The Ruins (11 page)

 "So,"
Amy said.

 Jeff
didn't know what to do. He believed there was a difference
between aiming an arrow at someone and letting that arrow
fly—a significant difference, he assumed—and he
toyed briefly with the idea of exploring this distinction. He could
take a step out into the clearing, and then another, and then another,
and at some point the two men would either have to shoot him or let him
pass. Perhaps it was merely a question of courage, and he tried to gird
himself for the venturing of it, was nearly there, he felt, but then
another bowman came jogging toward them from their left, and the moment
passed. Jeff took out his wallet, knowing it was pointless; he was
simply going through the motions. He emptied it of bills and held the
money toward the Mayans.

 There
was no reaction.

 "Let's
rush them," Eric suggested again. "All at
once."

 "Shut
up, Eric," Stacy said.

 But
he didn't listen. "Or go make shields. If we had
some shields, we could—"

 Another
man came running toward them along the clearing, heavier than the
others, bearded, someone they hadn't seen before. He was
carrying a rifle.

 "Oh
my God," Amy said.

 Jeff
put the money back in his wallet, returned the wallet to his pocket.
The vine had invaded the clearing here, formed an outpost in its midst.
Ten feet in front of the path, there was one of those odd knob-like
growths, this one a little smaller than the others, knee-high, thick
with flowers. The Mayans had arranged themselves on the far side of it,
with their drawn bows. And now the man with the rifle joined them.

 "Let's
go back up the hill," Stacy said.

 But
Jeff was staring at the vines, the isolated island, knowing already
what it was, knowing it deep, without quite being conscious of this
knowledge.

 "I
wanna
go
back," Stacy said.

 Jeff
stepped forward. It was ten feet, and it took him four strides. He
walked with his hands held up in front of him, calming the men, trying
to show them that he meant no harm. They didn't shoot;
he'd known they wouldn't, that they'd
allow him to see what was beneath the vines, what he already knew but
wasn't letting himself know. Yes, they wanted him to see it.

 "Jeff,"
Amy called.

 He
ignored her, crouching beside the mound. He reached out, sinking his
hand into the flowers, parting them. He grasped a stalk, tugged, pulled
it free, glimpsed a tennis shoe, a sock, the lower part of a
man's shin.

 "What
is it?" Amy asked.

 Jeff
turned, stared at Mathias. Mathias knew, too; Jeff could see it in his
eyes. The German stepped forward, crouched beside him, started to pull
at the vines, gently at first, then more aggressively, tearing at them,
a low moan beginning to rise from his chest. Twenty feet away, the
Mayans watched. Another shoe was revealed, another leg. A pair of
jeans, a belt buckle, a black T-shirt. And then, finally, a young
man's face. It was Mathias's face, only different:
it had the same features, the family resemblance vivid even now, with
some of
Henrich's
flesh oddly eaten away, so that his cheekbone was visible, the white
socket of his left eye.

 "Oh
Jesus," Amy said. "No."

 Jeff
held up his hand, silencing her. Mathias crouched over his
brother's body, rocking slightly, that moaning coming and
going. The T-shirt was only black, Jeff realized, because it had been
stained that color: it was stiff with dried blood. And sticking out of
Henrich's
chest,
pointing up through the thick vines, were three slender arrows. Jeff
rested his hand on Mathias's shoulder. "Easy," he whispered. "All right? Easy
and slow. We'll stand up and we'll walk away.
We'll walk back up the hill."

 "It's
my brother," Mathias said.

 "I
know."

 "They
killed him."

 Jeff
nodded. His hand was still on Mathias's shoulder, and he
could feel the German's muscles clenching through his shirt. "Easy," he said again.

 "Why…"

 "I
don't know."

 "He
was—"

 "
Shh
,"
Jeff said. "Not here. Up the hill, okay?"

 Mathias
seemed to be having trouble breathing. He kept struggling to inhale,
but nothing went very deep. Jeff didn't let go of his
shoulder. Finally, the German nodded, and then they both stood up.
Stacy and Amy were holding hands, looking stricken, staring down at
Henrich's
corpse.
Stacy had started to cry, very softly. Eric had his arm around her.

