I was nearly bushed when we reached the western shore . . . which wasn't really a shore. This end of the lake emptied onto a slope of gentle rapids. The dugout scraped bottom as we poled it over the rim, and then we were moving fast, bumping and scraping against foam-framed rocks. We had a couple of bad moments, but then the slope leveled out and we slid into a stream much like the one that had brought us here.
I slumped back with relief as the current began to carry us along. A mix of willows and pines and palms crowded the banks on either side, but no signs of humanity. Too close to the volcanoes, most likely.
“Are you all right?” Maya said from behind me.
I swiveled and faced her as she steered. “I'm okay.”
My voice was still hoarse. I found my water bottle and took a sip. It didn't help.
“I want to ask you something,” I said.
“Perhaps you should save your voice.”
I didn't want to save my voice. If Captain Carcinoma was to blame, resting it would do no good. I wanted to learn more about her while I still could talk.
“It's okay, really. I just want to know how much of this New Age stuff do you buy into?”
“I told you before: There is nothing at all ‘new’ about what I do.”
“Okay. Sorry. You did say that, but it's the only way I know to refer to all the mumbo jumbo that's become so trendy in the last couple of decades. I mean, what do you think about, say, out-of-body experiences?”
“You mean spirit flight?”
“Whatever. Do you believe it's possible to leave your body and go floating around, looking at things?”
“I believe it might be possible.”
“Then you've never experienced it?”
Her brow furrowed. “I am not sure. There have been a number of times when I thought I had left my body and wandered as a spirit.”
“Really.”
“But I might have been simply dreaming.”
“What about flying saucers and visiting aliens.”
“I have never seen any such things, but that does not mean they do not exist.”
“What about those giant figures cut into the earth here in Mesoamerica, visible only from the air. Some people say they were directions for ancient astronauts. Do you believe that?”
“No. That is silly. If these ‘ancient astronauts’ could find this little planet across hundreds and thousands of light years, why would they need sign posts once they got here?”
“Exactly.” At last—a purely rational response.
“Those figures were carved into the earth by peoples who had begun worshipping the violent male gods. They were not meant to direct visitors. They were meant to scar and disfigure the Mother.”
The Mother . . . always the Mother. She was fixated on this Gaea thing.
“What about channeling? You know, when a long-dead person speaks to the living through a medium? Do you buy into that?”
“I have never channeled a discarnate, but I do not say it is impossible. What puzzles me is why someone would wish to take advice from such a being. Just because someone is dead does not mean they are wise. You could be channeling a very stupid discarnate.”
I laughed. “Good point. But tell me, Maya—is there anything you don't believe in?”
She pinned me with her jaguar eyes. “Is there anything you do?”
“Of course. I believe in reality.”
“Reality? So do I. Many realities, in fact.”
“No-no.” I shook my head. “There's only one reality: it's what trips you up when you walk around with your eyes closed. Beliefs that are contrary to reality can hurt you. No matter how fervently you believe you can levitate, the reality of gravity will deliver a succinct and decisive rebuttal when you step off the roof of a ten-story building.”
“But that is physical reality. What about spiritual reality?”
“You mean the spirit plane, populated by ghosts and whatever? I've got one response to that: show me. Prove it.”
“What about inner reality, then? You cannot deny that, Cecil. For most of us it is more important than objective reality.”
“But it doesn't alter objective reality.”
“It doesn't? Let us take a mundane example. Let us take a wealthy businessman who, despite all his successes, has never reached the impossible goals he set for himself. The world hails him as an inspiring success. He perceives himself as a miserable failure. Which is he, Cecil: a success or a failure?”
I didn't have an answer. Maybe because the question made me uncomfortable. I'd never been a businessman, but she almost could have been talking about me. Still, I didn't want to concede the point, so I hedged.
“Success is relative.”
“So is science. Your scientific laws are not sacrosanct.”
