The Xibalba Murders

CABAN

I barely slept, when I did, I dreamed of enormous cockroaches heading my way. That’s what too much Xtabentun will do for you.

I got up early, and after another sponge bath in the sink in the room, the bathtub down the hall being absolutely unspeakable, I packed up my meager belongings and checked out. The clerk at the desk did not look at me as I handed over the key. Perhaps people who work in places like this learn not to scrutinize the clientele.

The streets were quiet, except for a few hardy souls out sweeping away the debris from the previous night’s celebrations. Most others would be sleeping off the night’s activities for several more hours.

As I stood on a corner a van pulled up, and a young man hurled a stack of newspapers in the general direction of a kiosk, then the van moved on.

It was the Merida paper, and while the kiosk was not yet open, I pulled off the top copy and left a few coins on the pile. I took the paper over to a little cafe where it appeared there might be someone prepared to get me some coffee, and opened it up while I waited.

The front-page story was still about the Children of the Talking Cross, but to my dismay, a lot of it was about me. A material witness had escaped custody, it said, and police were on the lookout for her. They even had my picture, a sad reproduction of my passport photo. Fortunately, I’d never thought my passport picture bore more than a passing resemblance, so I didn’t think I’d be recognized from that.

There was, however, a rather good description of me from the washroom attendant at the bus station, who told in graphic detail how she had found me in the washroom covered in blood. She told how she had helped clean me up, never once realizing I was a criminal on the run. The reporter implied I had acquired this in some unspecified, but clearly horrific activity, and there were some questions as to whose blood I might have on my hands.

If it had been someone else’s blood, I wouldn’t have required the iodine and Band-Aid, of course, but that thought had either not crossed the reporter’s mind, or it was a fact that interfered with a ripping good story.

In any event, I was described as the mysterious lady in black, and my attire was described in minute detail. If any of the guys at Pajaros read Spanish, I would be the topic of discussion at their table for weeks to come!

I still had a few hours to kill until the appointed time at the taxi stand, and while I didn’t know whether Major Martinez had figured out I was in Valladolid, I certainly couldn’t assume that he hadn’t.

I headed for the market area, usually a good place to get lost. The farmers, not influenced at all by Carnaval, were already at work selling their produce, and I just kept moving between the stalls as fast as I could.

I bought a straw hat with a large brim and pulled it down over my eyes. I was in jeans and a denim shirt, so I didn’t think I looked at all like a mysterious lady in black, just an ordinary tourist.

From time to time I could see police in the market area, but I just kept on moving, staying out of the bright sunlight, and trying not to call attention to myself.

About eleven a.m. I started to make my way back to the taxi stand, taking a roundabout route, and being careful not to rush around corners into the arms of the law.

When I got near the taxi stand, I stood in a darkened doorway and surveyed the scene. My driver was already there, still arguing with his younger brother. All looked reasonably normal.

I was about to step out of the darkness and make a dash for the taxi when I heard sirens, and a police car pulled up to the main door of the bus station, just a few yards from the taxi stand. Major Martinez himself jumped out of the cruiser. It would seem that he was a good investigator when he chose to be.

I quickly reversed direction, away from the taxi stand, but I could see a figure I recognized coming up the street from the opposite direction.

I ducked back into the doorway and pressed myself back as far as I could into the shadows. Within a minute or so, Lucas May passed my position, apparently without seeing me. I waited until he rounded the corner, then went as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

I passed through the little square where I had been the night before, past Pajaros, now locked up tight. I headed down another little lane, uncertain as to which direction I was going.

Eventually I came out to a main road, hailed a taxicab, and directed the driver to the only place I could think to go.

Almost an hour later the taxi pulled up at Jonathan’s little house and I made a dash for the door. It was opened by Esperanza, who looked genuinely pleased to see me. She led me to the little study off the bedroom where Jonathan was working. “I’m so glad you’ve come to me, my dear,” he said. “I was hoping you would.”

In short order my clothes were all handed to Esperanza for washing, and I found myself in a hot bath, bubbles almost overflowing the tub. Jonathan brought me a cognac—“It’s never too early in the day for Remy Martin,” he said—and sat on the side of the tub while I soaked.

Later, all squeaky clean, and wearing a white terry-cloth robe of Jonathan’s, I sat with him in the living room, the midafternoon sun streaming through the window.

Suddenly he crossed the space between us, knelt beside the sofa on which I sat, and took my hand.

“Lara, I really would like to help you. But you must confide in me. I don’t know what I am fighting here, and I must if I am to be of any use whatsoever.”

