“We can see Tapachula. Juan thinks you should come to the bridge.”
Sam and Remi dressed quickly and headed up on deck. When they climbed the steps to the bridge, they could see why Juan had wanted to wake them. Through the windshield they could see the distant shape of Tacaná, the second highest peak in Mexico. It was a dark blue pyramid miles back from the coast, standing alone against the sky. This morning, it was emitting a line of gray smoke that trailed off to the east.
Juan said, “It’s technically active, but it hasn’t had a big eruption since 1950.”
“Did they say on the radio that it was about to do anything?” asked Remi. “Have they told people to evacuate?”
“They don’t seem to know what’s happening yet. They say maybe the earthquake shook something loose or opened up cracks. The roads are out, so I don’t think the scientists have gotten there to measure anything yet.”
“How far is the volcano from the city?” asked Sam.
“Much farther than it looks,” Juan said. “The mountain is four thousand meters, so it looks close. But we’ll have plenty to do without the volcano. We’ll be off Tapachula in twenty minutes.”
Remi went down the steps and then belowdecks to the cabins and knocked on doors. “We’re almost to Tapachula,” she called.
A few minutes later, the crew, the doctors, and the Fargos were all up and having a simple breakfast of coffee, eggs, and fruit on deck. It was difficult for any of them to keep from staring into the distance at the smoke from the volcano smeared across the sky. As they approached the city, they began to see the devastation—buildings that had half disintegrated in the shaking, leaving great piles of bricks beside walls that were, for the moment, still standing; long rows of telephone poles that had fallen, leaving electrical wires draped over parked cars or lying in the street. Here and there, in the panoramic view from the deck of the yacht, they could see small, steady fires that had probably begun when natural gas pipes had broken. One by one, they left the table to prepare to go ashore.
They had visited enough affected towns on their way down the coast to have improved their methods greatly. The three doctors, who had already replenished their medical kits, each packed two large backpacks with supplies they’d needed in the last towns. There were fires, so they brought burn medications and painkillers. There was fallen masonry, so they brought splints, sutures, and—for the worst cases—amputation kits. Sam, Remi, and George lined up the cases of food and water, loaded the first of the generators and gasoline cans. They knew from experience that their trip to shore would attract those eager to help as well as the desperate, so they included cases of flashlights, first aid kits, and tools for digging people out of collapsed buildings and for making temporary shelters.
At seven, while they were packing, they could already see people gathering on the beach to meet them. They loaded the heaviest items into the lifeboat before they lowered it to the water, then formed a line so they could hand the other boxes and packs from one person to the next down the ladder to the boat. When they were finished, the boat was a bit overloaded, so they had to carefully arrange themselves to keep it evenly balanced.
The trip to shore included the three doctors and Sam, Remi, and Miguel, who would run the motor and bring the boat in safely. Miguel used the waves judiciously, positioning the boat at the proper angle so it would be propelled in rather than rolled over. Just as the boat was near the shore, he turned off the motor and tilted it up to protect the propeller. As the keel scraped at the bow, Sam and Remi jumped out and hauled the boat ashore.
The local people were overjoyed to see what they had brought. The three doctors were immediately surrounded by people eager to guide them to the local hospital and carry their medical supplies. Sam, Remi, and Miguel unloaded the rest of the supplies onto the sand and pushed the boat back out to sea so Miguel could go back for the next load of food, water, and a second generator.
Sam and Remi went with the doctors to get the first generator up and running at the hospital and then returned to the beach to get the second generator, when Miguel returned, and bring it to a medical clinic that was still standing across town.
The work went on all day and much of the night. As they distributed their cargo to various parts of town, they heard many stories. People were working with shovels and tractors and trucks to clear the roads to cities along the coast. Others with homes that had remained intact were taking in those whose homes were destroyed.
Through the next five days, there were aftershocks from the enormous quake. The first few were sharp and lasted uncomfortably long, but they seemed to get milder and less frequent as the days passed.
On the evening of the sixth day, Captain Juan was waiting on the rear deck of the yacht when Sam, Remi, and the others returned in the lifeboat. His face was grave.
Remi nudged Sam. “I think we’re about to get some bad news.”
Remi, Sam, the three doctors, George, and Miguel gathered while Juan fidgeted and cleared his throat. “This afternoon I got a radio message from the charter company. They’ve been patient about things, but they want us to bring their yacht back to Acapulco.”
“Why?” asked Remi. “We’re still willing to rent it, and we haven’t hurt the boat, have we?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Juan said. “They’ve been nervous because we’ve been using a luxury yacht to haul supplies, but they knew it was necessary and that we can fix anything that looks worn. But they’ve got a schedule to keep. In four days, another group will arrive in Acapulco, expecting the yacht to be waiting for them. There are contracts.” He shrugged and held out his empty hands to pantomime his helplessness.
“How much time do we have?” asked Sam.
“They want us to leave tonight. That will give them a day to have the decks cleaned and polished, the engines serviced, and new supplies loaded. I’m sorry.”
