I turned and plunged down the tunnel. The ground rose slightly as I went along, and after about 500 yards or so, maybe more, I took a right turn and found myself at the foot of a wooden staircase leading upward. Cautiously I inched my way up to the underside of a trapdoor. I pressed my ear to the wood and listened. I could near nothing. I raised the door an inch or two. Total darkness greeted me. I pushed the door back and climbed up, shutting it behind me. I was in a little hut, about eight by ten, and windowless. There were four other crates there. Listening at the door once more, I again heard nothing, and let myself out.
It took me a second or two to get my bearings, but when my eyes adjusted, I could see the outline of the Andes against the sky. Behind the hut was a grove of trees, and beyond that, presumably, Paraiso, although I couldn’t see it for the trees; I could see nothing to the right or the left. I found myself a hiding place not far from the hut and waited. About fifteen minutes later, a dark but familiar shape emerged from the hut with the first of the crates. It was Lucho. After the crates had been stacked, which took about a half hour in all, I’d estimate, Lucho shuffled away from the hut in the direction of the mountains for several yards, and then walked parallel to the mountain range, stopping every few yards to do something I couldn’t see. I could smell gasoline. Having walked about fifty yards away from the hut, he turned left, walked about twenty feet, and then turned left and made his way back, then an equal distance past the hut, stooping over at regular intervals again, before making his way back.
Finally he went back into the hut, and I heard the trapdoor slam.
I edged my way out in the direction he had come. It was still very dark, but I could make out two straight rows of painted white stones stretching off in either direction. At regular intervals between them I found, on closer examination, old paint cans stuffed with rags doused in gasoline. It’s a runway, I realized, an illegal runway. Lucho, or someone else, would set the paint can contents ablaze at the right moment, and the aircraft would come in. The desert floor was hard, and packed flat, the stone markers were straight as arrows. The Moche artifacts, and the cocaine, would be gone that night, under cover of the new moon, and with the added benefit of everyone being distracted by the possibility of flooding. There would be absolutely no way I would be able to stop them alone.
I headed back for the truck, terrified that I’d run into Lucho. I thought the trees would provide protection, and plunged into them. Cuidado al arbolado! be damned, I thought. They were the only cover around. But it was also tough going, the thorns a constant hazard in the dark, slowing my progress, and distorting my sense of direction. Just as I was about to emerge from the forest, someone stepped out from behind a tree and shone a light directly in my eyes.
“Rebecca, it’s you!” the voice exclaimed.
“Puma,” I hissed. “Turn out that light. Where have you been?” For a moment I caught a glimpse of what it must be to be the parent of a teenager—the surge of emotion, part relief but also part rage, when the offspring you’ve imagined lying seriously injured, or even, God forbid, dead, in the middle of an intersection blithely reappears. I wanted to shake him and give him a good talking-to, but I didn’t have time.
“Looking for the treasure like I wrote you. Come, you’ve gotta come with me right away,” he said, pulling on my arm.
“Puma, I can’t right now. I’ve seen your treasure. Now I’ve got to go and get help. Why didn’t you come back to the commune or the hacienda?” I found myself asking.
He looked exasperated. “Because they’re after me, like I told you. The Spanish. I came to get you again, but one of them was there. So I had to hide. ”Come quickly,“ he insisted, pulling my arm roughly. ”It’s important. It’s life or death!“
“Not the ‘pocalypse again,” I said, my irritation plain. I didn’t want to shake him anymore: I was contemplating strangling him.
“No!” he exclaimed. “Real life. Now!”
This is ridiculous, I thought. But there was something in his voice, an edgy panic perhaps, that made me follow him across the sand toward a cluster of small houses not far away.
He gestured to me to be quiet and to crouch down as we drew near. Soon we were creeping across the front porch of the largest of the houses and up just beside the screen door. Inside, I heard the scraping of a chair against a wooden floor, a cough or two, and then a gruff voice said, “You are here to be tried for the murder of Rolando Guerra. How do you plead?”
God, no, I thought, leaning carefully over until I could just see into the room.
Steve Neal was standing there, his head in profile, hands tied behind his back. He did not reply to his accuser. On the far side of the room was a group of women and children. I could not see the speaker. “Go,” I said to Puma, putting my mouth right up to his ear. “Go and get the police. Here, keys to the truck, by the highway,” I said, pointing toward the clump of trees where I’d left the vehicle. Puma nodded and crept away. I hope they believe him, I thought, and I hope they hurry.
“How do you plead?” the voice inside said harshly. “Guilty or not guilty?”
Still Steve said nothing. I edged myself toward the door to see better. Steve, thinner already, with a stubble of beard, was surrounded by five men, all of whom I’d seen at Rolando Guerra’s funeral, and none of them happy. The sixth, a forty-something man I recalled having seen in the nasty confrontation at the site, was sitting at the table, the judge of this kangaroo court. A little girl, Rolando’s daughter, sat listlessly playing with a doll.
“In the absence of a plea, you have been found guilty,” the man growled. “The sentence is death, by hanging. Is there anything you have to say?”
“Yes, there is,” Steve said. The judge looked surprised, whether from Steve’s perfect Spanish, or the fact that Steve was now intent upon being heard, I couldn’t guess.
“Then say it!” the man ordered.
Steve took a deep breath and began. “It is not I who is on trial here, it is you.” The men shuffled angrily in their seats.
“Quiet!” the judge ordered. “Let him speak.”
Steve paused for a moment, then went on. “You are living in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. This is a land of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, and disease. And yet,” he paused, “and yet, on this tiny strip of sand, wedged between the mountains and the sea, a little over two thousand years ago, a great civilization was born.
“Somehow the people of this region gained control of the waterways, built canal systems to allow the desert to bloom, for a nation to flourish. They built cities that would reflect their power, huge ceremonial centers of towering pyramids, that must have struck other people dumb with amazement. These people are now called the Moche, after the river south of here, and the language, muchic, that was spoken in ancient times.
“Their cities held the largest adobe brick structures anywhere, anytime, expressions of their might, their temporal power. There were huge ceremonial courtyards lined with astounding works of art, frescoes that may have told their whole history in a single panel. These were cities where artists flourished, a civilization wealthy enough that the elite could support an artist class, some of the most singularly gifted artists of any age. The society of the Moche was one organized around rituals, some of them bloody indeed, and yet their art soared above the bloodshed, expressing their belief in the supernatural and in the sacredness of the everyday. They buried their dead with elaborate rituals and great care. You can tell a lot about people when you know how they treat their dead,” he said, looking accusingly at every man in that room, one or two of whom squirmed visibly. “And the Moche buried even the lowliest among them with ceremony and respect.