She growled under her breath at her father while slashing through a mix of agave plants and palm fronds that skirted the structure. “Vultures can represent many things, depending on the context of where their image is found. Sometimes they have symbolic meaning, other times it’s more ritual based. It could be both, too.”
“That sounds deliberately vague, boss lady.”
“Circumventing the truth will only make you dizzy,gatita.”
She sniffed mid-slash and smelled a familiar sweetness in the air above the jungle’s general mustiness. She paused, lowering her machete. “Dad, are you smoking a cigar?” Now was not the time for a cigar break. Neither was later, according to his doctor. “You are not to smoke or drink alcohol with those heavy-duty painkillers the doctor gave you for your leg.”
While her father’s leg had healed well from the compound fracture, he still suffered from sharp stabbing aches at times, especially after traipsing through the jungle and not resting enough.
“I’m not smoking.”
“Then how come I smell one of your cigars?”
“Because Bronko is smoking the cigar that I gave him. I’msimply savoring the second-hand smoke. The doctor said nothing about breathing near a cigar.”
She heard Bronko’s deep, rumbling voice, but couldn’t hear his words over the sound of Raul’s chopping at a strangler fig root.
“You’re splitting hairs,” she told her father.
“And you’re stalling because you are afraid to tell Quint what the vulture really represents in Maya mythology. Keep it up, and I’m going to give Junior Mint another fifty points just to ruffle your feathers.”
“I’m not playing that damned game anymore, Dad.”
“What game?” Raul asked between chops.
“Spill it, Angélica.” Quint lifted his camera and started taking pictures of the broken-down platform now semi-cleared of foliage.
She slashed through a couple of fronds with extra oomph. Her father’s persistence at making something out of nothing rivaled his mulishness some days. At least the rest of her usual crew wasn’t in tow at the moment, especially young Esteban, who tended to latch on to her dad’s supernatural yarns of potential terrors.
“As you know,” she explained to Quint, “vultures are scavengers that consume the dead. The Maya knew this was helping to cleanse the land. Renewing it in a way. This is one reason they revered the vulture and included it in glyphs and religious tales.”
“The thirteenth day of the month in the Maya calendar shares its name,” Raul added, kicking some of the cut roots from his path.
Angélica glanced at the ranger with raised brows. “Did they teach you that in school or for your job at Calakmul?”
“Neither.Mi abuelawas Maya. She is why we moved to this area from Mexico City when I was a boy. She neededmi padreto help with her family’sejido.”
Angélica smiled. “How young were you when you moved to her farm?”
He held up one hand, all five fingers stretched out. “She once told me the blood and feathers from king vultures were supposed to help cure some diseases.” To Quint he added, “One of our cows had died from a snake bite, and the vultures were taking care of the carcass. She had me gather any feathers left behind after the vultures finished with their meal.”
“Damned snakes.” Quint tucked his camera back in the smallpadded case he’d brought along today. “Why else did the Maya revere the vulture?” he asked her.
There was no way around the truth. Her father would spill the beans if she didn’t. “Vultures also accompanied the Lord of Death.”
“Yum Cimil,” Quint said, wrinkles forming a fence line across his forehead. Was he remembering their adventures involving the Lord of Death from the last site?
She continued in spite of his frown. “Yes, also known asAh Puchin books about the Maya.”
She glanced at Raul to see if speaking about this particular god from Maya mythology was making him uncomfortable. It certainly had some of her crew on previous digs. But Raul seemed to be taking it in stride, as he was back to slashing away at the jungle’s clingy grip.
“The Flatulent One,” Juan shouted across the mound, earning several barks in response from a nearby spider monkey. In a lowered voice, he continued to Bronko, “I always liked that title for the god of death. Sort of takes the spookiness out of him, which I need in dark temples when I come across his image on the wall in his decomposing, skeletal glory. I mean, really, did the scribes need to show his abdomen spilling out rotting matter while he chomps away on human bones? It’s a little much.”
“They called himAh Pukuhin Chiapas,” she heard Bronko say.
Chiapas, huh? Was that where he’d spent a lot of time while working for one of the South American cartels? There was certainly a lot of instability and worries in that part of Mexico, keeping all but the bravest archaeologists at bay in spite of so many potential discoveries.
“I thought a screech owl accompanied the Lord of Death,” Quint said. “What’s it called? Amuan, right?”