“No argument there. They aren't even ‘laws,’ really. They're theories that have been tested and retested under controlled conditions and seem to hold up under rigorous investigation. But that doesn't mean they're carved in stone. Scientific laws are being rewritten all the time as new information is discovered.”
“So science is all theory with no facts?”
“I didn't say that. Look, Copernicus had a theory that the universe didn't revolve around the earth, but that the earth revolved on its own axis instead. It was called the Copernican Theory back in the 16th century, and he was damned for it. But since then the Copernican Theory has become what I think we can now safely call a fact: The earth is not the center of the universe and it does rotate on its axis. That's reality.”
My already hoarse voice cracked on that last word.
She sighed. “Is that how your reality works, Cecil? From the way you talk it sounds like some sort of mechanical contraption rolling along an endless featureless plain toward a horizon it will never reach. My reality is a dense forest full of dazzling creatures and rich with mysteries and the promise of discovery. Which would you rather inhabit?”
I wasn't falling for that. My throat felt dry and thick, but I couldn't rest it yet. I sensed something important here, striking at the very heart of who I was. I forced my failing voice to challenge her.
“Reality is immune to my wishes. I want what is real, Maya. Real. I refuse to play the fool and buy into warm-fuzzy spiritualism because it makes me feel good, or because it offers the delusion of control over chance and consequence. I need proof before I can trust. I can't be as accepting as you. It's not my nature. I've got to stick my fingers in the wounds—every time.”
“Then you must change,” she said gravely.
“How?”
She stared at me a long time . . . long enough to make me uncomfortable.
“You must find a way,” she said finally. “I can point out the path, but you must walk it. Your science cannot save you now, so you must strike out on a tangent to your blindered Weltanschauung. Will you try?”
“I am trying.”
“You must try harder. Open your third eye, Cecil. See—before it is too late.”
I didn't know if I could. How do you strip away lifelong patterns of analysis? How do you adopt an approach to knowledge that is utterly alien to your psyche?
“Rest your voice,” she said. “The current increases here. I will need your help to keep us straight.”
The water picked up speed as the land began to slope. The stream widened as others joined it, and soon we were riding a small river meandering toward the lowlands in long, lazy switchbacks.
As the sun crawled higher and higher, I was glad for the hat Maya had made me. We began to pass small villages, then larger ones. Around midday we stopped at one of the largest we'd seen—maybe thirty huts. A toothless old woman in a tiny clapboard store with a corrugated metal roof offered us tamales in banana leaves, and a choice of warm Coke, warm Sol beer, or coconuts.
Maya and I both opted for Coke along with the tamale. I had a hell of a time swallowing the corn and vegetable filling, and had to wash it down with generous amounts of Coke.
But a
fter a second Coke I perked up. Maybe all I'd needed was some caffeine. I hadn't had any coffee since my arrival in Mesoamerica. Maybe I'd been going through caffeine withdrawal.
Whatever the reason, I found myself with a lot more energy as we continued our trek down river. We ran into turbulent stretches but nothing I'd call rapids, and then the land and the river flattened out and we had to paddle again.
Where the hell are we? I wanted to ask, but knew it was wasted effort. “Maya Country” would be all I'd get. One thing I knew: all the mountains were behind us. We seemed to have descended to a vast plain.
The water widened into a broad swampy area filled with bushy trees that appeared to be perched on bowlegged octopuses.
“Mangroves,” Maya explained.
The mangrove swamp slowed our progress. The twisting channels forced us to change course every few dozen feet, and kept us from building any momentum. But the slower pace gave us a chance to appreciate some of the fauna.
The mangrove trees teemed with life. Maya pointed out a spotted boa constrictor coiled on a branch, an occasional tree frog, but mostly birds. Purple-black crows hopped from branch to branch past large hook-billed birds, some with huge red breasts, that Maya identified as frigate birds.
We rounded a mass of roots and spotted a bird that looked like a red heron with a curved beak, standing in the water about thirty feet away.