“Jonathan, I’ll tell you everything, I promise. But I really don’t know where to start.”

“Why not from the beginning?” he said.

“I guess the beginning is the call I received from Don Hernan to come here to help him find something— something he told me over the telephone was written by a rabbit.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what that is ever since. But as I told you a day or two ago, I think it is a hieroglyphic codex. I have no idea where it is, or how to find it. All I know is that two people have been killed—at least one of them on account of it.”

“Any idea who would have killed Don Hernan?”

“All trails seem to lead to Diego Maria Gomez Arias. He and Don Hernan had a fight over ownership of Maya artifacts; from what I can tell he is in grave financial difficulty and there is no question a Maya codex would be worth whatever the possessor asked, at least in some circles; and frankly he seems to be the kind of person who could manage to do this kind of thing.”

“All by himself, you mean?”

“No, I guess not. He doesn’t seem the type to do his dirty work himself. If I had to point a finger at an accomplice, I guess I’d say Major Martinez, but maybe that’s just because I don’t like him. Or maybe someone close to you, Jonathan,” I said, thinking of Lucas.

He looked surprised. “Perhaps the best thing then would be to try to find the codex,” he said slowly.

“That’s what I’m trying to do. I found the stub of what I think is a bus ticket to Valladolid in Don Hernan’s personal effects, so I went there…”

“And then?”

“And then… and then… Jonathan,” I said, “I am unbelievably weary. I really want to talk to you about all this. But first I need to sleep.”

“I’m sorry, my dear. I really am. How thoughtless of me!” he exclaimed, getting up and pulling me up off the sofa. “Come, get some rest. We’ll talk later.”

Just then he noticed the cut on my hand. “How did you do that?” he asked.

“Later, Jonathan,” was all I could manage.

And so with that, he led me to the bedroom and tucked me into bed. It was so soft and white and clean, I could have wept with sheer gratitude, and I soon felt myself slipping into sleep.

“Don’t tell anyone I’m here,” I murmured. “Especially not Lucas.”

“You can be absolutely sure I won’t,” he said.

The last thing I remember was the brush of his lips against my cheek and the thought that, with time, I really could love this man.

I awoke in the very late afternoon, the western sky already turning pink. The house was absolutely silent. I went out to the kitchen and found my clothes all neatly washed and ironed, on a chair. There was also a note on the counter from Jonathan.

Another crisis at the site, it said. I’ll be back in time for supper. We’ll talk some more then. Love, Jonathan.

I checked the refrigerator. There was cold chicken and a bottle of very nice white wine. I had a shower, just on principle, and changed into my clean clothes.

I supposed that while I waited for Jonathan’s return, I might as well continue my search. I went into Jonathan’s study, which I noticed had a nice collection of books on the Maya, and retrieving the scrap of paper on which I had traced Don Hernan’s jottings, began to try to find the two glyphs.

There was a book of Maya hieroglyphs I was familiar with from my studies that I began to work my way through. It did not take me long to find that the glyph associated with the Maya warrior was the glyph for Smoking Frog, an ahau, or nobleman, of Tikal, who had waged war on the rival city of Uaxactun on behalf of the king of Tikal, Great-Jaguar-Paw.

It was a new kind of warfare for the Maya, one in which the stakes were very high. For the first time, rather than simply humiliating rivals and taking captives, the winner took the kingdom of the loser. Tikal conquered Uaxactun on January 16, 378, and Smoking Frog was installed on its throne. Tikal became one of the most powerful and prosperous cities of the early classic period of Maya history, and its influence on the arts, architecture, and perhaps more importantly, on Maya ritual was enormous. I suppose in some ways, it signaled the beginning of the great Maya civilization as we know it.

The second glyph took a little longer. But when I found it, it made me sit back and ponder for some time. The glyph that had reminded me of two upraised arms, sort of like two dragons hinged at the bottom, was the symbol for the Maw of Xibalba. It is supposed to be a gaping head of some skeletal creature, marking the point at which our world and the world of Xibalba meet. Presumably to pass through a portal on which this symbol appears is to enter the realm of the Lords of Darkness.

I opened the desk drawer to find some paper and a pen on which to make notes, and found, wrapped in cotton and tissue, part of a terra-cotta vessel with a hieroglyphic inscription. Much to my surprise, the Smoking Frog glyph and the symbol for the Maw of Xibalba both appeared on the fragment. Holding the Maya hieroglyphic dictionary in one hand and the pottery shard in the other, I tried to decipher the inscription on the fragment.

