Exotic #02 - The Hieroglyphic Staircase (24 page)

It didn’t take Dominic long to figure that one out. “Something not worth waiting out a hurricane is driving them.”

“Yes,” said Paco. “I hate to say this but if and when that guy gets what he wants from them, they’re lives aren’t worth much. Not to someone like him.”

“You have given voice to my greatest fears.”

They jumped back when a fierce gust of wind laden with rain ripped through the opening.

Dominic debated the options. He could wait out the storm here or try to make it back to town. Or try to make it to the ruins in a hurricane. There was no question. If what Paco said were true, Elena and Miguel were battling a hurricane on their way to the ruins. He would follow them whatever the cost.

“I’m going to the ruins, Paco,” he said. “Tell me how to get to that trail.”

“I’ll do one better,” said Paco. “I’ll show you. I’m going with you.”

Eighteen

The only good part about the second half of the hurricane was that it wasn’t as fierce, thought Elena. They must be on the side that didn’t produce as much wind though the rain was relentless, and the river was over its banks and rising. She could see it from where they sat in the shelter of an overhang high above the river bank.

She hurt all over. Her head ached, her eye throbbed, her knee was bloody, her leg on fire. Miguel sat by her side holding her hand, which was a comfort. She looped her arm over his shoulder and pulled him closer. If she didn’t come up with a brilliant idea soon, they would not be alive much longer. As soon as Jorge got what he wanted, he’d get rid of them. But she wouldn’t go without a fight.

She hoped her theory was right about where the hiding place was. The drawing in the director’s book had given her the clue. He had drawn lines projecting at different angles from the eyes of the picture of Smoke Shell, like he was trying to determine a direction in the line of sight. One was highlighted darker than the others. Using that line of projection Elena had calculated what Smoke Shell was gazing upon from his frozen position in the stone stellae.

His gaze was trained on the fifty-second step in the Hieroglyphic Staircase, a number significant in the Mayan calendar which progressed in fifty-two year cycles. Elena was betting that behind the stones on that step was what Jorge and the man he had murdered sought. She wondered what had been hidden that would drive men to murder, and who had hidden it. Had the director hidden whatever they were after?

Jorge reappeared at the overhang. It was a miracle he had allowed them to rest. After Elena had stumbled and fallen at least half a dozen times, Miguel had pleaded with him to stop. With Jorge’s reluctant consent, Miguel had led them to the overhang, one of his hiding places.

“Get up,” Jorge said. “You’ve had time enough to rest.” He pointed the gun at her. “Tell me where this place is.”

“I said I’d show you. It’s difficult to explain.”

She rose unsteadily, knowing that for her impertinence, for her unwillingness to tell him she risked another blow. She steeled herself for that possibility. But it didn’t come.

He stared at her over the gun and smirked. “All right. Have it your way. But later, I will have my way with you.” He winked at her, a hateful wink that Elena wanted to smack right off his face.

His insinuation made her angrier, and her resolve to overcome the abominable man strengthened. She took Miguel’s hand and started toward Smoke Shell’s stela. She was sure her calculations of the trajectory were accurate, but she wanted to visually inspect it. She had been working puzzles a long time, but she wanted to make sure. A lot was riding on this.

The sky was starting to lighten, and, as they slogged along through wet grass and vines, Elena wondered what time it was. It had to be near dawn. She thought back on the first part of the night she’d spent with Dominic and Miguel at the clinic. It was a dream now. This was the nightmare. Would that she’d wake up in her nice cozy bed at
doña
Carolita’s, and this horror would be gone, just a nightmare, nothing more. She thought of Dominic and wondered if he was okay. She knew he’d never be able to figure out where they were, what had happened to them. It all occurred so fast. Their plight was hopeless.

She shook her head. Elena Palomares was not going to give way to despair. She forced her brain to think of some way out, some way to overpower Jorge, get the gun from him. She looked down at Miguel who hurried along beside her. If they could only talk, between them they might figure some way to escape.

The storm seemed to be waning, growing weaker. Gusts of wind sometimes threatened to push them over, but mostly there was rain, never ending rain. She had never been so wet or so miserable. Think, she had to think of something, but her brain wouldn’t cooperate. She had difficulty thinking at all.