“A scarlet ibis,” Maya told me. “They were hunted almost to extinction for their feathers.”
I took a closer look at the spidery mangrove roots and noticed barnacles growing on them.
“Are we near the ocean?” I asked.
“Very close. Less than an hour.”
Maya was right, but it seemed longer. The mangroves trapped enough heat and water vapor under their branches to make a rain forest seem arid. But eventually they thinned. And now the westering sun was in our faces, but so was a cool briny breeze. I spotted low sand dunes ahead and we paddled for them. As soon as the dugout nosed into the beach, I jumped out and scrambled up the dune.
I stopped and stared at the sparkling azure blanket stretching to the horizon.
“Yes!” I shouted—or at least I tried to. Only a squeaky croak emerged.
I was amazed at the joyous thrill coursing through me as I began a little victory dance atop the dune.
“Surely you have seen an ocean before,” Maya said, coming up behind me.
“Of course I have. But now I know where I am.”
“And where is that?”
“On the Pacific Ocean.”
“That certainly pinpoints your location,” she said with a devilish little twist to her lips.
“Okay. Let me rephrase: I'm on the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica.”
“And knowing that makes you feel better?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Then I am happy for you. When you are through celebrating, we must carry our things to a little village at the base of that cliff.” She pointed north to a flat-topped rocky outcropping that jutted toward the sea like Diamond Head's little brother. A single tree grew tall upon the plateau. “We are spending the night there.”
“Be right with you,” I said.
I stared at the ocean a moment longer, reveling in the lapping of the waves, the tang of the breeze, and wondering why the sight of it made me feel so secure. Perhaps because I knew oceans and beaches, and felt I understood them. Perhaps because this was a particularly beautiful stretch of seaside, with an arc of bright white beach and tall broken islets jutting up here and there from the gently undulating water.
And the sand—buffed smooth by surf and wind.
Anxious to leave some footprints on that beach, I turned and hurried back to where Maya was unloading the dugout.
The seaside village of perhaps a hundred people was similar in appearance to the first village we'd visited, but more upbeat in spirit. The whitewash on the walls of the thatched huts seemed fresher, the colors of the people's clothing seemed more vibrant. Maybe it was because of all the welcoming smiles when they recognized Maya.
I spotted the Jeep parked under some palms, and seconds later Ambrosio appeared.
“You are burned, señor,” he said, staring at my face as we shook hands.
“Could have been worse.”
“But you got what you went for?”
I nodded. “Just barely.”
“Bueno. Ambrosio is glad for you. Tomorrow will be much better when we go to La Mano Hundiendo.”
I knew Mano meant hand . . . we were going to some sort of hand. “What's that?”
Maya said, “An island of sorts.” She pointed northwest. “That group of big rocks out there.”
About three-quarters of a mile offshore, a cluster of five cinnamon spires varying from fifty to a hundred feet high had punched up from the ocean floor. They huddled in a loose arc.
“What's it called again?
“La Mano Hundiendo . . . the Drowning Hand.”
I looked again, and damn—with the tallest spire standing in the middle and the shortest and thickest sticking up on the near end, just like a thumb, it did look like the last desperate gesture of a drowning man, reaching for air.
The Drowning Hand.
Swell.
8
Dinner was rice and beans, with a little grilled chicken for Ambrosio and me. The three of us ate sitting around a fire outside one of the huts the villagers had lent us. I tried, but I couldn't get the chicken past my constricting throat. Only by mashing the beans and rice into a paste was I able to get anything into my stomach. So I drank lots of milk.
I excused myself from the fire and wandered down to the water. The sun had drowned but the sky was still alive with salmon and violet hues that surely had names. I just didn't know them. Venus was a brilliant point of fire, low over the horizon, rising in search of the moon.
I ran my fingers over the lumpy masses in my neck and worried. The Captain was running wild in there.
