Chapter 8
Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped into the young Indio’s eyes as he trudged through jungle humidity darkening rapidly as dusk approached. Even though centuries of evolution had caused his people’s perspiration to be unappetizing to the horde of mosquitos and other biting insects of the wilderness, they continued to swarm around his head, filling his eyes and nose and making it difficult to breathe without inhaling the noxious creatures.
Their buzzing irritated and distracted him as he listened for the grunt of a night-feeding jaguar or the squeal of a boar protecting its young, either of which could be fatal if he missed their warning signs. He’d been careless once today already, letting the man in the orange clothes spot him as he watched them work.
He froze when he heard the sound of a jeep engine a few hundred yards ahead. The sound suddenly ceased, and he decided to investigate. Stepping nimbly through dense undergrowth without making a sound, he soon parted the leaves of a jacaranda tree and peered into a small clearing next to the narrow stone and gravel road that meandered through the forest.
He saw a tall, thin Anglo gathering wood in the darkening light, preparing a campfire as he laid out a sleeping bag and cooking utensils. In a few moments, the smell of coffee and soup boiling made the boy’s mouth water and his stomach growl. He had eaten nothing other than bananas and berries for two days and was weak with hunger. The sudden sickness and deaths of the Anglos at the camp had made him afraid to eat any more of their food, though they’d been generous with it before the curse came and killed them all.
The tall white man hummed to himself as he prepared his supper, causing the Indio to take a chance that the man would be good natured enough to share his food. After all, he knew he could disappear in the jungle in seconds if necessary. No white man could slip through the undergrowth as nimbly and fast as he could, having done it ever since he could walk.
Taking a deep breath, the boy cried softly, “Hola, señor,” and stepped from his hiding place into the clearing, his hands held out from his body in a nonthreatening manner, his legs quivering, ready to take flight should the man prove unfriendly.
The Anglo was startled, dropping his coffee cup and cursing in surprise. “Goddamn!”
When he saw the small teenage boy, he grinned sheepishly and shook his head. “Shit, boy,” he said, bending to pick up his coffee cup. “You scared me half to death sneaking up on me like that.”
It was a sign of how surprised he was that he instinctively spoke in English rather than Spanish.
The boy answered in broken English he had learned from priests who visited his village, “I am most sorry, señor.” He pointed at the pot bubbling over the fire. “Hungry.”
The man waved an arm in a carefree gesture. “Come on in and join me. There’s plenty for both of us. My name’s Malcolm Fitzhugh. What’s yours?”
“I am called Guatemotzi,” the boy replied as he took a bowl from the ground next to the fire and ladled rich-smelling soup into it. His mouth watered and his stomach growled again, causing him to blush with embarrassment.
The man, playing the generous host, pretended not to notice. He was used to the extreme poverty and hunger that most of the Indians in this part of Mexico lived with daily.
There was little talk for a while as the two squatted in the firelight and ate, Fitzhugh showing Guatemotzi how to dip chunks of bread into the meaty liquid to sop up every last drop of the tasty brew.
When they were finished, Fitzhugh poured coffee for both of them into tin cups, adding large spoonfuls of sugar and a dollop of condensed milk from a can into the thick liquid. He leaned back against a log, lit a cigarette, and peered at Guatemotzi over the rim of his cup as he drank.
“What are you doing wandering out here all alone in the jungle at night, boy? Is your village nearby?”
Guatemotzi shook his head, blowing on the hot liquid to cool it. “No. Is many kilometers south. I work at Americano camp, helping dig until they got sick.”
Fitzhugh raised his eyebrows, smoke trailing from his nostrils. “The archaeological site of the American university professors? That’s where I was heading.”
Guatemotzi shook his head vigorously. “No, señor, you must not go there. All Americanos very sick, and most now dead. It is bad place—is cursed.”
Fitzhugh smiled uncertainly, firelight reflecting off his teeth in the moonlit darkness. “Are you sure they’re dead, not just suffering from dysentery? Those Americans never learn not to drink the local water.”
