The Maya Bust Page 2

CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  Raxha sat at a cafe-style table, in one of two matching chairs with ornate floral backs, the whole set developing rust patches and flaking paint like everything else exposed in the jungle. The rust reminded her of blood, though that had long-since washed away. Fourteen years was a long time to wait for a birthday present. Knee propped over the opposite leg, Raxha’s foot jigged as she waited, leaning back on the uncomfortable chair, elbow on the table between. Opposite her, Eleiua sat stiffly, starting past her toward the encroaching trees, maybe toward the spreading limbs of the ceiba where they pushed against the perimeter fencing. The sacred ceiba tree wouldn’t save her now.

  A door scraped open and shut behind them, then Ramon approached, balancing a tray on his hand in imitation of a waiter, in spite of his fatigues and hip holster. He carried a pitcher of mango refresco with a couple of glasses. Plastic, actually. When Raxha reclaimed her true place, she’d have the finer things. For now, this would do.

  Eleiua watched him approach, disapproval narrowing her face. “I thought you were doing well in school, Ramon, what happened?”

  “I got a job,” he said, his lips twitching toward a smile and away again. “Sorry, this seems —”

  Raxha smacked the table with her palm. “You don’t apologize to her.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. He set down the tray and hustled away again before Raxha’s correction got personal. Her father had been better at this, taken from her before she had the chance to learn all she needed.

  Leaning forward, Raxha poured the drinks and pushed a glass toward Eleiua. Her father’s whore, displayed her bound hands, and said nothing. Shrugging, Raxha settled again and took a sip of her own, the icy-sweet liquid cutting the jungle atmosphere. “I’m sure you can drink that way. Up to you.”

  Clearing her throat, she tried again, “You must be thirsty after the ride over.”

  Eleiua’s braids shifted, a tiny gesture of negation.

  “Tell me about these Americans. What are they doing here?”

  “Eating chocolate.” Eleiua’s voice rasped, and she added, “It would be nice, I think, if lots of other people would come for the same, or maybe we ship the chocolate to them. Maybe our town could export cocoa instead of cocaine.”

  Raxha laughed with a toss of her head. Wish Dante were here to listen to this. “Is that what passes for clever? Do the Americans like that joke?” She took another drink, and set the cup down with a clunk. “It’s mostly heroin these days. Not that I expect you keep up with the business that gave you so much. How d’you build the plantation without my father’s work? His work built the village schools and hired the teachers. He built the home where Aabo’s gone to seed. He pays for the farmers, for the roads — Why else is Lanquin falling apart now, but that he’s dead? Where d’you think it all comes from, this prosperity we had?”

  Dark eyes watched her sidelong. “I understand its origin. Where it comes from, and where it goes. And a thousand years ago, our ancestors watered this land with blood. Then and now, we don’t need to live that way any more.”

  With a screech of metal on tiles, Raxha pushed her chair to face her companion and leaned in. “Where do you live, Eleiua? On a hilltop. In a hacienda. One my father gave you. Where do I live?” She spread her hands against the backdrop of the jungle camp. This, too, had been her father’s, and only the isolated nature of the site prevented its seizure after his death. “Don’t give me this ’we.’ There is no ’we’ between you and me.” Her palms slapped to the table, fingertips finding the points of cast-iron thorns among the roses. “Tell me about these damned Americans. This man’s been hanging around, what for? My father’s not here to support you any more so now you whore for the Americans?”

  Eleiua’s shoulders squared. Her fingers knotted together, as if she chose to sit with her hands in her lap like a nun, as if her bonds were a holy servitude and not a reminder of her mortal flesh. “This man came to build a bridge. He helped with the cacao sheds, and now the bridge needs repair — you’ve seen it. Americans, they do these things. Like boy scouts. He works for a chocolate company, and no I don’t object to taking their money so my workers can cross the gorge instead of going around. You want Lanquin to prosper, Raxha — maybe you should invest.”

  “Oh, I intend to.”

