The Mayan Veil of Death

By Daniel Calderwood

Danger, treachery, and a phalanx of spirit warriors stand between a team of greedy adventurers and the riches buried beneath the ruins of Tikal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543961188

Book preview

Also by Daniel B. Calderwood

Youth Pen

Cocaine to Coconuts

Copyright 2019 ©

by Daniel B. Calderwood. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54396-117-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54396-118-8

Cover Art: Tikal (Guatemala), Temple 1, August 2006

Adapted from Photo by Raymond Ostertag

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 Generic License

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tikal_Temple1_2006_08_11.JPG

Map of expedition kindly provided by Brett MacAulay

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter One: Arrival

Chapter Two: Preparations

Chapter Three: Dark Omens

Chapter Four: Johan Mahler

Chapter Five: The Mexican Desert

Chapter Six: Past the Edge of Endurance

Chapter Seven: The Professor’s Demise

Chapter Eight: Motive for Murder

Chapter Nine: The Indispensable Outsider

Chapter Ten: Tree of Crows

Chapter Eleven: Shedding the Dispensible

Chapter Twelve: Bothersome Brits

Chapter Thirteen: No Retreat

Chapter Fourteen: British Honduras

Chapter Fifteen: Herr Herman Zeller

Chapter Sixteen: Elieser

Chapter Seventeen: Persevere Or Perish

Chapter Eighteen: The Fatal Bite

Chapter Nineteen: Another Demise

Chapter Twenty: Without A Guide

Chapter Twenty-One: Incompatible Allies

Chapter Twenty-Two: Frogs And Crocodiles

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Swamp

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Spooks Return

Chapter Twenty-Five: Balam

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Chief’s Mother

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Curse Of Recovery

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Desertion

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Intersection

Chapter Thirty: The Homestretch

Chapter Thirty-One: Recovery

Chapter Thirty-Two: Tikal

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Deserter

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Apparitions Return

Chapter Thirty-Five: Karmic Consequence

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Jungle Buries Its Dead

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The First Artifact

Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Surprise Feast

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The King’s Tomb

Chapter Forty: The Keystone

Chapter Forty-One: Visions Transformed

Chapter Forty-Two: Retreat

Afterword

Acknowledgments.

Preface

It wasn’t until 1895 that European explorers first reached the ruins of the largest and most powerful of the ancient Mayan cities, Tikal, in northeastern Guatemala. It had been over seven centuries earlier that Europeans had ‘discovered’ the Mayan ruins at Palenque, Chichen Itza, and Tulum in southeastern Mexico. But Tikal…? Tucked into an obsure corner of dense Central American jungle…? For explorers and archeologists with a penchant for the Maya…? Tikal was like finding the ‘golden egg!’

No matter their condition, the artifacts unearthed at Tikal were deemed: ‘priceless historical relics,’ and they rekindled worldwide fascination with this perished civilization: the towering pyramids, the precise astrological alignments of their constructions, the complex burial chambers, and the craftsmanship of their art.

To the Europeans, simply the scope and duration of the Mayan supremacy seemed inconceivable. The Maya had ruled hundreds of square miles of Mesoamerica for at least four millennia, some claimed for as long as five and a half thousand years. Their empire spanned southern Mexico from east to west, the entire Yucatan Peninsula, and the modern countries of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.

There was little dispute: the Mayan kingdom was as vast and long-lived as any in history. And nor was it solely the longevity of the Maya, nor the perfection of their constructions, nor the precision of their astrological observations. To European eyes, the setting as well as the culture might have been drawn from science fiction. There were tropical rain-forests with towering hardwoods that stood three times the height of European woodlands, birds with bright yellow beaks as long as their bodies, pigeon-sized hummingbirds and butterflies, spotted, razor-toothed jaguars, antlered, white-tailed deer, porcupines and skunks, eagles and hawks, and pythons so large they could squeeze a man to death and then swallow him whole.

