The Ruins Page 7

  There was a strange pause; the Mayan men stopped shouting. The two bows remained drawn, but the man with the pistol slowly lowered it. She could feel the others watching her, following her gaze toward her right foot, which had sunk ankle-deep into the vines, as if swallowed. She crouched to free it, and was just rising back up when she heard the Mayan men begin to shout again. They were yelling at her, and then they weren't-they were yelling at one another. An argument, it seemed, the two men with the bows turning against the bald man.

  "Jeff," she called.

  He raised his hand without looking at her, silencing her. "Don't move," he said.

  So she didn't. The bald man was clutching his right ear with one hand, tugging at it, frowning and shaking his head, his left hand still gripping the pistol, pressing it against his thigh. He didn't seem to want to hear what the other two had to say. He pointed to Amy, then the others; he waved down the trail. But there was already something halfhearted in his gestures, the prescience of defeat. Amy could tell that he knew he wasn't going to get his way. She could see him being worn down, see him giving in. He fell silent; the men with the bows did, too. They stood staring at Jeff and Mathias, at Eric and Stacy and the Greek. And at her, too. Then the bald man raised his pistol, aimed it at Jeff, at his chest. He made a shooing motion with his other hand, but now it was in the opposite direction, toward Amy, toward the hill behind her.

  No one moved.

  The bald man began to shout, waving toward the hill. He lowered his pistol slightly, fired a bullet into the dirt at Jeff's feet. Everyone jumped, started to back away. Pablo had his hands in the air again. The other men were shouting, too, swinging their bows back and forth, aiming first at one of them, then another, herding them, step by step, toward Amy. Jeff and the others were walking backward; they weren't watching where they were going. When they reached the edge of the clearing, they hesitated, each of them, feeling the vines against their feet and legs. They glanced down, stopped. Eric was beside Amy, on her left. Pablo was to her right. Then the others: Stacy, Mathias, Jeff. And beyond Jeff, the path. This was where the bald man was pointing now, gesturing for them to start up it, to climb the hill. His expression looked oddly stricken, close to tears-no, he'd actually begun to cry. He wiped at his face with his sleeve as he waved them onward. It was all so peculiar, so impossible to comprehend, and no one said a word. They moved to the path, Jeff leading the way, the others following.

  And then, still silent, all in a line, they began the slow climb up the hill.

  Eric was in the rear. He kept glancing over his shoulder as he walked. The Mayan men were watching them climb, the bald one using his hand to shield his eyes against the sun. There were no trees on the hill, just the vine growing over everything, thick coils of it, with its dark green leaves, its bright red flowers. The sun was pouring its heat upon them-there was no shade anywhere-and behind them, down the slope, stood three armed men. None of this made any sense. At first, the bald man had tried to tell them to go back; then he'd ordered them forward. The men with the bows had had something to do with this, clearly; they'd argued with the other man, changed his mind. But it still didn't make any sense. The six of them climbed the trail, sweating with the exertion, walking in total silence, because they were scared and there was nothing for any of them to say.

  At some point, they'd have to come back down the hill and cross the clearing, take the narrow path to the fields and then the wider path to the road, but how they'd manage to do this, Eric couldn't guess. It was possible, he supposed, that the archaeologists might be able to explain what had happened. Maybe it was even something simple, something easily solved, something they'd all be laughing about a few minutes from now. A misunderstanding. A miscommunication. A mistake. Eric tried to think of other words that began withmis, tried to remember what the prefix meant. He was going to be teaching English in a few weeks, and this was the sort of thing he ought to know. Wrong, he guessed, or bad-something like that-but he wasn't certain. And he'd need to be certain, too, because there'd probably be students who would know; there were always two or three like that, ready to catch their teachers in an error, eager for the chance. There were books Eric had meant to read this summer, books he'd assured the head of his department he'd already read, but the summer was essentially over now, and he hadn't even glanced at them, not one.

  Misstep. Misplace. Misconstrue.

