Marked Cards Read online

  The Eks were the village leaders. When Rosa Ek came out of her house fully armed with machete and ancient rifle, carrying both her youngest child and a bag of supplies, Suzanne explained the danger to her in the Quiche dialect she had struggled to learn. After a quick consultation, Rosa left Suzanne there to decide the intruders' fate and shepherded her charges to their jungle hiding places. It was a measure of the trust the people of Chotol had in her, and it never failed to make her proud. The danger was ten minutes away. Suzanne retreated into her own house to await its arrival.

  When they left the jungle for the clearing around the village, the man who followed staggered as if, without the necessity of struggling through the fecund growth, he did not possess the strength to walk. The leader moved as slowly and deliberately here as he had through the jungle. Coming into the center of the village, he stopped for a moment before turning to face her home. His companion hauled himself to the edge of the well and began pulling up the bucket.

  Now she could see them with her own eyes. The leader was Maya, in his late forties and already beating the statistics, a Cakchiquel she guessed from his embroidered shirt, although she was still terrible at determining tribal affiliations. Rosa despaired of her sometimes. Rosa could have told her precisely the village from which he came. To her surprise, his thirtysomething companion was white, as norteamericano as herself by the look of his sunburn. And a journalist, according to his filthy, many-pocketed vest and dangling cameras. By travelling alone with an Indian, he proclaimed himself a liberal journalist. Still, appearances here were at least as deceiving as they had been in New York. She saw no weapons other than the Maya's machete. They were travelling light, with only the white man's camera pack and the Maya's one red woven cotton bag. There was something wrong with her view of the Maya through the eyes of the margay perched high in a fir tree. The nervous little cat was difficult to control without taking over his mind entirely. Suzanne hated to do that.

  She stood and walked out into the sunlight. Neither she nor the Maya spoke. The other man was concentrating on drinking his water, not even noticing her arrival. Sated at last, he looked up to meet blue eyes staring at him.

  "Shit!" He tripped in his haste to back away. The weight of the swinging cameras destroyed his balance and he sat down hard, hands splaying out behind him. But he did not reach inside his vest. No gun. "Uman, there's a fucking jaguar over here." His Spanish was poor, mixing in the English obscenity and rising in pitch. "Jose ..."

  "Don't move and you'll be okay. Balam, watch him." The verbal order was for the reporter's benefit. Suzanne used the jaguar's eyes to keep track of the journalist. Her own eyes never left the Maya. Now she saw why the image she had taken from the margay was so confused. The right side of his body was human, but the left explained his slow pace. He appeared to be made of stone, a living stele from a dead Maya city, complete with inscriptions and carved images. A joker, beautiful and grotesque. But what took her most by surprise was that the carvings seemed to change every time she blinked her eyes.

  She shook off her fascination to check the surrounding jungle for more trouble through the eyes of nearby birds. Everything was quiet. The men had gone directly from the fields to the forest. The people were located strategically outside the village in hiding places established years before her arrival. Even the children waited with the patience taught by generations of people living under the shadow of a would-be conqueror. It always impressed her, this implacable patience under the worst of circumstances.

  The Maya before her gazed back with the same unwavering stare, not insolent or even hostile, never subservient ... just patient. The two sides of his face almost matched, contemporary man and ancient king, for just an instant before changing again. He spoke briefly in a language with which she was unfamiliar. After the years she had spent here, she could manage Quiche and her high school Spanish had become near-fluency, but that was all. She shrugged her lack of comprehension and he switched to Spanish.

  "We need to rest." He maneuvered his body by swinging it on the pivot of his left leg and gestured to include his white fellow traveller. "We won't stay long."

  "No, you won't." Suzanne stared pointedly at their bedraggled clothes. "Who's chasing you?"

  The Maya's body shimmered as the hieroglyphs spun out their messages too quickly for the eye to follow. Almost idly, she wondered if he could read them and what the words held for him. His eyes moved to the journalist still seated in the dust before returning to Suzanne's.

