“How could they know?” Danielle asked.
“Because it’s happened before,” McCarter said. “When we were looking for a radio Kaufman told me you had another team here before us, a team that got wiped out. I’m sure he was trying to con me into helping him at the time, but even then I didn’t think he was lying.”
“He wasn’t,” Danielle said blankly. “We didn’t know they’d come here, but we found some of their equipment.”
McCarter nodded, seeming to appreciate her honesty. “Kaufman told me that a man named Dixon survived. He crawled out of here with a broken leg, which was lost to gangrene — but Dixon held on to what he found, a crystal that came from inside the temple, one that matched the Martin’s crystals.
“Okay,” she said. “I’d believe that. What does it mean?”
“It means your earlier party did more than just find this place,” McCarter explained. “It means they opened the temple and went inside. Yet when we arrived, the temple was sealed shut. So who closed it up? Someone had to do it, and certainly not the men who were running headlong into the jungle, trying to escape. So who? The only possible answer is the Chollokwan. They came here and put the stone back in place to keep those animals inside.”
“What about the fire?” she asked. “The first one and then last night?”
“Same thing,” McCarter replied. “Bad conclusions based on false assumptions. Fire for fire, they said, remember. Fire for the plague. We assumed that we were the plague. But the fire was for the trees, where we found that thing.” He pointed to the grub. “I’m guessing it was to burn them out, to destroy the nests before the larvae hatched. And then last night we heard their voices and drums again. We assumed they were building a war party or something. But they didn’t attack, and if you remember the sequence, the animals disappeared just as the drums came. I’ll bet the Chollokwan were hunting them then too.”
“With spears and clubs?” Danielle said.
“And pits filled with water,” McCarter replied, reminding them of the strange trap at the wall of skulls.
“But why would they even try?” Danielle asked. “It’s almost suicide.”
“Because they’re not just primitive nomads who live in the rain forest,” he said. “They’re the descendents of the Mayan people who once lived here. The Chollokwan are the ones who stayed behind.”
“In the Tulan Zuyua story?” Danielle asked.
“Yes,” McCarter said. “And in reality as well. In fact, I’m pretty certain that there’s not much of a difference. At least as it concerns this place.”
He turned to Hawker. “Don’t you see,” he said, “it’s the answer to your question. You asked me why they cared about this place. The only response I could come up with was that they shouldn’t. They should pass it by as if it were just another spot in the forest, ignoring it or at most regarding it as some type of curiosity. But they don’t ignore it, they come here every year, they burn the trees back and keep this place clear of foliage, just like Blackjack Martin said they’d done at the Wall of Skulls. They tend to this place and keep outsiders away, year after year, century after century, because it’s theirs. Blessing or curse, it belongs to them.”
“But you said the city was abandoned,” Danielle reminded him.
“It was,” McCarter told them. “The inhabitants deserted this place. They sealed those animals inside — just like the story of Zipacna being sealed under the mountain of stone — but it’s not a rock-strewn mountain, it’s a structure shaped like a mountain, a pyramid made out of stone blocks.” He turned around. The pyramid of the temple stood behind him.
Hawker stared at it. He understood what McCarter was getting at. “So the legend is real.”
“It’s a version of reality,” McCarter replied, “distorted through time and retelling but essentially true.”
Danielle looked at the temple. “In the legend the Maya left Tulan Zuyua like refugees,” she noted, “while others — unidentified others — stayed behind. You think those remnants were the Chollokwan.”
McCarter nodded. “You paid me to tell you if this place was Tulan Zuyua and in my opinion it is, at least it’s one source of that legend, and the pyramid temple over there is likely to be a form of the Mountain of Stone. In the legend itself the two are not that closely connected, but legends have a way of morphing. A few thousand years and few thousand miles can wreak a lot of changes. But there are always touchstones of truth that remain, and in our case, we’ve found enough to convince me.
“I think this place was or is Tulan Zuyua,” he reiterated. “And I think those who built it were being tormented by a group of people who seemed only vaguely human to them — the body we found in the temple being one of them. They called those people the wooden people. If you’re right we might know them as our descendents, but to these people they were despots, and if we follow the legend, the people who lived under their tyranny eventually threw off their chains with the help of a thunderous storm. Finally free, but probably fearing it wouldn’t last, they took their possessions and left this place, leaving a band of warriors behind to keep this temple sealed forever. Perhaps they even continued to communicate with the ones who remained behind, but over time and distance it eventually became impossible, actions that are mirrored in the Popul Vuh as the departure from Tulan Zuyua, the receiving of different gods and the inability of those who left to communicate with the tribes who stayed behind. Over time the people who left became the Maya, while the warriors who stayed became the Chollokwan, and their one task became a religion of its own.”
“But they don’t write, or keep time, or build anything,” Hawker said.
“If our civilization was wiped out today, no one would be building skyscrapers or jet planes tomorrow. We’d be lucky if we could put up a house without a leaky roof. All civilizations build up a body of what we call societal knowledge, knowledge that’s only useful as long as the body stays intact; specialization leads to interdependence, interdependence leads to vulnerability. Break up any civilization and the specialized skills are the first to go as the people struggle just to cover the basics.
“In the Mayan world only the priests wrote and understood the calendars. Only the artisans could carve the glyphs and build. That’s how the elite controlled the masses. A legion of warriors wouldn’t have any of those skills. All they would know how to do is fight.”
McCarter’s gaze moved from Hawker to Danielle. “Here’s the proof: eighty-odd years ago Blackjack Martin stole those crystals from the Chollokwan after they were used in a rain-calling ceremony. Now ask yourself why the Chollokwan would even want it to rain. Agricultural societies want the rain, not hunting societies. The Chollokwan aren’t farmers — they’re hunters and gatherers, nomadic and migratory wanderers. The rain makes their lives exponentially more difficult. It turns the ground to mud and keeps the animals hidden in their dens and nests. It allows what game there is to spread far and wide instead of gathering at the edge of the rivers. If the Chollokwan were just simple nomads they would abhor the rains, but they don’t, they pray for them to come, just like the early Maya did.”
“Why?” Danielle asked.
“Partially because of their heritage,” McCarter admitted. “A learned and ingrained behavior. But there’s another reason as well, a more important reason.”
He paused for a moment, and seemed to decide that actions would speak louder than words. He took the canteen from his belt, unscrewed the top and began to pour the contents over the torpedo-shaped grub in the box.
As water hit the thing, it jumped, shrieking as if it had been zapped with a thousand volts. It banged into the grate covering the box and fell back again, writhing around violently, flipping itself onto its feet and darting from corner to corner in search of safety.