  That last one was a good one. Eric wished he knew more words like that, wished he could be the sort of teacher who effortlessly used them, his students straining to understand him, learning just through listening, but he knew this wasn't who he'd ever be. He'd be the boy-man, the baseball coach, the one who winked and smiled at his students' pranks, a favorite among them, probably, but not really much of a teacher at all. Not someone from whom they'd ever learn anything important, that is.

  Mischief. Misanthrope. Misconception.

  Eric was growing a little less frightened with each step he took, and he was glad for this, because for a moment or two there, he'd been very frightened indeed. When the bald man fired into the dirt at Jeff's feet, Eric had been glancing toward Stacy, making sure she was all right. He hadn't seen the man lower his aim; he'd heard the pistol go off, and for an instant he'd thought the man had shot Jeff, shot him in the chest, killed him. Then everything had happened so fast-they were herded backward, prodded up the trail-and only now was his heart beginning to slow a bit. Someone would figure something out. Or the archaeologists would help them. And all this would come to nothing.

  Misrepresent. Mislead. Misguide.

  "Henrich!" Mathias called, and they stopped, staring up the hill, waiting for a response.

  None came. They hesitated a few more seconds, then started to walk again.

  It was a tent. Eric could see it clearly now as they climbed higher, a bright traffic-cone orange, looking a little worse for wear. It must've been there for quite some time, because the vines had already managed to grow up its aluminum poles, using them like a trellis. A four-person tent, Eric guessed. Its doorway was facing away from them.

  "Hello?" Jeff called, and they stopped again to listen.

  They were close enough now that they could hear the breeze tugging at the tent, a flapping noise, like a sail might make. But there was nothing else, no sound at all, nor any sign of people. In this quiet, Eric noticed for the first time what Stacy had realized earlier: the mosquitoes had vanished. The tiny black flies, too. This ought to have offered him at least a small sense of relief, but for some reason it didn't. It had the exact opposite effect, in fact: it made him anxious, bringing back an odd echo of that fear he'd felt in the clearing as he'd turned, expecting to see Jeff's body lying there, the gunshot echoing back at him from the tree line. It seemed strange to be standing here, sweating, halfway up a hill in the midst of the jungle, and not be harassed by those little insects. And Eric didn't want to feel strange just now; he wanted everything to make sense, to be predictable. He wanted someone to tell him why the bugs had vanished, why the men had forced them up the hill, and why they still stood down there at the base of the trail, staring after them, their weapons in their hands.

  Miserydidn't count. Normiser. Eric wondered briefly if they had the same root. Latin, he guessed. Which was yet another thing he ought to know but didn't.

  The cut on his elbow had begun to ache. He could feel his heart beating inside it again, a little slower now, but still too fast. He tried to picture the archaeologists, all of them laughing over this strange situation, which would turn out to be not so strange after all, once everything had been properly explained. There'd be a first-aid kit in the orange tent, Eric assumed. Someone would clean his wound for him, cover it with a white bandage. And then, when they got back to Cancún-he smiled at the thought of this-he'd buy a rubber snake, hide it under Pablo's towel.

  The vines covered everything but the path and the tent's orange fabric. In some places, they grew thinly enough that Eric could glimpse the soil underneath-rockier than he w
ould've expected, dry, almost desertlike-but in others, they seemed to fold back upon themselves, piling layer upon layer, forming waist-high mounds, tangled knoll-like profusions of green. And everywhere, hanging like bells from the vines, were those brilliant bloodred flowers.

  Eric glanced back down the hill again, just in time to see a fourth man arrive. He was on a bicycle, dressed in white, like the others, a straw hat on his head. "There's another one," Eric said.

  Everyone stopped, turned to stare. As they watched, a fifth man appeared, then a sixth, also on bicycles. The new arrivals all had bows slung over their shoulders. There was a brief consultation; the bald man seemed to be in charge. He talked for a while, gesturing with his hands, and everyone listened. Then he pointed up the hill and the other men turned to peer at them. Eric felt the impulse to look away, but this was silly, of course, a "Don't stare; it's rude" reflex that had nothing to do with what was happening here. He watched the bald man wave in either direction, the clipped gestures of a military officer, and then the men with bows started off along the clearing, moving quickly, two one way, three the other, leaving the bald man alone at the base of the trail.

