Chapter Four #2
KuTu stopped suddenly, pain tightening his expression.
Angélica turned to her father, her brow covered in lines. “Did you understand that, Dad?”
Juan shook his head. “You know my grasp of Mayan is weak, especially when it is spoken at lightning speed.”
“What did he say?” Quint asked her, not sure he wanted to hear the answer based on her troubled expression.
Angélica looked around the group of them, her gaze settling on Quint at the end. “KuTu says that he didn’t find a stack of teeth.” She held up the tooth with the jade bead. “He found a pile of skulls with many teeth like this one in them.”
Raul gasped.
Quint couldn’t tell if Angélica was excited or horrified going off her face alone, but he definitely tended toward the latter, along with Raul, judging from the ranger’s cringe.
“Are you sure he means real calaveras, or just carvings?” Juan asked, making the motion of cutting into stone.
KuTu pointed at the tooth again. “More.”
A grunt came from Bronko. “This reminds me of a display of trophy heads that I came across back in Colombia.” He pretended to slice his own neck. “That hombre was scary loco. He said he liked to keep an eye on his enemies at all times, especially after they were dead.”
“Jesus,” Quint muttered, trying to stop his imagination in its tracks before it followed Bronko’s story train any further out of the station.
“Isn’t there a wall of skulls somewhere?” Raul asked. “At an archaeological site?”
“There’s the Tzompantli platform at Chichen Itza,” Angélica said. “It has skull carvings on its walls.”
“The Aztec had the skull-rack, too,” Juan added. “It’s at the Great Temple in Tenochtitlan. They supposedly represent their many sacrificed victims.”
Quint nodded, remembering pictures he’d seen of the Great Temple and of the platform at Chichen Itza. “Yeah, but those are both skull carvings in the stone. What about real human skulls?” He looked to Angélica and then Juan.
“There is the tower of human skulls in Tenochtitlan, as well,” Juan said, beating Angélica to the answer. “Those are real.”
Bronko crossed his arms. “You mean Mexico City?”
“Yes,” Angélica said, extracting a small plastic sample bag from her pack. “The tower is called Huey Tzompantli. Archaeologists have found more than 600 skulls there now.”
Her father nodded. “And last I read, that tower is believed to be just one of seven.”
Quint focused on Juan, who knew a lot about the Olmec civilization that had been centered somewhat near that area long before the Aztec.
“Could this pile of skulls here be Olmec-related, like some of the pieces we found at the last site? Or do you think the Aztecs were hanging out down here at some point, chopping off heads for sport?”
“Could have been either.” Juan dabbed his neck with his handkerchief. “But this site we’re at could be older than the Olmec, too.”
“True.” Angélica dropped the tooth in the bag and sealed it shut. “The Aztecs weren’t the first civilization by far to display the skulls of sacrificial victims or enemies from the battlefield.”
Her father nodded. “Some scholars believe the Aztec’s brutal forms of sacrifice were a learned behavior from previous civilizations. Who knows? It could’ve been done to their own people initially by their enemies.”
“And they then adopted the practice,” Quint finished for him.
“I’m going to ask KuTu how many skulls there are.” She spoke to KuTu in Mayan.
He shook his head solemnly, answering in Spanish. “Muchas calaveras.”
Bronko stepped around them and started up the road, heading deeper into the jungle with his machete leading the way.
“Where are you going, hombre?” Juan called out.
“To count las calaveras for your daughter, Senor Jefe.”
“Hey, I like that name,” Juan said, puffing out his chest. “Mr. Boss. It fits me well, don’t you think, Junior Mint?”
Quint grinned in spite of the prospect of many skulls waiting for them up ahead. “ ‘Professor Smartass’ is more like it.”
Angélica stared after Bronko for a couple of beats. Then she zipped the tooth bag into one of her pants pockets and took off after him, with KuTu on her heels, hollering something in Spanish about la serpiente.
Quint knew what that word meant in English. “Great.” He growled under his breath. “As if the stack of human skulls waiting for us isn’t enough, there are snakes waiting, too. I’ve had less frightening, hair-raising nightmares than this reality.”
“I hope there are no scorpions,” Juan said, frowning at the ground. “They’re worse than the snakes.”
Quint shook his head. “Not by far, old man.”
“We have a few venomous spiders around here, too,” Raul told them, being the ever-helpful park ranger.
“Well, isn’t that just the bee’s knees?” Quint muttered.
The ranger looked from Quint to Juan. “What about bee’s knees?”
“Your daughter is going to be the death of me, Mr. Boss,” Quint told Juan and then followed after the Wonder Woman of the jungle.
“I warned you about her,” Juan called after him.
“Yeah, but your warning was vague and I’m a sucker for a pretty face,” he called back. Not to mention the siren’s sexy big brain and mouth-watering curves.
Thanks to the jungle slowing their headway along the old Maya road, Quint quickly caught up with Angélica. KuTu was now in front of her, hacking away at some palm fronds and saplings growing in the middle of the old road.
“Hey, boss lady, what are you thinking here?” he asked as he tried to carefully dodge a low-hanging branch covered with thorns.
She held the branch aside with her machete so he could pass safely. “Are you asking me on record as the trip’s official photojournalist?”
He glanced behind them to see if Juan was within hearing range, but he and Raul were taking their time bringing up the rear. As he passed the branch, another pokey one snagged his shirt sleeve, stopping him.
“I’m asking as the guy who is dating the woman leading this charge into Mexico’s thorny version of Hell.” He tried to pull free without tearing his shirt.
“Dig deeper,” she said, carefully chopping off the clingy branch at its base and then plucking the thorny bits from his sleeve.
