one day the captain came into port and visited his sister. The sister had a black eye and other injuries. The captain got out of her that this guy had done this to her and that it wasn’t the first time.”
“You see, the captain was all set to kill the guy, but the sister begged him not to, so he told her ‘all right, I’ll just talk to him’. And he did. He warned him in strong language about hurting the sister, but kept his hands off him because his sister had asked him to.”
“Sometime later the captain again returned to port and found that his sister was in the hospital, having been beaten by the bad guy. The captain was, of course, infuriated and vowed he would take care of the guy.”
“Now, you know how seriously we take the protection of our womenfolk in this part of the world. Especially us seafaring types. Nothing must happen to our sisters or mothers or nieces! We get very upset, infuriated! And we are all very big and very strong!” He glared at us.
“Somehow—never mind how—the guy wound up on the shrimp boat. You might think that the captain would want to speak harshly to the guy, slap him around and maybe throw him overboard. But no, the captain didn’t do that. Instead, he pushed him naked into the hold, on top of the ice, with the shrimp crawling over him and the crabs biting him. He left him in there. He had plenty of raw shrimp and crabs to eat—delicacies, you know—and ice for water. After several days the captain brought him out and then, only then, did he throw him into the sea to drown.”
Lucy came up the steps into the wheelhouse. She put her hands on her hips and glared at Capitán Sebastián. “Tío Sebi, you stop that right now! You made that all up! You’re just trying to frighten Jeb and Carlos. I heard every word.”
“Well—uh—Lucy—I—uh— I just want you to be safe,” Tío Sebi stammered nervously.
“Well, Jeb and Carlos are good guys and they will already help keep me safe. They don’t need to be threatened. Besides, they’re already afraid of me. Aren’t you?” She turned to us, glaring. We both nodded vigorously, and again wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.
But then I saw just a hint of a smile on her face. She winked and turned to Tío Sebi, then poked him on the arm. Better him than me.
LOS MUERTOS
CARLOS
We were running without lights, close to shore. Made me nervous, but I supposed the Capitán knew these waters. He seemed pretty good at this boat business. I saw a dim light flashing where I imagined the shore would be, and realized that behind me Capitán Sebastián had a five-cell flashlight and was signaling back.
We slowed to a stop, swaying in the swells with the exhaust gurgling. Eusebio and Humberto lowered a rubber boat, loaded our stuff into it, and we all tumbled down a rope ladder and got in. Humberto rowed and, with the waves helping, we were sliding up on the beach in a short time. A shape slipped out from the darker blackness of the trees. “Jaime,” Lucy said, and gave the shadow a quick hug. “¡Vengan! Come on!” the shadow said quietly but urgently. We followed blindly through the trees until we got to an unpaved road. There was a vehicle there, a Land Cruiser I thought, but couldn’t see it very well.
We all got in and Jaime started the quietest motor I’d ever heard, especially in rural México. No headlights, but the boy seemed to know what he was doing. After a few minutes I realized there was another vehicle behind us, also without lights. Lucy reassured me they were friends. More relatives, in fact. “They’re the ones I told you about,” she said, “Arnulfo and Arnoldo. My cousins. Good guys, you’ll meet them when we get there. They’re going with us into the Petén, and we’ll be glad they’re there.”
Why all the sneaky darkness stuff, I asked. We’re not even there yet. Are we hiding from the Runt and his friends? “Basically, yes,” she said, “and anyone else that might be interested. They’ll know about us eventually, of course, can’t be helped, but the later that happens, the better. Besides, if we find them first it gives us an edge and we need all the edges we can get.”
Our car lurched out of the trees onto a paved road, much easier going. Headlights on, we accelerated to highway speeds, as did our companions behind. The road was narrow but, at least, paved. After an hour or so we turned off to the west, still on pavement, and presently went through a little unlighted town without slowing down much. Jaime seemed to be a surprisingly good driver for a teenager. Maybe he was just on best behavior tonight. The ride became monotonous, the highway reasonably smooth with the occasional pothole to relieve the boredom. It would probably be pretty in the daylight with the tall trees all around.
“Do you have a novia yet?” Lucy was leaning forward, talking to Jaime.
“Well, yes,” he said, sounding embarrassed.
“Anyone I know?”
“Well, maybe. She is María Elena Santamaría y Camacho from over in Chetumal. Her father is Jorge Santamaría.”
“¡Oooy Sí!” Lucy said in that tone women use when anything to do with love and romance is happening. “I know her! She’s that pretty little girl with the big brown eyes! I haven’t seen her for ages. She’s all grown up! I’ll bet she’s even prettier now ¿verdad?”
“Well, uh, yes, I guess so.”
“You guess so! Don’t you know?”
“Well…umm…yes, she is. She’s kind of wonderful,” Jaime was forced to admit. We couldn’t see him, but I’m sure he was blushing up a storm.
“When is the big day? I want to be there!”
“Well, uh, we don’t know yet, but you are invited. We’ll let you know.”
Lucy leaned back and whispered to Jeb, and me “Nothing bad is going to happen to this boy. Are we agreed?” We were agreed. We always agree with Lucy anyway, but this was a no-brainer.
After a while, I nodded off, which was just as well. I would need the sleep.
Some bumps and scrapes woke me after a couple of hours. We had turned off the nice smooth highway. No more nodding off. Where are we? I asked Lucy. “Pretty much the middle of nowhere,” she assured me, “somewhere around Xpujil, if that will pinpoint it for you, but we aren’t going there. It’s good that we have four-wheel drive. We’ll need it from now on. Better if we had eight or ten wheel drive.”
We sped along at four or five miles an hour on a dirt road until after midnight and then seemed to run out of road entirely. We slowed to a crawl. Walking would be faster and in fact we did get out from time to time, mainly to help by pushing. Occasionally we were stuck in holes too big to four-wheel out of, even with our pushing. Luckily the vehicles were equipped with winches and the terrain equipped with numerous sturdy trees so it wasn’t really a problem, just slow.
We were again without headlights, but the parking lights and the moon were good enough for traveling at this speed. The land was rather flat here, which was a help—at least we wouldn’t be falling off any mountains. The underlying rock seemed to be limestone. When it was bare of vegetation it was sometimes almost like pavement.
About mid morning we came to a stop in what I thought at first was just a clearing. In