Even the earliest translations of the name Tikal: ‘the place of spirits,’ ‘the land of spirit voices,’ and ‘a dark land where voices cry out in pain’ added to the mystery and allure of this ancient metropolis. At Tikal’s zenith, the population of this single Mayan city was estimated to exceed half a million persons.

Between 1895 and 1905, a German archeologist named Teobert Mahler traveled four times to Tikal and conducted the first extensive excavations. Many of the artifacts unearthed by Mahler’s team were transported back to Germany for display in Berlin’s National Museum of History. These revered objects included carvings in green and black jade, figurines sculpted from emerald, amethyst, and turquoise, and polished hardwood masks inlaid with ornate seashells.

There were pure-white alabaster bowls, decorative ceramics, pearls of all shades and sizes, mosaic pictographs on slabs of andaluscite, and sculpted replicas of the Mayan Deities cast from pure gold. In Mahler’s ‘travel diary,’ the Tikal artifacts were described as: ‘a priceless gift to modernity from antiquity’s richest and most powerful civilization!’

Rumors spread throughout Europe that the untapped burial chambers at Tikal were bottomless vaults with treasures so valuable that even one well-preserved statue or ceramic could secure the financial fortunes of the person who had found it for an eternity. If only one could get there! Get there ‘and’ get back!

Tikal! The pinnacle of Mayan civilization! A huge, mysterious, and long-lost metropolis, hidden within deep swamps and impenetrable jungles, encircled by borderlands populated by man-eating jaguars, poisonous snakes, venomous lizards, tropical diseases, malarial insects, slimy leeches and bloodsucking ticks. For those with a greedy and adventurous spirit, the journey to Tikal was an overpowering temptation, as enticing as it was perilous!

There were none in Germany more impressed by Teobert Mahler’s collection of excavated Mayan artifacts than Rudolph Koontz, a wealthy munitions manufacturer. Koontz, an avid supporter of German militarism, had been a collector and connoisseur of Egyptian antiquities for decades. Koontz might have sponsored an expedition to Tikal in the early 1900’s were it not for the tensions and international skirmishes that preceded the first world war. But three decades later, during the hiatus between the two world wars, and with Germany’s military forcefully deactivated, Koontz decided the time had come to plunder the Mayan kingdom to its bottom, plunder it completely, and then return the excavated riches to his family’s castle in Wiesbaden.

And, for a perilous undertaking such as this, Koontz was more than willing to pay his soldiers’ generous salaries in advance. No sooner was the voyage underway than Koontz distributed the promised stipends to each individual’s family. And, in this way, Koontz could avoid both lawsuits and personal guilt in the event of death. Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Koontz, was a man with a reputation for paying lavishly, and for ‘always’ getting what he wanted. Throughout Germany, as one might expect, he was both respected and feared.

To lead this mission, Koontz recruited Captain Gunther Gerbach of Germany’s ‘special forces’, the German military-elite known as: ‘Kommando Spelzialkrafte,’ or the ‘KSK.’ It was during the overland battles of trench-to-trench and hand-to-hand combat during the First World War that Gunthar Gerbach’s daredevil personality and his exploits of courage had become legendary.

Gerbach was a professional soldier, unmarried and childless. And Koontz sought Gerbach aggressively for the specific purpose of leading this ‘treasure hunt’ to the faraway and forbidding lands of Central America. Koontz had such resolute confidence in the Captain’s stature and military reputation that he granted Gerbach complete autonomy in selecting the men who would to go with him. And, predictably, Gerbach chose from his former squadron of fellow soldiers, selecting two dozen of his most experienced veterans, men who had already demonstrated their unwavering bravery by his side.