 The
Mayans kept their weapons raised—arrows
nocked
, bows taut, rifle
shouldered—and watched in silence as Jeff and the others
turned to start back up the hill.

T
he climb helped
some—the physical demands of it, the need to concentrate on
the steeper stretches, where they almost had to crawl at times, pulling
themselves forward with their hands—and as Stacy moved slowly
up the hill, she gradually managed to stop crying. She kept glancing
back down toward the clearing as she went; she tried not to, but she
couldn't help it. She was worried the men were going to come
chasing after them. They'd killed Mathias's
brother, so it only seemed logical that they'd kill her, too.
Kill all six of them, let the vines grow over their bodies. But the men
just stood there in the center of the clearing, staring after them.

 At
the top, things got hard again. Amy started crying, and then Stacy had
to, too. They sat on the ground and held hands and wept. Eric crouched
beside Stacy. He said things like "It's
gonna
be okay." Or "We'll be all right." Or "
Shh
, now,
shh
." Just words,
nonsense really, little phrases to stroke and soothe her, and the fear
in his face made her sob all the harder. But the sun burned down upon
them and there was no shade to be found and she was worn-out from the
climb, and after awhile she began to feel so stunned from it all that
she couldn't even cry anymore. When she stopped, Amy did,
too.

 Jeff
and Mathias had wandered off across the hilltop. They were standing on
the far side of it, staring down toward the clearing, talking together.
Pablo had disappeared into the blue tent.

 "Is
there any water?" Amy asked.

 Eric
dug through his pack, pulled out a bottle. They took turns drinking
from it.

 "It's
gonna
be
okay," he said again.

 "How?"
Stacy asked, hating herself for speaking. She knew she
shouldn't be asking questions like that. She needed to be
quiet and let Eric build this dream for them.

 Eric
thought for a moment, struggling. "Maybe when the sun sets,
we can go back down, sneak past them in the darkness."

 They
drank some more water, considering this. It was too hot to think, and
there was a persistent buzzing in Stacy's ears, like static,
but higher-pitched. She realized she should get out of the sun, crawl
into one of the tents and lie down, but she was frightened of the
tents. She knew that whoever had set them up so carefully here upon the
hilltop was almost certainly dead now. If
Henrich
was dead, then the archaeologists must be, too. Stacy
couldn't see any way around this.

 Eric
tried again. "Or we can always just wait them out,"
he said. "The Greeks will come sooner or later."

 "How
do you know?" Amy asked.

 "Pablo
left them a note."

 "But
how can you be sure?"

 "He
copied the map, didn't he?"

 Amy
didn't say anything. Stacy sat there, wishing she'd
speak again, that she'd somehow manage to clarify this
question, either refute Eric's logic or accept it, but Amy
remained silent, peering off across the hilltop at Jeff and Mathias.
There was no way to tell, of course. Pablo might've left a
note or he might not have. The only way they'd know for
certain was if the Greeks were eventually to show up.

 "I've
never seen a dead body before," Eric said.

 Amy
and Stacy were silent. How could they possibly respond to a statement
like that?

 "You'd
think something would've eaten him, wouldn't you?
Come out of the jungle and—"

 "Stop
it," Stacy said.

 "But
it seems odd, doesn't it? He's been there long
enough for those vines to—"

 "Please,
Eric."

 "And
where are the others? Where are the archaeologists?"

 Stacy
reached out and touched his knee. "Just stop, okay? Stop
talking."

 Jeff
and Mathias were coming back toward them. Mathias was holding his hands
out in front of himself, as if they were covered in paint and he was
trying not to get it on his clothes. As they came closer, Stacy saw
that his hands and wrists had turned a deep raw-meat red; they look
scarred.

 "What
happened?" Eric asked.

 Jeff
and Mathias crouched beside them. Jeff reached for the water bottle,
poured a tiny bit on Mathias's hands; then Mathias rubbed at
them with his shirt, grimacing.

 "There's
something in the plants," Jeff said. "When he tore
them off his brother, he got their sap on his hands. It's
acidic. It's burned his skin."

