Grave Secrets

Racing across the shoulder, I pressed trembling fingers to Carlos’s throat. Nothing. I moved my hand, testing for signs of life. Nothing. I tried his wrist. Nothing.

Please, God! My heart pounded wildly below my sternum.

Mateo ran up beside me, indicated I should check Molly. I scrambled to her, reached through the open window, and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Again and again I positioned my fingers against the pale flesh of her throat. Opposite me Mateo shouted into his phone as he mimicked my desperate moves.

On my fourth try I felt a beat, low and weak and uncertain. It was barely a tremor, but it was there.

“She’s alive,” I shouted.

Elena was beside me, eyes wide and glistening. As she opened the door, I bent in and took Molly in my arms. Holding her upright, rain stinging my neck, I unzipped her jacket, raised her sweatshirt, and located the two sources of bleeding. Spreading my feet for balance, I placed pressure on the wounds, and prayed that help would arrive in time.

My own blood hammered in my ears. A hundred beats. A thousand.

I spoke softly into Molly’s ear, reassuring her, cajoling her to stay with me. My arms grew numb. My legs cramped. My back screamed under the strain of standing off balance.

The others huddled for mutual support, exchanging an occasional word or embrace. Cars flashed by with faces pointed in our direction, curious but unwilling to be drawn into whatever drama was unfolding on the road to Sololá.

Molly’s face looked ghostly. Her lips were blue around the edges. I noticed that she wore a gold chain, a tiny cross, a wristwatch. The hands said eight twenty-one. I looked for the cell phone, but didn’t see it.

As suddenly as it started, the rain stopped. A dog howled and another answered. A night bird gave a tentative peep, repeated itself.

At long last I spotted a red light far up the highway.

“They’re here,” I crooned into Molly’s ear. “Stay tough, girl. You’re going to be fine.” Blood and sweat felt slick between my fingers and her skin.

The red light drew nearer and separated into two. Minutes later an ambulance and police cruiser screamed onto the shoulder, blasting us with gravel and hot air. Red pulsed off glistening blacktop, rain-glazed vehicles, pale faces.

Molly and Carlos were administered emergency care by the paramedics, transferred to the ambulance, and raced toward the hospital in Sololá. Elena and Luis followed to oversee their admittance. After giving brief statements, the rest of us were permitted to return to Panajachel, where we were staying, while Mateo made the trip to police headquarters in Sololá.

The team was quartered at the Hospedaje Santa Rosa, a budget hotel hidden in an alleyway off Avenida el Frutal. Upon entering my room I stripped, heaped my filthy clothes in a corner, and showered, thankful that the FAFG had paid the extra quetzals for hot water. Though I’d eaten nothing since a cheese sandwich and apple at noon, fear and exhaustion squelched all desire for food. I fell into bed, despondent over the victims in the well at Chupan Ya, terrified for Molly and Carlos.

I slept badly that night, troubled by ugly dreams. Shards of infant skull. Sightless sockets. Arm bones sheathed in a rotting güipil. A tissue-spattered truck.

It seemed there was no escape from violent death, day or night, past or present.

I awoke to screeching parrots and soft, gray dawn seeping through my shutters. Something was terribly wrong. What?

Memories of the previous night hit me like a cold, numbing wave. I drew knees to chest and lay several minutes, dreading the news but needing to know.

Flinging back the quilt, I went through my abbreviated morning ritual, then threw on jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, and cap.

Mateo and Elena were sipping coffee at a courtyard table, their figures backlit by salmon-pink walls. I joined them, and Señora Samines placed coffee in front of me, and served plates of huevos rancheros, black beans, potatoes, and cheese to the others.

“¿Desayuno?” she asked. Breakfast?

“Sí, gracias.”

I added cream, looked at Mateo.

He spoke in English.

“Carlos took a bullet in the head, another in the neck. He’s dead.”

The coffee turned to acid in my mouth.

“Molly was hit twice in the chest. She survived the surgery, but she’s in a coma.”

I glanced at Elena. Her eyes were rimmed by lavender circles, the whites watery red.

“How?” I asked, turning back to Mateo.

“They think Carlos resisted. He was shot at close range outside the truck.”

“Will an autopsy be performed?”

Mateo’s eyes met mine, but he said nothing.

“Motive?”

“Robbery.”

“Robbery?”

“Bandits are a problem along that stretch.”

“Molly told me they’d been followed from Guatemala City.”

“I pointed that out.”

“And?”

“Molly has light brown hair, fair skin. She’s clearly gringo. The cops think they were probably targeted as a tourist couple in G City, then tailed until the truck hit a suitable ambush site.”

“In plain view along a major highway?”

Mateo said nothing.