Aaron Elkins - Curses!

"Gideon!” It was Julie's voice, alarmed, from the front of the steps. He realized it was the second time she'd called. “What's going on up there? Are you all right?"

And now he heard his attacker stumbling away from him along the length of the long wall, footsteps quickly receding. Gideon started blindly after him, but with his second step he tripped over one of the serpent heads and had to grab it to keep from tumbling to the stony ledge below. He held on, panting and queasy. But his vision was beginning to return. In the distance, halfway along the wall, he could see someone fleeing over the ancient stones, hunched and apelike under the misty, flat ribbon of the Milky Way. Hunched with pain, he hoped.

"Yes,” he called to Julie. “I'm all right. I'll be right down.” But she was already on her way up, and by the time he was steady enough to let go of the sculpture and ease away from the edge she was there.

"Gideon-my God, what-"

"It's okay, Julie, I'm all right. The guy just scared the hell out of me, that's all. He's gone now."

She scanned his face anxiously. “You're sure you're all right?"

He nodded. “Other than a sore spot where I got kicked in the head, an ache or two where I got kicked in the ribs, and a few bruises here and there, I'm fine.” He grinned, but it didn't feel very convincing. “Aside from feeling generally like hell, that is."

"Sit down,” she told him, firmly taking his arm in both hands to guide him to a seat on the temple portico.

"Now,” she said, still holding his arm while she sat beside him, “what happened?"

He told her.

"And you're sure you're not hurt?"

"Absolutely. Just a few bruises."

"Thank goodness. Did he get your wallet?"

"No, I don't think that's what he was interested in."

She frowned at him. “What then?"

"I had the impression he was trying to kill me."

She continued to stare at him, then decided not to pursue it. “You couldn't see him at all?"

"No, I couldn't see anything. He jumped me just when the lights went out. It was pitch black.” Tentatively, he tried standing up and found that he felt better; the queasiness was receding. “I'm okay now."

She stood too, and for a moment they looked at each other, then embraced without speaking. Beside them the pitted serpent columns gleamed in the starlight.

"I got scared,” she murmured into his shoulder.

"Well, no wonder. I was a little on edge myself."

She didn't respond except to burrow a little deeper into his shoulder.

"That was a pun,” he pointed out. “On edge?"

"Not funny."

"No, it wasn't,” he said softly. “Sorry.” He stroked her smooth, fragrant hair and held her a while longer. “Feeling better?"

He felt her head nod against his chest. “Come on,” he said, “let's head back."

On Julie's insistence they stopped to report it to the khaki-clad official who seemed to be the Chichen Itza security force and custodial squad in one. At the moment he was busy stacking the chairs and trying to shoo off a knot of people standing around enjoying a smoke after the performance. The brief interview was not highly successful from Gideon's point of view, partly because his rudimentary Spanish was barely up to its demands, and partly because the official's priorities differed from his own; most of the time was taken up with an admonitory lecture about watching the show from unapproved areas. He took their Mayaland address, however, and promised to file a report with the proper authorities. Gideon would no doubt hear from them in due course.

"About trying to kill you,” Julie said on the walk back to the hotel, “are you really sure that's what he was trying to do?"

"No,” Gideon said truthfully. “But he almost brained me with some kind of heavy chain. And he was trying like hell to kick me over the edge. At least that's the way it felt."

"But why? What possible reason could he have? You don't suppose…” She stopped walking. “That threat? The one you said couldn't mean anything, that was just so much bluster?"

He shrugged. “Maybe I was wrong."

"Did you get a look at him at all? Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"

"No, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear. The whole thing caught me by surprise, and it couldn't have lasted more than five seconds. Most of which I spent trying not to roll over the edge."

"But you must have been able to tell something. Was he big? Small? Skinny? Fat?"

"I just don't know; he seemed pretty strong, but there really wasn't any way to tell. I never got my hands on him."

They began to walk again, preferring not to fall too far behind the group of people that had been ousted by the guard. Gideon's ear was beginning to ache, his ribs to pulse with pain. The adrenaline-generated anesthesia of danger was starting to wear off.

"I know what you're thinking,” she said. “You're thinking it was somebody from the dig."

That's what he was thinking, all right.

Julie jerked her head. “Gideon, I just can't make myself believe it was any of those people. The threat-all right, maybe. But to actually attack you…with a chain -anyway, how could they even know we were going to the sound-and-light show? We didn't tell anybody."

"No, but any of them could easily have been following us. They could have trailed us to the show, and then when I went up the stairs they might have sneaked around to the far side of the wall, climbed up, and edged their way along it during the performance. And the whole crew went to the show last week. They'd know just the moment when I'd be blinded-"

He sighed. “Would you say this lacks a certain plausibility?"

"Just a little.” She turned her head to look up at him. “Gideon, don't get angry, but isn't this beginning to sound just the tiniest bit paranoid to you? You can't even be sure it was an American. Maybe it was someone who never saw you before. Somebody nutty, or a wino or dope addict who was spending the night up there."

Gideon thought it over. “I suppose it could have been."

"Isn't that a more reasonable explanation?"

Gideon put a hand on either side of her waist. “Yes,” he said with a smile, “it is."

"After all, you said you smelled wine, didn't you?"

"Yes, that's true."

"And if it only lasted a few seconds before you scared him off, and it was dark, and you were scuffling, how can you be positive he wasn't just trying to rob you?"

"You're right, I can't."

"And do you really believe all this, or are you just humoring me?"

"I'm just humoring you,” Gideon said. “Somebody was trying to kill me."

When Gideon awakened the next morning he stretched before thinking, then followed it with an immediate and heartfelt groan.

"Feeling a little achy?” Julie murmured beside him.

"If you call an inability to move without excruciating pain a little achy, then I suppose you could say I'm a little achy. God, I feel like the Tin Man after a year in the rain."

Julie kissed him sleepily somewhere near the left eyebrow and rolled out of bed, yawning. “I'll get you some aspirin."

"Thanks. About forty should do it."

While she rummaged in the toiletry kit that had been placed on the bathroom windowsill but not yet unpacked, Gideon lay on his back, careful not to move. Although he rarely fell back asleep once awake, this time he drowsed, slipping into a troubling dream, perhaps the continuation of a dream he'd been having when he woke up.

He was a child again, lying on an operating table, alone in an immense, cold room. He was frightened, his heart in his mouth. Something awful was going to happen to him. There was an ominous grinding noise, and the table, which had wheels, began to slide over the linoleum floor, slowly at first, gradually building up to a blurred speed, then coming to halt in another huge room. There, silent, elongated figures in white surgical gowns and masks glided as if on skates. The smell of ether was strong in Gideon's nostrils.