  "What are they doing?" Amy asked, but nobody answered. Nobody knew.

  A child emerged from the jungle. It was the smaller of the two boys who'd followed them, the one they'd left behind in the field. He stood next to the bald man, and they both stared up at them. The bald man rested his hand on the boy's shoulder. It made them look as if they were posing for a photograph.

  "Maybe we should run back down," Eric said. "Quick. While there's just him and the kid. We could rush them."

  "He's got a gun, Eric," Stacy said.

  Amy nodded. "And he could call the others."

  They were silent again, all of them staring down the hill, struggling to think, but if there was a solution to their present situation, no one could find it.

  Mathias cupped his hands, shouted once more toward the tent: "Henrich!"

  The tent continued to billow softly in the breeze. It wasn't that far from the base of the hill to the top, a hundred and fifty yards, no farther, and they were more than halfway up it now. Close enough, certainly, for anyone who might be present there to hear them shouting. But no one appeared; no one responded. And, as the seconds slipped past and the silence prolonged itself, Eric had to admit to himself what everyone else was probably thinking, too, though none of them had yet found the courage to say it out loud: there wasn't anyone there.

  "Come on," Jeff said, waving them forward.

  And they resumed their upward march.

  The hill grew flat at its top, forming a wide plateau, as if a giant hand had come down out of the sky and given it a gentle pat in those still-malleable moments following its creation. It was larger than Jeff had expected. The trail ran past the orange tent, and then, fifty feet farther along, it opened out into a small clearing of rocky ground. There was a second tent here, a blue one. It looked just as weathered as the orange one. There was no one about, of course, and Jeff had the sense, even in that first glimpse, that this had been true for some time.

  "Hello?" he called again. And then the six of them stood there, just a few yards short of the orange tent, going through the motions of waiting for an answer without really expecting one to come.

  It hadn't been that arduous a climb, but they were all a little out of breath. Nobody spoke for a while, or moved; they were too hot, too sweaty, too frightened. Mathias got out his water bottle and they passed it around, finishing it off. Eric and Stacy and Amy sat down in the dirt, leaning against one another. Mathias stepped over to the tent. Its flap was zipped shut, and it took him a few moments to figure out how to open it. Jeff went over to help him. Zzzzzzzzzzip. Then they both stuck their heads inside. There were three sleeping bags unrolled on the floor. An oil lamp. Two backpacks. What looked like a plastic toolbox. A gallon jug of water, half-full. A pair of hiking boots. Despite this evidence of occupation, it was clear that no one had been here for quite some time. The musty air would've been evidence enough, but even more striking was the flowering vine. Somehow it had gotten inside the sealed tent and had taken root, growing on some things, leaving others untouched. The hiking boots were nearly covered in it. One of the backpacks was hanging open and the vine was spilling out of it.

  Jeff and Mathias pulled their heads from the tent, looked at each other, didn't speak.

  "What's inside?" Eric called.

  "Nothing," Jeff said. "Some sleeping bags."

  Mathias was starting off across the hilltop, heading for the blue tent, and Jeff followed him, struggling to make sense of their situation. Something, obviously, had happened to the archaeologists. Perhaps there'd been some sort of conflict with the Mayans, and the Mayans had attacked them. But then why would they have ordered them up the hill? Wouldn't they have wanted to send them away? It was possible, of course, that the Mayans were worried they'd already seen too much, even from the base of the hill. But then why not kill them outright? It would've been relatively easy to cover this up, Jeff assumed. No one knew where they were. Just the Greeks, maybe, if Pablo had, in fact, written them a note before he left. But even so, it seemed simple enough. Kill them, bury them in the jungle. Feign ignorance if someone ever came searching. Jeff forced himself to remember his fears about their taxi driver, the same fears, unfounded, as it turned out. So why shouldn't this present situation prove to be equally benign?

