The Mayan Secrets

Sam and Remi stood up and began to climb. She looked down. “Your leg — is that blood?” She bent and looked closer.

He looked too. “I guess it is. I must have scraped it on something when I hit. I’m all right.”

They walked up the last few feet of the hill and around to the other side of the church and sat in the moonlight to look at Sam’s leg. The blood streak went from his knee to his ankle, but it was already drying. “No harm done,” he said.

They kept to the side of the church, sat down in the dark shadows by it, and watched the second truck make its way up to the level of the church, where the town’s main street began. The truck traveled along the street without slowing. At the end of the block of closed shops and restaurants, the road curved a little and went downward, and the truck disappeared.

Sam and Remi stayed at the back of the church building and waited while the other trucks climbed the road and passed through the town, one by one. Their small convoy had consisted of five trucks, but the Fargos stayed where they were as long as they could see headlights in the distance. They counted twenty trucks before the road was clear again. It was nearly dawn when they walked out of their hiding place and saw that there were people in some of the shops already. They passed a baker’s shop, where a man was firing up a big wood-burning oven behind the building. There were people in the yards outside their houses, gathering eggs, feeding chickens, starting fires.

Sam said, “I’m hungry.”

“Me too. Did any of our Guatemalan Quetzales survive our swim?”

“I think so. I’ll look in the bag.” He opened the waterproof bag, shuffled around in it, and found his wallet. “That’s good news. My wallet survived.” He looked inside. “The money too. Let’s see if we can buy some breakfast.”

They walked toward the shop where the man was stoking the oven and saw two men heading for the same place. One wore a wrinkled seersucker suit and the other a priest’s black coat and collar. They strolled down the center of the street, chatting in a friendly way, as they approached the little restaurant.

They and the host had a quick exchange of greetings, and then the priest turned to the Fargos and said in English, “Good morning. My name is Father Gomez. And this is Dr. Carlos Huerta, our town physician.”

Sam shook their hands. “Sam Fargo. And this is my wife, Remi.”

“So,” she said, “the parish priest and the doctor together at dawn. I hope nobody has died during the night.”

“No,” said the priest. “A baby was born a while ago. The family sent for me to baptize the little boy immediately, so we thought we might as well begin the day here. Miguel Alvarez saw us coming. And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

“We were hiking and camping north of Cobán and we seem to have wandered a bit and gotten lost,” said Sam. “We had to abandon most of our gear. But we found our way to a road, and here we are, safe and in a town.”

“Yes, you are,” said Dr. Huerta. “Will you join us for breakfast?”

“We would be delighted,” said Remi.

They talked while the restaurateur’s wife and two of his sons arrived and began to cook. They produced a feast of thick, handmade tortillas, rice, black beans, fried eggs, papaya, slices of cheese, and sautéed plantains.

After a few remarks about the area, the climate, and the people, Father Gomez said, “You came from that way, beyond the church?”

“Yes,” said Remi.

“Did you stop at the Estancia Guerrero?”

Remi was uncomfortable. “It didn’t look to us like a friendly place.”

The priest and the doctor exchanged a meaningful look. Dr. Huerta said, “Your instincts served you well.”

Sam looked at Remi, then said, “I’m afraid we got a pretty good look at part of the place. The reason we had to abandon our gear was that some men were trying to shoot us.”

“This isn’t the only story like that I’ve heard,” said Father Gomez. “It’s a disgrace.”

Dr. Huerta said, “Father Gomez and I have been trying to do something about it for a year or more. First, we wrote to the woman who owns the Estancia, an Englishwoman named Sarah Allersby. We thought she would want to know that a part of her huge property was being used as a drug plantation.”

Sam and Remi exchanged a look. “What did she say?” asked Sam.

“Nothing. The response came from the regional police, who told us we didn’t know marijuana from sugarcane and were wasting everyone’s time.”

Remi said, “Do you know Miss Allersby?”

“No, we’ve never seen her,” said the priest. “But who can tell what she knows, far away in Guatemala City, or in London, or New York?”

The doctor said, “Meanwhile, heavily armed men roam the forests, and trucks full of drugs come through town every few nights. Lots of the villages around here have young men who work there. Some come home, others don’t. Are they all right? Who knows?”

“I’m sorry,” said Remi. “Maybe we can talk to the authorities in Guatemala City and pass on the story. Sometimes outsiders can seem more objective to the police.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Dr. Huerta. “If the drug people saw you and shot at you, they might be searching for you even now. Just to be safe, we ought to get you out of here. I’ve got a car and I’ll be driving to the next town this morning. I’ll take you with me and put you on a bus to Guatemala City.”

“Thank you,” Sam said. “We would appreciate it very much.”

“Yes, we would,” said Remi. “Doesn’t the bus stop here?”

“Not anymore,” said the priest. “Santa Maria de los Montañas isn’t big enough. There are only two hundred souls, and few have any business elsewhere.”

Dr. Huerta said, “Let’s give it another half hour, just to be sure the drug trucks have passed, before we get on the road.”

“While you’re waiting, I’ll show you our church,” said Father Gomez. “It was made by the first generation of converts in the sixteenth century, under the direction of the Dominicans.”

“We’d love to see it,” Remi said.

They walked to the church with the priest. The front had a pair of low bell towers with a flat façade between them. There was a large pair of wooden doors, opening on a little plaza that ended at the road. It occurred to Remi that the style was similar to some of the smaller California missions. Inside were carved statues of Mary and baby Jesus above the altar, flanked by angels with shields and spears.

“The statues were imported from Spain in the eighteenth century,” said Father Gomez. “These pews were made by parishioners about that time.” He sat in the front row and the Fargos joined him. “And now all that history culminates in the town turning into a drug traffickers’ paradise.”

“You should try again for help,” said Sam. “The national police in Guatemala City might be more interested in this. As Remi said, we can tell them what we saw.”

“If you could get a message through to Sarah Allersby, the woman who owns the Estancia Guerrero, it might help even more. The doctor and I have hopes that she’s like a lot of absentee landlords. She doesn’t pay much attention, but when she learns what’s been happening on her land, she’ll react.”

Remi sighed. “We can try.”

“You seem doubtful. Why?”

“We met her recently, and I think she might take a letter or a call from us. But our personal impression, and what we’ve heard about her, tells us that she won’t help anyone unless she gets some personal advantage out of it.”

“You think she’s aware of the drug smuggling?”

“We can’t say that,” said Remi. “Just because someone makes a bad impression on us doesn’t mean she’s a criminal. But she struck us as a very spoiled and selfish young woman who didn’t care much about rules.”

“I see,” said Father Gomez. “Well, please try. Having these bandits patrolling the area is a terrible thing. If the drugs disappeared, so would they.”