Skull Duggery (24 page)

“Not down here, no. That was only in the Mayan and Veracruz cultures.”

“Oh.” He was disappointed.

“But it was a brutal game all the same,” Gideon said to cheer him up. “The ball wasn’t like a volleyball or a soccer ball. That is, it was about the same size, but it was hard, solid rubber, weighing a good five or six pounds. Imagine getting hit in the face with that when you weren’t expecting it. Players would get really beaten up by them. According to one of the Spanish chroniclers, some of them were killed when the ball hit them in the head or the chest.”

“No kidding,” Tony said. “That’s interesting.” But it seemed to Gideon that his interest was wandering. He was restless. Enough lectures for one morning.

“Why don’t we head up to the fortress?” Gideon suggested. “Supposed to be a terrific view from up there.”

“Yeah, later, but the ball court’s cool. Tell me some more stuff.”

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know that much more. There’s some evidence that the game was sometimes used as a proxy for war. For example, one of the missionaries claims he saw a game between the Toltec king and three of his rivals, with the winner becoming the ruler of the whole empire.”

“You’re shitting me,” Tony said. “The whole empire?” But it was increasingly clear that his interested had wandered. He was preoccupied with something. He was oddly animated too: jumpy, on the edge of something. Gideon had the strong impression that he was getting up his nerve to say something, to ask Gideon something.

“Tony, is there something on your mind? Anything wrong?”

“Wrong? No, I got a lot on my mind, that’s all. Business stuff. But this is interesting. So who won the game? Did the Aztec king win?”

“Toltec, not Aztec,” Gideon couldn’t help pointing out, as if Tony gave a damn. “But I’m afraid I don’t know who won.”

“Shame,” Tony said distractedly, and then, half to himself: “Toltec, not Aztec. Got it.” His eyes darted haphazardly over the site. Gideon had the extraordinary impression that he might be on the verge of tears. What was going on here? “That round stone in the middle down there,” Tony blurted. “What’s that for? A goal or something?”

Whatever was bothering Tony, that old stone wasn’t it. But Gideon wasn’t much of a psychotherapist; he was supremely uncomfortable, and not very good, at digging into the reluctant psyches of other people. If Tony had something to say, it was going to be up to him to say it.

Gideon turned to look down at the stone, a crudely carved disk about a foot thick and two feet across. “No, that was probably a marker dividing the two sides. The way they-”

He heard something halfway between a sob and a grunt. Surprised and concerned, he turned. What happened next was so astounding, so utterly unexpected, that his reaction was completely instinctive. Tony, face contorted, was rushing toward him with his arms outstretched. Gideon batted with his right arm at Tony’s extended arms, catching him heavily in the shoulder. The blow sent Tony off to one side, but his momentum carried him one, two lurching, twisting steps onward to the edge, where he teetered briefly, then, arms windmilling, making chimp-like hooting noises, his feet went out from under him and over the edge he went. The last Gideon saw of him were his eyes, wild and rolling and furious.

The whole thing had taken less than two seconds.

Tony fell, not toward the playing field, but to the side, where the stone staircase came up, his body flumping heavily onto the landing where the steps turned. It was a drop of no more than nine or ten feet, but a violent contortion-almost as if he intentionally wrenched himself off the landing and into the air-sent him over the edge of that as well, and he plummeted another twenty feet to the stony ground. There he landed on his back, and this time he lay still.

For a moment Gideon was frozen, so utterly thunderstruck that he couldn’t move. What just happened? When he’d first seen Tony barreling into him, he’d thought for a millisecond that Tony had burst into tears, that this was an anguished embrace, a plea for help.

But only for a millisecond. If Gideon hadn’t been turning at the time, Tony would have smashed into his unprotected back and it would have been Gideon who had been launched into space and would now be lying there thirty feet below. But what on earth had made…

He jerked his head to shake the cobwebs loose and started quickly down the steps. Tony was moving a little now, he could see: a gentle, circular motion of his left forearm, fingers slightly curled, like an orchestra conductor calling forth a slow, pianissimo passage. He had drawn up his knees too. He didn’t seem to be in pain. There were no obviously broken limbs, and Gideon could see no blood. He knew better than to think there were no grave injuries, however; nobody could fall ten feet onto a stone platform, and then an additional twenty feet onto hard, stony ground-flat on his back both times, which meant he had to have struck his head as well-and then walk away as if nothing had happened.

