Fallen Idols (4 page)

“There's nothing I can do about this now,” the minister had concluded. “I sincerely wish I could help you, you know that. But I cannot. Although perhaps …” He paused. “There might be another solution,” he said slowly.

“Which is what?” Walt answered in a dubious voice. “Right now I am in no mood to be jerked around.”

“I would never do that,” the minister said unctuously.

“Okay, fine. So what's your solution?”

“Take the men who are guarding the site.”

Hearing that, Walt groaned. “That's your solution? That's a wonderful idea.”

“It would only be for a day and a half. Two days maximum.” The minister didn't sound convincing, even to himself.

“We can't leave this site unguarded, not for one night,” Walt answered dismissively. “Forget that. It's an insane idea. Which you damn well know.”

Walt never left a dig in which he was in charge unguarded. Protection against looting and vandalism, the scourges of developing sites, superseded everything. In one night, knowledgeable
guaquereos
—tomb raiders—could swoop in and haul off precious artifacts that could be worth millions of dollars on the antiquities black market. Having your site looted was an archaeologist's worst nightmare. Which was why every night of the year, without exception, native guards armed with shotguns and semiautomatic rifles stood watch over La Chimenea, to keep predators out.

“I won't leave this site unguarded,” he told his caller again.

“I'm sorry, then,” the minister replied. He tried to sound convincing. “There is nothing more I can do for you.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” Walt shot back, his reasons diametrically opposite those of the high-ranking but ineffectual functionary sitting in his opulent office, four hundred miles away, who couldn't wait to hang up on this hard-nosed
americano
and drink a soothing daiquiri.

After Walt had rung off and taken a walkabout around the site, he'd calmed down. Jocelyn had reminded him that in all the time they'd been traveling in this country they had never been in danger, not in any serious, life-threatening way. Besides, the rebels the minister had referred to were based in the northwest, on the border, hundreds of miles from here. The rebels’ struggle, Jocelyn had pointed out, was with the government, not with American archaeologists. They welcomed the opening of new sites, as a show to the world of their former glory, which stood in stark, dismal contrast to their downward descent these past five hundred years, since the Spanish had come from across the ocean and destroyed their rich culture forever.

“It's no big deal,” she counseled him. “Let it go. And don't take it personally.”

She was right; she was usually right about these things. But he did take it personally, he couldn't help it.

It wasn't the threat of danger that had upset him, Jocelyn was right about that: it was the lack of respect for the effort he and the others were doing here. For the next half-century this place would be in a state of excavation. Archaeologists from around the world would gather here to help dig up and reveal its myriad secrets and glories. And this ungrateful government would reap the rewards.

He moped about it for a couple hours more, then he put the slight behind him.

The four-wheel-drive diesel-powered minivans were piled high with their gear; no one had slept in, or forgot something at the last minute, or was otherwise holding things back.

But they hadn't gone anywhere.

“We went over all this yesterday, Manuel.” Walt was talking in Spanish, his voice fast, harsh. “Everything was completely smooth, I thought. How many times did I ask you if everything was okay? A dozen, at least?”

He was steaming. If smoke could actually come out of human ears, his would be Mount Saint Helens.

“It was. I checked and double-checked. Triple-checked. Me and Ernesto both did. Everything was tiptop.” Walt's main man on the ground said morosely, feeling Walt was blaming him for this fiasco, even though
el jefe
should know he wasn't to blame.

“We needed an early start. That's why I was so concerned with checking everything out, over and over.” Walt rubbed his knuckles into his temples in angry frustration. “This is going to screw us up, big-time.”

“No, no, Professor Gaines, we can fix it.”

Jocelyn inserted herself into their argument. “It was an accident,” she said, physically putting her body between the two men. “They do happen.” She turned to Manuel. “How long will it take to fix, Manuel?” she asked. When she spoke, there was no rancor, no accusation. Her voice was soft, supportive.

Manuel had great admiration for Professor Gaines. He was the smartest man Manuel knew. Professor Gaines was responsible for all the good things that were happening here, and he treated Manuel very well, like an equal, a partner. He treated all the native workers well, he wasn't the least bit condescending, like some of the
norteamericanos
Manuel had worked with over the years. But he could be impatient when things went wrong. People who didn't know him well, as Manuel did, sometimes got the wrong impression of him.