Then Koontz enlisted the services of a lawyer named Adolf Shintz, one of the younger lawyers among the ranks of legal professionals that worked for Koontz’ munitions company. It was Shintz that was assigned the task of overseeing the expedition as an adviser and an observer. He was to serve as Koontz’s financial controller. Shintz was to be both the ‘bank’ and the ‘brains’, but ‘not’ one of Gerbach’s soldiers, neither Gerbach’s superior, nor his inferior. Shintz was allocated to a position that permitted him autonomy, but no control. Shintz would follow Gerbach’s lead, but he hadn’t to obey Gerbach’s orders. As it turned out, Shintz was much more than simply a lawyer. Only thirty-one years of age, he was a celebrated mountain climber and physical fitness fanatic. Shintz had finished first in several of the marathons that traversed the southern provinces of France. And he was on record as the youngest climber to have ever soloed The Matterhorn.

In addition to these recruits, Rudolph Koontz realized that he would also need academic scholars, in fact, expert archeologists. And for those he looked to The University of Berlin, where he managed to entice and cajole the head of the archeology department, Professor Hasse Nedermeyer, to take an extended leave of absence. At fifty-seven, Professor Nedermeyer would become the team’s oldest member. Nedermeyer had never traveled to ‘the new world’ and, initially, he was reticent, having recently become a grandfather. But, in time, the enticement of such a venture became irresistible. Nedermeyer was a life-long academic who, but for a few minor ‘digs’ at the medieval sites within Germany, had spent most of his career with a book in his hand rather than a shovel. Though Nedermeyer was an excellent and knowledgeable lecturer, his prestige had been constantly moderated by his lack of first-hand archeological excavation. Nedermeyer hoped that this expedition might propel him to the top ranks of his field and provide the inertia to sweep him gloriously to his retirement.

And, academically at least, Nedermeyer had little choice as to whom he might select from the Archeology Department as his assistant. Though only twenty-five years old, Teobert Mahler’s nephew, Johan Mahler, was the brightest young star within the entire faculty. He was a fit and enthusiastic youth with his uncle’s yearning for exploration. In truth, Professor Nedermeyer more feared Johan than respected him. Nedermeyer joined the expedition primarily out of paranoia that the risky expedition might actually be successful! And that, then, Johan’s meteoric rise through the ranks of academia would climb even higher, thereby eclipsing Nedermeyer’s own, more moderate successes.

Professor Hasse Nedermeyer had the intentions of supervising and overshadowing his assistant at every junction.

Chapter One

Arrival

Veracruz, Mexico. September 22, 1932.

A mile and a half out, the Hamburg II clogged the port channel like a sea-born city. The massive freighter towered a hundred feet above the smaller craft headed for tie-ups within the maze of wharfs and piers. Though its movement was barely perceptible, the nose of the Hamburg II was aimed at the long central wharf toward the southern end of the harbor. And, with a low grumble, it parted the lesser boats like a bully.

The seaport’s waters, lacquered permanently with a thick sheen of spilled petroleum, shimmered like a rainbow with a filthy iridescence. Courtesy of carelessness and mishap, thousands of gallons of oil had fallen into the Veracruz Bay. And thousands more gallons had seeped into the dusty soil that surrounded the bay.

When they were finished with their day’s labor, the workers had oil that ran dripping from their noses.

Meanwhile, kneelng in the sodden dirt on a low rise some fifty yards from the gateway to the central wharf, two boys, cousins, both fourteen, rolled dice while they kept an eye on the approach of the Hamburg II. A year before, the cousins had walked to Veracruz from the small, inland village of Tehuacan. They had come to find their fortunes, to get jobs, to meet girls, and to lose themselves in the hustle and bustle of the large city. But, as yet, their dreams remained unfulfilled.

Only a decade earlier, the Hamburg II had come three or four times a year to Veracruz, bringing German steel for the Mexican oil rigs. After crossing the Atlantic from Bremerhaven, the freighter had stopped first in Corpus Christi, Texas and, from there, had proceeded south to Veracruz. But, then, Mexico’s oil boom had stalled, and the Hamburg II had stopped coming south from Corpus Christi.

