DARIUS JONES - PACHA - MAMA

Darius Jones has had stories published in Sobotka Literary Magazine, Strangelet Journal, Fiction Vortex and elsewhere. He lives in Virginia where he can usually be found in a local café writing his next piece.
Learn more at dariusjoneswriter.com or follow him on Twitter @DariusJonesWrit.   

Pacha-mama
​

“Yes, you said that. But where, exactly?” 
“Deep in the jungle. About a kilometer upstream from where the brown river forks,” the man said.
“But which river?” 
“I don’t know. A man picked us up one day on the edge of Iquitos, saying we could make good money. We got on the back of the truck and we drove into the jungle. I don’t remember the way.”
“And when did you become sick?” Dr. Katharina Rodriquez asked. 
“About three weeks ago. I thought it was nothing at first. I was just a little dizzy, I thought it was the heat,” the man said. “But it didn’t go away. I saw others who had been there longer. They were worse. Some could hardly walk. The worst off would spend half the day lying in their hammocks and then stumble down to the smelters by the river.” 
“Go on.” 
“One day, I couldn’t work either. I lay in my hammock completely still, but the world kept rocking. I knew I had to escape. The next night, I felt a bit better and snuck away in the night, down to the riverside. I stole a canoe and took it downriver until I came to a small village. The villagers let me stay for a few days and told me about your clinic. So I came.” 
“I see,” Katharina said, motioning to Alejandro. 
Katharina and Alejandro walked to a workbench against the far wall of the hut. 
“Just like the others,” Katharina whispered. “At first, they’re fine. But over time the poison accumulates and…”
“But why don’t they ever say where the mine is?” Alejandro asked. 
“Who knows?” Katharina answered. “Maybe they forget. Maybe they never really know where they end up. Maybe the mine changes places each season. Or maybe they’re just afraid.” 
The man leaned forward on the cot, almost doubled over. His right hand rested on his thigh, trembling. He clutched the trembling hand with his left hand, and the two hands started to vibrate together, one on top of the other. The man looked away, pretending not to notice. 
“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Alejandro,” Katharina said. “Illegal miners never stay in one location long. And the authorities, well, they won’t be much help unless the president is about to visit.”
Katharina approached the man. 
“You’re lucky, Mr. Morales,” Katharina said. “You left in time. I think we should be able to treat you.”
“What is it?” the man asked. 
“That silver substance you described, the one they use at the mine.” 
“Yes?”
“It’s mercury, a brain poison.” 
“My God,” the man whispered, running his trembling hand through his hair. 
“For you it’s not too late. But if there are others, they must get out and soon.”

#
 
“When do we start?” Alejandro asked. 
“Judging by those clouds, as soon as we can,” Pedro, his father, said, gazing into the late afternoon sun. 
On the horizon, great steam clouds rose from the edge of the Amazon just over the horizon. The clouds flowed up and up and up the foothills, forming into towering gray clouds on the far edge of the lake. 
The remains of the stone temple around the two men had a bare, earthen floor. There was no roof now and never had been. In the days before the Spanish had come, it had been covered with golden thatch. At the midpoint of each wall was a stylized mask of a forgotten Aymara god. 
Alejandro knew the ritual by heart. He had been accompanying his father to the peak of Taquile Island in the center of Lake Titicaca since he was a small boy. Alejandro knew that he could joke and banter up to the peak and even inside the temple, but as soon as they started to unpack, his father expected total silence. In businesslike quiet, they would set down a woven blanket of llama wool in the center of the temple. They would place the offerings on the blanket one by one, working their way out from the center. First came pulled llama wool, then sweet potato, then tobacco. Purple maize, limes and coca leaves followed. Finally there was the chicha, a beer made from fermented corn. Alejandro placed a small lantern on the center of the blanket as his father dug small earthen channels around the edges of the blanket to receive the libations of chicha. Soon, everything was ready.
“Today, we must hurry,” Pedro said.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to hurry,” Alejandro said. 
“Sh! Don’t be sacrilegious, not here!” 
Pedro kindled a small fire in front of the blanket as the fringes of the storm clouds turned orange and pink in the setting sun. 
The two men sat on the blanket, stone-faced and silent, listening to the kindling begin to crack. His father fed llama wool into the fire first and then the tobacco. The wool and tobacco sparked and ignited, crumbling into one another in the heat of the young fire. Dark smoke curled upwards in the growing darkness. 
“Pacha-mama, beckon to our call!” Pedro said, switching from Spanish to Aymara, their ancestral tongue. 
Pedro poured the chicha into the earthen channels on either side of the blanket. The liquid lazily rolled down the channels, encircling the blanket on four sides: north, south, east and west. 
“Pacha-mama, Sacred Earth…hear us.” 
His father gathered up a fistful of coca leaves and fed them into the fire one by one. 
From across the lake, a flash of lightning was followed by the low, loud rumble of thunder. Alejandro looked into the distance. The storm clouds had broken out of the Amazonian basin far to the east and had begun to spill over the eastern border of the lake. Tendrils of lightning illuminated the looming towers of cloud from within.
“One crack of thunder doesn’t mean a thing,” Alejandro whispered. 
Pedro shot a judgmental look at his son. 
“Pacha-mama, Earth Mother,” Pedro began, “Listen to what I have to say…” 

