Upon approach of Metzabok, the dogs started barking. The day sky had turned to crimson dusk. Coming into the encampment, I felt I was returning to a safe haven in the rainforest.The villagers warmly greeted us, but we kept more to ourselves. Jorge tactfully shooed them away. What to do next weighed heavy in our hearts.
If any decisions were to be made, I imagine they would be discussed tomorrow. Hornsby didn’t like to waste time, especially with the rainy season starting. Most likely, considering her defiant outburst, Cassarina would be packing up to leave us, if Hornsby decided to go forward with his hunch about the location of what he is now calling the lost temple of Yaxkin.
“It is somewhere in the vicinity of the village called El Destino, at the farthest northwestern corner along the border of Mexico and Guatemala,” Hornsby concluded.
Cassarina was right to doubt Hornsby. What credible archeological evidence did he have to make the precarious journey and endanger her life? It would stand to reason, but then reason doesn’t achieve the impossible. The prospect to enter into untouched jungle grabs your sense of the ultimate adventure. Nothing was known about the site we had just discovered, which Hornsby’s intuition hunted down like a bloodhound.
But our understanding of how the Maya evolved through time was still murky, though the investigation at nearby Palenque was unearthing incredible new discoveries. Mayan hieroglyphic art and mathematics was the means of keeping order in their social structure. It was this modern understanding that we were grappling with. And more importantly, I was purposely withholding the collaborating evidence of the existence of Yaxkin, as revealed in my encounter with Moise.
As I lay in my hammock that night, I reflected on the series of recent events; the acquisition of our findings at the cryptic vault and Hornsby’s dead reckoning intuitive sense all seemed to be navigated by a guiding frequency deep within the core of our psyche. Knowing the answer to Hornsby’s question was a voyeuristic intrigue.
My thoughts about the archetypal nature of our consciousness could be substantiated more, if I was to follow Hornsby on this journey, which up till now was brought about by his own conceptual vision of finding the Soul Chamber. I wondered if this expedition was my own initiation ritual. Prior to the rock art discovery, it seemed we were on a futile track. But now, there was more to logically explain his instincts as a valid “sixth sense” though most scientists would abhor such basis as childish.
Buried in our psyche, as the indigenous believe, the memory of our ancestors is guiding us. Their presence can be conjured up when the right visual symbols and experiences, like the priests initiation, present themselves. What Hornsby was conjuring up was unidentifiable to the academic world, so his notions to pursue such an undertaking were considered irrational.
I remembered Jung’s comment about his own exploration into the depths of the human psyche. Had he not come back from venturing into his own psychosis with valid evidence to prove his theories correct, his peers would have thought him mad and most likely had him committed to a mental institution? Is this the fate of our great critical thinkers? Like Galileo, who had to adjure his own theories of the earth revolving around the sun or else be burned at the stake for heresy by the Catholic Church, Hornsby was a rebel in the eyes of the dogmatic precepts in anthropology.
Cassarina had made the decision to stay with us, solely as a physician to take care of any injuries we might suffer along the way. But she sent off a letter to Garthwaite, telling him of our plans, leaving the handwritten correspondence for Jorge to give to Montero the next time he came to Metzabok. She included a page of one of her glyph drawings from the cryptic vault as evidence of our find and reason for making such a perilous journey on the spur of the moment.
The matter of adequate timely transport to get us in the vicinity of Yaxkin was the priority on Hornsby’s anxiousness to forge ahead. We hiked out that morning to the nearest road that led us to La Arena. From there we hitched a ride in a pickup truck to a small pueblo called Sival, where there was an airstrip.
“We can make it by plane to El Desempeno on the border of Mexico and Guatemala and then on to El Pedregal in Tabasco,” Hornsby said.
When we arrived in the early afternoon, we found a deserted airstrip. It was in a clearing and not much more than a narrow piece of graded earth. At one end was a tattered windsock flopping limply in the tropical heat. A small yellow Piper Cub tail-dragger was housed in a thatched roof hanger. So determined to get to El Desempeno, I think Hornsby would have hot wired the airplane himself, hadn’t the pilot appeared.
His name was Manuel Rodriquez. He informed us that he flew mostly for lumber and oil companies, sometimes-delivering postal mail to the villages and providing medical evacuations. It just so happened he had landed at Sival to check if his engine was leaking oil, after which he wondered off into the shade to take a siesta. His grimy oily hands confirmed his story.
The prospect of making a few extra greenback dollars was persuasion enough to make a detour with his flight plan. But because he was expected in Velasco Suarez by nightfall, he wouldn’t be able to take us on to El Pedregal.
Before the three of us loaded into the plane, Hornsby demanded that Rodriquez start the engine to make sure it would run smoothly. After five minutes of constant reviving of the engine’s rpm’s without a sputter or misfired of a piston, Hornsby was satisfied that we’d be safe.
The three of us were crammed into the small four seat aircraft with our backpacks. Because of the heat of the day and the weight of the plane, which I don’t think he took time to calculate, we barely made it over the treetops on take off.
There we were, transported into the air, over the mountainous rainforest terrain of the Sierra del Norte de Chiapas. The radiating tropical heat left us, as the air-cooled with altitude and white billowy clouds dotting the brilliant tropical sky were all around us. The vast expanse jungle looked stunning. At the same time I could see what a formable situation we were getting into, as the vast flat dense jungle of the Yucatan stretched out before us to the east. Soon this invincible landscape would devour us.
Once we landed at El Desempeno located next to the Rio Ucumacinta, Rodriquez didn’t waste time in refueling, wanting to make it to his destination before dusk.
“Adios, amigos,” Rodriquez cheerfully yelled and waved goodbye through the small side window, roaring past us in a cloud of dust at full throttle. As the plane just cleared the treetops the engine sputtered for a moment. For a breathless second we watched in horror. You could hear him frantically turning the magneto ignition switch while trying to maintain some altitude. Then, in a puff of white exhaust the engine roared back to life. Manuel dipped the plane’s wings as a salute and then disappeared over the mountaintops.
“I always say a prayer for him,” a soft voice said from behind us. As we turned around we discovered a Catholic priest had quietly walked up, making the sign of the crucifix. He introduced himself as Father Hernandez. Elderly and soft-spoken he had come out to see what the plane had brought.
“Tener a alguien a mesa y mantel. . . .” Without hesitation, the priest invited us to stay in his mission, offering us dinner. There was a curiosity about him that impressed me right at first. Such a gentleman he was, in contrast to the desolate area he lived. I couldn’t help but notice that the three of us appeared more risqué, contrasted by Father Hernandez’s politeness.
The pleasant surroundings of this simple mission outpost felt like a luxurious hotel after spending months in the rainforest. Father Hernandez embraced us with Old World Spanish hospitality, with the conveniences of a modern world diesel generator to provide us with hot showers. We partook in such luxury before attending his invitation for dinner.
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