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and Raxha grinned. “We have your American, Eleiua. Maybe when we’re done, he can still build your bridges. If not —” she tipped her hand one way and another — “he can fertilize your trees. So useful, aren’t they, these Americans.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  For hours, Lexi squeezed against Malcolm across the back seat of the truck a gunman on either side, two more in the front. The one she had knocked down glared at her throughout, as they bounced over ruts and rocked around curves in the narrow road. They headed more or less the direction Malcolm had driven them down the day before, then turned onto a road, if possible, even more rough.

  Throughout the ride, her father’s instructions prodded her: Don’t let anyone force you into the trunk of a car; make a fuss, fight back; if you see their face — his gesture wrapping his own face — it means they don’t plan for you to survive. The driver’s face looked worn and weary, an unsmoked cigar butt rolling from one side of his mouth to the other. The passenger, the one she’d fought, had thick, dark hair that swung down sometimes across his face. He tossed it back again, revealing a boyish, bright expression as if pleasant thoughts consumed him every time he looked at his prisoners. Dollface. Cute, and creepy at the same time. She could only imagine what those thoughts might be.

  He spoke sometimes, Spanish, she assumed, and his pattern of response and expression indicated the driver answered. Malcolm answered once as well, earning a smack to the head that left a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. She caught his hand and held him back, shaking her head. Whatever they said now, it didn’t matter.

  Then, her father’s words again. Look for opportunities. There’s always a way, always another choice. His eyes met hers, green on green, and he flipped her the coin.

  Always a choice. The coin lived in her pocket, half lucky charm, and half painful reminder. About the size of a quarter, the brassy surface held Arabic writing on one side, and on the other, something like a mosque, with its onion-dome and minarets. He brought few souvenirs back from the war, and the coin was the only thing, aside from inheriting his eyes and remembering his lessons, that she had from him. As a kid, she treasured it, as a teen, it reminded her that even her father’s apparent love had had another side, that he’d made the choice to leave them and never look back. Now that she found herself in a combat zone, her memories of him pushed forward.

  She fingered the coin, wondering what opportunities could be found in a jungle, in a foreign country, increasingly far from anyone who might help. She and Malcolm were on their own.

  The truck lurched to a halt in a patch of jungle just like any other, and her stomach seemed to keep going a moment longer. The passenger grinned, then popped out his side as the guy next to Malcolm clambered out. Before Malcolm could react, the gunman grabbed him and hauled him out, flinging him against a tree. Malcolm twisted, turning it into a dance move, and his back hit instead of his face. He winced.

  Dollface leaned toward Lexi, but she moved fast, sliding across the vinyl seat even as the man remaining inside with her made a grab of his own.

  Apparently, Dollface remembered what had happened last time, when Lexi got the jump on him. He stepped aside, swinging his rifle down. Then she really wanted to vomit. He shouted at her, his face distorted, and she shook her head, gesturing to indicate her deafness. Slapper had Malcolm by the arm, and turned him around, binding his hands. The vehicle rocked as the fourth man emerged at Lexi’s back, brushing against her, and she sidestepped, her back to the truck, keeping them all in sight. The best she could do, for now.

  Cigar spat out the cigar into his hand and consulted with Dollface. Slappe
r got their attention, but the fourth man reached for her hands, a short length of rope already in his.

  Oh, god, no. Her heart thundered, her throat constricting. She shook her head violently, signing hard and clear. “I’m deaf. Please don’t tie my hands.” Don’t take from her what little voice she had.

  Slapper pulled Malcolm around, and he spoke a few words she made out, and more she filled in with decent guesses. “She’s deaf. If you tie her up, we can’t communicate.” He said more, but no patterns she recognized. Spanish. When he had his own hands, he would cue her in so she wasn’t struggling to try to read a language she couldn’t understand. Now, he was trying to reassure her and the gunmen at the same time. In English, looking at Lexi, he said something like, “We won’t fight you. Please don’t hurt her.”

  The gunmen conferred again, and Malcolm’s glance flitted back and forth, his brow furrowed as he followed their discussion. He said his Spanish was good, but not great, and she hoped it was good enough! Finally, Dollface shrugged, pointing his gun into the trees.

  “They want us to follow,” Malcolm told her, or words to that effect. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She’d seen those words often enough to recognize.