 They
all peered down at Mathias's hands. Jeff handed the water
back to Stacy. She took off her bandanna, started to tilt the bottle
over it, thinking the wet cloth might cool her head some, but Jeff
stopped her.

 "Don't,"
he said. "We need to save it."

 "Save
it?" she asked. She felt stupid with the heat: she
didn't know what he meant.

 He
nodded. "We don't have that much. We'll
each need a half gallon a day, at least. That's three gallons
total, every day. We'll have to figure out a way to catch the
rain." He glanced up at the sky, as if searching for clouds,
but there weren't any. It had rained every afternoon since
they'd arrived in Mexico, and now, when they needed it, the
sky was perfectly clear. "We have to get
organized," Jeff said. "Now, while we're
still fresh."

 The
others just stared at him.

 "We
can last without food. It's water that matters.
We'll have to keep out of the sun, spend as much time as we
can under the tents."

 Stacy
felt sick, listening to him. He was acting as if they were going to be
here for some time, as if they were trapped here, and the idea filled
her with panic. She had the urge to cover her ears with her hands; she
wanted him to stop talking. "Can't we sneak away
when it gets dark?" she asked. "Eric said we could
sneak away."

 Jeff
shook his head. He waved across the hilltop, toward where he and
Mathias had been standing. "They keep coming," he
said. "More and more of them. They're all armed,
and the bald one sends them out along the clearing. They're
surrounding us."

 "Why
don't they just kill us?" Eric asked.

 "I
don't know. It seems like it's something to do with
the hill. Once you step onto the hill, you're not allowed to
step off it. Something like that. They won't step on it
themselves, but now that we're on it, they won't
let us leave. They'll shoot us if we try. So we have to
figure out a way to survive until someone comes and finds
us."

 "Who?"
Amy asked.

 Jeff
shrugged. "The Greeks, maybe—that would be
quickest. Or else, when we don't come home, our parents
will—"

 "We're
not supposed to leave for another week," Amy said.

 Jeff
nodded.

 "And
then they'd have to come searching for us."

 Again,
he nodded.

 "So
you're talking—what, a month?"

 He
shrugged. "Maybe."

 Amy
looked appalled by this. Her voice jumped a notch. "We
can't live here for a month, Jeff."

 "If
we try to leave, they'll shoot us. That's the one
thing we know for certain."

 "But
what will we eat? How will we—"

 "Maybe
the Greeks will come," Jeff said. "They could come
tomorrow, for all we know."

 "And
then what? They'll just end up trapped here with
us."

 Jeff
shook his head. "We'll keep someone posted at the
base of the hill. To warn them away."

 "But
those men won't let us. They'll force
them—"

 Again,
Jeff shook his head. "I don't think so,"
he said. "It wasn't until you stepped beyond the
clearing that they made us climb the hill. In the beginning, they were
trying to keep us away. I think they'll try to stop the
Greeks from coming up, too. All we have to do is figure out a way to
communicate to them, to let them know what's happened, so
that they can go get help."

 "Pablo,"
Eric said.

 Jeff
nodded. "If we can get him to understand, then he can warn
them off."

 They
all turned and stared at Pablo. He'd emerged from the blue
tent and was wandering around the hilltop. He seemed to be talking to
himself, very softly, muttering. He had his hands in his pants pockets,
his shoulders hunched. He didn't sense them watching him.

 "Planes
might fly over, too," Jeff said. "We can signal to
them with something reflective. Or maybe pull up some of the vines, dry
them out, start a fire. Three fires in a
triangle—that's supposed to be a signal for
help."

 He
stopped talking then; he didn't have any more ideas. And
neither Stacy nor the others had any ideas at all, so they just sat
without speaking for a stretch. In the silence, Stacy gradually became
aware of a strange chirping sound—steady, insistent, barely
audible. A bird, she thought, then knew immediately she was wrong. No
one else seemed to notice the noise, and she was turning to track its
source when Pablo started yelling. He was jumping up and down beside
the mine shaft, pointing into it.

 "What's
he doing?" Amy asked.