  "Are you an Evangelical or perhaps with one of the Catholic Action missions?" His question was asked with a lightness of tone that belied its importance.

  "No, I'm not here to save any souls. Nor am I a misguided norteamericano liberal in Guatemala to help the rebels." Here, she deliberately looked over at the photojournalist. "I'm here because I love this land. It's my home now."

  She thought but didn't say that, even in high summer, life in Guatemala beat the hell out of Central Park and steam grates in the Manhattan winter. Her eyes unfocused slightly as she flashed through the consciousness of innumerable creatures going about their lives throughout the forest, then came back hard to the intruders in her life.

  "I'm here as a friend; the people are kind enough to let me stay. I avoid politics, all politics. I've found it's the best way to stay alive. Who's after you?"

  "The Kaibiles." Before Uman could answer, the journalist spoke. "Josh McCoy, sometimes of New York."

  "I can't say I'm pleased to meet someone leading the Guatemalan Army's finest counter-insurgency troops to my front door." Responding to the emotions coming through the two-way mental link with Suzanne, the jaguar growled softly as it continued to stare at McCoy's throat. Now the sweat streaming down his face was not due to the exertion or the humidity.

  "Uman lost them. He says his blood told him which way they'd go. He was right." McCoy got up slowly, arms staying away from his sides, using his shoulders to readjust the position of his pack and cameras. "And I thought he was just another joker when I met him. I don't have any idea what you know about the Maya but he's a ckuchkajawib, an ajk'ij, umm, a priest-shaman type. Sometimes they're called Daykeepers. You'd think I'd know better by now. You guys tap into things I never believed existed."

  "What?" Suzanne was startled by his assumption and fiercely angered by the knowledge of her it implied.

  "Look, Animal Lady, it's not exactly SOP for somebody to have a pet jaguar or use a taltuza as a living stole, right? In fact, you probably fall on the side of the aces. I don't know you, so you've kept it real quiet, but you're from up north." He looked around the tiny village with contempt. "It's a long way to run, but I've got to admit it makes a great place to stick your head in the fuckin' sand."

  The pitch of the jaguar's growl increased as the rage she felt grew. More than a little of her anger came from the fact that she had entirely forgotten the taltuza, a little raccoon-like beast she had taken in and nursed back to health last winter. It had taken a liking to lying across her shoulders all day. She no longer even noticed it, it was so much a part of her. Her subconscious took in the information the taltuza provided as if it came from her own senses. Only the intercession of the Maya priest broke the tension between them.

  "I'm hungry, I'm tired and I must cast the tz'ite seeds to find our path. Your village is safe for now." Uman blinked slowly in his exhaustion. His flat tone implied that he was more than slightly annoyed by their antipathy. Suzanne hesitated, staring at McCoy with the same hungry intensity as the jaguar.

  "I'm Suzanne Menotti. Inside, there's food." She stood aside and waved them into her home of plastered and white-washed cornstalk walls with an exaggerated half-curtsey for McCoy. "It may be a trifle humble for your tastes. And watch out for the pit trap just inside the door."

  "Lady, after Australian grubs, anything's an improvement." Skirting the jaguar who had moved to stand at Suzanne's side, the reporter followed Uman inside. Left outside, she scanned the surrounding jungle and then swept her
left hand down sharply in a gesture meant to be seen by the village sentries who watched nearby. As she bent to enter, the people began to return to their interrupted lives.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  The scent touching the nose of a peccary rooting for food brought Suzanne fully awake. As she rolled on the sleeping mat to her feet, she sent Balam, the black jaguar who had been her companion for two years, to warn the Eks, who would again oversee the evacuation of their village. They had agreed with Suzanne that the refugees could stay overnight but no more, and all traces of them had to be gone in the morning. The villagers were used to the disruption of the army patrols looking for rebels in their midst. She never would be. Years of living on the street had paradoxically made her as fiercely territorial as a jaguar.