Now, despite the chokehold of The Great Depression, there was fresh hope pulsing through the dockworkers of Veracruz, rumors of another large oil reserve in the barren desert just a hundred kilometers to the north, near an area that had been optimistically named: La Poza Rica Nueva. Many predicted that the new find would yield ten times the oil that had been pumped from the original wells near Veracruz and that the ‘fast and easy money’ would, once again, ‘flow into Mexican hands like a river.’

Piled on the central wharf, at the spot where the Hamburg II would eventually make berth, were piles of shaven logs: mahogany, cocabola, and purpleheart, the exotic and high-priced hardwoods from the forests of southern Mexico.

Past the piles of shaven logs, there sat a progression of wooden crates that had been packed with leather hides, sealed casks of tobacco, palettes of Mexican and Guatemalan textiles, burlap bags of cacao beans, and barrels of aged Tequila. All this was the ‘legal’ cargo for the Hamburg II’s return voyage to the markets of Europe. And it was cargo that had been properly listed on the ship’s manifesto.

Past the legal cargo, sat one large crate and a few dozen smaller crates. These crates were undocumented and had been covered with tarpaulins.

Up and down the shoreline, there was a cheerful optimism in the chatter of those who sat in the late-morning shade to observe the freighter’s arrival. It had been ‘many-too-many’ long and hungry years since the Hamburg II had last been to Veracruz.

Felipe was rolling the dice. He needed a ‘three’ but rolled a ‘seven.’

Cuarenta centavos, noted Lucio, tabulating Felipe’s debt.

Neither boy had much attention for the dice. The game was simply a way of passing time until the Hamburg II had come to rest beside the coils of ropes that would bind it to the wharf. Already there was a long line of idling, flatbed trucks awaiting their allotments of steel bar.

Two of these trucks, the last two in line, were different than the trucks ahead. Both were new model Mercedes diesels with high, slatted sidewalls, which enclosed their extended beds like curtains. These trucks were nothing more than large, walled, wooden boxes on wheels. And they lingered at the heels of the other vehicles like youngsters hoping to sneak entrance to a sports arena.

Felipe fondled and caressed the dice in his palm, occasionally tossing them distractedly into the air while he watched the progress of the freighter. Neither boy knew what to expect, but both were swept-up in the atmosphere of excitement. Felipe rolled, but it was several minutes before the boys looked down into the circle that Lucio had scratched in the dirt: Nine.

Cinquenta centavos, muttered Felipe, raising his own debt by ten cents.

The closer the freighter approached, the more it looked like a mountain range. The sailors that lounged on the top deck appeared like tiny puppets atop an alien colossus. The Hamburg II was, by far, the largest vessel that had ever entered the Veracruz seaport. And now, finally, it had come back!

Downhill from the two cousins, a dozen or so dockworkers strolled through the main gateway to the central wharf, none of them in a hurry.

In due time, the freighter made contact with the wharf and inched slowly toward the bow-catch at the shoreward end. Still, no workers were in place. Then, suddenly, just moments before the freighter nestled into the bow-catch, dozens of workers appeared up and down the length of the wharf as if out of nowhere. And, like reflections, sailors appeared along the railing of the top deck of the Hamburg II with coils of braided rope.

Felipe cradled the dice to his stomach and stared upwards with his mouth agape. He had no intention of rolling. Lucio stared upwards with him. Just this first experience of watching the legendary Hamburg II make port seemed to justify the past year’s hunger and homelessness. Surely, this ship had arrived to change their lives, to bring them jobs, and to transform their dreams into a reality.

From the top deck, the sailors loosed their coils of rope to the sky, where the ropes unwound and then plummeted to the wharf with a slam. Many of the ropes were tied immediately to the wharf’s cleats. The others were looped through steel sleeves on longer ropes and, once secured, hauled back up into the sky to cleats on the top deck of the Hamburg II.

Having materialized at just the right moment and just as quickly and untraceably as the workers, the Captain of The Port and his assistant strode down the wharf to mid-ship. Both officials wore the short-sleeved khaki uniforms of the Mexican Customs. And both kept a watchful eye to be neither struck nor entangled by the flying ropes. The assistant carried a clipboard and a briefcase.

