The Mayan Secrets

She wore a loose white silk blouse, a pair of fitted black slacks with black knee-high riding boots, and a black flat-brimmed hat that hung down her back from its stampede string. She adjusted the black leather belt on her hips so the gun hung lower on the right, as though she were about to engage in a quick-draw gunfight. She stepped outside onto the wooden porch, her leather boot heels making a hard clicking noise on the boards.

The truck grumbled up the gravel drive and stopped in front of her. Men jumped down from the truck bed. They looked impressive to her, all carrying AK-47 knockoffs, most of them armed with fighting knives in sheaths. They stood in a wavering line beside their truck and looked at her expectantly. Russell and Ruiz jumped down from the cab and approached her.

She said, “You sounded on the phone as though it went well.”

“I guess it did,” said Russell. “We herded them outside and gave them the message.”

“Good.”

He spoke more quietly. “An old guy who claimed to be the mayor tried to make a speech about not signing. We shot him and hung his body from a tree. We said if anybody moved him before we came back in five days, we’d shoot some more.”

Sarah clapped her hands. “I never would have thought of that. Brilliant. I’ll bet they were utterly terrified.”

“It’s hard to tell. They were all sort of stony-faced.”

“Well, watching the mayor rot for a few days should soften them up.” She turned to the men that had been with Russell. She said in Spanish, “You can all go along now, gentlemen. Mr. Ruiz will pay you while I talk with Mr. Russell. Mr. Ruiz, the money is in the black briefcase on the desk.”

She and Russell walked toward her car, a black Maybach, which was parked a distance away. “Without you, my efforts and a considerable sum of money would have been wasted. I’m acutely aware of the hardships you’ve endured because of your work. You’ll be paid very well for everything. The trust you’ve earned will pay dividends.”

“I hope the risk pays off for you.”

“It’s essential that we succeed. These Indian peasants are sitting on a major Mayan site, and we’ll need a free hand to exploit it. They have to be removed quickly, before the word gets out and they become ‘a cause.’”

“What I’m worried about is what happens after we’ve brought them here. Will San Martin let you keep what you find? His mercenaries make him stronger than we are.”

“Trust me,” she said, “Diego needs me more than I need him. Being on land that belongs to me keeps him untouchable. And as long as you give me your loyalty, I promise you’ll be safe.” She stopped walking. “My driver is new, and I don’t know if I can trust him yet. If you have anything else to say, say it now.”

In that moment of her immobility, frozen for two seconds, Russell saw many things — her beauty, which was something she possessed, just like her cars and land and bank accounts. And he knew that this chance to speak and change things was one he would never have after this moment. If he wanted out, the doorway was closing. When the two seconds had passed without his speaking, she turned and walked to the black car. She opened the door herself, sat in the backseat, and closed the door. Her face, even her silhouette, became invisible behind the tinted glass. The driver swung her car wide and brought it back along the gravel drive to the main road.

The whole town attended the funeral of the mayor, partly because of his heroic death. And Carlos Padilla had been a popular mayor because he did little except to fill out and sign the papers that had to be filed in Guatemala City each year. He was such a comfortable mayor, in fact, that there was some question as to whether he was still legally in office. There had not been an election in some years, and it was possible that he had not wanted to bother anyone with voting again.

Father Gomez said the proper things about him during the mass and then led the villagers to the large churchyard, where their people had been buried for centuries, and placed him in the row created for this year’s dead. There, Father Gomez said the rest of the customary pronouncements and prayed that Carlos’s goodness, bravery, and unselfishness would make his soul quickly rise to heaven.

While old Andreas, the mayor’s brother, took his turn filling the grave, Father Gomez asked the townspeople to return to the church for a meeting.

When the people were all sitting in the church, or standing immediately outside where they could hear, he introduced Dr. Huerta.

Dr. Huerta spoke simply and frankly. “We have spoken to the authorities in the government offices and embassies, and the earliest that help can come here is thirty days.”

“But we have only five days,” a woman shouted. “What can we do?”

“You can sign the paper and be taken to the Estancia to work in the fields or you can stay and fight. The choice is yours. But we saw those men shoot Carlos to death. I don’t know of any reason to trust them. Once they have you on the Estancia, with no place to hide and no means of fighting back, will they let you live?”

There were cries of “We have to fight!” and “We have no choice!”

“There’s a third way,” said Father Gomez. “We can pack everyone up and run away to another town. We can try to hold out there for a month or two and hope the government will act by then.”

“All that will do is get two towns killed,” said Pepe. “And once we leave, they’ll take over everything, dig up the tombs, burn our houses and fields. We’ll never be able to come back.”

Within minutes, the discussion was only a series of speakers who all said the same thing — ru

Sam and Remi had remained silent through the discussion, but now they stood. Sam said, “If you want to fight, we’ll do what we can to help. Tomorrow morning at seven, meet us in front of the church. If you have any guns and ammunition, bring them with you. We’ll begin to work out a strategy.”

At seven a.m., Sam and Remi sat on the church steps and waited. The first to arrive were a few of the hotheads who had helped capture Sam and Remi up on the plateau. Then came people who considered themselves to be part of the gentry — the business owners, independent farmers, and their wives, sons, and daughters. After them were others, people who worked for wages or helped on the farms for a share of the crops.

By seven-thirty, the street was full of more people than it had been during the mercenaries’ roundup. Sam stood up and called the group to order. “Begi

As people came to the steps to talk, Sam and Remi would interview them, always speaking Spanish now. “Do you have a gun? Let me look it over. Are you a hunter? What do you hunt? Are you a good shot?” When there was no gun, they would ask, “Are you healthy? Can you run a mile without stopping? Do you want to fight? If you needed a weapon to fight a jaguar, what would you reach for?”

Women seemed to prefer to talk to Remi, possibly out of local standards of propriety. Her questions varied little. “How old are you? Are you married? Do you have any children? Are you willing to fight to protect them? Are you very strong and healthy? Have you ever fired a gun?”

The older children, the teenagers, were the hardest to interview, but Sam and Remi persisted. All the armies of the past had relied on boys from fifteen to twenty to fill the ranks.

By ten, they were alone on the steps. The town’s firepower amounted to seven rifles with about one hundred rounds each, eight shotguns with about one box of twenty-five shells each, mostly bird shot. There were seven handguns, including four .38 K Frame revolvers that looked like old police sidearms, Señora Velasquez’s old .38 Colt, and two .32 caliber pistols made for concealed carry.