How long before I'd be restricted to a liquid diet? One day? Two? I'd be in real trouble then, because after that it wouldn't be too much longer before I'd be unable to handle even liquids.
And then it would be time to pull out the Kevorkian kit.
I had maybe a week to live. Most likely less.
The cold dark shock of that realization nearly knocked me to my knees.
Less than a week! And if I suffered a carotid blowout I could go in an instant at any time.
I felt so helpless and small standing there in the fading light. I hadn't wanted to die at home. I'd thought it would be much easier on all concerned—myself included—if I died where no one had to watch me, where I couldn't be hooked up to IVs and parenteral nutrients if I became delirious. And I was fairly sure I could arrange it with Maya and Ambrosio to deep six my Kevorkian kit after I'd used it so Annie and Kelly wouldn't have to deal with the fact that I'd picked the lock on the exit door and stepped through on my own.
The downside was I'd be dying among strangers, far away from home, and robbing Annie and Kelly of the closure they might need.
I kept asking myself: Am I being selfish? Am I only thinking of me?
But it's my life, dammit. Don't I have the right to choose where and how I end it?
I had no answers, and the questions were too burdensome to carry. I shook them off and returned to my hut—I'd have my own tonight. I focused on dealing with the more practical and mundane matter of sending e-mail to Kelly.
I lit up the computer and established a link on the first try. I smiled when I saw a “kellburl” return address; but something from Terziski also was waiting, and with an attached file no less. I downloaded both. Terziski's attachment—labeled “mug.jpg”—was a big one and took a while. After the download I checked the battery level. I'd used up only half its power; still a while to go before I had to pull out a spare.
I stayed online and read Kelly's letter. Her concern for my safety and health warmed me, so I pulled out her picture and kept glancing a
t it as I typed a reply. I told her about the lava, about the dugout trip to the Pacific, but said nothing of my purpose. I made it seem as if I were doing all these things merely for the sake of doing them. I told her I was fine. And then I came clean: I told her I missed her and I loved her, and that she was the best thing I'd ever done in my life. All so true, and I wanted Kelly to know it, to have the words in black and white to keep.
A heaviness built in my chest as I typed. I didn't tell her that she'd never see me alive again, but I hoped this would let her know that I was thinking of her, right up to the end.
I uploaded the letter, then broke the link. I stared at her picture a moment longer before tucking it away. But the inner warmth fired by Kelly's letter vanished in the cold wind from Terziski's note.
Doc—
Something weird's going on with your psychic friend. Checked with the Oregon State Police on the Maya Quennell arrested at the logging camp protest in 1972. Just for the hell of it I sent over those latents I lifted from the business card you gave me. Believe it or not, they match.
Yeah. My sentiments exactly. What the hell's going on?
Your Maya Quennell is in her mid-thirties. I know because I saw her. Spent a whole day watching her. But according to the OR arrest sheet, so was this other Maya Quennell—age 34 back in 1972. That means she'd be in her sixties now. But we've got a thirty-something wandering around with her fingerprints. I know they can do wonders with plastic surgery these days, but hey, let's get real here.
The only explanation I can think of is that was her mother in OR and the old lady maybe handled the business card before our girl gave it to you. But then we should have three sets of prints on the card—yours, young Maya's, and old Maya's. I only found two.
And take a look at the attached mug shot. It's from the other Maya Quennell's arrest record. It's not too clear, being a scan of a Xerox of an old photo, but get back to me and let me know what you think. Must be a logical explanation, but I've got to tell you, we've got some majorly mysterious shit going down here, Doc, and it's starting to give me a case of the creeps.
—Terziski
Disturbed and puzzled, I opened the “mug.jpg” file and a blackand-white photo of a woman's face filled the screen. Terziski had been right about the quality—it was terrible. And yet . . . despite the graininess of the heightened contrast and the muddied half-tones, something eerily familiar seeped through and raised the fine hairs at the back of my neck.