Three decks overhead, not quite halfway up the wall of the Hamburg II, a small, door-sized port opened in the side of the freighter. Out of the port came a jointed stairway, ratcheting forward and down each time another section of the stairway was bolted into place inside the vessel.

When the stairway had been secured to the wharf, the Captain Of The Port and his assistant halted their impatient demonstrations and perched stationary at the bottom of the stairway. Momentarily, a uniformed officer materialized in the opening above and waved them aboard.

By now, the entire population of Veracruz had come down to the port to watch the docking and unloading of the Hamburg II. The shoreline was thronged with men, women, children, and infants. Some of the men tugged laden burros; others pulled handcarts on giant wooden wheels. In a matter of heartbeats, there were displays of Mexican blankets, clothing, and jewelry, taco stands, carts with beers, and sodas, and iced drinks of flavored syrup.

Watching from around the perimeter of this restless crowd were beggars, rag-cloaked peasants, and even Christian missionaries. The missionaries stood assembled in orderly rows like a choir, clung to one another near the gateway to the dock as if monitoring the Devil’s entrance to sinful temptation.

Hungry and agitated chatter saturated the air. Even the town dogs loitered here and there, sniffing and drooling, but willing to wait their turns for whatever dropped, dribbled, or fell to the ground.

The Hamburg II would be in port five or six days. And there was a lot of money to be made!

At the top of the gangway, the Captain of the Port and his assistant were greeted warmly and invited inside by the freighter’s second-in-command. The two Mexican Customs officers were led through a series of compartments and then up one deck to the Ship Captain’s office.

Once the office door had been closed, the two Captains embraced enthusiastically. Quickly they dispensed with the formalities and then began to barter prices for the ‘informalities,’ which included the contents of the undocumented crates beneath the tarpaulins. Both Captains were overjoyed to resume their business dealings.

The Hamburg II was carrying a group of fleeing German ex-patriots, sixteen in all, who intended to disembark in Veracruz. It was unusual, in fact, technically illegal, for the Hamburg II to be carrying passengers, but, as the first order of business, the Captain of the Port granted this favor to the Ship Captain as a courtesy and without charge.

Next, they bartered over the price for the Mexican contraband: the crate of jaguar pelts and the cages of rare, tropical birds. The Captain of The Port suspected that the Ship Captain was getting ten times more for the illicit jaguar pelts than he admitted, and he stuck to his demands. The Ship Captain was actually getting ‘twenty’ times what he admitted and bartered simply out of habit. He could have paid twice the usual price and still made a criminal profit.

Once the first amount had been settled and paid, the Ship Captain commenced to list his own illicit items for barter: the cases of European perfume, the German pistols and knives, the Swiss chocolate, and the oriental silks. The roles were now reversed. The Captain of the Port believed, and correctly so, that the Ship Captain was also getting much more than he admitted.

The two Captains had been through these negotiations before and concluded amicably, American dollars coming from The Captain of the Port’s assistant’s briefcase and disappearing into the Ship Captain’s safe.

And, lastly, there was the matter of the bribe for the dozens of smuggled crates of German munitions, the World War I surplus, which had yet to be offloaded, crates that were destined for the Mercedes diesels: rifles, machine-guns, flamethrowers, poison gas, mortars, and hand grenades. As Mexico was constantly embroiled with internal strife due to the violent struggles between rival political factions, drug cartels, and even legitimate business competitors, dependable weapons and ammunition were always in high demand.

The Captain of the Port’s assistant drew another and fatter envelope from his briefcase and handed it over. The Ship Captain opened the envelope with a small pocketknife and counted out the five thousand American dollars on his desk, afterwards bundling the bills back into the envelope and stuffing the envelope into his safe.

With business concluded, the ship’s second-in-command escorted The Captain of the Port and his assistant back to the jointed stairway from where The Captain of the Port signaled his authorization for the remaining German cargo, the munitions, to be offloaded and the additional Mexican cargo, the crates beneath the tarpaulins, to be hoisted to the freighter. Then the two Customs officials descended the stairway, had a private word with the dockworkers’ foreman, and left for their offices at the northern end of the bay.