  Mathias unzipped the flap to the blue tent, stuck his head inside. Jeff leaned forward to look, too. It was the same thing: sleeping bags, backpacks, camping equipment. Again, there was that musty smell, and the vines growing on some things but not on others. They pulled their heads out, zipped the flap shut.

  Ten yards beyond the tent, there was a hole cut into the dirt. It had a makeshift windlass constructed beside it, a horizontal barrel with a hand crank welded to its base. Rope was coiled thickly around the barrel. From the barrel, it passed over a small wheel, which hung from a sort of sawhorse that straddled the hole's mouth. Then it dropped straight down into the earth. Jeff and Mathias stepped warily to the hole, looked into it. The hole was rectangular-ten feet by six feet-and very deep; Jeff couldn't see its bottom. The mine shaft, he supposed. There was a slight draft rising from it, an eerily chilly exhalation from the darkness.

  The others had gotten to their feet now, followed them across the hilltop. Everyone took turns peering into the hole.

  "There's no one here," Stacy said.

  Jeff nodded. He was still thinking. Perhaps it was something with the ruins? Something religious? A tribal violation? But it wasn't that sort of ruins, was it? It was an old mining camp, a shaft cut into the earth.

  "I don't think they've been here for a while," Amy said.

  "So what do we do?" Eric asked.

  They all looked to Jeff, even Mathias. Jeff shrugged. "The trail keeps going." He waved past the hole, and everyone turned to follow his gesture. The clearing ended just a few yards from them; then the vines resumed, and in the midst of the vines was the path. It wound its way to the edge of the hilltop, vanished over it.

  "Should we take it?" Stacy asked.

  "I'm not going back the way we came," Amy said.

  So they started along the path, single file again, with Jeff taking the lead. For a while, he couldn't glimpse the base of the hill, but then the trail tilted downward, more precipitously here than on their route up, and Jeff saw exactly what he'd been fearing he would see. The others were startled; they stopped all at once, staring, and he stopped, too. But he wasn't surprised. As soon as he'd heard the bald Mayan sending the bowmen running along the clearing, he'd known. One of them was standing at the bottom of the trail, staring up at them, awaiting their approach.

  "Fuck," Eric said.

  "What do we do?" Stacy asked.

  No one responded. It looked from here as if the jungle had been chopped down all the way around the base of the hill, isolating it in a ring of barren soil. The Mayans had spread themsel
ves out along this ring, surrounding them. Jeff knew that there was no point continuing down the hill-the man obviously wasn't going to let them pass-but he couldn't think of any other course to pursue. So he shrugged and waved them forward. "We'll see," he said.

  The trail was much steeper here; there were short stretches where they had to drop onto their rear ends and slide down, one after the other. It was going to be a hard climb back up, but Jeff tried not to think of this. As they got closer, the Mayan man slid the bow off his shoulder, nocked an arrow. He shouted toward them, shaking his head, waving them away. Then he called out to his left, yelling what sounded like someone's name. A few seconds later, another one of the bowmen came jogging into view along the clearing.

  The two men waited for them at the bottom of the hill, bows taut.

  They all stopped on the edge of the clearing, wiping the sweat from their faces, and Pablo said something in Greek. It had the upward lilt of a question, but of course no one could understand him. He repeated it, the same phrase, then gave up.

  "So," Amy said.

  Jeff didn't know what to do. He believed there was a difference between aiming an arrow at someone and letting that arrow fly-a significant difference, he assumed-and he toyed briefly with the idea of exploring this distinction. He could take a step out into the clearing, and then another, and then another, and at some point the two men would either have to shoot him or let him pass. Perhaps it was merely a question of courage, and he tried to gird himself for the venturing of it, was nearly there, he felt, but then another bowman came jogging toward them from their left, and the moment passed. Jeff took out his wallet, knowing it was pointless; he was simply going through the motions. He emptied it of bills and held the money toward the Mayans.