The Ruins (30 page)

 "Have
you spoken to the others?" Mathias asked.

 Jeff
shook his head.

 Mathias
brushed some of the green fuzz off his jeans, then wiped his hands in
the dirt, thinking it all through. Finally, he stood up. "We
should vote," he said. "If the others say yes, then
I will, too."

 And
with that, he started back up the hill toward the tent.

T
hey gathered, once again, in
the clearing.

 First
Mathias reappeared, and then, a few moments later, Jeff. They sat on
the ground beside Eric and Stacy, forming a little half circle around
the lean-to. Pablo lay there with his eyes shut, and—even as
they spoke of his situation—no one seemed willing to look at
him. They were avoiding using his name, too; rather than speaking it,
they'd say "he," and throw a vague wave
toward his broken body. Amy was still down at the base of the hill,
watching for the other Greeks, but even after they started talking,
when it became clear that there was a purpose to this conversation,
that something important—something dreadful—was in
the process of being decided, no one mentioned her absence. Stacy
thought of her, wondered if she ought to be fetched—Stacy
wanted this to happen, to have Amy beside her, holding her hand, the
two of them thinking their way through this together—but she
couldn't bring herself to speak. She wasn't good in
situations like this. Fear made her passive, silent. She tended to
cower and wait for bad things to pass her by.

 But
they wanted her opinion. Wanted both hers and Eric's. If they
said yes, then it would happen: Jeff would cut off Pablo's
legs. Which was horrible and unimaginable, but also, according to Jeff,
the only hope. So, by this logic, if they said no, there'd be
no hope. Pablo would die. This was what Jeff told them.

 No
hope—there was a precursor to these words, a first hope that
had to be relinquished in order for the second, also, to be risked.
They weren't going to be rescued today: that was what Jeff
was telling them. And this was what Stacy found herself focusing on,
even though she knew she should've been thinking about
Pablo—they were going to have to spend another night here in
the orange tent, surrounded by the vine, which could move, which could
burrow into Eric's leg, and which—if she were to
believe Jeff—wanted them all dead. She didn't see
how she could do this.

 "How
do you know?" she said. She could feel the fear in her voice,
and it had a redoubling effect: hearing it frightened her all the more.

 "Know
what?" Jeff asked.

 "That
they aren't coming."

 "I
didn't say that."

 "You
said—"

 "That
it didn't seem likely they'll be
coming
today
.
"

 "But—"

 "And
if they don't come today, and we don't act,
he"—and here there was that vague wave toward the
lean-to—"won't make it."

 "But
how do you know?"

 "His
bones are exposed. He's going to—"

 "No—that
they aren't coming."

 "It's
not about knowing; it's about not knowing. About the risk of
waiting rather than acting."

 "So
they might come."

 Jeff
gave her an exasperated look, throwing up his hands. "And
they
might
not
come. That's the whole point."

 They
were circling, of course, not saying anything, really, just throwing
words at each other; even Stacy could see this. He wasn't
going to give her what she wanted—couldn't give it
to her, in fact. She wanted the Greeks to come, wanted them to be here
already, wanted to be rescued, safe, and all Jeff could say was that it
might not happen, not today at least, and that if it didn't,
they had to cut off Pablo's legs.

 He
wanted to do it; Stacy could see this. And Mathias didn't.
But Mathias wasn't speaking. He was just listening, as usual,
waiting for them to decide. Stacy wished he'd say something,
that he'd struggle to convince her and Eric not to agree,
because she didn't want Jeff to cut off Pablo's
legs, couldn't believe that it was a good idea, but she
didn't know how to argue this. She sensed she
couldn't just say no, that she'd have to tell Jeff
why. She needed someone to help her, and there was no one to do it.
Eric had become slightly drunk, was sleepy-eyed with it; he was much
calmer than he had been, it was true, but not entirely present anymore.
And Amy was far away, down the hill, watching for the Greeks.

 "What
about Amy?" Stacy said.

 "What
about her?"