Picking their way through the crowd of spectators, the two Mexican Customs Officers couldn’t help sharing a flurry of smirks at the multitudes of starving peasants who were hoping, with some luck, to siphon a few ‘centavos’ from a situation that had already netted them thousands of dollars each.

The onlookers stirred restlessly as the action around the freighter continued to accelerate. The ship’s hoist was already in motion.

Usually, after an hour or so, about half the crew, some thirty men, was released to shore while the other half tended to the loading and unloading. The sailors would pour into Veracruz with their pockets filled with money and their spirits ready to burst. Some would get cheap hotel rooms and stay in the city. Others would sleep on board the Hamburg II but spend their days and evenings on land. Nearly all of them would get drunk, stuff themselves with Mexican food, get drunker, visit the whorehouses, and then get really drunk.

The ship’s hoist set the first bundles of steel bar on the lead truck and then lifted a hardwood log off the wharf. But the gaze from the throng packed outside the gateway was focused at the middle of the ship, at the open door at the top of the jointed stairway.

A man emerged, a tall, muscular man with broad shoulders and long legs. He was dressed in rugged military khaki and carried a sturdy pack. He stepped fully out onto the small platform at the top of the stairway and then turned back. From inside the freighter he was handed a military ammunition belt with a Luger pistol in a leather holster. He buckled the belt around his waist and then reached back through the door for a bolt-action rifle, the recently developed Mauser Gewehr 98. Then, lastly, he was handed two long, looping belts of ammunition for the Mauser, which he slung over his head and one shoulder.

He descended a few steps and then paused while a second man emerged and was handed the same weaponry. The second man, also, was muscular and tall. He carried a similar pack and was dressed in identical khaki. To the diminutive Mexicans, the two Germans were giants.

Emilio and Arturo Hernandez worked the wharf as choke-setters. The two brothers efficiently orchestrated the entire loading and unloading process. They were not the bosses, but they were in charge. But, at that moment, both were watching the Germans at the port door rather than the load of steel bar that was hovering above their heads.

The crowds outside the gateway fell hushed, sucking up the images of the two men now descending. Not a pair of eyeballs missed a button or a shoelace. They had been expecting sailors, or passengers, or transitory tourists, all bursting with eagerness to fall on the pleasures that Veracruz had to offer. But these men were not sailors. Nor passengers. Nor tourists. They looked like soldiers. Soldiers, in fact, that were headed directly into war!

The two Germans turned down the central wharf toward shore. They walked slowly but confidently, scanning the crowds ahead for potential dangers, their rifles nestled to their bellies and held with both hands.

Most Mexicans had never even seen a modern firearm. To the observing peasants, the German rifles looked like the device of some future world’s carnage, a device lethal beyond the range of their imaginations.

And these rifles had been fitted with something new, something that had not been perfected in time for mass distribution during World War I: telescopic sights with Zeiss lenses, the most precise optics ever manufactured. The mounted tubes with their one peering eye looked as much like weapons as the rifles themselves: weapons for the devils of folklore, such as: Satan and Hades.

To the rustling crowd watching from shore, these men represented only two things: ‘danger’ and ‘no money.’ These were not the type of men to stop for a taco or a cold drink, nor to look at the blankets, clothing, nor other knickknacks on display. These were men with an invisible but compelling purpose.

Without commotion, their eyes averted, the townsfolk parted to let the soldiers pass.

The two Germans waited until they had cleared the back edges of the throngs before beginning a conversation. After five weeks of being cooped-up on the Hamburg II, the two felt like skipping and dancing, felt as if they had just been released to freedom from a horrid incarceration. But instantly a miasmic stench fell upon them, thick as airborn garbage, gagging their senses.

But my god! What is that putrid stink? It is making my eyes water! griped Gerbach.