He scoffed. “Wonderful. I just hope my hair doesn’t turn white from what we find when we finally stop digging.”
“If it does, I’ll dye mine so we match when we go out on the town.”
He frowned at the vegetation-congested sacbe ahead of them. What a mess Mother Nature had made of the Maya peoples’ hard work. “Would you look at that? Somebody blocked the road with a damned jungle.”
“Lucky me you’re so burly and good at swinging a machete.”
“Nice try, but I’m not falling for your sweet nothings this time. Flattery isn’t going to help chop through this mess.”
“What if I buy you an Indiana Jones hat when we get home?”
He chuckled, turning her way. “And a whip, too?”
She nodded once.
“Deal, but I’m also going to need some kissing when this is all done.” He pulled out his machete and faced off with the jungle once again …
* * *
… After almost a half hour of slashing and cursing, Quint had helped clear a wide swath along the overgrown road, all the while battling flies and mosquitoes and some kind of biting gnat that came in clouds of kamikaze raids.
At one point, he’d stumbled head-first into a thick, huge spiderweb.
Damned eight-legged bastard! Thank the Maya gods nobody was watching while he was tripping the light fantastic with some wild monkey punches thrown in for good measure.
Soaked to the skin with sweat and lathered with grit and bugs, Quint was ready to head back to camp.
Hell, he’d be fine with walking all the way to the Calakmul ranger station, where he could request a helicopter flight back to Cancun.
He’d even offer Pedro three times the usual rate to play knight in shining armor and come to his rescue.
Unfortunately, his girlfriend had grand aspirations about long-dead people with fancy teeth.
Sheathing his machete, he lifted his shirt and wiped his face. He could hear the others still slashing and crashing all around, along with an occasional laugh behind him from Raul, who was being entertained by Juan’s stories of past adventures under the jungle canopy.
If only there were a clear, cool cenote close by to dive into.
Where was that damned aguada Raul had been talking about?
How many alligators did it take to make a waterhole unsafe for swimming anyway?
He sighed. With his luck, the pool probably came stocked with some ancient breed of piranhas raised by whatever nutbirds left the pile of skulls as outdoor yard art.
Angélica joined him at the side of the old road, looking tickled pink.
Although that might partly be because of the heat making her cheeks rosier than usual.
She plucked a piece of spider web from his hair and then flicked something off his sleeve—probably another tick.
He must have brushed past a swarm of the bloodsuckers after getting groovy with the spiderweb. This place was one big booby trap.
“How are you doing over here, Parker?” she asked for his ears only.
He matched her low volume. “Just dandy and itchy.” He uncapped his canteen, smiling in spite of what felt like a centipede crawling up his spine.
“This place checks all the ‘fun’ boxes. I’m going to give it five stars.
I think I’ll title my review, ‘Thrills Await with Every Swing of the Machete.’ What do you think? ”
She patted his chest, mooning up at him with happy eyes. “I think you deserve an extra reward for all of this hard work.”
“In addition to the hat and whip?”
“Yes.”
He took a swallow of warm water that tasted a bit stale, but still delicious in this heat. “Like what kind of a reward are we talking here?”
Her smile positively smoldered. “Your favorite kind.”
“A cold beer and a hot woman?”
She nodded. “On the beach in the moonlight.”
“I’ll take it. So, what’s the babe’s name?” he teased.
Her gaze narrowed playfully. She held up her fist, shaking it. “Why I oughta …”
“You know what, you’re right. Names don’t matter if she’s in her birthday suit.”
“Cheeky man.” Grinning, she stole his canteen and took a drink. “Keep talking about other hot women and I’ll use my machete to pluck the feathers off your little parrot.”
“Kinky, boss lady.” He took his canteen back. “Please, tell me more, and don’t leave out the feather-tickling part.”
As he downed another swig, a long-legged pheasant-like bird about the size of a small turkey with a black curly crest and a big bump on its yellow beak strutted up to them.
The bird pecked at the ground a few times next to Quint’s boot before tiptoeing off through the brush with its black tail feathers pointing skyward.
He capped the canteen. “Did you just see a big bird cross our path or am I hallucinating from the heat?” Before she could answer, he added, “And please don’t tell me seeing that bird is another sign in the Maya world of Underworld gods coming topside for a visit, or I’ll hang up my machete for good and go swim with the frogs in the aguada. ”
“I don’t advise aguada swimming, unless you don’t mind having your bits and pieces fair game for sharp-toothed critters while you’re paddling around. Not to mention the jaguars, cougars, rats, and whatever else elbows up to the bar for a drink.”
He shook his head at her. “You sure know how to pick a vacation spot, woman.”
She lowered her gaze before looking away. “Yeah, about that,” she started, licking her lips. “We need to—”
Raul hurried up to them, interrupting her before she could finish.
“Did you see that male great curassow just walk past?” His eyes were wide and round with wonder as he looked toward the trees where it had disappeared.
“It’s probably heading for the aguada. I’ve never seen one so calm around people.
It must not be used to seeing humans around here. ”
Quint wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but he was more interested in what Angélica had been about to say than any bold birds.
Bronko let out a shrill whistle from the front of the pack that sent the eavesdropping spider monkeys into a barking frenzy.
“Sounds like a cat just ran through the dog pound,” Quint told Angélica over the racket, tucking away his canteen while searching the canopy. “How many monkeys do you think are up there?”
“Who cares about the damned monkeys, Parker?” Angélica grabbed his hand and tugged. “Let’s go see if Bronko found KuTu’s wall.”
“Who cares about a damned wall, boss lady?” He trailed after her, dodging a thorn-covered branch. “I’m more worried about the pile of skulls.”