They arrived at the clearing west of the Ball Court, and still Elena hadn’t come up with a brilliant way to escape. Leaves, branches and odd pieces of tin lay scattered across the court that used to be beautifully manicured. In front of her climbed the Hieroglyphic Staircase, the protective tarp blown off and heaved to the side as if someone had wanted to get a better view of the steps. The fifty-second step would be near the top.

“Stop,” said Jorge. “Why have we come here?”

“We’re close now to the hiding place. I can show you.”

He looked at her, as if trying to judge her mettle. How much further could he push her until she’d break? She never would she vowed to herself.

“Give me the kid,” Jorge said. “If you try to pull anything stupid, the kid is dead.” He reached for Miguel while keeping the gun trained on Elena.

Miguel stepped back and clutched her hand harder.

“The child stays with me,” she said. A deadly calm took anchor inside her. “If you shoot me now, you won’t know where the hiding place is. We’ve come all this distance, and you won’t know.”

Her mouth tried to smile but was only halfway successful. She knew she had him. If he hit her again, it really wouldn’t matter. She didn’t care what happened to her. It was Miguel she wanted to protect. Jorge knew he was pushing too far and too hard. She could see it in his ugly face.

She turned without waiting for him to speak and walked on to Smoke Shell’s stela, holding tight to Miguel’s hand. She focused on the head and eyes of the stone face. She kept checking the angle where the eyes were gazing. They looked toward the upper steps of the Staircase.

She smiled to herself. She didn’t need to know the exact step. The Mayan magic number was fifty-two. It was the holy number in their cycle of worlds. Jorge and his ilk would not understand the significance. Only someone who had studied Mayan history would. The director had figured it out, and she liked to think he had left the clue for her. Maybe he had concealed something there.

A fuzzy plan formed in her mind. If she could get Jorge to follow them up to the top of the stairs, she might be able to push him backward somehow. The stairs were extremely narrow, and he had on boots. She had on water logged sandals. Footing normally was precarious. In this wet, windy environment it could be deadly. She was accustomed to the stairs and knew how to walk. He might not. There might be a chance to push him down the stairs. A drop from that height would be enough to knock him out. Even better, it might kill him. That gave her a perverse sense of satisfaction that didn’t bother her conscience in the slightest.

She lingered before the stela and gazed into Smoke Shell’s carved stone eyes, worn by time and weather. She wanted to kiss him for giving up his secret to her.

“Stop stalling,” said Jorge. He came close and pushed the muzzle of the gun into the side of her breast. “This is not time for sightseeing. Where is the hiding place? If you are trying to trick me, you will be very, very sorry.” He placed the gun next to her temple. “Click, click, click. That’s all it takes. But first I will let you experience the very slow death of the kid.” Jorge laughed, not a sane, friendly laugh, but a maniacal cackle.

Elena swallowed hard and willed the picture from her mind. “Take the gun away, or I won’t show you.”

An inch at a time Jorge brought the gun down.

She turned toward the stairs, trying hard not to let him see how much she was shaking. “Up there behind the stairs is the place.”

Jorge followed her gaze. At first, he didn’t seem to understand. “Up where?”

Elena indicated with a nod of her head. “We have to go up the stairs. It’s up there.”

Jorge started laughing again, that maniacal cackle. “You mean, all the time, I’ve been stealing stones from that stupid staircase, and the hiding place has been right here?”

She nodded, hoping and praying she was right. Jorge seemed to believe her.

“Okay, bitch. There’s a lot of steps and a lot of stones, which step is it?”

“I’ll show you. We’ll go up the steps together.”

“No, you tell me which step and which hieroglyphs.”

“Let the boy go.”

“No deal. Get moving. We all go.”

Elena wished she could signal Miguel to run if he got the chance. If she got caught in a struggle with Jorge, she was afraid Miguel would try to defend her. She wanted him to run for help, as fast as his little legs would carry him, like he did on the day of the murder. But Jorge was right on top of her, pushing her with the gun, and Miguel wouldn’t let go of her hand.

A brilliant idea occurred to her.

“Look,” she said, “all three of us can’t go up there side by side. Let me go first and lead the way. Let Miguel stay down here.”

