The climb up the waterfall was not difficult at all. But the activity of the spirits became increasingly stronger. Again and again Merrick cursed under her breath. I called on Oxalá to show the way.
"Honey, get me there," Merrick said.
Quite abruptly I perceived, just beneath an overhang, where the waterfall jetted forward, a monstrous open-mouthed face carved deep into the volcanic rock that surrounded an obvious cave. It was precisely as the doomed Matthew had described it. His camera had been ruined by moisture before he could photograph it, however, and its size was something of a shock.
Now, you can well imagine my satisfaction that we had reached this mythic place. For years I had heard tell of it, it was inextricably bound up in my mind with Merrick, and now we were there. Though the spirits kept up their assault, the gentle mist from the waterfall was cooling my hands and face.
I made my way up to stand beside Merrick, when suddenly the spirits exerted immense pressure against my body, and I felt my left foot go out from under me.
Though I never cried out, but merely reached for purchase, Merrick turned and grabbed hold of me by the loose shoulder of my jacket. That was all I needed to recover my footing and climb the remaining few feet to be at the flattened entrance of the cave.
"Look at the offerings," Merrick said, putting her left hand on my right. The spirits redoubled their efforts, but I held firm and so did Merrick, though twice she swiped at something near to her face.
As for "the offerings," what I beheld was a giant basalt head. It struck me as similar to the Olmec, but that was all I could say. Did it resemble the murals in the temple? Impossible to judge. Whatever it was, I loved it. It was helmeted and tilted upwards so that the face with its open eyes and unique smiling mouth received the rain that inevitably fell here, and at its uneven base, amid piles of blackened stones, stood an amazing array of candles, feathers, and wilted flowers, as well as pottery. I could smell the incense where I stood.
The blackened rocks testified to many years of candles, but the last of these offerings could not have been more than two or three days old.
I felt something change in the air around us. But Merrick seemed as distressed by the spirits as before. She made another involuntary gesture, as though to drive something unseen away.
"So nothing stopped them from coming," I said quickly, looking at the offering. "Let me try something." I reached into my jacket pocket and took out a pack of Rothmans, which I was keeping for the inevitability that I would smoke. I opened them hastily, lighted one with my butane lighter, in spite of the incessant spray of the waterfall, drew in the smoke, and then put the cigarette before the immense head. I put the entire pack with it. Silently I said the prayers to the spirits, asking them to allow us access to this place.
I felt no change in the assault of the spirits. I felt them pushing on me with renewed energy in a way that was beginning to unnerve me, certain though I might be that they would never gain very much strength.
"They know our motives," said Merrick, gazing at the giant upturned head and its withered flowers. "Let's go into the cave."
We used our large flashlights, and at once the silence from the waterfall descended upon us, along with the smell of dry earth and ash.
Immediately, I saw the paintings, or what I perceived to be paintings. They were well inside, and we walked upright and swiftly towards them, ignoring the spirits which had now produced a whistling sound near my ears. To my utter shock, I saw that these splendidly colored wall coverings were in fact mosaics made with millions of tiny chips of semiprecious stones! The figures were far simpler than those of temple murals, which argued perhaps for a more ancient date.
The spirits had gone quiet.
"This is marvelous," I whispered, because I had to say something. And again I tried to reach for my camera, but the pain in my arm was simply too sharp. "Merrick, we must take photographs," I told her. "Look, darling, there's writing. We must photograph it. I'm sure those are glyphs."
She didn't answer. She stared at the walls as I did. She seemed entranced.
I could not quite make out a procession, or indeed attribute any activity to the tall slender figures, except to say that they appeared to be in profile, to wear long garments, and to be carrying important objects in their hands. I did not see bloody victims struggling. I did not see clear figures of priests.
But as I struggled to make out the intermittent and glittering splendor, my foot struck something hollow. I looked down at a wealth of richly colored pottery gleaming before us as far as we could see.
