Aaron Elkins - Skull Duggery

Once they got there, they stood at the corner of the platform, looking down on the playing field, while Gideon told Tony as much as he remembered about the ancient game. Which wasn’t much.

It had been enormously widespread in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, he explained. Well over a thousand courts had been found so far, wasn’t that amazing? Different cultures had varying versions, and nobody today could say for sure what the rules were, but judging from reliefs and from a modern variant of the game, it was something like a combination of volleyball and soccer, with the object being to keep the ball in play, but using only the hips, although in some later versions the forearms were used, or even rackets “Didn’t they, like, used to sacrifice the losers?” Tony asked. “Cut their heads off right in front of the crowd?”

“Not down here, no. That was only in the Mayan and Veracruz cultures.”

“Oh.” He was disappointed.

“But it was a brutal game all the same,” Gideon said to cheer him up. “The ball wasn’t like a volleyball or a soccer ball. That is, it was about the same size, but it was hard, solid rubber, weighing a good five or six pounds. Imagine getting hit in the face with that when you weren’t expecting it. Players would get really beaten up by them. According to one of the Spanish chroniclers, some of them were killed when the ball hit them in the head or the chest.”

“No kidding,” Tony said. “That’s interesting.” But it seemed to Gideon that his interest was wandering. He was restless. Enough lectures for one morning.

“Why don’t we head up to the fortress?” Gideon suggested. “Supposed to be a terrific view from up there.”

“Yeah, later, but the ball court’s cool. Tell me some more stuff.”

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know that much more. There’s some evidence that the game was sometimes used as a proxy for war. For example, one of the missionaries claims he saw a game between the Toltec king and three of his rivals, with the winner becoming the ruler of the whole empire.”

“You’re shitting me,” Tony said. “The whole empire?” But it was increasingly clear that his interested had wandered. He was preoccupied with something. He was oddly animated too: jumpy, on the edge of something. Gideon had the strong impression that he was getting up his nerve to say something, to ask Gideon something.

“Tony, is there something on your mind? Anything wrong?”

“Wrong? No, I got a lot on my mind, that’s all. Business stuff. But this is interesting. So who won the game? Did the Aztec king win?”

“Toltec, not Aztec,” Gideon couldn’t help pointing out, as if Tony gave a damn. “But I’m afraid I don’t know who won.”

“Shame,” Tony said distractedly, and then, half to himself: “Toltec, not Aztec. Got it.” His eyes darted haphazardly over the site. Gideon had the extraordinary impression that he might be on the verge of tears. What was going on here? “That round stone in the middle down there,” Tony blurted. “What’s that for? A goal or something?”

Whatever was bothering Tony, that old stone wasn’t it. But Gideon wasn’t much of a psychotherapist; he was supremely uncomfortable, and not very good, at digging into the reluctant psyches of other people. If Tony had something to say, it was going to be up to him to say it.

Gideon turned to look down at the stone, a crudely carved disk about a foot thick and two feet across. “No, that was probably a marker dividing the two sides. The way they-”

He heard something halfway between a sob and a grunt. Surprised and concerned, he turned. What happened next was so astounding, so utterly unexpected, that his reaction was completely instinctive. Tony, face contorted, was rushing toward him with his arms outstretched. Gideon batted with his right arm at Tony’s extended arms, catching him heavily in the shoulder. The blow sent Tony off to one side, but his momentum carried him one, two lurching, twisting steps onward to the edge, where he teetered briefly, then, arms windmilling, making chimp-like hooting noises, his feet went out from under him and over the edge he went. The last Gideon saw of him were his eyes, wild and rolling and furious.

The whole thing had taken less than two seconds.

Tony fell, not toward the playing field, but to the side, where the stone staircase came up, his body flumping heavily onto the landing where the steps turned. It was a drop of no more than nine or ten feet, but a violent contortion-almost as if he intentionally wrenched himself off the landing and into the air-sent him over the edge of that as well, and he plummeted another twenty feet to the stony ground. There he landed on his back, and this time he lay still.

For a moment Gideon was frozen, so utterly thunderstruck that he couldn’t move. What just happened? When he’d first seen Tony barreling into him, he’d thought for a millisecond that Tony had burst into tears, that this was an anguished embrace, a plea for help.

But only for a millisecond. If Gideon hadn’t been turning at the time, Tony would have smashed into his unprotected back and it would have been Gideon who had been launched into space and would now be lying there thirty feet below. But what on earth had made…

He jerked his head to shake the cobwebs loose and started quickly down the steps. Tony was moving a little now, he could see: a gentle, circular motion of his left forearm, fingers slightly curled, like an orchestra conductor calling forth a slow, pianissimo passage. He had drawn up his knees too. He didn’t seem to be in pain. There were no obviously broken limbs, and Gideon could see no blood. He knew better than to think there were no grave injuries, however; nobody could fall ten feet onto a stone platform, and then an additional twenty feet onto hard, stony ground-flat on his back both times, which meant he had to have struck his head as well-and then walk away as if nothing had happened.

When he reached Tony, he saw that he was right. Tony’s eyes were open and they followed Gideon, but the rims of both eyes had brown residue on them, a sure sign of intracranial hemorrhaging. He had taken out his cell phone on the way down, but he didn’t know Mexico’s equivalent of 911. Instead, he dialed the Hacienda. Annie picked up on the first ring.

“Good morning,” she sang, “ buenos dias -”

“Annie, this is Gideon. I’m at Yagul. Tony’s had an accident, a fall-serious-”

He caught the shocked intake of breath. “serious? What do you mean, serious? He’s not-?”

“He’s alive, but I think he’s suffered a brain injury. Can you get an ambulance here?”

“Yes, of course. Is he-never mind! I’ll call right away. My God-” She clicked off.

Gideon knelt beside him. Tony’s eyes continued to follow. There was a glob of blood in one nostril, and a thin trickle from his right ear. The nasal blood might be nothing, but the bleeding from the ear-that was another bad sign.

“Tony,” he said softly. “What was that about?”

Tony looked at him with an expression of mild curiosity. He made no attempt to speak. His arm was still making its slow circles. Gently, Gideon took hold of his wrist and laid it on his chest. It stayed there.

“Tony, can you hear me?”

No reply. Tony was watching Gideon’s lips. The pupil of his left eye was a pinpoint; the other seemed normal. Another indicator of an injured brain. There wasn’t much doubt about it now.

Tony was mostly on his back, but his head and hips were twisted to opposite sides. The position looked unpleasant, but Tony didn’t look uncomfortable. Gideon knew better than to try to straighten him out.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Creo que si.” I think so. Gideon waited for a name, but none came.