Instead of calming her, the scarf seemed to frighten her. She staggered backwards, staring at the Stranger and shaking her head in disbelief before dropping to her knees with her face buried in the cloth. When she looked up, her cheeks were covered with tears. “You are the White Jaguar. I prayed for help and the saints have sent you.”
“I’m not the White Jaguar. That’s a myth.”
“You speak Mayan. You have the walking stick, and”—she held up the scarf—“you have this. We tell our stories in our weaving. Why would you give me this and then deny it?”
The Stranger spoke to her in Mayan again, but she just shook her head and asked, “Have you forgotten us?”
The girl, still on her knees, turned to Matt. “You must make him save my sister. My family paid five thousand dollars to have me and my sister taken into California, but now the coyotes want more. They said if our family didn’t pay they would sell us as
prostitutes. I ran away, but my sister is still there. Please! My family has no more money to send.”
“Did they use a white truck with the name Top Star Moving and Storage on it?”
“They made us ride in that truck.”
Matt realized that the men who’d taken Maria and her sister must be the same ones who’d taken Cheryl. He had heard about teenagers and even little girls being sold as sex slaves by Mexican gangs. He’d already seen Americans doing the same to American girls. Taking down the ring of sex traffickers in Breckenridge had felt great. Things had gotten bloodier than he would have liked, but with the police and the politicians running it, if he hadn’t stepped up it could have continued indefinitely. “I’ll help you. I think they have a friend of mine, too.”
The lost and anguished expression on the girl’s face changed to a doubtful one. She turned to the Stranger. “The White Jaguar must go.”
The Stranger yelled, “No. Damn it!” and marched outside across the creaking porch.
More tears rolled down her cheeks as Maria stared at the closed door. Matt also wanted him along for the rescue, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. However, the girl clearly believed that the Stranger was necessary and that alone, Matt would fail.
Matt caught up with the Stranger, who was headed into the desert. “Go back in there and tell her you’re coming, too.”
“I’m not.” The Stranger was staring up at the millions of stars covering the sky.
“Tell her anyway. Give her some hope. Let her at least sleep a bit tonight.”
The Stranger continued to look upwards. “I’ll tell you what. If I lie and tell her that I’ll try to rescue her sister, then tomorrow we take her somewhere safe and we both keep going—in different directions.”
Knowing he needed help, Matt tried one last time. “It’s not just Cheryl now. It’s also this girl’s sister and who knows how many others about to be sold as sex slaves.”
“At least they’re alive.”
“You bastard.”
“You’ll cause more harm than good. I know. I’ve tried.” The Stranger’s voice dropped off. He turned toward the dark horizon. “You ever see something so horrible that you think it might drive you mad?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
El Petén, 1924
Animals were screaming in the trees. The Stranger wasn’t sure if it was howler monkeys or a flock of scarlet macaws. The jungle on the border of Southern Mexico and Guatemala was lively; the rivers and lush green plants created a home for strange-looking creatures with huge eyes. Some, like the sloth, he recognized. Others were so odd-looking that he suspected no one had given them an English name yet. To avoid the deep mud, he was holding onto branches while he walked on the massive tree roots like they were stepping stones. He had nearly been bitten by a snake that twisted around the heavy foliage waiting for the unwary. The Stranger was on his way to the tip of South America, but even with his knowledge of maps and navigation, he struggled to stay on course as he hacked his way through the tropical forest. A Mexican girl had told him that “Guatemala” meant “land of the trees.” It was aptly named.
The cries of the fishermen being eaten alive by sharks had still echoed in his head when he started walking south from San Francisco with the idea of mapping a route to the Strait of Magellan. He knew it would be a long, punishing journey, and he was fine with that. Many years had passed and he was still going. The slow trip through Mexico had given him time to learn Spanish. There were so many dialects in Mexico—he couldn’t learn them all, but he could speak enough to get along anywhere in the country.
He was good with languages. As a child he had hoped to travel Europe and perhaps become a diplomat like Thomas Jefferson, but his father insisted he learn the
family business of land surveying. It was an important skill in a new country with boundless frontier—even more so after George Washington, the most famous surveyor of all, became president. When he was older he was grateful for his father’s decision. What other respectable profession allowed a man to spend months in the wilderness instead of chained to a desk?
