Scott Smith - The Ruins

Finally, Jeff seemed to realize this, too. He gave up, turned to them with a shrug. "This isn't working," he said.

No one argued. They shouldered their packs, started back toward the jungle. The Mayan man remained by the well, watching them go.

They passed the woman who'd refused to acknowledge them earlier, and, once again, she kept her gaze averted, the baby, with its mottled cap of red jam, motionless in her arms. Dead , Stacy thought, and then, as she forced herself to look away: It's not true .

The dogs followed them. So did two children, which was a surprise. There was a squeaking sound, and when Stacy glanced back, she found a pair of boys coming up the trail after them on a bike. The bigger of the two was pedaling, the smaller rode perched on the handlebars. Relative terms, these- bigger, smaller -as neither of the boys was very large. They were hollow-chested, slope-shouldered, with knobby knees and elbows, and their bike was far too big for them. It looked heavy; its tires were fat and bulging; it had no seat. The boy in back had to pedal standing up, and he was panting with the effort, sweating. The chain needed oil-that was the squeaking.

The six of them stopped, turned, thinking to ask the boys where the ruins were, but the children stopped, too, forty feet back, scrawny, dark-eyed, watchful as two owls. Jeff called out, waved for them to approach; he even held up a dollar bill to tempt them forward, but the boys just waited there, staring, the smaller of the two still perched on the handlebars. Finally, they gave up, started walking again. A moment later, that steady squeaking resumed, but they paid it no mind. In the fields, the weeding continued. Only the man by the well and the two boys on the bike showed any interest in their departure. Creepy dropped away as soon as they entered the jungle, but Pigpen persisted. He kept rubbing against Stacy, and she kept pushing him away. He seemed to think this was a game, and threw himself into it with greater and greater enthusiasm.

Stacy couldn't help herself; she lost patience. "No," she said, and gave the mutt a slap across his snout. The dog yelped, jumped back, astonished. He stood in the center of the trail, peering at her with what looked like a painfully human expression. Betrayal-this was what his eyes communicated. "Oh, honey," Stacy said, and stepped toward him, holding out her hand, but it was too late; the dog backed away, wary now, his tail tucked between his legs. The others were continuing forward along the shadowed path, striding into the first of the curves; they'd vanish from sight in another moment. Stacy felt a tremor of fear, a childish, lost-alone-in-the-forest sensation, and she turned, broke into a jog, hurrying to catch up. When she glanced back, the dog was still standing in the center of the trail, watching her go. The boys pedaled past him on their squeaking bike, almost brushing against him, but he didn't move, and his mournful gaze seemed to cling to her as she vanished around the curve.

Walking back along the trail, Amy tried to think of a happy ending for their day, but it wasn't easy to come by. They'd either find the ruins or they wouldn't. If they didn't, they'd end up back on the dirt road, with eleven miles or more between them and Cobá, and night falling fast. Maybe they'd received the wrong impression of the road; maybe there was more traffic on it than they thought. That was a happy ending, she supposed, them hitching a ride into Cobá. They could arrive just as the sun was setting and either find a place to spend the night or catch a late bus back to Cancún. Amy wasn't able to muster much faith in this vision, though. She pictured them walking along the road in total darkness, or camping in the open, without tents or sleeping bags or mosquito nets, and decided that perhaps it would be better after all if they could somehow find their way to the ruins.

There'd be Henrich and his new girlfriend and the archaeologists at the ruins. They'd speak English, probably; they'd be welcoming and helpful. They'd find a way to transport them back to Cobá, or, if it was already too late in the day, would happily offer to share their tents. Yes-why not?-the archaeologists would cook dinner for them. There'd be a campfire and drinking and laughter, and she'd take lots of pictures to show people when she got back home. It would be an adventure, the highlight of their trip. This was the happy ending Amy kept in her mind as she made her way back down the trail, with the clearing opening up ahead of them, a circle of sunlight, blinkingly intense, into which they'd soon have to walk.

They paused in the last shadows before the clearing. Mathias took out his water bottle, and they passed it around again. They were all sweating; Pablo had begun to smell. Behind them, the squeaking came to a stop. Amy turned and there were the two boys, fifty feet back, watching them. The mangy dog was there, too, the one who'd taken such a liking to Stacy. He was even farther down the trail, though, almost lost in shade. He, too, had stopped, and was hesitating now, gazing toward them.

Amy was the one who thought of the fields. She felt a flush of pride as the idea surfaced in her head, a childhood feeling, leaning forward in her tiny desk, hand raised, waving for the teacher's attention. "Maybe the path opens off the fields," she said, pointing out into the sunlight.

The others turned, stared toward the clearing, thinking it through. Then Jeff nodded. "Could be," he said, and he was smiling, pleased with the idea, which made Amy even more proud of herself.

She unlooped her camera from her neck, ordered them all into a loose group. Then, with her back to the sun, she framed them in the viewfinder, goading them into grins-even frownful Mathias. At the last instant, just before Amy pressed the button, Stacy glanced over her shoulder, back down the trail, toward the boys, the dog, the silent village, turning away from the camera. But it didn't matter. It was still a nice picture, and Amy knew it now: she'd thought of their solution, the path to their happy ending. They were going to find the ruins after all.

After the packed-down firmness of the trail, the field proved to be a difficult hike. The dirt seemed to have been worked with a harrow in the recent past. It was uneven-turned and furrowed-with sudden, inexplicable patches of mud. The mud stuck to their shoes, gradually accumulating, and they kept having to stop to scrape it off. Eric wasn't in any shape for this sort of adventure. He was hungover, weary from lack of sleep, and beginning to feel the day's heat in an unpleasant way. His heart was racing; his head ached. Waves of nausea came and went. He was just beginning to realize that he wasn't going to make it much farther, and was deciding how he ought to announce this revelation, when Pablo saved him from the indignity by stopping suddenly. The mud had sucked his right shoe straight off his foot. He stood there in the field, balanced, cranelike, on one foot, and started swearing. Eric recognized many of the obscenities from the lessons the Greeks had given him.

Jeff and Mathias and Amy had already pulled ahead-they were walking with what appeared to be a baffling effortlessness along the jungle's margin-but Stacy had tarried alongside Pablo and Eric. She stopped with Eric now to aid the Greek, holding him by the elbow, helping him keep his balance, while Eric crouched to free his shoe from the field's grasp. It emerged, finally, after several strenuous pulls, with a suctioned popping sound, making them all laugh. Pablo put the shoe back on. Then, without a word, he began walking back toward the trail. Stacy and Eric glanced toward the others, who were a good fifty feet ahead now, moving methodically along the tree line. A silent debate followed, very brief, and then Eric held his hand out to Stacy. She took it, smiling, and the two of them started back across the field, following in Pablo's footsteps.