The Ruins by Scott Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

conditioners, which, in turn, would make cold
sodas and cool places to sit and rest seem somewhat unlikely.
     "But
at least we might find a guide," Amy said. She'd
removed her camera from his pack and had started to take pictures. She
took some of them crouched there, then one of Pablo and Eric walking
toward them, then one of the Mayans working in their fields. Her
spirits had lifted, Jeff could tell; Stacy had brought her out of it.
Her moods came and went; he assumed there was a logic to them, but
he'd long ago stopped trying to fathom it. He called her his "jellyfish," rising and falling through the depths.
Sometimes she seemed to find this endearing; other times she
didn't. She took a picture of him, spending a long moment
peering through the viewfinder, making him self-conscious. Then the
click. "We could just end up walking back and forth along
this trail all day," she said. "And then what? Are
we supposed to camp out here?"
     "And
maybe they'll be able to drive us back to Cobá afterward," Stacy said.
     "See
any cars or trucks?" Jeff asked.
     They
all spent a moment staring down into the village. Before anyone could
say anything further, Pablo and Eric were upon them. Pablo hugged
everyone, then immediately began chattering in Greek, very excitedly,
extending his arms full length, as if describing a fish he'd
caught. He jumped up and down; he pretended to knock into Eric. Then he
held out his arms again.
     "We
saw a snake," Eric said. "But it wasn't
that big. Maybe half that."
     The
others laughed at this, which seemed to encourage Pablo. He started all
over again, the chattering, the jumping, the bumping into Eric.
     "He's
scared of them," Eric said.
     They
passed the water bottle around, waited for Pablo to finish. Eric took a
long swallow of water, then poured some on his elbow. He had a cut
there; everyone clustered around him to examine it. The wound was
bloody but not especially deep, three inches long, sickle-shaped,
following the curve of his elbow. Amy took a picture of it.
     "We're
going to find a guide in the village," she said.
     "And
a cool place to sit," Stacy offered. "With cold
sodas."
     "Maybe
they'll have a lime, too," Amy said. "We
can squeeze it on your cut. It'll kill off all the nasty
things inside."
     She
and Stacy both turned from Eric to smile at Jeff, as if taunting him.
He didn't respond—what was the point? Clearly, it
had already been decided: they were going to the village. Pablo finally
stopped talking; Mathias was putting the cap back on the water bottle.
Jeff shouldered his pack. "Shall we?" he said.
     Then
they started down the path toward the village.
       
    T here was a moment, just as
they emerged from the trees, when the entire village seemed to freeze,
the men and women and children in the fields, everyone pausing for the
barest fraction of a second to note the six of them approaching down
the trail. Then it was over, and it was as if it hadn't
happened, though Stacy was certain it had, or maybe not so certain,
maybe less certain with each additional step she took toward the
village. The work continued in the fields, the bent backs, the steady
pulling of the weeds, and no one was looking at them; no one was
bothering to observe their advance along the path, not even the
children. So perhaps it hadn't happened after all. Stacy was
a fantasist—she knew this about herself—a
daydreamer, a castle builder. There would be no cool rooms here, no
cold sodas. And it was equally probable that there'd been no
moment of furtive appraisal, either, no veiled and quickly terminated
collective glance.
     The
dog reappeared, the one who'd been barking at them earlier.
He emerged again from the village, but with an entirely different
demeanor. Tail wagging, tongue hanging: a friend. Stacy liked dogs. She
crouched to pet this one, let him lick her face. The tail wagging
intensified, the entire rear half of the mutt's body swinging
back and forth. The others didn't stop; they kept