I stood up and walked beyond the steps. No tourists. A thousand years worth of silence. Baked rocks. Shards. Dust. A lot of Indio blood had soaked into the soil of Yagul, enough to chill the back of my neck. And I had to go up and get Meyer and did not relish the climb.
But Meyer was sitting up on the stone plaza, his feet on the top stair. His color was pasty.
“I told you to stay put.”
“I came to tell you I feel very dizzy. And… in all truth, a little bit frightened.”
I got up those stairs and got him down them, taking a lot of his weight. I then put the blue beret next to the stone pillow, and tucked one bow of the broken glasses under Wally’s cheek. I had shoved the wooden handle of the weapon down inside my belt, above the right hand pants pocket, and put the stone ball in the pocket, so that only the braided leather showed.
Walked by the ball court, out along the path. No new visitors. Tourists go to Monte Alban, to Mitla, not often to Yagul. I shouted the gnarled little tickettaker out of his shady nest, and pointed back in agitation, and then at the Honda, saying in my pidgin Mexican that the man had fallen, the man was hurt. He looked absolutely blank, and then there was sudden comprehension and concern. I said I would have the ambulancia come, the Cruz Roja, los doctores. He went trotting to find the dead daddy of the dear daughter, and I wedged Meyer into the Falcon and took off. Before we got to the main highway, he toppled over against the door on his side.
The large modern hospital was on the fringe of La Colonia, toward the city. I was glad I had taken Brucey and Davey there. I left rented rubber on every turn, using one hand to hold Meyer in place when I made turns to the right.
A birdlike little nurse came hurrying out of the emergency entrance. She ignored my linguistics. She looked at Meyer, sucked air audibly as she saw the lump on his head. She directed the attendants who lifted him onto the stretcher and rolled him in. I refused to understand their instructions to get my car out of the way, knowing it was perhaps the quickest way to contact somebody who could speak English.
A big brown man in a white smock appeared and said, “Would you please move your car out of the ambulance gate, sir. You can park it in back.”
“My friend and I saw a man fall from in front of the temple at Yagul. While we were hurrying to tell the man who sells the tickets, my friend fell and struck his head. The man who fell was an American tourist, and I think the fall may have killed him, Doctor. What about my friend?”
“He is being examined right now. If you will move your car and then go to the office and help with the admission papers…”
“Is he in bad shape?”
“Please move your car.” And so I did. Then a large, billowly, benevolent lady in the office helped me interpret their form and put Meyer’s name, rank, and serial number in the right spaces. I caught Enelio Fuentes just as he was leaving the agency. I was using the phone on her desk. Enelio came through with that clout and speed that only a certified member of the local establishment can provide. A Doctor Elvara arrived twenty minutes later to be a consultant on the case. He was young, brisk, authoritative, and emotionless. After fifteen minutes he came back to the waiting room and made his report.
“There is no fracture. The patient regained consciousness and seemed rational, and then lapsed again into a comatose condition. It is obvious there is a severe concussion. The question of tissue damage cannot be resolved as yet. Pulse, respiration and pressure are good. It is safe to say there is no major area of hemorrhage in the brain, according to present symptoms. There could be a slow seepage from small blood vessels and torn capillaries. If so, the indication will be a deterioration in pressure, respiration, and pulse. We have no mechanized intensive care installation, and so the procedure here is to use student nurses on one hour shifts, constantly taking the pulse rate and the blood pressure and the rate of respiration and marking them on a special chart form which carries a column for cumulative change. If percentage change exceeds specified limits, she will immediately alert surgery. I will be on call and be here by the time the patient is prepared. The chief resident in surgery will assist me. In almost every instance the seepage in subdural, evident; and readily accessible, with a favorable prognosis. When a deeper area is traumatized, the problem becomes more grave.”
“Do you think you’ll have to operate?”
“I do not make guesses.”
I knew he would make his guess if I could word the question correctly. “Doctor Elvara, if you had ten patients with exactly the same test results as my friend, the same lump on the head, how many do you think would require surgery?”
“Hmmm. Ten is too small a sample. Make it a hundred. At least twenty would require surgery, perhaps as many as forty.”
“Out of a hundred operations, given the same conditions thus far, how many wouldn’t respond?”
“Perhaps five, perhaps four.”
“How long does it usually take before you know whether you have to operate?”
“There will be a deterioration in the first twelve hours. But we would keep close watch for eighteen to be safe, then two more days of observation before the patient would be discharged.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“You are most welcome.” He stopped outside the door and turned and looked in at me. “You… ask very nice questions,” he said. It was probably his compliment for the whole calendar year.
So then, three chances out of ten they’ll have to open your skull, Meyer, and, if they do, it’s twenty to one in your favor. Your friendly neighborhood oddsmaker can thus put up fifty bucks against the dollar you don’t make it, and still have a twenty percent edge in his favor. But with your pants showing above the edge of the tomb, you didn’t look all that good.
But nothing in the world could keep it from being a very very long twelve hours.
Seventeen
AT ELEVEN On Thursday night the twelve hours were up. Enelio, Margarita, and I got in to see him. Small room. Hospital gown. Side bars on the bed up. Blue beard on Meyer’s jaws. White compress on the head lump. A squatty little girl in gray and white, skin color like old pennies, was pumping the bulb on the blood pressure gadget and reading the levels.
“Well, well, well,” said Meyer.
Fuentes said, “Meyer, if you were a gentlemen, you would tell the young lady there is a beetle crawling right across that little nurse cap.” When she did not move, Enelio smiled and said, “No English.”
“Some day,” said Meyer, “kindly tell me what happened. Memory stopped. Travis, you are not limping as much.”
“They stuck something in there that works like novocaine.”
The girl posted her chart and started taking his pulse, moving her lips as she watched the sweep second on the gold watch pinned to her uniform.
“Meyer,” I said, “it now appears that they do not have to open your skull and examine the contents.”
His eyes went wide. “They were thinking of it?”
“All day long.”
“Too bad,” he said, “to deprive them of the chance. Better luck next time.”
“Now we’re going to the Victoria and celebrate. We’ll order drinks for you too and take turns drinking yours.”
“Salud, and happy days.”
Margarita, however, was not going. She had pulled a chair close to the far side of the bed. The squatty student nurse made querulous objection. Margarita blazed up and exploded several packages of Spanish firecrackers around the girl’s head. It backed her up and shut her up, and she soon resumed her testing.
Margarita looked content as a cat on a warm hearth. She held Meyer’s hand, and with her free hand, she gave that odd little Mexican good-by wave, which looks more like a summoning than a dismissal.
Meyer gave us an inordinately fatuous smile. I told him I’d be back in the morning. He told me not to put myself out. Elena was waiting in the Falcon. She did not seem at all surprised that her sister had stayed with Meyer. I got the feeling it would have astonished her if Margarita had not stayed. Enelio followed us back to the Victoria. I left Elena off at the main building and told her to wait for me in the lounge. I parked the car there, and concealed the weapon once more, and walked down to the cottage with Enelio. Inside the cottage, with the blinds and draperies closed, Enelio stood and held the handle and let the stone ball swing from side to side, then swung it a few times, cautiously.