"This isn't a cave at all, is it?" Merrick said. "I remember Matthew saying it was a tunnel. It is a tunnel. It's been carved out entirely by man."
The stillness was shocking.
Stepping as carefully as she could, she went on, and I behind her, though I had to reach down several times to move some of the small vessels out of my way.
"This is a burial place, that's what it is, and all these are offerings," I said. At that I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head. I spun around and shone my flashlight on nothing. The light from the cave entrance hurt my eyes.
Something pushed my left side and then my right shoulder. It was the spirits coming at me again. I saw that Merrick was jerking and moving to the side, as if something were striking her also.
I uttered a prayer to Oxalá again, and heard Merrick issuing her own refusals to back down.
"This is as far as we got last time," said Merrick, turning to look at me, her face dark above her flashlight, which she politely directed to the ground. "We took everything we found here. Now I'm going on." I was right with her, but the assault of the spirits grew stronger. I saw her pushed to one side. But quickly she steadied herself. I heard the crunch of pottery beneath her feet.
"You've made us angry," I said to the spirits. "Maybe we don't have any right here. And maybe we do!" At this I received a heavy silent blow to the stomach, but it was not sufficient to cause pain. I felt a sharp increase in my exhilaration suddenly.
"Go on, do your damndest," I said. "Oxalá, who is buried here? Would he or she have it remain secret forever? Why did Oncle Vervain send us to this place?"
Merrick, who was several yards ahead of me, let out a gasp.
I caught up with her at once. The tunnel had opened into a great hollow round chamber where the mosaics ascended the low dome. Much had fallen away from age or dampness, I knew not which, but it was a glorious room nevertheless. Round both walls the figures proceeded, until there stood one individual whose facial features had long ago been broken away.
On the floor of the room, in its very center, surrounded by clear circles of pottery offerings and fine jade statues, lay a beautiful arrangement of ornaments in a nest of dust.
"Look, the mask, the mask in which he was buried," Merrick said, her light falling upon the most glorious polished green jade image, which lay as it had been placed perhaps thousands of years before, the body of the wearer having long since melted away.
Neither of us dared take a step. The precious articles surrounding the burial were too beautifully arranged. We could see the ear ornaments now, glinting, as the soft moldering earth nearly swallowed them, and across the would-be chest of the being we saw a long richly carved scepter, which perhaps he had held in his hand.
"Look at all the debris," she said. "No doubt he was wrapped in fabric full of precious amulets and sacrifices. Now the fabric's gone and only the stone objects remain."
There was a loud noise behind us. I could hear pottery smashing. Merrick gave a short cry, as though something had struck her.
Then willfully, indeed, as if driven, she plunged forward, dropped to her knees, and picked up the brilliant green mask. She darted back with it, away from the remains of the corpse.
A flying stone struck me on the forehead. Something shoved at my back.
"Come on, let's leave the rest for the archaeologists," she said. "I have what I came for. It's what Oncle Vervain told me to get."
"The mask? You mean you knew all the time there was a mask in this tunnel, and that's what you wanted?" She was already on her way to the outside air.
Scarcely had I caught up with her when she was pushed backwards.
"I'm taking it, I have to have it," she declared.
As we both tried to continue, something unseen blocked our path. I reached out. I could touch it. It was like a soft silent wall of energy.
Merrick suddenly gave over her flashlight to me and in both hands she held the mask. At any other time of my life, I would have been admiring it, for it had an immense amount of expression and detail. Though there were holes for eyes and a gash for the mouth, all features were deeply contoured and the gloss of the thing was beautiful in itself.
As it was, I moved with all my strength against this force that sought to block me, lifting both flashlights as if they were clubs.
Merrick again startled me with a gasp. She held the mask to her face, and as she turned to took at me it appeared brilliant and faintly ghastly in the light. It seemed suspended in the darkness, for I could scarce make out her hands or her body at all.
She turned it away from me, still holding it to her face. And again there came a gasp from her. The air in the cave fell silent and still.