“All right,” said Sam. “We’ve unloaded all the supplies we brought here days ago and now there’s no need for the yacht. What do you think, Remi? Want to go back to Acapulco with the boat and fly home?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I think we should stay a few more days. I’ve been hearing that the people who live near the volcano still need medical care and supplies.”
“Are you sure?” said Juan. “That’s not an easy trip. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen you both working when I was ready to drop. I’m proud to know you.”
“We all are,” said George.
“It’s been a pleasure for us too,” said Sam. “But we’d like to try to help the people on the mountain. Right now, we’ll go below and pack our things so you can get started for home.”
Dr. Martinez said, “I think I’d better go back with the boat, if I may. I’ve been away from the hospital as long as I can be.”
Sam turned to the others. “Dr. Garza?”
Dr. Garza said, “Dr. Talamantes and I are staying for a few more days too. And by the way, please call me Maria. We’ve been through so much together, I feel as though I’ve known you for years.”
“And call me Christina,” said Dr. Talamantes.
In a short time, the group was reassembled on the aft deck with their backpacks. George and Miguel helped them into the lifeboat and took them back to the beach. When the boat was empty again, Sam and Remi pushed it off into deeper water.
“We’ll miss you,” said Miguel.
“Good,” said Remi. “Friends should miss one another. But we’ll all have stories of adventures we can tell when we meet again.”
As the lifeboat putted out to the yacht, Sam picked up their backpacks, and he and Remi walked off the beach and up the street toward the schoolhouse that was being used for temporary shelter. He said, “You know we’re stranded now, don’t you?”
“Stranded in a tropical beach town with the man I love?” Remi said. “Big deal.”
“A very romant
ic thing to say for a woman who’s been shoveling gravel and asphalt into cracks in a runway. I just hope those adventures you were talking about are as much fun as you implied to Miguel.”
She went up on tiptoes and kissed him. “This will be fine, and we’ll do some small bit of good. If we weren’t here, we’d be at home, bugging the electricians and carpenters, so our house would never get finished.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go see if there’s room for us to sleep in the school. We’ll call Selma so she doesn’t get worried, and tomorrow we can ask around to see how to form a relief party to the mountain.”
VOLCÁN TACANÁ, MEXICO
By noon the next day, Sam and Remi were among a dozen volunteers sitting under the hot sun in the back of a flatbed truck, bouncing along the bad road toward Volcán Tacaná. Beside them were their former shipmates Dr. Christina Talamantes and Dr. Maria Garza, and, on the other side, were others they had come to know during the past week. There were two brothers in their twenties named Raul and Paul Mendoza, who had been brought up out in the countryside near the volcano, and a tall, quiet man named José, who’d had a law office in Tapachula that had been damaged by the earthquake. José Sánchez had a thick mustache that veiled his mouth, so one seldom knew whether he was smiling or frowning.
As they rode away from the city past miles of cultivated fields on their way into the interior, Remi stared into the distance at the blue triangle of Tacaná. Christina Talamantes noticed. “There doesn’t seem to be any more smoke. Maybe it’ll settle down again for another hundred years or so.”
“And maybe it’s saving its strength to spit fire and ash on our heads and bury us in lava,” José said. “The word ‘Tacaná’ is Mayan for ‘House of Fire.’”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t live up to its name, for now,” Sam said.
They rode for another hour before they reached the small town of Unión Juárez. There were two small brick buildings along the main street that had partially collapsed and two others that had lost some roof tiles. In the central square, the driver and the Spanish-speaking volunteers got out to talk with the people loitering there. Sam and Remi stuck close to Christina, who obliged them by translating. After talking briefly with an Indian-looking couple, Christina told the Fargos, “The road ends in about seven kilometers.”
“Then what?” asked Sam.
“Then we walk,” she said. “The lady says it’s a foot trail, and there are lots of smaller trails branching off of it that lead to the mountain villages.”
Remi said, “Did she say anything about conditions up there?”
“She warned me that it will be cold. It’s over thirteen thousand feet at the top.”
“We’re ready for that,” Remi said. “In fact, I have some things I can share with you. I brought some shells and fleece linings on the yacht because sometimes the Pacific can be cold at night, especially when the wind blows.”
“Thank you,” said Christina. “I brought some warm clothes too, and so did Maria, because we thought we’d be sleeping outdoors. But we may take you up on your offer in a day or two.”
“Did the lady say anything else?”
“They’ve had some avalanches from the shaking, and some of the villages’ water supplies may be contaminated. There are a few injuries that Maria and I can treat, and possibly some that we can’t. Those people will have to be evacuated.”
Sam said, “We’ll look for places near each of the villages where a helicopter can land.”
“Thank you,” said Christina. “Right now, I’m going to the church to join Maria and see if we can interview people who have come down from the mountain to find shelter. Want to come?”
When they entered the church, Maria and Christina met with five families from mountain villages. As they talked with the parents, the children came to Remi and sat on her lap. They were fascinated by her long auburn hair and loved to hear her sing little songs in her exotic native language, English. She gave them protein bars with nuts and chocolate as treats.