“You think I’m a fool?” said Jorge. “Let the kid down here and then he runs away? No way. He’s my insurance. He goes first, you second, I’m last. And no funny business. Or you are both dead.”

Elena leaned over and said to Miguel. “All right, Miguel, you first. Go the whole way to the top.” And under her breath she quickly said, “Run for help the first chance you get.”

Jorge didn’t appear to hear the last comment because he shoved her to move. Miguel looked at her from the corner of his eye and gave her a little half-smile. He had understood. He started up the steps and stayed one or two steps in front.

Another round of rain pelted them and even Elena had trouble finding safe footing. The steps were slippery from the rain and soft moss that grew on the stones.

She looked back. They had gotten higher up than Jorge in no time. Between trying to see through the rain and get his big, boot laden feet on the steps he had fallen behind.

“Stop.” He waved the gun at them. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

They stopped.

“Wait up for me.”

Elena calculated the distance Jorge would tumble if she pushed him now, but decided he hadn’t advanced far enough to do permanent damage. Just a little further, Jorge, she said in her mind. Just a little further.

His progress was at a snail’s pace because his booted feet would not fit the steps even when he tried to walk sideways, crab fashion. Elena was glad he was having so much trouble. She sneaked a glance at Miguel when Jorge had his head down. He had a little smile. Elena motioned with her hand for him to go up a few more steps, and he moved two more before Jorge raised his head.

“Don’t try anything.” Jorge screamed the words, his face contorted into a nasty grimace. “I should kill both of you now.”

Elena sat down on a step. “Then you won’t know where the hiding place is. What’s hidden that is so important you’d kill for it?”

Jorge stopped, trying to catch his breath. “Millions of dollars. Millions. I’ll be set for life. I’ll be rolling in money.”

Elena doubted that millions of dollars would be in a hiding place here, but there might be something worth millions of dollars. She wondered what it was and where it had come from. One thing she hadn’t figured out yet was where the exact hiding place was in the row of glyphs on the fifty-second step. Jorge might throw every glyph down the side of the pyramid looking for it.

When Jorge caught up, she turned and started up the steps again. The rain had let up. Soft gusts of wind caught her from time to time. Water made tiny puddles in the uneven surface of the steps. Elena was tired beyond caring, motivated only by the hope that Miguel could get away when she pushed Jorge. He’d have to stay up with her to do that, and they still weren’t high enough.

C’mon, Jorge, move those big clumsy feet up the steps.

“Don’t go so fast,” Jorge called. “Slow down, you stupid bitch.”

If he called her stupid bitch one more time ….

Now Miguel was at least ten steps higher. Jorge didn’t seem to notice. Elena waved Miguel higher. If he could get high enough to get out of range, he could run for it. The back side of the pyramid was rubble, sloping to a grassy area. If Miguel could make it up over the top and be gone, Jorge wouldn’t be able to shoot him.

C’mon Jorge, just a little higher. Elena waited while he took step after laborious step.

“Why don’t you take off those boots?” she called to him.

“Why don’t you shut up, bitch?”

She was going to slam him so hard when he got a little higher, he would regret the day his mother gave him birth.

The sky lightened steadily, as the dark storm clouds tired of their fury and moved off to the northwest. Gray clouds scudded across the sky and gave up more rain, but gentler now. The storm picked up speed, tiring of Copan Ruinas and its inhabitants, eager to terrorize another community.

Elena turned and inched up another few steps. Her muscles ached, especially the leg he had kicked, and she couldn’t see out of the injured eye. But those pains seemed minor to their fate if they could not get away from Jorge.

“Wait,” called Jorge. “How much further?” He sat on the step where he was and twisted around to keep them in sight. “Tell the kid to wait up.”

Elena called to Miguel, and he stopped and sat down.

Jorge’s as tired as I am, thought Elena with warped glee. None of them had had any sleep or anything to drink or eat, except rain as they could catch it. She was beyond pain and exhaustion. She was high on adrenalin.

“I’m going ahead of you,” Jorge said, as he rose to continue on.

Damnation, thought Elena, we aren’t high enough. I’ll have to chance it. It was the perfect opportunity to trip him up as he went by her.