soon, and the gods have sent messengers to us." The t'o'ohil gestured to one of his sons, a dwarf, to come forward. "Chan Vin will go with you. As you see, the gods touched him and he speaks to them directly for us. If you are hach, true, he will know it. If you are not, he will know that also."