#

Wind stirred the barren moonscape of the high Andes. Not far away, storm clouds tumbled into one another, warring colossi of currents and eddies gripped in battle. 
Near the peak of Llullaillaco, two hooded figures sat huddled next to one another, motionless in the darkness. The wind blew and waves of dust fluttered their robes. They sat cross-legged, seemingly oblivious, their hands folded in their laps with cloth hoods over their heads. Large drops of rain began to fall one by one on the barren earth, creating dark circles as they hit the fine dust. 
As the clouds drew closer, there was a loud crack and a shaft of lightning reached down and struck the larger figure. The lightning ran through the body and into the earth. For a moment, nothing happened. All was as it had been for centuries. 
The figure inhaled loudly, grabbed her throat and screamed, the hood muffling the sound. She ripped the bag from her head and looked around, her eyes darting from side to side. No one was near. She turned and looked down the mountain in the direction she had come. 
The men had gone. The long train of pack llamas was gone too. But when had they left? An hour or a thousand years ago? 
Overhead dark clouds rumbled and lightning flashed, but most of the rain had already been spent on the lower slopes. Moonlight poured down through the shredded remnants of storm clouds. 
Qantuta looked around. All was as it had been. Patches of melting snow still surrounded the peak, glowing silvery in the moonlight. The small silver figurines were still arranged on the mat in front of her. A rich, red and orange carpet still lay under her feet.
She turned and gazed at her brother. He sat motionless and silent, the hood still covering his head. In front of him was an orange and red mat similar to the one before her. Carefully arranged on the mat was a procession of small silver figurines: priests, warriors, llamas, condors and serpents. He sat like he was looking down at them, about to reach out and play with them. But he still slept. 
“No,” she said in Aymara, her native tongue, her voice tight and high with seven hundred years of fine dust. “I must not. He would not want me to weep.” 
She gazed down at her hands. Unlike all these other things, they had changed. They were no longer the hands of a girl, but of an aged sorceress. The skin was dry and stiff, the nails yellow and cracked. She rolled up the sleeve covering her arm. Her arm was thinner than it had been, the skin dried and taut with small wrinkles gathering around her wrist and elbow. She lifted the leg of her dress and the skin was the same: sallow, cracked and dry. 
So, she thought, all the priests’ efforts had been for naught. The magic had not taken. It had all been wasted. She straightened her back and pulled down the sleeve of her dress. Slowly and stiffly, unlike before, she stood. As she took to her feet, she stumbled. Regaining her balance, she turned to face her brother. She opened her mouth, but no words came. She thought she should remove the bag from his head, but decided against it. She wanted to remember him as he had been before they came to the sacred mountain to be sacrificed. 
“I do not know why I woke and you sleep on,” she said to him. “But it is as Viracocha would have it, not as we would.” 
She turned and looked down the peak the way they had come, where the head of the long column of priests, warriors and llamas must have gone. She had a feeling they had all vanished long ago.
She turned to her brother. “I do not know what has happened, but I intend to find out.”
Qantuta gazed at the small figurines that had lain before her during her sleep. She took the first figurine, a llama, and placed it carefully in the K’eperina cloth slung around her shoulders. She tightened the knot of the K’eperina across her chest until it was snug. 
She gazed down the peak in the direction they had climbed up. It seemed reasonable to go down the same route. She began to walk in that direction, but her foot caught on a small outcropping and she stumbled forward, crashing to the earth. Only her outstretched arms broke her fall. When she lifted her head, she noticed a small groove gouged into the earth about an inch deep. It had been smoothed down by years of dust and wind, but it had not disappeared. 
“A ceque line,” she thought. “Even here the great Sapa Inca has left his mark. It will lead me to them, the very heart of the puma. And once I find that…” 
Qantuta stood, shook the dust from her long skirt and continued to walk down the mountain in the dark, the moonlight her only guide. 