I cannot say that I got it exactly right. But I was able to figure out that the fragment had been etched by a scribe by the name of Smoking Frog, not the warrior of Tikal, but someone living at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

This second Smoking Frog was trying to protect what he called the Ancient Word, probably the history, mythology, or ritual of the Maya people, by hiding it in what he referred to as the caves of the Itza, at the entrance to Xibalba.

I sat in the study for a long time, watching the shadows grow longer as the sun set.

I heard a car approaching. Jonathan, I assumed. I went to the study window and watched as the Jeep parked. It was not Jonathan who got out, but Lucas.

My heart pounding, I grabbed my shoulder bag and let myself out by the glass doors at the back, running past the swimming pool, through a hole in the hedge, and then onto a dirt road. I didn’t stop running until I was completely out of breath, then I ducked into the brush at the side of the road and waited, almost paralyzed with fear, to see if Lucas was following me.

When it was completely dark, and there was no sign of anyone coming after me, I crept back on to the road and walked out to the old highway, where I flagged down a car. I told the driver, a very pleasant man by the name of Renaldo Salinas that I needed to get to La Huaca de Chac, the name I’d heard at the taxi stand. He told me it was not far, and he obligingly took a slight detour down a road marked no exit to drop me off.

I found myself in a little town not far from Jonathan’s archaeological site. The town was marked with a bright pole light, and was made up of only a few buildings, including a general store, not open, and a little cafe.

I went into the cafe where the wife of the proprietor, who told me her name was Guadelupe, offered me a home-cooked meal of panuchos with a glass of cold beer. I showed her Don Hernan’s photograph, and she recognized him at once.

“He had a meal here, a week or so ago,” she said. “He was a very kind man. He gave Arturo—my little boy—a few pesos and was very nice to him. He sat out on the veranda for quite a long time. I did not see him leave.”

“I need a place to stay, Guadelupe. I’m tired, and I’m kind of desperate. Can you think of anywhere I could stay that is not expensive?”

She gestured toward the back, and I followed her through the kitchen. We crossed a little yard—I could smell oranges—and she showed me into a little na, or wood hut with a palapa roof. In it was a hammock, a washbasin, and some towels. Everything was scrupulously clean.

The price, she said, was twenty pesos, just a few dollars, which would include a light breakfast the next morning. The bathroom was across the yard in the main building, next to the kitchen. I nodded and she left me there with a candle or two and some matches.

I lay in the hammock staring up at the palapa roof. I felt that all the information there was to know, maybe I knew already. That somewhere in my mind I knew where the codex was, and that if only I thought hard enough, the idea would surface. Today being Caban, a very powerful day in the Maya calendar, one associated with earthquakes and thought, the idea should come to me soon.

I lay there waiting for inspiration, convinced that I would be unable to sleep in a hammock, but sleep—and dream—I did.

I am running through the forest chasing a giant rabbit once again. This time I see that he carries a codex with Smoking Frog’s glyph on the cover.

As I am about to catch him we come upon a portal marked with the sign of the Maw of Xibalba. It looks odd, a doorway in the middle of a path in the forest, but the rabbit and I step through it.

Then I am falling through utter darkness, a babble of voices I cannot understand around me. The wind whistles in my ears.

Watching me from way above are two hooded figures. One has the face and the bright tail feathers of a macaw, a bird often part of the headgear of the Lords of Xibalba.

The other has the face of an owl, a death bird, and one of the few creatures left to worship the dark Lords after their defeat.

I fall farther and farther into the darkness until this time I hit bottom. I am in inky darkness, barely able to tell which way is up.

I know there is another presence here, but for some reason I am not afraid. The smallest glimmer of light reveals a black jaguar watching me, and I realize that his eyes are providing the light by which I can see him.

The jaguar makes a gesture with his head that I take to mean “follow me,” and I step into the darkness.

I awoke and needed a moment to get my bearings. I had been awakened by the arrival of a pickup truck, its muffler in serious need of replacing.

I crept to the door of the little hut and looked back toward the cafe. It was closed now, only one light illuminating the back door.

Guadelupe had told me that her husband had taken a second job to help make ends meet and that she was expecting him very late. I saw a light in the cafe come on briefly, then go out, then another go on in the bathroom just off the restaurant. I assumed the proprietor was home for the night.

It was a while before I returned to my hammock and was able to sleep again. For a long time I sat in the doorway, looking up at the millions of stars of the southern sky, which seemed to me to be suspended only a few feet above my head.

I was not entirely sure what my dream meant, all those strange creatures, and the fall into darkness. But one thing it had made clear to me was that what I sought was right under my nose, and had been all the time.