Thomas Hoover: Life blood

I was going to stop it, somehow. By God, I was. I stared at the women and felt so sad at the sight of the hand-woven blankets they held their babies in, primary greens and reds and blues lovingly woven into shimmering patterns that mirrored the symbols across the sides of the stone room. Their faces, especially their eyes, were transcendent in a kind of chiaroscuro of darkest blacks and purest whites, as though all their humanity had been caught by their blankets and shawls, surely created for this ultimate moment. And the mother of Tz'ac Tzotz was there, carrying him, the baby I'd so wanted to hold one last time.

Next Alex Goddard emerged from the stone room bearing a basket filled with sheets of white bark-paper. He approached Tz'ac Tzotz's mother, then took a wide section of the paper and secured it around her face with a silk cord, covering her vision. Down the line, one after another, he carefully blindfolded the women, while they stood passively, some crying-from joy or sorrow, I could not tell. Finally, at the last, he also covered Marcelina's face.

So she's not supposed to know what's really happening. Nobody's supposed to know except him, and me. And, of course, Ramos and the G-2 secret police and whoever else is in on this crime. But, secretly, she does know. The God of the House of Darkness.

When he finished, he put down the basket, then turned to me. "Stand at the front edge of the platform and lift your hands in benediction. They all want to see you, the new bride."

I took a couple of steps, then looked back to see him adding more copal to the main censer, sending a fresh cloud of smoke billowing out into the rain. As the incense poured around us, the Army thugs who'd been loitering at the back of the stone room began coming forward, each carrying one of the bassinets. They set them down on the stones, ready to start taking the children. My outraged mind flashed on Ghirlandajo's "Massacre of the Innocents." Here, though, Sarah's children weren't being stabbed to death; they were being-kidnapped and stolen.

Revulsion pierced through me as though I'd been hit by a jagged shaft of lightning, but instead of being knocked down, I was energized. Or maybe the final effects of the toad venom were giving me a spurt of adrenaline. Letting his criminal charade continue one second longer became unbearable. What would happen to me, I didn't know, but I couldn't let it go on.

"No," I yelled, startling myself by the sound of my own voice. "In God's name, stop."

The rain was growing more intense, and I was soaked and bleary-eyed, but before I could think I found myself stalking over to Tz'ac Tzotz's mother, shouting at her. The next thing I knew I was ripping the paper from her frightened eyes. I hugged her as best I could, then yelled back at Marcelina.

"Tell them all to take off their blindfolds. This is obscene."

Then I went on autopilot, shutting out everything around me-the rain, the perilous sides of the pyramid, the pistol-carrying G-2 thugs, even Alex Goddard. The way I remember it now, it all took place in slow motion, like some underwater dream sequence, but surely it was just the opposite.

Anyway, I do know I snapped. I started shouting again, and with the G-2 hoods momentarily frozen, I started flinging the still-empty bassinets down the steep side of the pyramid, where they just bounced away into the rain. As I watched them disappearing, one after another, I felt marvelously emboldened. I would throw one and watch it go flying, and then I would throw another. Yes, damn it, yes!

I wanted to show anybody with two eyes that it was all a sham. Once they realized what was really happening, surely they would rise up and drive Alex Goddard from their home.

For a moment it seemed to be working. A stunned silence was slowly spreading over the square, while everybody around me was paralyzed, like waxworks. Maybe it's the same way you're temporarily caught off guard when a stranger on the street goes berserk.

By the time I'd flung away the last bassinet, the women had all removed their blindfolds and were staring at me, dumbfounded. Finally, Tz'ac Tzotz's mother whispered something to Marcelina, and she turned to me.

"She wants to know why you're angry. You're the bride. They only want to please you."

Angry? I was terrified, but also fighting mad.

"Marcelina, this is all a ghastly lie." I'd finished throwing and I was moving to the next stage. Get control. Could he risk killing me in front of all these people? "Tell them to take their babies and hide in the forest."

That was when I heard a cry that pierced through the rain and across the square beyond, and I turned back to see Alex Goddard shoving toward me. He's coming to murder me, since I've exposed him. But I wouldn't let it happen without a fight. I clenched my fists, waiting, feeling my adrenaline surge.

Instead, though, he just brushed past me, headed toward the edge of the platform. At first I didn't know why, but he was intent on something off in the mist, his open hands thrust up at the rainy skies.

That was when I heard the Guatemalan Army hoods yelling curses.

"Vete ala chingada!"

They also were staring off to the south, in the same direction.

Hadn't they noticed I'd just dismantled their sick pageant? I wanted a reaction that would drive home the truth to Marcelina, to the mothers, to everyone.

"Damn it, look at me," I yelled, first at him and then at the G-2 thugs. "Mira!" But their focus still was on something beyond the square.

Finally I turned, following their gaze, and for a second I too forgot all about everything else. An intense red glow was illuminating the morning sky from the direction of the clinic, a vibrant electric rose weaving its hues in the mist. Then I saw spewing spikes of flame, orange and yellow, dancing over the top of the clinic. There was a finality about it that momentarily took my breath away.

Then it hit me. Steve's in there. It was a horror that, in my initial shock, I couldn't actually process, the thought just hovering in the recesses of my brain defying me to accept it.

Then Alex Goddard turned back, shouting at the Army men in rapid Spanish-I recognized the word for fire-that galvanized them to action. They snapped out of their mental paralysis and headed down the pyramid, toward two Land Rovers parked at the back.

Next he turned around and fixed his gaze on me. At last he knew / knew he was capable of unspeakable evil, and I knew he knew I would do everything in my power to stop him.

"All my records." His voice sounded as though it was coming from another world, and it held a sadness that touched even me. "You have no idea what's been lost."

He was distraught, but also obsessed. With his wild mane of hair, he did, finally, look like Shiva the Destroyer. He stalked over and seized the obsidian knife, then turned toward me.

I looked for something to defend myself with. The bassinets, which I might have used as a shield were gone. I only had my bare hands.

I had to get away from him, get down the pyramid and find Sarah and Steve. But as I started toward the front steps, the women were all clustered there, blocking my way.

Then, for no reason I could understand the mother of Tz'ac Tzotz stepped out of the group and handed me her baby, saying something in Kekchi Maya and reaching to touch my cheek.

I was so startled I took the bundle that was Sarah's child. But then I thought, No! Alex Goddard will just kill him too.

"She said he must not harm you," Marcelina whispered moving beside me. "You are the special one. She wants you to give her child back to Kukulkan."

She still believes, I realized. They all do.

Holding Tz'ac Tzotz, my eyes fixed on Alex Goddard, I'd entirely failed to notice a new presence on the pyramid a ghostlike waif in a white shift who now stood silently in the doorway of the stone room. Sarah!