  Gunpowder and human sweat. Those were the smells she had caught through the peccary's sense. Soldiers. Or some guerrilla band. Scent could not tell her whether it was the government army or the Guatemalan Army of the Poor, or gods knew what other splinter group. Enemy or friend, it was best to hide first and determine the level of danger later. In either case, the strangers were likely to mean more trouble for the village.

  "Up. Now." She nudged the Daykeeper Uman awake, then shoved the reporter hard. They slept under her roof because, since she had no family, she had the most room. And that way she could watch them. "We're leaving."

  "We who, kemosabe?" McCoy helped Uman to gather his bag and clothing. She noted with some bemusement his patience with the elder Maya.

  "I know the trails." She paused for a moment to use her other eyes, ears and nostrils throughout the nearby jungle. "I won't have you endanger these people. Uman doesn't know the area and he can't keep stopping to check the omens for every right turn. Come on."

  Suzanne threw a pair of black jeans and a couple of dark T-shirts into her backpack, followed by her maps and a flashlight. Two canteens of water were joined by a package of leftover tortillas, some chilis, salt and beans, wrapped in leaves. She was figuring on giving the men a day's lead over the army, then coming back by some circuitous route. Her machete and down vest hung by the door and she grabbed them as they left. She never carried a gun of any kind.

  The night was bright and cold at their elevation. It was only a few days before a full moon. McCoy followed her out first. The shaman paused in the doorway, hieroglyphs dancing across his body. His eyes were closed and his right hand touched his left shoulder as if to confirm the message he felt internally. Last night, he had performed rites that he claimed would tell him more about how they would escape the army's net. He had not, however, been forthcoming about the specifics. The moment ended quickly. If Suzanne had not turned at that precise instant, she would never have seen it. She looked down at the jaguar back at her side. Balam would stay with the people as added protection. The taltuza had climbed back to its accustomed perch and would go with her. This could be an interesting day.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  They had put kilometers between themselves and Chotol by the time she allowed them to rest with the coming of dawn. Uman amazed her with the steadiness of his progress. Despite his body, he had kept up with her. Even McCoy had managed to stay with the pace she set. She looked up from her wide-ranging reconnaissance of the forest to catch Uman's eyes on her.

  "I think it's time I knew why an ajk'ij and a reporter are running through the Guatemalan Highlands in an attempt to escape from the army." Suzanne sat down with some gratitude herself, although she would never admit it to the others. She handed out one of the canteens of water. McCoy stopped cleaning the lens of his Minolta and glanced at Uman before continuing the operation with extreme concentration.

  "A little trouble up in the Altiplano, further up in the mountains." He put the camera up to his eye and sighted. "Hard to stay out of trouble in the Highlands. Genocide brings out the worst in people, you know."

  "I told you I wasn't political. If I wanted to play those games, I would have stayed in New York." Suzanne scowled out at the jungle. "I love this country, these people. I'd do anything for them, but I won't blindly follow anyone's party line. You norteamericanos always have some agenda - even if it is just assuaging your white liberal guilt."

  "We norteamericanos." McCoy barked a laugh.

  "It is not a political question for us." Uman entered the conversation, ending his revery. "It is our survival, the survival of our traditions. You must know this."

  "This is not answering my question. Okay, I know about the struggle, the defeat and murder of the Hero Twins at Nebaj last year, the destruction of the town, the imprisonment of most of the Maya separatists who weren't killed. It's not fair and it's not right. But why you? And why the Kaibiles?"

  "There's a village in the Altiplano, like Chotol, but maybe four or five times as large. Was a village, until a week ago." McCoy had switched to English. He lay back on the ground and stared up through the dark green canopy of treetops toward the now light-blue sky. It was still cool. The heat would not come until the sun was higher.

  "It was a little place, but pretty. Good people. Ixil Maya. Jokers, some of them. But, you know, I never saw jokers who were so accepted by their community. Doesn't happen in New York. I'd heard about Uman through some contacts of mine possibly associated with the EGP."

  "So you are involved with the Army of the Poor?"

  "Jeez, I know some people. It's my job to develop contacts. I'm not a freakin' Marxist, all right?"