“An hour, tops. Look, Ernesto is already working on it.”

Ernesto, the do-it-all handyman of the local workers, had already pulled the broken alternator from the engine compartment and was examining it, turning the defective part over in his rough-callused hands.

“Can you figure out what happened?” Walt asked him in exasperation.

Ernesto turned the part over. “The wiring is messed up.”

“Messed up? What do you mean? Burnt out?”

Ernesto shook his head. “It shouldn't have. We put it on ourselves, new. But it got messed up, somehow.”

“Between yesterday, when you drove it, and this morning.”

Ernesto shrugged. Manuel hung his head.

Jocelyn interceded again. “Walt, let the man fix the damn thing. Jawboning him about why or how isn't going to solve our problem. Let's get it fixed and get on the road.”

“She's right,
Señor
Walt,” Manuel said quickly, wanting to head off more arguing, which wasn't going to solve any problems. “Ernesto can have it ready lickety-split.”

Manuel liked to throw slangy English phrases into his discussions with Walt. He felt it was another way for them to be equals, if he could speak in Walt's jargon. That he'd never heard such anachronisms come from his boss's mouth, but had learned them on old movies on television, didn't matter. He admired Professor Gaines's initiative, his get-up-and-go, his genius. This was one way to show that.

“I'm not liking this,” Walt said. He took the defective part from Ernesto and hefted it in his hand. “A practically brand-new part, and it goes bad. That seems strange to me.”

Jocelyn, standing next to him, rolled her eyes. “My God, you're so uptight this morning. Shit happens, my dear obstinate husband. Get over it. Let the man do his job.”

She pulled him away from Manuel and Ernesto, who picked up their tools and went to work.

Walt sat under a shady tree and had a cup of coffee. He was antsy as hell, for lots of good reasons. He looked at his watch again. Eight o'clock. Damn it! They should have been on the move over an hour ago. By leaving this late it would be touch-and-go whether they would be out of the jungle, off the dangerous roads, and to a safe area—the airport—by nightfall.

The others were sitting around in small groups, talking, lounging, waiting. Walt had been keeping an eye on Diane Montrose since she'd come out of her hut and thrown her duffel bag up onto one of the vehicles. She had glanced over at him once and smiled, a Mona Lisa cryptic smile that revealed nothing. Otherwise, she hadn't come near him. She was sitting with two other women, talking quietly. They were exchanging notes—phone numbers and addresses. It was obvious—only to him, of course—that she was avoiding any close contact. He took that to be a good sign.

“Señor
Gaines, it's finished.”

He looked up. Manuel and Ernesto were standing next to him, looking at him anxiously. Walt glanced at his watch again. Then he smiled.

“An hour on the button. Good work, guys.” He got up and walked into the clearing, dumping the remains of his coffee onto the ground. “Listen up!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to him.

“A record pit stop.” He pointed to Manuel and Ernesto, who were beaming, having endured Walt's earlier surliness. “Better than A. J. Foyt. So let's give these good fellows a fine round of applause.”

The volunteers all clapped loudly, enthusiastically, and gratefully.

“All right, pilgrims,” Walt called out in his best John Wayne imitation. “Let's saddle up and bring these doggies home!”

Manuel drove the lead minivan. Walt rode shotgun. Jocelyn sat in the corresponding seat in Ernesto's follow vehicle. This perch was a small perk of status—all the other passengers were jammed in like sardines, elbows and feet and knees and legs all tangled up. It was going to be an uncomfortable ride—eight to ten hours, with minimal breaks—but that was part of the adventure. If it was easy, Walt had preached until they all took it up as a jokey mantra, anyone could do it.

Diane Montrose was in the far backseat of Walt's van, sandwiched in between three others. He'd assigned her to his vehicle. He didn't want her being in the same van with Jocelyn for this long trip.

She'd been cool about everything. She had climbed into the back and settled in. Half an hour later, she'd fallen asleep. Some of the others had, too. They were tired, and it was going to be a long, boring ride.