  With her backpack slung over his shoulder, Slapper set out, Cigar following, then Malcolm, and the fourth guy. Need a name for him, too. Shorty. Lexi took a few quick steps, getting ahead of Dollface before he could encourage her. He still gave her a jab in the lower back with the barrel of his gun.

  Broad, leathery leaves slapped Lexi’s legs and slid away again as she walked, their dense greenery concealing whatever trail these men pursued, and the roots that swelled up from the jungle floor like a nest of snakes. Speaking of snakes … she glanced around. How many snakes lurked in the trees around her, or on the hidden ground below? It shifted and slid beneath her feet, with old leaves. She stumbled, cursing her care-free sandals. Yesterday, she’d be wearing her hiking boots with their thick rubber soles. Instead, she had leather as slick as the leaves. A trailing vine snagged her dress, letting the breeze rush along her legs. She tugged it free before their guards could take action of their own. Malcolm glanced back, an edge of white at his dark eyes, and she flashed a smile to let him know she was okay. Mostly.

  She stumbled again, her bare toes catching on a thick root that scuffed her bare skin and scraped under her toenails. Lexi fell to her knees with a cry that drew Malcolm’s worried gaze. He stopped abruptly, heedless of the other men.

  He spoke stiffly, narrowing his eyes at Dollface, who loomed beyond her.

  She groped her hand up the tree trunk, grit, leaf litter and now bits of bark clinging to her hands. Ants skimming the tree froze, antennae waving. Like her, they relied on other senses to move through their world. A cluster of them carried a beetle the size of a quarter. Jaws clamped to their prize, they worked around in a circle, teetering and tugging, and moving onward toward their queen. The ones who paused at the strike of her hand started up again. The silent workers of the forest, cleaning up the dead. Maybe she and Malcolm would soon be among their prizes. Stomach clenched, Lexi pushed to her feet. Her knees throbbed a little from the encounter with the root. Strands of embroidery thread hung in a vivid webbing, caught on the rough surface. Good, leave a clue. As if anyone would be following. How long before her friends realized she wasn’t just late because of Malcolm? She pictured Denise on the plane, the three girls in their matching dresses griping about how Lexi and her boyfriend ran off for a little more fun.

  Tears burned, but she wouldn’t cry, not here. Her eyes rose again to the glowering men before her, and the sole friendly face among them.

  “Are you okay?” Malcolm asked.

  “Fine,” she signed back. “You?”

  He managed a smile, then started to say, “I’m sorry —”

  Before he could finish the words, she swept them away, bringing the gesture back around, her two fists pressed, knuckles and thumbs touching as she brought them to her chest and pulsed the sign. Together.

  She rose and they walked on. If the gunmen had taken him alone, when would she have found out, or would she ever? He would have stopped responding to her messages, stopped calling her, become another betrayer like her father, ghosting her when she needed him most. Literally, ghosting. Not even funny. Wouldn’t that be ironic, if her deepest betrayal repeated again, but this time, it hadn’t been a choice at all, but a tragedy?

  Always a choice, her father had said. Look for the chance. What chance did she have? Her hands were free. She imagined grabbing a gun and getting their attention. No good. She had little firearms experience — her mother forbade continuing anything her father had begun aside from caving to Lexi’s insistence on staying at the Horace Mann School — and it was still four against two, one with his hands tied. Better to swipe the machete strapped to Dollface’s leg, at least she knew about knife fighting, but that one was enormous compared to anything she’d ever handled. Markers. Mostly she handled magic markers her father pretended were lethal. Or, get hold of her cellphone and send a message. Would she even get reception from here? No better than in Eleiua’s village, and any move toward her backpack would get her or Malcolm another blow. She’d be an idiot to try something now. Daring was good. Stupid was not.

  The trees opened suddenly into a cluster of huts around a clearing with a thatched roof covering a group of tables at the center. The huts leaned on crooked posts or had gaps in the roofs. Their windows stared like eye sockets. Deep slashes marred the doorways, and dark stains marked the cut-log steps. The lathe walls showed splintery holes, and the men around her made it all too easy to envision what had happened here: a dozen men like these, strafing the homes with their rifles and moving on, leaving the dead village behind them.

