Mayab by Malcolm Shuman

Author:Malcolm Shuman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497663268
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

FIVE

The man called Mateo awoke with the boy standing beside the hammock. “Good morning,” Pablo said and grinned down at him. Mateo groaned and blinked. The sun would not go away, so he sat up.

“The doctora is pretty, no?” the boy asked.

“The what? Oh. Yes.” Mateo lowered his head and rubbed his face with his hands.

“Ca betic tu yetel?” the boy asked. “Are you doing it with her?”

“Oh Jesus.”

“Lots of people walking in the square saw you with her last night.”

“Did you come all the way here to tell me that?”

“No. I have to go help my father in his milpa. I told him I’d catch up. I just wanted to know if it was true, what they said.”

“If they said it it must be true. You can’t hide anything from anyone in this town.”

The boy frowned slightly. “Then it is true, or not?”

He saw something in the American’s eyes then that told him he ought to go and so he shrugged and went out, running to catch up with his father, who was already to the end of the lane. Mateo sank his head in his arms and it came back in a dizzy rush, the dream which waking had blotted from his memory and which had mercifully remained submerged until the boy had come to recall it from the depths. He saw Imelda’s face, the clear, tan skin, black, shining hair, and almond eyes, and she was standing in front of him, young and soft and beautiful, arms outstretched, and her mouth moving, and as he stood there in the street she went down on her knees, terror in her face, and her hands reached out to clutch at his legs, and they were all on their knees, old men, women, and children, and the sergeant was telling him to fire and he just stood there, unable, until the sergeant and the corporal opened up and then the bodies began to twist and writhe, and fall into a heap and he began to fire, too, blindly, anything to make them stop moving, to kill the nightmare, and when he was out of ammunition he stood over them looking down and he saw her face, and her eyes were open, looking through him, and he knew that he had been the last person she had ever seen. And her face was the face of Imelda. How did you tell a woman that long ago you had killed her, on the other side of the world?

His head was splitting now, the headache which always came with the dreams. He wished he did not have to go into Merida again today.

Holliman opened his eyes and fought out the sun. It was morning, and his head felt thick, and he knew that he had not slept more than a couple of hours. And that he would not sleep again until it was over. Which he knew now would be soon. Because now he knew where the pieces of the jigsaw went. There

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