The Warrior Priest
The fanged god, the Decapitator, steps forward. The tumi is raised; gold flashes through the air. The Priestess raises the cup. Iguana and Wrinkle Face take their places at the head of the shaft. The great ceremony begins.
In the tomb, the sacrificed llamas, headless, rest on either side of the coffin, the Warrior’s dog nearby. The mummies of the female ancestors are placed in the tomb, two at the head of the coffin, two at the foot.
Iguana and Wrinkle Face, masks glinting in the light of torches, take the ropes and slowly lower the Great Warrior way down into the chamber. The body is placed in the coffin, head to the south, toward Cerro Blanco. With proper ceremony, the coffin is sealed with copper straps.
The guardians, those who will protect the Warrior through all time, go before the Decapitator. One is placed beside the Warrior, the other, feet cut off, in a niche above the coffin. Now the chamber can be sealed, the shaft filled.
The new Warrior Priest sits cross-legged on his litter, his standards to either side, his dog at his feet. The Bird Priest takes the cup of sacrifice from the Priestess and passes it to him. May our new Warrior save us from the water that rushes from the mountains, destroying everything in its path. He must: If he cannot, it is the end of our world.
13
Rolando guerra’s journey to his final resting place was more seething mob than funeral procession, the animosity of his friends and relatives barely held in check by the solemnity of the occasion.
It looked as if half the town had crowded into the Plaza de Armas as the casket, carried by six members of the Guerra family, went into the plaza and up the church steps. Guerra’s wife and two small children followed the coffin, the woman sobbing, and the children, a little boy and girl, looking perplexed. An older woman—Guerra’s mother, I surmised—walked ramrod straight and dry-eyed behind them.
Mayor Montero had sent one of his policemen to the hacienda to urge us not to attend the funeral in order not to inflame the situation, and it was good advice indeed. The crowd was an angry one, threatening to erupt at any moment, I thought, as Puma and I pulled back into a lane and retreated to the market area.
“Bad scene,” was all Puma said. It was a bad scene indeed. While the Guerras were, I gathered, considered loners, Rolando’s death had played into the anxiety people were feeling about the approaching El Nino, which, together with the invasores that came with it, threatened their livelihood and their safety.
The marketplace where I’d taken Ines to get some supplies was abuzz. There seemed to be a general feeling that Rolando shouldn’t have been looting, but there was an almost universal resentment of people who came from somewhere else. A few of the shopkeepers glared ominously at me as I went by, and one old woman slapped a flyswatter rather menacingly in my direction as I drew near her.
We had a conference that evening, in what we’d named the war room that heady night, which now seemed so long ago, when, flushed with enthusiasm for what we saw as the absolute Tightness of the cause, we’d planned Operation Atahualpa, our invasion of Cerro de las Ruinas.
This time, sitting around the dining room table after Ines had left for home, we had to decide whether to go on, after this latest grisly discovery, or to close up for the season, pack up the lab and head home.
“I don’t know,” Hilda said, her voice even raspier than usual. “I just don’t know. Part of me wants to go on, the other…” Her voice trailed off.
“We’re so close, Hilda,” Steve said. “I can just feel it. We’re going to find something big.”
“I know you think so. But is it worth the risk?” she replied.
“Of course it’s worth it!” Steve exclaimed. “Are you saying we should just give up and let the looters have it all? Hilda, you’ve been working toward this your whole career!”
“Maybe I picked the wrong career?” she asked with a tight little smile.
“I’m with Hilda,” Ralph said. “Yes, it’s important, but not worth getting killed over. And just carrying on as if nothing has happened. Unseemly, really. Guerra, for all his bluster, was just trying to make a living.”
“So was Al Capone, Ralph,” Tracey snorted. “Surely you’re not condoning looting.”
“Your comparison is odious,” Ralph snapped back. Everyone’s nerves were on edge. “I’m not condoning it. I just think we have to be sensitive to the people around here. Capone, I can only assume, lived in a nice home in Chicago, ate well. Guerra probably lived in a hut. And it’s a terrible way to go, choking on sand. My God.”
Ralph and Tracey glared at each other.
“Enough!” Steve sighed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s hear some arguments pro and con, lay them out on the table, and then we’ll vote, okay? I’ll start. On the pro side, I think we’re close to finding a tomb, maybe an untouched one.”
“And maybe we’re not,” Ralph said morosely.
“Well, that pro and that con pretty well cancel each other out, I’d say,” Steve said. “Anyone else?”
Tracey put up her hand. “Guerra’s gone, so there should be no more incidents, should there? That’s a definite pro, wouldn’t you say?”
Everyone nodded, except me that is. I thought they were wrong. I’d seen firsthand the mood in town. In the first place, Guerra was not the only one involved in looting. His whole family was famous for it, and the rest of them were still among the living. It may have been obvious to everyone else what had happened. Guerra had been tunneling into the side of the huaca. His back dirt, the dirt from the tunnel he was digging, was piled up for all to see. He’d been in a hurry, and therefore careless, and hadn’t moved the dirt far enough away, or even on the right angle, to prevent it from sliding back into the tunnel. While the police were already calling Guerra’s demise death by misadventure, the unfortunate but perhaps predictable end of a careless huaquero, I was pretty sure the rest of the Guerra family didn’t see it that way.
By the end of the evening, everyone agreed to stay on, except Ralph, who was wavering. He said he’d think about it overnight.
Later there was a light tapping at my door. Steve stood outside with two glasses and a bottle of scotch. “Can we talk?”‘ he whispered. “Downstairs?”
I nodded and followed him down the steps. The power was out again, so I lit a couple of candles while he poured the drinks.
“What do you think of all this?” he asked as we settled into armchairs.
“I’m not sure what to think,” I said. “The mood in town is pretty ugly.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Do you think I’m crazy to encourage everybody to stay? Or do you think I’m just plain crazy?” He smiled wearily.
“Maybe,” I said. “To both.” I was kidding, of course, but he looked so pained, I felt bad. “Look,” I said. “They’re grown-ups. They can make up their own minds.” Why, I wondered, was he talking to me, instead of Tracey?
As if he could read my mind, he said, “I suppose you know about Tracey and me.” He paused. “You do know we are… ?”
“Yes.”
“I guess you couldn’t have missed all the creeping around in the night.” He laughed ruefully. “I feel kind of silly,” he went on. “A guy my age with a woman like that, twenty years younger. One of my students to boot!”