An overwhelming sadness and grief swallowed me; I wanted to lie on the ground; so great was this emotion and so right was it that I felt it and expressed it with my entire form.
Yet no sooner had I hit the ground—at least I think I did—than I was jerked upright, and the mask was ripped away. One moment I felt it in my fingers and against my face, and the next I felt nothing and saw nothing but the distant light flickering in the green leaves.
The figure was gone, the chanting had stopped, the grief was broken. Merrick was pulling me with all her strength:
"David, come on!" she said. "Come on!" She would not be denied. And I myself felt an overwhelming desire to get out of the cave with her, and to take the mask; to steal this magic, this indescribable magic which had enabled me to see the spirits of the place with my own eyes. Boldly, wretchedly, without any excuse whatsoever, I reached down, without losing a pace, and caught up a handful of brilliant glinting stone artifacts from the thick moldering floor, stuffing them into my pockets as I went on.
We were in the open jungle in a matter of moments. We ignored the unseen hands that assailed us, the volleys of leaves, and the urgent cries of the howler monkeys, as though they'd joined in the assault. A slender banana tree crashed down into our path, and we moved over it, hacking the others that seemed to be bowing to strike us in the face. We made remarkable time, moving through the hallway of the temple. We were almost running when we found the remnants of the trail. The spirits sent more of the banana trees flapping towards us. There was a rain of coconuts, which did not strike us. From time to time small pebbles came in a little gale.
But as we continued, the assault gradually fell away. At last there was nothing but a soundless howling. I was crazed. I was a perfect devil. I didn't care. She had the mask. She had the mask which enabled a person to see spirits. She had it. Oncle Vervain hadn't been strong enough to get it, I knew it. And neither had been Cold Sandra nor Honey nor Matthew. The spirits had driven them out.
Silently, Merrick clutched the mask to her chest and kept going. Neither of us stopped, no matter how bad the ground under us, no matter how bad the heat, until we reached the jeep.
Only then did she open her backpack and put the mask inside of it. She threw the jeep into reverse, backed up into the jungles, turned the car around, and headed for Santa Cruz del Flores at a boisterous and furious speed. I remained silent until we were alone together in our tent.
15
MERRICK FLOPPED DOWN on her cot and for a moment did and said nothing. Then she reached for the bottle of Flor de Caña rum and drank a deep gulp.
I preferred water for the moment, and though we'd been driving for a considerable time, my heart was still pounding, and I felt my age miserably as I sat there trying to catch my breath.
Finally, when I started to say something about what we'd done and how we'd done it, when I raised my voice in an attempt to put things in some sort of perspective, Merrick gestured for me to be quiet. Her face was flushed. She sat as if her heart too were giving her the worst, though I knew better, and then she took another sizable drink of her rum.
Her cheeks were blazing as she looked across at me as I sat on my cot facing her. Her face was wet with sweat.
"What did you see?" she asked, "when you looked through it?"
"I saw them!" I said. "I saw a weeping man, a priest, perhaps, perhaps a king, perhaps a nobody, except that he was beautifully dressed. He wore fine bracelets. He wore long robes. He pleaded with me. He was grieving and miserable. He let me know it was a dreadful thing. He let me know the dead of the place weren't gone!" She sat back, resting on both her arms, her breasts thrust forward, her eyes fixed on the top of the tent.
"And you?" I asked. "What did you see?"
She wanted to answer, but she seemed unable. She sat forward again and reached for her backpack, her eyes moving from side to side, her expression what is aptly called wild.
"Did you see the same thing?" I asked her.
She nodded. Then she opened the backpack and removed the mask so carefully one would have thought it was made of glass. It was now, in the dim daylight of the tent and the gold light of the one lantern, that I perceived how carefully and deeply the features were carved. The lips were thick and long and spread back as if in a scream. The eye ridges gave no surprise to the expression, only a sense of calm.
"Look," she said, putting her fingers through an opening at the top of the forehead, and then pointing out an opening over each ear. "It was strapped to his face with leather, most likely. It wasn't merely laid over his bones."
"And what do you think it means?"
"That it was his, for looking at spirits. That it was his, and he knew the magic wasn't intended for just anyone; that he knew it was magic that could give harm."
She turned over the mask and lifted it. She wanted clearly to put it over her face again but something stopped her. At last she stood up and went to the door of the tent. There was an open seam there through which she could peer out and along the mud street to the little plaza, and she seemed to be doing this, holding the mask below her face.
"Go on, do it," I said, "or give it to me and I will."
Hesitantly she pursued her course. She lifted the mask and held it firm over her face for a long moment, and then jerked it roughly away. She sat down exhausted on the cot, as though the entire little enterprise of only a few precious moments had tapped her strength at the core. Once again, her pupils danced wildly. Then she looked at me, and she grew a little calm.
"What did you see?" I asked. "Spirits of the village?"
"No," she answered. "I saw Honey in the Sunshine. I saw her watching me. I saw Honey. Oh, dear God, I saw Honey. Don't you see what's she done?"
I didn't immediately respond, but of course I saw. I let her speak the words.
"She's led me here, led me to a mask through which I can see her; she's brought me to a means by which she can come through!"
"Listen to me, darling," I said, and I reached out and took her wrist. "Fight this spirit. It has no claim on you any more than any other spirit. Life belongs to those who are alive, Merrick, and life is to be honored over death! You didn't drown Honey in the Sunshine, you have that from her own lips."
She didn't answer me. She put her elbow on her knee and rested her forehead in her right hand. The mask she held with her left. I think she was staring at it but I couldn't be sure. She began to tremble. Gently, I took the mask from her. I laid it carefully on my cot. Then I remembered the objects I'd collected before leaving the cave. I reached inside my pocket to retrieve them. They were four perfectly carved little Olmecoid figures, two of bald, somewhat fat, creatures, the other two of lean scowling gods. A shiver passed through me as I looked at these small faces. I could have sworn I heard a chorus of voices for an instant, as though someone had turned up the dial on a piece of amplified music. Then the silence rushed at me as if it were palpable. I broke out in a sweat. These little creatures, these little gods, had the same luster as the mask.
"We're taking this all back with us," I declared. "And as far as I'm concerned, I want to revisit the cave as soon as I've regained my strength."
She looked up at me.
"You can't be serious," she said. "You would challenge those spirits?"
"Yes, I'd challenge them. I don't say we take the mask back to the cave to look through. Dear God, I wouldn't dream of such a thing. But I can't leave behind such an unexplored mystery. I have to go back. What I want to do is examine what's there as carefully as I can. Then I think we must contact one of the universities active here and let them know of just what we found. I don't mean to speak of the mask, you understand. At least not until we've made certain that it's ours to keep beyond any dispute. "