 "Shouldn't
we ask what she thinks?"

 "She
only matters if it's a tie."

 "If
what's a tie?"

 "The
vote."

 "
We're
voting
?"

 Jeff
nodded, made
an
of
course
gesture with his hand, full of impatience, as if this
were the only logical course and he couldn't see why she was
expressing such surprise.

 But
she was surprised. She thought they were just talking about it,
searching for a consensus, that nothing would be done unless they all
agreed. That wasn't how it was, though; it would only take
three of them, and then Jeff would cut off Pablo's legs.
Stacy struggled to put her reluctance into words, fumbling, searching
for an entry. "But…I mean, we can't
just…It doesn't seem—"

 "Cut
them off," Eric said, his voice loud, startling her. "Right now."

 Stacy
turned to look at him. He looked sober suddenly, clear-eyed. And
vehement, too, certain of himself, of the course he was advocating.
Stacy could still say no, she knew. She could say no and then Jeff
would have to go down the hill and ask Amy what she thought.
He'd convince her, probably; even if Amy tried to hold out,
he'd eventually wear her down. He was stronger than the rest
of them. Everyone else was tired and thirsty and longing to be in some
other place, and somehow he didn't seem to be any of those
things. So what was the point of arguing?

 "You're
sure it's the right thing?" she asked.

 "He'll
die if we leave him as he is."

 Stacy
shuddered at that, as if Pablo's potential death were being
laid at her feet—her fault, something she might easily have
averted. "I don't want him to die."

 "Of
course not," Jeff said.

 Stacy
could feel Mathias's gaze upon her. Watching her, unblinking.
He wanted her to say no, she knew. She wished she could, too, but knew
she couldn't.

 "Okay,"
she said. "I guess you should do it."

A
my was taking pictures.

 As
she'd set off from the clearing, she'd grabbed her
camera—reflexively, with no conscious motive—just
picking it up and hanging it around her neck. It was only while she was
crouched beside the path, midway down the hill, in that moment of
relaxation and clarity that followed the release of her bladder, that
she'd realized why she'd reached for it. She wanted
to photograph the Mayans, to collect evidence of what was happening
here, because they were going to be rescued—she kept
insisting upon this to herself—and, after this happened,
there would inevitably be an investigation, and arrests, and a trial.
Which meant there'd need to be evidence, of course, and what
better evidence could there possibly be than photographs of the
perpetrators?

 She
started shooting as soon as she reached the bottom of the hill,
focusing on the men's faces. She enjoyed the feeling it gave
her, a sneaky sort of power, the hunted turning on her hunters. They
were going to be punished; they were going to spend the rest of their
lives in jail. And Amy was going to help this happen. She imagined the
trial while she aimed and snapped, the crowded courtroom, the hush as
she testified. They'd project her photos on a giant screen,
and she'd point at an image of the bald man, that pistol on
his
hip.
He
was the leader,
she'd
say.
He
was the one who wouldn't let us go.

 The
Mayans paid her no attention. They weren't watching, hardly
even seemed to glance her way. Only when she stepped out into the
clearing, searching for a better angle on the group of men clustered
around the nearest campfire, did two of them stir, raising their bows
in her direction. She took their picture, stepped quickly back into the
vines.

 After
awhile, the sense of power started to slip away from her, and she had
nothing good to replace it with. The sun kept climbing, and Amy was too
hot, too hungry, too thirsty. But she'd already been all
these things when she'd first arrived, so this
wasn't what the shift was about. No, it was the
Mayans' indifference to her presence there, so busy with her
camera, that finally began to wear her down. They were clustered around
their smoldering campfire, some of them napping in the slowly
diminishing line of shade at the edge of the jungle. They were talking
and laughing; one of them was whittling a stick, just carving it down
into nothing, a bored man's task, a way to occupy his hands
while time ticked sluggishly by. Because that was it, wasn't
it? That was what they were so clearly doing here: they were waiting.
And not in any suspense, either, not in any anxiety as to the outcome
of their vigil. They were waiting with no apparent emotion at all, as
one might sit over the course of an evening, watching a candle
methodically burn itself into darkness, never less than certain of the
outcome, confident that the only thing standing between now and the end
of waiting was time itself.