Most of the Mexicans he met were poor, but quick with an offer to share their food. In the 1920s, Mexico was an easy place to starve, and he declined their offers with gratitude and respect. Northerners like him were a novelty, which usually meant a small throng of children trailing him through villages. He didn’t mind their curiosity. Short conversations with children had become his main contact with people. It was enough.
More animals joined in the calls. There was agitation in the trees. It seemed like the whole jungle was leaping from limb to limb and crying out in panic. Half a dozen different birds were all calling out frantically. The screeching was definitely monkeys. Above him, he could see them shaking branches like they were shaking their fists at someone. He wondered what was scaring them. Was it him? Were they so isolated that a human could cause this much fear? He stopped and stood still next to a tree. The terror above him seemed to settle down, but it didn’t stop. The scent of moldering plants that enveloped the jungle was stronger, seemingly increased by the commotion. He listened for trouble. Except for a fuzzy brown spider that had fallen onto his arm, he couldn’t hear or see anything to worry about. With a quick movement he sent the spider flying back to the trees.
A few minutes after he returned to beating a path with his walking stick, a panicked mule deer nearly ran into him. Then he heard a human shrieking like the
fishermen had. The Stranger ran toward the sound as fast as the jungle allowed, until he found the source—a jaguar dragging a boy. At first he thought the cat had the boy by the throat, but the animal’s teeth were sunk into the child’s shoulder next to the neck. When the jaguar saw the Stranger, it leapt eight feet onto a branch, still holding its prey, and began to climb up the tree, carrying the boy like he was a kitten. The big cat paused to growl down at the Stranger, then chewed the boy’s shoulder, causing fresh screaming. In Mexico, the Stranger had heard of these big cats, but it was rare to see one. He couldn’t help being awed by the beauty of its hypnotic spots and the power of its massive muscles.
The cat crouched, preparing to leap to a higher branch, so the Stranger jumped up and poked the cat hard in the ribs with his walking stick. Pain and surprise caused it to let go of the boy, who tumbled down from the tree. In one motion, the Stranger caught him and tossed him gently to the side as the cat growled and leapt. While it was still in the air, the Stranger cracked it on its head. The jaguar changed direction, but not before catching the Stranger’s upper arm with its claws and leaving a long, bloody trail of scratches.
Hitting the ground, the cat leapt a short distance away and turned to study the Stranger. Stunned and missing a tooth, it growled but seemed confused and hesitant to attack. Jaguars were kings here and the Stranger had upset the order of things. The cat snarled and growled again, but it was slowly backing up. Then it disappeared behind a wall of ferns and vines. There was no way to know if it was gone or just planning another attack.
After quickly looking the boy over, he asked the child questions in Spanish, but he spoke only Mayan, a language the Stranger had not yet learned. The boy’s wounds were deep. Still, the Stranger believed the boy could survive. He pantomimed eating and
sleeping, and when the boy pointed out a direction, the Stranger picked him up and began moving through the rainforest as fast as he could. A few hundred yards later he heard monkeys squealing overhead and stopped to look behind him for the jaguar. As the moments passed, the Stranger became impressed by the boy’s stillness and quiet. He was clearly a child of the jungle who understood how to hunt.
Pink orchids swayed even though there was no breeze. Behind them he could see the cat’s yellow eyes. If it hadn’t moved, the Stranger wouldn’t have been able to see it, because its jungle camouflage was amazing. As if it knew it had been spotted, the cat climbed a huge cedar tree and crawled out on a limb to watch them.
The Stranger knew the jaguar would continue to follow them and eventually attack from behind. With the child in his arms, the Stranger would not be able to fight. He had to end this now. He laid the boy on the ground and faced up to the big cat. The engravings in the ruined temples that he had seen showed the jaguars as gods. He could understand why the people had worshipped them and he didn’t want to harm the big cat, but he had no choice. When the cat snarled at him, the Stranger took aim and threw his walking stick like a javelin. It slammed into the Jaguar’s soft stomach. The creature screamed in pain as it fell twenty feet, and then lay motionless. If it was only wounded, death would be slow and painful, so the Stranger smashed it over the head with his walking stick. He had no time to mourn the loss of the great cat because the boy was still bleeding.