When he reached Tony, he saw that he was right. Tony’s eyes were open and they followed Gideon, but the rims of both eyes had brown residue on them, a sure sign of intracranial hemorrhaging. He had taken out his cell phone on the way down, but he didn’t know Mexico’s equivalent of 911. Instead, he dialed the Hacienda. Annie picked up on the first ring.

“Good morning,” she sang, “ buenos dias -”

“Annie, this is Gideon. I’m at Yagul. Tony’s had an accident, a fall-serious-”

He caught the shocked intake of breath. “serious? What do you mean, serious? He’s not-?”

“He’s alive, but I think he’s suffered a brain injury. Can you get an ambulance here?”

“Yes, of course. Is he-never mind! I’ll call right away. My God-” She clicked off.

Gideon knelt beside him. Tony’s eyes continued to follow. There was a glob of blood in one nostril, and a thin trickle from his right ear. The nasal blood might be nothing, but the bleeding from the ear-that was another bad sign.

“Tony,” he said softly. “What was that about?”

Tony looked at him with an expression of mild curiosity. He made no attempt to speak. His arm was still making its slow circles. Gently, Gideon took hold of his wrist and laid it on his chest. It stayed there.

“Tony, can you hear me?”

No reply. Tony was watching Gideon’s lips. The pupil of his left eye was a pinpoint; the other seemed normal. Another indicator of an injured brain. There wasn’t much doubt about it now.

Tony was mostly on his back, but his head and hips were twisted to opposite sides. The position looked unpleasant, but Tony didn’t look uncomfortable. Gideon knew better than to try to straighten him out.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Creo que si.” I think so. Gideon waited for a name, but none came.

“Do you know who you are?” he asked quietly.

“Quien sabe?” he said, sounding too weary to care. Who knows? Then his eyes rolled up and his eyelids fluttered a few times and closed.

“Tony?”

No reply. Gideon put a hand on his chest to make sure he was still breathing. He was, but raggedly. The trickle of blood from his ear now ran all the way to the back of his head and dripped slowly onto the ground. The blood at his eyes and nose was about the same as before.

Gideon settled down on the ground to wait with him, his mind whirling. What the hell just happened? Several groups of visitors had arrived by now and although everyone else kept well clear of the two men, a Mexican tour guide came up to ask if there was anything he could do.

“Not unless you’re a doctor,” Gideon said.

The man had seen the entire terrible incident, however-how the other man had tried to push him off the platform-and he offered his name and telephone number if a witness were needed. Gideon, realizing for the first time that a witness might indeed be a very good thing to have, gratefully accepted his business card: Vicente Abelardo: Tours Arqueologicos, City Tours, Bike Rides y Otros.

The ambulance, a brand spanking new orange-and-white van from the hospital in Tlacolula, came bouncing up to them, right onto the edge of the playing field, spraying dust and gravel. At almost the same time another one of the Hacienda vans pulled up, with Annie at the wheel and Julie in the passenger seat.

The two ambulance attendants were professional and quick. A few brief questions that he was able to understand and answer in Spanish: How long has he been unconscious? Was he conscious at all after the fall? Has he vomited? Convulsed? Shown evidence of pain? Shown any movement below the neck? Gideon answered them all and added his observation about the difference in pupil size.

They glanced at each other, saying nothing (what could they say?), then got swiftly down to work, while Gideon moved off to the side with Annie and Julie to watch. Tony’s head and neck were immobilized in a plastic cradle with head and chin straps, and then he was expertly slid onto a board, strapped to it, and hauled into the back of the ambulance. Tony’s lips were moving as he was lifted, but his eyes stayed closed. The doors slammed shut, and they were gone in another explosion of dirt and gravel. When the ambulance had gotten there, most of the other visitors to the site came to gawk, but now they rapidly dispersed, murmuring among themselves. It had turned into an exciting day for them, after all.

