“Well, let’s see if we can grab some ice and get down quickly.”
They walked along the rocky badlands between the calderas to reach the streaks of ice. When they got there, they dug down below the snow and found solid ice. They chipped at it with Sam’s shovel and Remi’s hatchet to free chunks they could break out. They gathered ice until they had as much as they could carry. They put it in the body bags, then wrapped the bags in their fleeces and jackets, put them in their backpacks, and began to walk back toward the top of the trail.
As they were hurrying toward the trail, there was a deep rumbling sound, and the rocky ground below them began to shake. They knew they wouldn’t be able to retain their balance. They each bent their knees, sat, and slipped the backpack straps from their shoulders while they waited out the earthquake. The shaking and rumbling continued for a minute, then another minute.
“Are you scared?” Remi asked.
“Of course I’m scared,” said Sam. “I have no idea whether this is just an aftershock or we’re about to have the mountaintop blow off and hurl us into the stratosphere.”
“Just testing your sanity,” she said.
As the rumbling abated, they became aware of a new sound, a hiss that was almost a whistle. It grew to a rushing sound, and then a roar that reminded them of an airplane’s engine. As they looked around for the source, a cloud of steam rose into their line of sight across the snowfield. It was white, spewing out of the mountain at high pressure from somewhere below them.
As soon as they had shouldered their packs again and shifted them to balance the weight of the ice they were carrying, they set off. They walked quickly, sometimes approaching a trot in places where the volcanic rock was clear and solid.
When they reached the beginning of the trail they had taken upward, the sun was low, its rays already horizontal and glaring in their eyes from Mexico on the west side and casting an enormous shadow on the green forests of Guatemala on the east. They moved downward without delay, passing spots they remembered. This time, they had to guard against letting their momentum propel them past a foothold into open air.
Now they could see the source of the noise and the steam cloud. It was a rift in the rocky mountainside where a plume of hot air and water was shooting out under immense pressure. They edged away from the steam, but they couldn’t stray too far without losing their way. Once they were below it, they felt a tentative relief. But an hour later, as they were descending a rock formation that looked like a series of frozen waterfalls, the rumbling in the earth began again.
“Better hold on,” said Sam, and they both found handholds and sat, Remi’s head on Sam’s shoulder. They kept their places while the rumbling increased and the mountain shook. The shaking seemed more violent, and it dislodged two showers of rocks a few dozen feet to their left that rolled down, hit other rocks, and caromed off into the air, then hit far below with audible impact.
The silence returned, and they began to descend again. They had to go more slowly now because, in places, new rockslides had fallen across their path, covering their old footholds and making them tread on untested spots. When darkness came, they used flashlights to choose every step. The shaking returned once more, but they were in an open, unprotected area, where they were extremely vulnerable to falling rocks, so they could only push on.
It was not until about one a.m. that Sam and Remi reached their starting point. They walked back above the main trail until they reached the site of the ruined shrine. As they approached the little plateau, they could see the artificial glow of a cell phone. “Somebody else must have a satellite phone,” Remi said. “I think José does,” Sam said. She called out, “Hello, down there. It’s us.”
The glow of the phone disappeared and a human shape moved along the patio. “This way!” It was José’s voice. He turned on a flashlight and lit the way for them to reach the shrine. “You must be tired,” he said. “I’ll show you the way to the camp.”
“First, we’ve got to get our friend on ice,” Sam said.
Sam, Remi, and José went into the shrine. They laid out a fresh body bag and carefully lifted the man into it, then zipped it shut.
“He seems so light,” José said.
“He’s mostly skeleton now,” Remi said. “The bones are only about fifteen percent of our living weight, which is mostly water.” They packed ice around the bag, slipped another bag over it, and then a third.
They heard footsteps approaching outside. Raul Mendoza called, “It’s my turn to stand guard,” then stuck his head into the entrance. “Oh, Fargos. It’s good to see you. When the mountain was shaking, we all got worried.”
“We’re fine,” said Remi. “After some sleep, we’ll be even better.”
The Fargos followed José on what must have been the remnant of an ancient trail on the mountainside to another flat space, where all the tents had been pitched. Sam played his flashlight’s beam up the mountain. “What’s above us?”
“No overhangs or big rocks. Nothing came down today during the shaking.”
“Thanks, José. And thanks for your help with the mummy.”
“Good night,” he said, and the Fargos crawled into their tent and closed the flap to ward off the morning sun that would come up too soon.
VOLCÁN TACANÁ
Sam woke to the buzz of Remi’s satellite phone and realized that the sun was up already. He patted the floor of the little tent and found the phone. “Hello.”
“Sam?” said Selma Wondrash. “Where are you two?”
“About ten thousand feet up an active volcano called Tacaná. We’re coming down today. Is something wrong?”
“I’ll let you be the judge,” she said. “I just sent you an article that appeared this morning in a Mexico City paper.”
“Okay. I’ll call you back when we’ve seen it.”