  "So you found a nice photogenic joker. Just the thing for a little Newsweek human interest piece? Oooh, maybe a cover story. That must pay well." Suzanne used English as well. Uman had looked up when McCoy began, but had not reacted since. Not all that many Maya spoke Spanish, let alone English. It was why she spent so much time teaching the children. Communication of the situation in their country was the only way she saw that could protect them from their ordained future. She dug into her pack and passed out tortillas and beans.

  "Uman, did I come to do any harm?" McCoy appealed to the shaman in Spanish.

  "He wanted to study our ways of time, past and future." Uman added salt and chilis to his food, as did she. McCoy ate his plain. "He is no anthropologist."

  Suzanne smiled despite herself. Few Maya enjoyed the company of the graduate students in anthropology who threatened to overwhelm them every summer. She held up a bite to the taltuza, who snatched it away.

  "Uman was able to use the ancient knowledge with rare accuracy. I was curious as to whether that was related to his joker nature. I have a personal interest in that." Suzanne looked over at him, but he did not explain. He had not said it with any of the hatred or revulsion she expected. His tone had been sad. Someone in his life was a joker. Or had been. "Anyway, I wanted to know more, and in my experience, the more light that can be shown on something and the more people who become interested, the more pressure can be put on the government from outside the country."

  Suzanne glared out into the jungle. Casting her mind out over the land around them, she perceived no danger. She wished she knew what was happening in Chotol.

  "So what happened last week?"

  "The town was surrounded by the Guatemalan Army. So what else is new, right? But this time they brought a few new friends along with them. And a little experiment. They used their helicopter gunships to fog the town with some chemical, a biological weapon. Have you ever heard of 'Card Sharks?'"

  "No."

  "Well, they're pretty simple people to understand. They want you dead. Because you're an ace or something like it. But they're equal opportunity. They want jokers like Uman dead too." McCoy followed her gaze into the trees. "Their calculations were a little off this time. They killed everyone. Jokers, nats, kids, adults. Very effective. Bastards."

  "So how did you and Uman survive?"

  "We were praying in a cave in the mountains, asking permission for me to study a little of Uman's knowledge. Uman felt something was wrong. We left the cavern and began hearing the howls of the people. But by the time we got back, it was al
l over. The bodies were covered in their own blood; it looked as though they had hemorrhaged through their skin. They were lying everywhere. Blood ran in streams in the street. The walls had the imprints of hands and bodies and even faces, where the dying had thrown themselves in their agonies. I've covered wars and natural disasters all over the world and I never before saw anything like this." McCoy shivered although the heat of the day had begun to penetrate their shelter.

  "We hid on the hillside above the town. The army had already cleared it once. They controlled the roads, so they weren't looking for anyone else to get there. A few people actually survived the first onslaught. The Kaibiles shot each of them in the head. It must have been quick dispersal; they weren't even wearing gas masks when they came in. They thought there was no one left. But we were there and I had my cameras.

  "I got the army officers, the Kaibiles, the bodies, the torching of the town and its final destruction by the gun-ships. And I got the most important shot of all. Etienne Faneuil. They used to call him the 'French Schweitzer,' you know - before the Kenya joker massacre. He's supposed to be dead. But I've got shots of him arguing with some Guatemalan general. The good doctor wasn't very happy. His trial had failed. This junk is just as deadly to nats as to wild card victims. All he wanted to do was get back to his lab."

  Suzanne found herself staring at the man. Whatever she thought had made them fugitives, it wasn't this. None of the horrors she had seen or heard about since coming to Guatemala were anything like this. Chotol had mostly been ignored by both the government army and the EGP. Normal harassment but nothing worse. She had done her best to make sure of it.

  "They have always wanted us to disappear. No more indigenas. No more inconvenience about who owns the land. No more trouble about the majority of the people getting representation in the government. No more awkwardness about evicting people from their homes and moving them into 'model villages' by force. No more interference by outsiders concerned about native people's life expectancy of only forty-five years. So nice, so tranquilo. Best of all, the tourists and their dollars would still come to see the ruins of the past."