When he stepped out of the jungle and crossed a small cornfield near a village, the men tending the corn stared. His bloody arm and the boy’s very bloody torso must have made for a startling sight. The child called out to them and they all rushed over. In spite
of his wounds, the boy continued to talk excitedly as two of them gently took him from the Stranger. A third tried to take the Stranger’s rucksack. The Stranger held on to his pack, but when they indicated he should follow, he did so.
The Mayan men came up to his shoulder, but they were strong, lean men who looked like they were used to hard work. Tall, healthy-looking stalks of corn grew in the field they had carved out of the jungle. As soon as the other villagers spotted the boy and the Stranger, people began calling out and speaking rapidly to one another and the small village swirled with activity. The women were dressed in brightly colored clothes with complicated patterns. As they rushed about in the colors of the jungle birds, the Stranger struggled to take it all in.
An older man stepped out of a hut. He wore white clothes with a vivid scarf tied around his waist. His hair was black, but his skin was deeply furrowed with wrinkles. Villagers moved aside to allow him through. After listening to the child, he gestured toward the thatch-roofed hut. Without asking permission, he examined the scratches on the Stranger’s arm. In Spanish he said, “I am a priest and I will heal you.”
The shaman prepared a poultice of plants. It had an unrecognizable, bitter smell, and the Stranger didn’t want it applied because he knew he would heal quickly without the reeking herbs. He pointed to the child, but the shaman was clearly used to people doing as he asked. He paid no attention and continued to treat his village’s guest. When he smeared the mixture over the gashes, it was cool and soothing, and the pain began dissipating until it was only a dull irritation. While the Stranger sat, the shaman stood above him waving his hands and reciting an ancient prayer. Every few minutes he stopped to toss herbs on the fire. The smoky herbs made the Stranger calm and drowsy.
The villagers brought him tortillas, some gamey meat he didn’t recognize, and wine in a dried gourd. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he dozed peacefully. In the morning light that filtered through the hut, he saw that the walls were simply straight tree branches tied together. Gaps between the poles made stripes of shadow and light along the dirt floor. He was surprised that the hut was so flimsy, but then he realized that he still thought like a man from a cold climate. In the jungle the spaces between the tree branches allowed cooling breezes through the hut, which was exactly what they needed here. Feeling a now familiar itch, the Stranger glanced at his arm and immediately slapped the mosquito that had just landed. A bit of blood smeared where the insect had been drinking. Of course, the mosquitoes, tarantulas, and scorpions found the gaps, too. The insects weren’t a problem for the Stranger because he would heal in minutes, but the villagers couldn’t escape them. The Mayans must be sturdy people.
A woman brought him tortillas and beans for breakfast. She wouldn’t look directly at him or acknowledge him when he tried to thank her. He guessed she was shy. Her serene face didn’t give any clues to her age, and even though her bright clothes were bulky, he could tell she was petite and curvy. While he was still eating, the woman returned with a beautiful scarf. She placed it near him and began to slip away.
“For me?” He laid his hand on the cloth, which was smooth and finely woven.
She paused and looked up smiling for an instant, then hurried off. There was something mischievous and slightly naughty about that grin. She looked like she’d broken a rule and was pleased about it.
Normally he wouldn’t have accepted a gift from people who had so little, but the scarf was lovely and he sensed that something about it was special. When he gathered his belongings, he tucked it in his pack.
The shaman stood in the doorway, blocking his way. “You need to be here.”
The Stranger gave his thanks for the food and medicine even though he knew the healing had nothing to do with the shaman. It seemed better not to mention the cloth. “I have many miles to travel. I must leave.”
“To fight the jaguar god and survive is a sign.” Pointing to the rapidly healing scratches on the Stranger’s arm, the shaman nodded his approval. “This is the sign of a protector, a great warrior. Your destiny brought you here. I am a priest of the old gods. I read the stars. Two months ago the stars told me a northern man was coming. You will stay. Your name will be Sak Balan. It means White Jaguar.”