Ya! It reeks like burning flesh!

I think it ‘is’ burning flesh! They must have their slaughterhouses nearby! And upwind!

That smell is repulsive! It is making me sick to throw up!

Koontz told me this city here… this Veracruz… was a backwards and uncivilized mess! Just like all the cities of this heathen country! Like nothing we have ever seen, is what Koontz said!

Ya, but this is worse than ‘looking’ like a primitive mess! It smells like a stink that stinks worse than dogshit!

Put your face down and maybe your nose in your shirt! If we have any luck, we can be leaving here by tomorrow!

Pinching his nose with his fingers, the shorter man turned to Gerbach, But…? So…? Gunthar…? First the frauleins and then the bank? he cackled. A feisty fraulein could make me forget nearly anything! Even this stink!

First the bank, then the hotel, then the trucks, and ‘then’ the fauleins, replied Gerbach. The two men were walking abreast, still holding their rifles at the ready.

Frauleins first! insisted Rolf. If we wait for the crew to come ashore, there will be nothing but leftovers!

We can see how long it takes at the bank.

The men continued a few strides in silence. But, Gunthar, I am just so excited! Aren’t you?

Rolf, I am more than excited as hell! Even with this stink I am excited! I have never seen anything like this!

Indicating the impoverished peasants and dust-choked air with a dismissive wave, Rolf said, Gunthar, by the time we have to see this hole of a rat’s arse again, we will be wealthier than Koontz himself! Do you know that?

Gunthar nodded without looking at his companion, and then grinned. Ya, Rolf! I believe that we will be! I am feeling sure of it!

Seeing the men walk free of the crowd without an entourage, the two cousins, Lucio and Felipe, scurried down from their perch and fell on them as they would have on a fish wriggled free of a net, even a fish that hundreds of their fellow Veracruzanos had already ignored.

Meeester! Meeester! Where you go? shouted Lucio. I help!

Beat it, boy!

Where you go? I help!

We don’t need help!

Felipe walked with a severe limp from childhood polio and struggled to keep up. When he had pulled even with the shorter of the two men, Felipe started his own solicitations, You need eat? You want woman? You want fuckee?

Where you go? chorused Lucio, from the other side. We help! We speak English! Only one peso!

I am telling you! We don’t need help! snarled Gerbach.

You go restaurant? I show you de best! Lucio circled ahead of the Germans, trying to slow them down to make the pace easier on his cousin.

Get out of my way! Gerbach screamed, lifting his rifle as if to strike at the boys.

The two Germans quickened their strides up the main boulevard that led from the central wharf into the city, and Gerbach turned to check behind them. The roadway was smoothened dirt, oil-packed to a surface that crunched beneath the heavy boots worn by the foreigners. They were alone, just the two Germans and the persistent boys, Felipe near sprinting with his lame leg.

You want hotel? I can take you!

Now, Gunthar stopped and turned to face down the boys directly. I am telling you! Both of you! To go away! And now! Go away! Again, he lifted his rifle.

The two boys backed off a few steps.

The Germans turned and resumed course.

Lucio and Felipe followed hesitantly, now a few body lengths behind.

Gunthar peered ahead through the dust, looking for the bank: El Banco Central De Veracruz.

Without puddles and smears of oil to hold the dirt in place, the air got dustier and dustier the farther from the port they walked. The sun was broiling hot, and both men began to sweat. Entering the city proper, the main boulevard changed from packed dirt to lumpy cobblestones, cobblestones interspersed with hunks of ‘brain coral.’

Perplexed that none of the other hustlers were competing, Lucio and Felipe continued to follow, feeling lucky. They had no intentions of letting these two weirdly dressed and strange-speaking foreigners get away without paying them something! No matter how frightening their rifles!

Without a backwards glance, the two Germans climbed the wide front steps of El Banco Central and entered.

Lucio and Felipe took seats on the lowest step.

The bank lobby was bursting with activity. Beggars formed a knot before one teller, attempting to