The sun was at the height of its arc. Walt checked his watch again, then looked out the bug-smeared windshield. They were making pretty good time. It was still touch-and-go, but if they could keep up this rate of speed they were going to get out of the jungle and to the safety of the airport by nightfall.

“We're doing okay,” he said to Manuel. “Better than I had hoped for.”

“Oh, sure, boss,” Manuel chirped, down-shifting into second again to maneuver over another crater-sized pothole. The vans never got out of third gear during the tedious drive. Twenty-five miles an hour was the best time they could make. Usually it was fifteen, ten, or even five. “I knew we'd be okay, once we got going.”

“I wish you'd told me that back this morning. Would've saved my belly from aching.”

“I tried, but you didn't want to hear it.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It's okay,” Manuel reassured him. “You didn't mean nothing by it.”

Walt looked affectionately at the small, nut-brown man who was wrestling the steering wheel with his Popeye forearms. Manuel had been on teams with him before, at other sites, but this was the first one at which Walt had designated him to be his lead assistant. He was conscientious, thorough, a quick study, meticulous, and a good supervisor; responsibility hadn't gone to his head, the man was humble to a fault.

He was comfortable with Manuel's being in charge when he wasn't there—he knew the site would be maintained properly, that everything would be handled professionally.

“When do you think you'll be coming down again, boss?” Manuel asked him, his attention focused on the twists and turns ahead of them. “Before your Christmas break?”

Walt nodded. “I'll be down at least once before then,” he answered. “I plan to take a couple of weeks off in October. And I'm going to be here a lot starting the first of next year. I'm taking a sabbatical next semester. I've got too much work to do not to be here more.”

“That sounds good, boss,” Manuel said enthusiastically. “But there's no rush. The work will always be here. When we are old men eating soft food with our toothless gums, the work will still be here.”

Walt sat back against the hot seat. “I'm not that far off from that now,” he said with a self-deprecating, albeit rueful, laugh.

Manuel laughed back. “You're as young as a fresh colt, Professor Gaines. You still kick everybody's ass.”

“That's nice to hear,” Walt thanked him. “But it's coming. I'm not going to fool myself. I've got to make as much hay as I can while the sun's still shining on me. I don't want to be like one of those old ballplayers who can't get around on the fastball anymore but won't face up to it.”

Like most Central Americans, Manuel was a baseball nut, so he understood the analogy. “You can still hit the ball out of the park,” he told Walt. “You're still the cleanup hitler.”

“Today, yes. But three, five years from now?” He shook his head. “Don't think so. So while I can, I want to be here, as much as I can.”

Five years. That's what he was giving himself. In five years, if he pushed hard, they could excavate and restore the Central Plaza, bringing it to the level of those at Tikal and Chichén Itzé. A Herculean task that would be his monument forever.

The road bent sharply to the right. Manuel shifted down, to gain traction. As he turned the almost-ninety-degree corner and began slowly accelerating again, they almost plowed right into the massive mahogany tree that had fallen directly across their path, blocking the road completely.

Walt stared out the windshield. Before he could begin to curse at the gods for yet another stroke of bad luck, the first drops of rain hit the windshield.

The oppressiveness of the humidity inside the vans, the steam heat that felt like they were in a sauna in which the temperature had been cranked up way too high, the body stench that was fast emerging from their sweaty underarms, groins, feet, belly-folds, the sour dry rankness of their breath, the almost caterpillar-crawl squishiness of someone's skin touching someone else's skin—all of it became intolerable almost immediately. So even though the rain was coming down in sheets most of them had gotten out of the vehicles and were huddled under the trees at the side of the road, which offered scant protection against the torrent that was healing down on them like hot liquid BB pellets, soaking everything—hair, skin, clothing. They were drenched to the bone and were becoming more and more miserable by the minute.

They had brought chainsaws with them, of course. Trees fall down in the forest, that's an immutable fact of nature. They'd had to cut through these kinds of roadblocks before, so they came prepared. The cutting went slower than usual—the tree was massive and wet, and they had to be especially careful because of the slippery conditions.