 And
what does that
mean?
Amy
wondered.

 Maybe
the Mayans knew about the Greeks. Maybe Juan and Don Quixote had
already come, had walked by the opening to the trail, kept on until
they reached the village, only to be turned back, oblivious, never even
thinking to check the tree line. Neither Amy nor the others had
mentioned this possibility, yet it seemed so obvious now, once
she'd thought of it, so impossible to overlook. They
weren't coming, she realized suddenly, with the weight of
certainty: no one was coming. And if this were true, then there was no
hope. Not for Pablo, certainly, nor for the rest of them. And the
Mayans must have understood this—it was the source of their
boredom, their lassitude—they knew that it was simply a
matter of waiting for events to unfold. Nothing was asked of them but
that they guard the clearing. Thirst and hunger and the vine would do
the rest, as they had so many times before.

 Amy
stopped taking pictures. She felt dizzy, almost drunk; she had to sit
down, dropping into the dirt at the foot of the
trail.
It's
only the sun,
she told
herself.
My
empty stomach.
She was lying, though, and she knew it. The
sun, her hunger, they had nothing to do with it. What she was feeling
was fear. She tried to distract herself from this realization, taking
deep breaths, fussing with her camera. It was just a cheap point-
and-shoot; she'd bought it more than ten years ago, with
money she'd earned as a baby-sitter. Jeff had given her a
digital camera for the trip, but she'd made him take it back.
She was too attached to this one to think of relinquishing it yet. It
wasn't very reliable—it took bad pictures more
often than not, sun-bleached or shadowed, and almost always blurrily
out of focus—but Amy knew she'd have to break it or
lose it or have it stolen before she'd accept the prospect of
a replacement. She checked how many shots she had left—three
out of thirty-six. That would be it, then; she hadn't brought
any extra rolls, hadn't thought they'd be gone long
enough to need them. It seemed odd to think that there was an exact
number of pictures she'd taken in her life, and that nearly
all of them had been with this camera. There were x number of her
parents, x of trees and monuments and sunsets and dogs, x of Jeff and
Stacy. And, if what she was feeling just now was correct—if
the Mayans were correct, if Jeff was correct—then it was
possible that there were only three more to take in her entire life.
Amy tried to decide what they should be. There ought to be a group
shot, she supposed, using the timer, all of them clustered around Pablo
on his backboard. And one of her and Stacy, of course, arm in arm, the
last in the series. And then—

 "Are
you okay?"

 Amy
turned, and there Stacy was, standing over her, with that makeshift
umbrella on her shoulder. She looked wretched—gaunt and
greasy-haired. Her mouth was trembling, and her hands, too, making the
umbrella rattle softly, as if in a slight breeze.

 Am
I
okay?
Amy
thought,
struggling for an honest answer. Her dizziness had been followed by an
odd sense of calm, a feeling of resignation. She wasn't like
Jeff, wasn't a fighter. Or maybe she simply
couldn't fool herself as easily as he did. The threat of
dying here didn't fill her with an urgency to be up and
doing; it made her tired, made her feel like lying down, as if to hurry
the process along. "I guess so," she said. And
then, because Stacy looked so much worse than she herself felt: "Are you?"

 Stacy
shook her head. She gestured behind her, up the hill. "They're…you know…"
She trailed off, as if unable to find the words. She licked her lips,
which had become deeply cracked in the past twenty-four
hours—chapped,
rawly
split—a castaway's lips. When she tried again, her
voice was a whisper. "They've started."

 "Started
what?"

 "Cutting
off his legs."

 "What're
you talking about?" Amy asked. Though she knew, of course.

 "Pablo's,"
Stacy whispered, lifting her eyebrows very high, as if this news were a
surprise to her, too. "They're using the
knife."