“Julie, would you mind driving back with Gideon?” a distracted, lip-biting Annie asked. “I want to go to the hospital to be with Tony.”

“Of course, go ahead.”

She started to leave, then stopped and took Gideon’s hand. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

He smiled weakly but said nothing. In fact, everything had happened so quickly since they’d arrived that Gideon hadn’t told them what had really happened. He said nothing now, either, as he and Julie walked to the van, other than to ask her to drive.

She looked at him curiously-he generally enjoyed driving more than she did-but got into the driver’s side and turned on the ignition. They followed the ambulance and Annie’s van down the dirt road until they came to Highway 190, where the ambulance flicked on its siren and raced south toward the hospital, with Annie closely following, like an airborne bird sheltering in the “wake” of the leader of the flock. Julie and Gideon turned north, toward Teotitlan. Only then did either of them speak.

“It must have been pretty bad,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so… I don’t know… it’s like you’re in shock. Are you all right?”

“Sure, I’m all right. Look, when you get to the Teotitlan turnoff, don’t take it. Let’s keep going. I need to talk to Javier about this.”

She looked doubtfully at him. “I don’t understand. Why would Javier-”

“Julie, it wasn’t an accident. Tony tried to kill me up there.”

“He tried to-” She swerved rapidly to the side of the road and pulled up on the shoulder. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

“I’m afraid so. He tried to shove me off the platform. He wound up going over the edge instead.”

“But why? That’s crazy!”

He spread his hands. “I don’t have a clue.”

“My God. Tell me what happened.”

“There’s not much to tell. I was answering one of his questions about the ball court, and I had my back to him, and I heard-I don’t know what I heard-a sob, maybe, and I’d been worried about him anyway because he’d been acting strangely.”

“Strangely how?”

“Tense, nervous, preoccupied…” He gestured at the ignition. “Could we get going again, please?”

“Gideon, at this point, I think I’m more shaky than you are. I mean, if you hadn’t been turning around… if you…” She let out a breath. “Do you feel up to driving? I think it’d be safer.”

“Yes, I’m okay. The adrenaline rush is over, and so is the knees-like-jelly follow-up. I’m me again.”

“I never had the pleasure of the adrenaline rush, I’ve gone straight to the knees-like-jelly phase. When I think what might have… whew.”

They switched seats, and then Gideon turned the engine on once more and edged out onto the highway.

For the next few miles there was only silence, and then Julie picked up the conversation where they’d left it. “Okay, so you hear what sounds like a sob behind you…”

“And I turn, and as I turn, here he comes at me, full speed ahead. I-well, I’m not sure what I did. I guess I sort of stepped out of the way and backhanded him-you know, a swipe with my arm to keep him off me-and over he goes, without a sound. Hit the landing on the stairs, bounced off, and fell the rest of the way down.”

“And hit his head, obviously.”

“I couldn’t be positive at the time, but yes, obviously.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I called Annie, and you know the rest.”

She nodded. “How serious do you think Tony’s injuries are?”

“Serious,” Gideon said. “Put it this way: if he’s lucky, he’ll die, because I don’t think his brain’s going to be of much use to him from now on.”

Another quiet nod, followed by a soft sigh.

“How are you feeling about this, Julie? I know you liked him. You must feel-”

“What I’m feeling,” she said firmly, “is relief, enormous, overwhelming relief that you’re still here.” She reached across to put her hand on his thigh. When he covered it with his own, he could feel it trembling. He curled his fingers gently around it. “What I’m feeling,” she went on, and now the tremble was in her voice as well, “is thank God you acted the way you did, as quickly as you did. If something had happened to you… I can’t even…”

He squeezed her hand, not trusting himself to speak, thinking for the thousandth time: How fantastically lucky I am to have her, to be loved by this beautiful, marvelous woman.

“What I’m feeling about Tony?” She continued after a moment, in a steadier voice. “I haven’t sorted that out yet. Disbelief. Incomprehension. Bewilderment. What could he have been thinking? Was he crazy? What possible motivation could he have to do that to you?”