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depressions of all sizes that made me think of the pockmarked surface of the
moon. Scattered across the sand, which now in the late afternoon was swirling
about the site, were shards of pottery, black and terra-cotta, and almost
unbelievably, fragments of bone. A plait of dark hair, bleached red, lay
forlornly on the edge of a crater.
What is this? I gasped.
Huaqueros, Steve said. They ve been digging here. That s what the
depressions are, the places they ve dug. Some are very old, others very
recent. Looters look for metals, so if they come across ceramics, or bones,
they just toss them.
Such disrespect for the dead! I exclaimed.
Steve nodded. The Anasazi in the States call looters robbers of the dead. A
good name, isn t it? You aren t entirely right about their disrespect for the
dead, though, he said, reaching down and picking up a couple of unsmoked
cigarettes. They left these, you see. Seriously, he said, sensing my
skepticism. Huaqueros often leave an offering like this so they won t be
cursed.
For some reason I couldn t take my eyes off the plait of hair. It seemed so
vulnerable, pathetic almost, lying there on the surface like that. Steve
watched me. Human hair lasts for thousands of years in the ground, was all
he said. It should never have been disturbed, I thought. For some reason,
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seeing that plait of hair affected me in a way that Ines s warning hadn t.
Cuidado al arbolada!To succeed, you must beware of the woods. Slowly I turned
my head to the left. There was a wooded area, filled with carob trees, or
algarroba, the branches heavy with thorns. Were these the woods? Don t be
ridiculous, I told myself.
Do you think we re too late? Tracey asked, leaning down and picking up a
small piece of bone. The sound of her voice pulled me back to reality. Do you
think they found and looted the tomb?
Don t know, Steve replied, shielding his eyes, as I had, and scanning the
hill. It s a huaca, all right. They ve been digging on the top. You can see
the depressions. Practically flattened it too. But if they found something,
and removed everything, then what was Guerra doing putting up that wall? Let s
have a look around. Maybe we ll try a couple of test trenches at the foot of
the huaca.
Are you saying that hill is a huaca? I asked.
Yup, Steve replied. To you it looks like a hill. But remember, the people
of this area built their structures of adobe brick, which is essentially mud
brick, not stone. So this was once a pyramid-shaped building. The furrows you
see running down the sides would be caused by torrential rains, past El Ninos,
perhaps, over the intervening centuries, which would, in a sense, melt the
brick. See, there s another little one over there, and there. I looked in the
direction he was pointing. There was indeed a smaller hill, or huaca, off in
the distance, a couple more even farther away.
Okay, let s take a quick look around, Steve called to the group. We ll
start in earnest tomorrow.
The group had barely started out when what proved to be the first of many
accidents happened. Ouch! Tracey yelled, and started hopping around. We all
went to her aid, and it was quickly apparent what was causing her distress.
She d stepped on one end of a dead branch of a thorn tree; the branch had
swung up, and one of the thorns had imbedded itself in her leg, a little above
the ankle, just over the top of her boot. It had gone right through her sock
and into her leg. Tracey was hurting, that was obvious. Both Steve and I tried
to remove it, but we couldn t dislodge it.
We took her in to the doctor in Campina Vieja. He had to freeze the spot and
cut the thorn out. She hobbled out of the office, white-faced, a large bandage
on her leg. Very nasty, those thorns, the doctor said. Keep the foot
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elevated as much as possible, and if the redness and swelling moves past
here, he said, pointing to a spot a few inches up her leg, bring her back.
Had to put two stitches in, so she ll have to come back in ten days to get
them out.
Sorry about this. Tracey grimaced. I mustn t have been paying attention.
By ten o clock that night, Tracey was running a fever and her ankle was badly
swollen and red. I took a tray up to her at dinnertime, but she was unable to
eat. In the night, she called out a couple of times, once for her mother, the
second time for Steve, and I rushed to her bedside. After that, I took a
candle into her room and sat at her bedside for an hour or two. Around about
three, Steve tapped on the door. Saw the light, he whispered. How is she
doing?
She s running a temperature and having bad dreams, I think. We d better get
her back to the doctor first thing in the morning.
See if you can get her to take a couple of these, Steve said, handing in a
bottle of pills, antibiotics. I woke Tracey and managed to get her to take
two, along with a couple of aspirin for the fever.
I sat with her awhile longer, hoping she would rest better, but she continued
to sleep fitfully. There wasn t enough light to read, so I entertained myself
by looking around the room, which was jam-packed with reminders of home. There
were photos everywhere: her darling car, top down, Tracey behind the wheel
waving; a very attractive photo of her with a nice-looking young man, Jamie,
her boyfriend; a dog looking playful in a Santa hat; and a family photo with
Tracey, a young man who was probably her brother, the dog again, and an
attractive couple I knew to be her mother and stepfather. She called them Ted
and Mary Anne, although I noticed she d reverted to Mommy in her dreams. They
were all standing in front of a very elegant home, two storey, red brick,
pillars at the entrance, and what was probably a sweeping, circular drive.
There was also a photo of Tracey, Ted, and her mother at a podium with a Save
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