After a while, the truck driver appeared in front of the church, and everyone climbed into the flatbed truck for the last leg of their ride. Where the road ended, there was a stone to mark the beginning of the foot trail. Each of the volunteers climbed down from the truck and shouldered a heavy pack full of supplies. They all helped one another adjust load straps, and then set off.
The walk up the steep mountain trail was hard and slow. The forests had been cut and cleared for most of their journey but had never been cleared on the mountain, so foliage overhung their path. They made camp on a level clearing surrounded by trees with fruit that looked like small avocados the Mendozas called criollo, and slept until dawn, when the sun woke them. As they reached higher altitudes, the lowland trees were replaced by pines called pinabete.
They followed the same pattern for three days, breaking camp each morning, walking until they reached the next village, and meeting with its inhabitants to find out what kind of help they needed. At each one, Christina and Maria examined patients and treated injuries and illnesses. Remi assisted them, keeping the inventory of medicines and supplies, bathing and bandaging and administering prescribed doses while the doctors moved on to the next patient. Sam worked with a crew of volunteers and local farmers to rebuild and strengthen houses, replace broken pipes and wiring, and fix generators to restore electrical power.
At the end of the fifth day on the mountain, as they lay in a tent at the edge of a village near the twenty-five-hundred-meter level, Sam said, “I have to admit I’m glad we decided to do this.”
“Me too,” Remi said. “It’s one of the most satisfying times of my life.”
“You have wonderful taste.”
“You have wonderful self-esteem,” she said. “And I’m going to sleep.”
The following morning, Sam and Remi led the way to the last village. They took the smaller side trail that the mayor had told them led to their final stop and soon they were getting too far ahead of the others. They waited until the others could see them and then went on. But, before long, they were much farther ahead again.
Sam and Remi reached a slope that had suffered an avalanche during the night and covered a stretch of the trail with dirt and rocks that looked like basalt. They made a detour above it, carefully navigating around the big boulders that had fallen. Then they both stopped.
One of the enormous chunks of basalt that lay in the path was not natural. It was a perfect rectangle with rounded corners at the top. Without speaking, they both stepped closer. They could see the carved profile of a man with the hooked nose and elongated skull of a Mayan aristocrat and an elaborate feathered headdress. There were columns of complex symbols that they could tell were Mayan writing. They both looked up the side of the mountain, their eyes following the gash in the green foliage upward, tracing the path of the avalanche to its beginning.
Irresistible attraction made them begin to climb at once. They went up the steep hillside to a surface that was perfectly flat like a shelf, about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. The space was bordered by trees, but there were none within the ring. They could see that a portion of the shelf had broken off and gone down in the avalanche.
Sam dug down a few inches with his knife, and they both heard the blade strike stone and scrape when he moved it.
Remi looked around her. “A patio?” she said. “Or an entryway?”
They looked at the sheer face of the mountain. There was one area that had a layer of new dirt on it, which had fallen from higher up on the mountain, and a bit of a recessed spot. “This looks like it might have slid down when the big block fell,” Sam said. He poked it with his knife, then set down his pack and took out his folding shovel. He used it overhand, scraping down more of the dirt from the rocky wall.
“Careful,” Remi said. “We don’t want to bring down the rest of the mountain.” But she took off her backp
ack, took out a hatchet they’d used for splitting firewood, and joined him. When the dirt was cleared, they faced a wall of black volcanic rock. Sam stabbed at it with his shovel a few times. It was brittle and porous like pumice and chipped off in chunks. He nodded at Remi’s hatchet. “May I?”
“Be my guest.” She handed him the hatchet.
Sam hacked at the layer of volcanic stone, knocking it away. “It looks as though at some point there was a lava flow, and it must have come down like a curtain.”
“Over the entrance?”
“I didn’t dare to put it that way,” he said. “We don’t know it’s an entrance to anything, but that’s sure what it looks like.” He hacked harder until a bigger chunk fell inward and a hole appeared.
“You just had to knock hard,” said Remi. “What do you think? Tomb?”
“Way up here? I’m guessing a sacred place, like a shrine to whatever god was in charge of volcanos.”
Sam enlarged the opening, took his flashlight from his pack, shone its beam into the hole, and then stepped through the opening. “Come in,” he said. “It’s an ancient building.”
Inside was a room made of cut stone, then plastered in white. All of the walls had been painted with colorful pictures of Mayan men, women, and gods in a procession of some sort. A few humans sacrificed to the gods by cutting themselves or pushing thorns through their tongues. But the figure that dominated the pictures on each wall was a skeleton with dangling eyeballs.
But Sam and Remi didn’t let their flashlights linger on any of these scenes. They both stepped deeper into the room, drawn by a singular sight. On the whitewashed stone floor lay the desiccated body of a man, dark and leathery. He wore a breechcloth, and a pair of sandals of woven plant fiber. In the stretched lobes of his ears were large green jade plugs. There were jade beads around his neck and a carved jade disk. They both ran the beams of their flashlights up and down the withered figure. Beside the man’s body was a widemouthed, lidded pot.