  Something hung from a pillar, a long piece of leather that flapped slightly in the breeze as if waving its hand. Holy — it was. A hand. A human skin, dangling from a nail like a coat somebody hung up for later.

  A curl of cigarette smoke caught her attention, and Lexi glanced around, straightening as a figure stepped from the shadow of one broken home. The person tossed down a glowing cigarette, then crushed it out, and slipped a long gun into their hands with an accustomed gesture.

  They must have said something because Malcolm spun about, swaying a little, then dropped to his knees, gasping for breath He shot Lexi a look, and didn’t need to speak before she had come to her knees beside him.

  Always a choice. Sometimes the only choice was cooperate or die.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  Remaining in the shadows, Raxha aimed her gun at the blond girl who hadn’t been in the photo at Eleiua’s place. “Dante, what’s this?” She asked in K’iche in case the Americans spoke Spanish.

  His expression rolled from battle-joy to indignation. “She came after him, fought for him.”

  “You let this girl hit you? Look at her. She’s like a hummingbird.”

  His brow furrowed, and he tossed back his hair. “I was thinking we kill her, maybe show him what he gets for defying us, eh? Have to do it slowly, though, if we don’t want him to catch on and shut up. I have some ideas.”

  Chuckling, Raxha said, “I’m sure you do. Don’t get clever. That’s my job.”

  Juan laughed, shifting an unfamiliar backpack on his shoulder. Only a handful of her men spoke the dying language, giving her another edge in controlling them, and proving her worth in dealing with the locals.

  “He says she’s deaf. She talks with her hands.” Dante flapped one of his hands around, then turned the movement into a shrug.

  Maybe that explained the Maya sign they were using in the picture, a way to forge connections between this American and the natives. Thousands of Maya natives across the region knew Meemul Tziij, the highland Maya sign language, whether deaf or not, to talk with others who spoke different tribal languages. Among older natives, hand speech was a point of pride. This girl might be of use in dealing with Aabo. If it were true.

  Stridin
g from her place, Raxha moved behind the kneeling Americans. She placed her gun on the Black man’s shoulder. “Stay quiet,” she ordered, in English this time. “Girl. Who are you?”

  The man’s throat worked, his eyes edged white as he glanced at his companion. She darted glances at him as well, and her shoulders shifted as if she wanted to turn at look at Raxha.

  Raxha prodded her face forward with the gun barrel. “Speak to me, girl. Tell me what you’re doing here.”

  Still nothing. The girl looked worried, her eyes tracking Raxha’s mouth, her hands indicating confusion. So this tiny creature, pretty as an orchid, had assaulted Dante himself during an abduction, after coming all the way here. Raxha’s accent wasn’t so strong. Either the girl was too stupid to follow instructions, or she couldn’t hear a thing. Huh. Withdrawing the gun, Raxha walked around in front again, and squatted down in front of the pair, propping the gun stock against the blood-hallowed earth. The two Americans shared a glance, then stared at her. The girl looked like nothing, young but curvy, wearing a touristy flowered dress. Somebody’s princess, who should be completely out of her depth. Raxha tried to imagine her attacking Dante. Dante!

  The man wet his lips, a bit of dried blood flaking from the corner of his mouth. “Señora —”

  Dante kicked him hard in the gut, shouting in Spanish, “She says to be quiet!”

  The man doubled over, coughing, and the girl turned, her hand sliding over her companion’s back. Her pretty face transformed, those jade eyes piercing, revealing the hardened core that allowed her earlier attack.

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t.” Raxha waved her hand to tell the men to back off. “It’s alright. He has to speak if we’re going to find what we want. Have you already searched the bag?”

  Stepping forward, Juan opened all the zippers and dumped the contents onto the ground at her side, a tumble of camera case, film cartridges, a couple of books, a neck pillow, a cell phone, snack food, tampons in a smaller case that Juan likewise emptied. It must be hers, then, not his. The content looked a few years out of date. An actual camera? So the girl had taken the photo, one of those instant kinds, explaining why she wasn’t in it. No earbuds or headset. Actual books. Antiques, like the ones the Americans always craved.