‘Her name is Zuhuy-kak. She’s the one who made them leave the cities, long ago. She’s a strong woman, very stubborn. I talk to her, but I’m afraid of her.’
‘The woman in the tomb is dead, Liz.’
‘That is why she is so strong. She is stronger than I am. And she’s crazy, crazier than I am. She wants me to kill the child.’
‘I’ll take care of you, Liz,’ he said. ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘Who will take care of the child?’ I asked. ‘I’m so tired, but who will take care of the child?’
His hand rubbed my shoulders gently. ‘I’ll take care of her too,’ he said. ‘You know that. But you’ve got to rest.’ His hand felt cool on my forehead. ‘You have a fever.’ One hand was on my shoulder; one hand took my hand. He hesitated, feeling the new scratch on my wrist. ‘What’s this?’
I looked at the thin red scratch and muttered, ‘I was testing the blade. That’s all.’
He led me into the hut and helped me into my hammock. I noticed that 1 no longer carried the obsidian blade, and I knew that it had returned to the tomb.
I sat up in the hammock, clinging to the strings to keep from floating away. I was very light and my head was too large for my body. I had to cling to the hammock or I knew I would drift away. I swung my legs over the edge of the hammock, still holding onto its side. Then Tony was beside me again, his hand on my shoulder gently pushing me back. ‘I have to go to the tomb,’ I said. ‘I have to talk to the old woman.’
‘You’re not going anywhere, Liz,’ Tony said. ‘You’re staying right here.’
‘I have to find her. I have to tell her that she can’t have the child. She can have me, but she can’t have the child. I have to tell her.’
‘I’ll go to the tomb,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her.’
‘You promise?’ I said. ‘You will go to the tomb? You promise?’’
‘I promise.’
I lay back in the hammock and closed my eyes. ‘Be careful,’ I said softly. ‘Be very careful.’ I heard the rattle of pills, the splash of water pouring from canteen into coffee cup. He gave me the small red pills that brought sleep, and I took them, holding his rough hand tightly. I drifted away into sleep, listening to him softly tell me that everything would be all right.
I woke at dawn on Monday, the day Cimi, the name day of the god of death. Not a lucky day. I woke with vague drug-hazed memories of the night before. My bare feet were dusty and my bottle of sleeping pills was on my desk beside my coffee cup.
I went to find Tony, but he was not in his hut. The chickens that scratched in the plaza and the little pig that slept in the shade stared at me as if I were the first person to stir. Tony was not at the cenote. I continued along the path toward the tomb.
I was almost to the tomb when I saw him. He lay motionless, sprawled halfway across the path as if he had fallen in the act of crawling toward camp. Flies rose when I ran to him and buzzed curiously around my head when I knelt beside him.
His red bandanna was knotted around his leg just above the knee. He had slashed the leg of his pants with his knife to expose the wound: a dark mass of blood surrounded by the swollen flesh of his calf. Through the blood I could make out two ragged slashes, separated by about half an inch, the distance between the fangs of a snake. Bright fresh blood still bubbled slowly from the wound.
His breathing was shallow and uneven. His pulse was rapid. His skin was the color of the limestone blocks around him, slightly cool and damp to the touch. I called to him, shook him lightly, but there was no response. I pulled back an eyelid: his eye was bloodshot and the pupil was a pinpoint.
I hooked his arm over my shoulder and tried to drag him to his feet, but I could not lift him. I tried again, the blood singing in my ears, the beat of my own heart loud in the stillness of the morning. I succeeded in walking three paces before we both fell.
I caught him as we went down, almost wrenching an ankle and catching most of my weight on one knee. ‘Tony,’ I said. ‘Goddamn you, Tony. You have to help.’
His breathing caught in his throat, then started again. He did not move. I laid him on the barren path, irrationally put my hat under his head as a pillow, then moved it to shield his face from the sun. I pulled his shredded pants leg to cover the open wound, and ran for camp.
I did not run well. I was too old for running. The sun was a hot blur low in the sky. My lungs were useless for drawing air, though they made noisy ragged gasping sounds. I felt as if I were watching from a distance: an old woman, hobbled by the passage of years, ran slowly down a barren trail, fighting to draw air into lungs clogged with cigarette smoke, struggling to shout for help across the ruins where generations had lived and died. As I ran, I swore that if Tony lived, I would give up cigarettes. I would give them up. I did not know to what gods I swore, but I swore I would stop smoking to save him. The ache in my side was as bright and hot and sharp as the wound from an obsidian blade.
Once, in the shifting light that sparkled through tears, I thought I saw an old woman dressed in blue on the path ahead of me. If I had had the breath, I would have cursed her, but I could not curse or call to her. I tried to run faster, but I could not catch her. She was far away, just a figure in the distance.
The camp was still silent. I tried to shout, but I had no breath for it. I reached Salvador’s truck, parked outside the plaza, and reached in through the open window to lean on the horn, holding it down and letting it blare as if the length of the sound would somehow dictate the speed of Salvador’s response. I could see Salvador step from his hut, a tiny figure in the distance, shirtless and hatless. I released the horn and blew it again. He ran toward me.
‘Tony,’ I said when he reached me. ‘Snakebite.’ I jerked my head in the direction of the tomb. ‘Unconscious by the trail.’ He began swearing under his breath in Spanish, a steady stream of curses.
It took too long to get to Tony. Salvador drove the truck over the old sacbe as far as he could. The truck lurched unwillingly over gullies and bumps, and the frame creaked and groaned. Once, after a particularly nasty bump, I heard something crack sharply, but nothing gave. Salvador left me behind when he ran up the trail to where Tony lay. I was toiling toward the tomb when I met Salvador coming down the path. He was carrying Tony, cradling the old man in his arms as if he were a child. The muscles on Salvador’s bare brown shoulders glistened in the sun, and Tony looked even frailer, smaller.
It took too long to get to the hospital. Salvador drove like a madman, but it seemed slow. He skidded in the gravel on the shoulder as he passed a tourist bus that was lumbering down the center of the road. A man on a road-repair crew leapt aside as Salvador’s truck raced by, refusing to slow down. Tony was slumped on the seat beside me, his head in my lap. Over the rumble of the truck, I listened to his labored breathing. We had reached the outskirts of Mérida when his breathing faltered and stopped, and I began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a steadying task that made me feel like I was accomplishing something.
At Hospital Juárez, two young attendants took over, clapping a respirator over Tony’s face and carting him away. I felt cold, listening to the soft babble of voices in the hospital waiting room. The walls were painted white and pastel green, marred by scuff marks near the floor. A young woman with classic Mayan features sat on an orange plastic chair. She held a baby that wailed steadily in constant complaint. The woman crooned soft comforting words in Maya; she told the infant the same tired lie over and over: it will be all right; it will be all right. An old woman in a wrinkled huipil spoke softly to an old man who wore a bandage over half his face; they leaned together like the stones of a corbeled arch. The old man watched us with his one good eye. A young man, wearing the straw hat and loose clothing of a worker on a hacienda, clutched a white cloth to his arm; I could see the bright red of blood seeping through the cloth. When we walked past him, I caught a whiff of aguardiente – late night in the bars. Salvador and I found two plastic chairs, sat, and waited.