All activity ceased when I stepped out and stood on the beach. None of the Mayans stood any higher than my armpit. And, like my companions in the boat, they showed neither welcome nor hostility on their faces though they eyed me with some curiosity.
These were the descendents of the tough, rebellious Mayans who never submitted to Spanish rule during the days of colonization. After the rebellion of 1847 in western Yucatan was put down by the Spaniards, those who could, escaped to the jungles of Quintana Roo, where armed resistance continued into the twentieth century. Even now, remote villages like the one where I had been brought were left strictly on their own by the federal government to rule themselves in accordance with the old tribal traditions.
Two of the men from the fishing boat stepped up to flank me on both sides. Each placed a small brown hand on my elbow and urged me forward. I didn’t know whether I was being escorted or taken prisoner.
They marched me through the village of some twenty dwellings between lines of silent, watchful Mayans. We stopped in front of a hut smaller than the rest at the outer perimeter of the village. The roof was thatch, and the adobe walls had no windows.
As one of my escorts began to lead me through the door, he nudged against the metalic lump of Wilhelmina, still holstered at my hip. He raised my damp shirt, and drew out the Luger.
“Pistola!” he snapped, in the first word of Spanish I’d heard from any of them.
“No se funciona,” I told him. It was the truth. The gun didn’t work after a night’s immersion in salt water. “No tiene balas,” I added. Also true. I’d used all my cartridges shooting my way off the Gaviota.
No response from the Mayans. Apparently they knew only a word or two of Spanish. Confiscating Wilhelmina, the Indian shoved me into the hut and banged the wooden door shut behind me. He spoke in Mayan to his companion. From the tone I gathered that one of them was to stay there and guard the door while the other went off on some errand. I sat down on the hard-packed dirt floor and leaned back against the wall.
For the first time in many hours I thought about the mission that had brought me to the Caribbean. Was it only yesterday that I’d been on the verge of nailing the whole suitcase-bomb conspiracy when I had started toward Fyodor Gorodin with the Luger in my hand? Yet how far I was now from doing anything to prevent the nuclear destruction of New York in three more days.
I tried to wrench my thoughts back to the present predicament, but a vision of Rona Volstedt flashed into my mind, greyhound slim and nordic blonde. Where was she now? Dead? Better that she be drowned than to be plucked from the sea by Gorodin.
The door of my hut was yanked open and my two guards entered. By gestures and grunts they made it known I was to accompany them. I got up and went along with them, back into the village.
We approached a hut larger than the rest. Once painted white, it was fading to gray. The two Mayans marched me in through the door, then came to a halt before an old man seated on a platform. He had shaggy white hair and a face as hard and wrinkled as a walnut shell.
He raised a gnarled hand and my two guards backed out, leaving me alone with him.
“I am Cholti,” he said in a strong deep voice that seemed incongruous to his age and tiny chest. “Here I am el jefe, the chief.”
“I am honored,” I said, “and pleased to find someone who speaks English.”
“In the village, only I speak English,” he said proudly. “I learned at school in Merida. I would teach my sons, but they do not wish to know the language of the yanquis.” He paused then, hands folded in his lap, waiting for me to speak.
“My name is Nick Carter,” I said. “I am an agent of the United States. If you would take me to the nearest town with a telephone, I would be grateful. I would pay you well.”
“I am told that you carried a pistol,” Cholti said.
“Yes. In my work I must sometimes defend, sometimes kill.”
“White men are not well liked in the Quintana Roo country, Carter. White men with pistols are not liked at all. My people have had very bad treatment from white men with pistols.”
“I mean no harm to you or your people, jefe. The men I fight are evil ones who want to destroy the great cities of my country and kill a great many of my people.”
“What should that mean to us here in Quintana Boor
“If these evil men are allowed to win, no place in the world will be safe from them, not even your village. They have just destroyed an island in the Pacific Ocean where the people were much like your own.”
“Tell me how you came to be floating in the sea, Nick Carter.”
I told him the story from the time Rona and I stepped aboard the cruise ship in Antigua. Cholti listened with eyes so narrowed they were all but sealed, hands motionless in his lap. When I had finished he sat for a full minute in silence. Then his eyes opened and he studied my face.
“I believe you, Nick Carter,” he said. “Your voice does not lie, and your eyes speak truly. The telephone you seek can be found to the north in Vigfa Chico. I would have you taken there, but…”
“But what?” I prompted.
“You are a white man. You brought a pistol into our village. For these reasons my people want you to die. They will listen to me as el jefe, and perhaps I can make them believe, as I do, that you mean us no harm. But there is one who cannot be swayed.”
“Who is that?” I asked.
“His name is Tihoc. He is my son. When I am dead, he will be chief here. I fear that will be very soon. Tihoc will never agree to let you go until you have faced him.”
“Faced him? I thought you said no one else here spoke English.”
“There are other languages,” the old man said. “My son awaits you now outside my house. How you conduct yourself with him will determine your fate. So it must be.”
“I understand,” I told the old man. Cholti nodded his head toward the door of his hut. I turned and walked out.
Before I had taken two steps into the clearing In front of the chiefs hut, something whooshed through the air and thudded into the ground at my feet. It was a six-foot spear, its narrow, double-edged point buried in the earth.
Across the clearing from me stood a young Mayan, naked to the waist, his brown skin taut and glistening over tensed muscles. He clutched a twin to the spear at my feet, held across his body at an angle, in the traditional position of challenge. Ringed about us were the villagers, their faces impassive, but their eyes alert.
This, then, would be Tihoc, son of the chief. This was the man I would have to face in combat if I was to leave the village alive. Yet, if I killed him, would his father give me passage to Vigia Chico? Even if the old man agreed, would his people let me live? Somehow, I had to defeat Tihoc, yet not rob him of his honor.
Before touching the spear, I deliberately removed Hugo from the forearm sheath. I held up the stiletto for the villagers to see, then sent it spiraling to the door of the chiefs hut where it stuck fast, the handle quivering. Though there was no audible response from the watchers, I could sense an undercurrent of approval.
I pulled the spear from the ground then, and holding it in the same position as Tihoc, advanced to the center of the clearing. There we touched spear points in a salute oddly like that used in the art of quarterstaff. A deadly difference here was the twelve inches of steel blade that tipped our spears, a blade capable of impaling a man or slicing a limb from his body.