He didn’t really believe the boy, for he’d been there only last week making acquaintances with workers who would be willing to sell him artifacts from the dig site they’d stolen. They couldn’t all have died in such a short amount of time—the boy must be mistaken.
Guatemotzi lowered his eyes. He knew it was much worse than simple diarrhea. It was the curse of the God Montezuma that had killed the Americanos, but this Anglo would never understand that. Still, he had to try. “No, señor, you must not! I tell you they all dead!”
Fitzhugh continued to stare at the boy appraisingly, lighting another cigarette off the butt of his first. “I’ve got to go there, boy, it’s my job. I buy the things the scientists dig up and sell them in the city. You understand?”
Guatemotzi nodded, becoming very excited. Perhaps this Anglo would give him money for what he had found in the emperor’s tomb after the Americanos got sick.
He reached into the deerskin pouch slung over his shoulder, the one in which he carried his poison arrows for killing game. He pulled out a leather collar with green and red stones and hammered silver embedded in it.
Fitzhugh’s eyes bugged and his heart hammered and his mouth became dry as the boy handed him the collar.
“Like this, señor?”
Fitzhugh took the artifact in trembling hands, trying to calculate in his mind what it would be worth in Mexico City or Houston. “Where did you get this?” he asked, knowing it could only have come from the tomb itself.
“From cave where Emperor Montezuma lay,” Guatemotzi answered. “When Americanos got too sick to pay me, I took this for work I did. It was around neck of small monkey near emperor’s body.”
Fitzhugh’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the way firelight sparkled in the emeralds and rubies and reflected off the silver strands woven around the deerskin strap. He’d read stories of how Emperor Montezuma kept small jungle animals as pets, so he knew the boy was telling the truth. That this collar had been worn by one of Montezuma’s pets made it almost priceless in value.
He pulled a wad of pesos from his pocket and handed them to Guatemotzi. “I’ll give you twenty thousand pesos for it. Is that enough?”
Guatemotzi was astounded. That was more money than he had ever seen. His would be the richest family in the village.
“Si, señor!” he said, placing the bills in his deerskin pouch.
Fitzhugh grinned and scrambled to his feet. He ran to his jeep and placed the collar in his duffle bag before the boy could change his mind. He took a bag of army rations and handed them to the young Indian. “Here is some food for you. I won’t be needing it anymore. I’m leaving immediately for Mexico City.”
Without another word or a look back, Fitzhugh jumped into his jeep, started the engine, and roared off following his headlights down the dirt road, visions of untold riches flitting through his mind.
As he drove through the darkening evening, Fitzhugh pulled the collar from his bag and held it before his eyes, grinning and watching the moonlight play off the jewels’ facets.
With a gleeful laugh, he brought the collar to his lips and kissed it. He had no idea it was a kiss of death, or that he would be dead within a week.
* * *
Thousands of microscopic spores drifted off the deerskin collar where they had lain for four hundred years. They swirled in the moonlight and wind and were inhaled by Fitzhugh as he kissed the collar. They traveled in through his nasal passages and throat and lodged in the mucosa of his trachea and lungs.
The spores, tiny polysaccharide balls, were formed by the plague organisms when they were unable to find suitable hosts in which to multiply. Inhabiting the spores like tiny astronauts in individual spaceships, they were able to hibernate and survive almost indefinitely without food, water, or air, lying in suspended animation awaiting only moisture to reawaken them like some malevolent Rip Van Winkles.
As the spores were moistened by Fitzhugh’s mucosa, they split open and poured hundreds of thousands of plague organisms into his bloodstream. There they immediately began to split and multiply again and again, overwhelming the white blood cells his body sent in defense. Soon these organisms would begin to secrete toxins, which would destroy the parts of his blood that allowed it to coagulate, eventually causing massive hemorrhaging from every orifice.
The process could not be stopped now short of death.