All I could hear was her breathing and then my own. It seemed she began to whisper something in a foreign tongue, though I didn't know what tongue it was.
"Merrick?" I asked gently. In the abrupt and welcome stillness, the air of the cave felt moist and sweetly cool.
"Merrick," I said again, but I could not rouse her. She stood with the mask over her face, peering ahead of us, and then, with a surprising gesture, she ripped the thing away and gave it over to me.
"Take it, look through it," she whispered.
I shoved my flashlight through my belt loop, gave hers back to her, and took the mask in both hands. I remember those little gestures because they were so ordinary, and I didn't know yet what I thought about the stillness around us or the dimness in which we stood.
Far, far away was the greenery of the jungle, and everywhere above us and around us the coarse but beautiful mosaics glittered with their tiny bits of stone.
I lifted the mask as she had directed me. A swimming sensation overcame me. I took several steps backwards, but whatever else I did, I don't know. The mask remained in place and my hands remained on it, and all else had subtly changed.
The cave was full of flaring torches, there was the sound of someone chanting in a low and repetitive manner, and before me in the dimness there stood a figure, wavering as if he were not entirely solid, but rather made of silk, and left to the mercy of the scant draught from the entrance of the cave.
I could see his expression clearly, though not define it entirely or say what feature conspired in his young male face to evince what emotion or how. He was begging me in dumb eloquence to get out of the cave and to leave the mask behind.
"We can't take it," I said. Or rather I heard myself say this. The chanting grew louder. More shapes closed in around the one wavering but determined figure. It seemed he stretched out his arms to beseech me.
"We can't take it," I said again. His arms were a golden brown and covered with gorgeous stone bracelets. His face was oval and his eyes dark and quick. I saw tears on his cheeks.
"We can't take it," I said, and then I felt myself failing. "We must leave it. We must bring back the things that were taken before!"
An overwhelming sadness and grief swallowed me; I wanted to lie on the ground; so great was this emotion and so right was it that I felt it and expressed it with my entire form.
Yet no sooner had I hit the ground—at least I think I did—than I was jerked upright, and the mask was ripped away. One moment I felt it in my fingers and against my face, and the next I felt nothing and saw nothing but the distant light flickering in the green leaves.
The figure was gone, the chanting had stopped, the grief was broken. Merrick was pulling me with all her strength:
"David, come on!" she said. "Come on!" She would not be denied. And I myself felt an overwhelming desire to get out of the cave with her, and to take the mask; to steal this magic, this indescribable magic which had enabled me to see the spirits of the place with my own eyes. Boldly, wretchedly, without any excuse whatsoever, I reached down, without losing a pace, and caught up a handful of brilliant glinting stone artifacts from the thick moldering floor, stuffing them into my pockets as I went on.
We were in the open jungle in a matter of moments. We ignored the unseen hands that assailed us, the volleys of leaves, and the urgent cries of the howler monkeys, as though they'd joined in the assault. A slender banana tree crashed down into our path, and we moved over it, hacking the others that seemed to be bowing to strike us in the face. We made remarkable time, moving through the hallway of the temple. We were almost running when we found the remnants of the trail. The spirits sent more of the banana trees flapping towards us. There was a rain of coconuts, which did not strike us. From time to time small pebbles came in a little gale.
But as we continued, the assault gradually fell away. At last there was nothing but a soundless howling. I was crazed. I was a perfect devil. I didn't care. She had the mask. She had the mask which enabled a person to see spirits. She had it. Oncle Vervain hadn't been strong enough to get it, I knew it. And neither had been Cold Sandra nor Honey nor Matthew. The spirits had driven them out.
Silently, Merrick clutched the mask to her chest and kept going. Neither of us stopped, no matter how bad the ground under us, no matter how bad the heat, until we reached the jeep.
Only then did she open her backpack and put the mask inside of it. She threw the jeep into reverse, backed up into the jungles, turned the car around, and headed for Santa Cruz del Flores at a boisterous and furious speed. I remained silent until we were alone together in our tent.