#

Qantuta stopped in the middle of the mountain path. She heard it more clearly now, the familiar clack of spindle striking stone. Qantuta pressed her body tightly against an outcropping of rock and peered around the corner. 
In the moonlight, a woman approached. She wore a long black dress, a K’eperina over her shoulder and a large, wide-brimmed hat. She held a spindle and thread in her hand, and as she walked, it struck the packed earth and rock of the path. 
Hiding behind the rock, Qantuta thought carefully about what to do. She stepped into the path. She bent her head down and turned it to one side, so as not to meet the woman face on. She walked forward and the clacking grew louder. 
They approached one another and within ten feet, the other woman briefly raised her head and perfunctorily said, “¡Buenos Noches!” 
Qantuta stopped in her tracks, stunned. It was not Quecha, nor Aymara, nor any language she had ever heard. 
“Bunaz Nok’he!” Qantuta answered in her raspy voice, doing her best to mimic the alien tongue of the woman.
Moonlight fell on Qantuta’s upturned face. The other woman staggered back at the sight of the desiccated, sallow face. Her spindle fell from her hands and struck the earth with a sharp knock. She gripped the rock behind her, forcing her body back against it. Qantuta took a step back, and the woman, sensing her chance, tore herself from the rock and ran down the path the way she had come. A few paces down the path her hat flew from her head, but she seemed not to care. 
“Strange woman,” Qantuta thought. “A spirit perhaps?” 
But no spirit would act like that, she knew. Once, when she was very young, she had met one. That spirit had been brave, utterly fearless. A spirit would never turn and run. Only people acted like that.
Qantuta bent down and grabbed the spindle and thread at her feet. She looked at them in the moonlight. She lifted them up as if to hand them back over, but the woman was gone. She grabbed the ends of the thread and began to stitch and turn the raw wool, her fingers recalling the old, familiar motions. She started down the path, the spindle striking the stones as she walked. 
She paused a few paces ahead, standing over the woman’s hat. She placed the spindle down on a nearby rock, picked up the hat and examined it. It was black with a wide brim embroidered around the edges with large red and yellow flowers. 
“Ata-kachaw,” she said in Aymara, caressing the material with her hands. 
Perhaps it was what the women wore in the forests far to the east? She placed the hat on her head. It was tight, but would do. 
“Ata-kachaw,” she repeated, glancing up at it.
She grabbed the spindle from the rock. Spinning and walking, she continued to follow the ceque line down the mountain. In a few minutes the clacking took on a rhythm and she was lost in thoughts of home and long ago. She knew, in time, the path would lead her to the ever-beating heart of the puma-shaped city. The Qorikancha temple at the center of the capital, Cuzco. 
 
        #

Qantuta bent down and touched the earth. 
    Like her, it had changed. The sand and the river were gone. The dual plaza of Haukaypata was no more. The place where all the peoples of Tawantinsuyu had gathered—coming from the jungle, the mountains and the sea—to celebrate the annual triumph of the sun in a ritual of song, dance and chicha drinking had been covered over. 
Qantuta stood and picked up the stone that it was her duty to carry as a commoner passing through the sacred city. Strange people passed by as they always had in Cuzco. She knew that most of them were not Quecha, Aymara or even Uros. The people were too tall and their language was too quick and used too many harsh consonants. What was worse, none of them carried stones, they went here and there, in the sacred capital, without burdens. Much had changed. 
In the shadows of the Cuzco night, no one marked her out as different. She was not dressed differently from many of the other women from nearby villages who passed through the square. Strange carts with round black wheels trundled along the streets, carrying men and things as they travelled over the stones of the central square. Large poles with a light at their top, torches without flame, cast down sallow light on the central square. 
The golden thatch roofs of the city were gone too. The strange men had covered the tops of their buildings with stone. If Pacha-mama decided to shake, as she must from time to time, they would soon learn their mistake. Large buildings loomed over the square in the darkness, and small gray birds thronged, pecking and purring, in their hundreds on the ground. As she walked by, they parted, scattered and reformed behind her. 
The ceque line was not clear here, but she had been to the puma-shaped city before and knew the way to the Qorikancha. She crossed the square and walked into an alley lined with large, black stones laid by the Sapa Inca’s men, which fit together snugly. She exited the passageway and came out on another smaller square overlooking the eastern entrance to the city. 
Qantuta gasped. Before her stood the Qorikancha, but it was not as it had been. The black stones of the base of the temple remained, but stacked on top of them were smaller pale, yellow stones hastily cut and laid. They were not neatly fitted one on top of the other, but made to fit with a white paste between them. 
“The men are larger, but their stones smaller,” she thought. 
A black fence surrounded the temple, but she knew another way in. She walked up a small alleyway and came out on an overlook above the temple. Squeezing through a small hole in the gate, she emerged in the complex itself. A man stood guarding the entrance. She waited for him to turn away. She passed quietly down a corridor leading to the entrance of the Qorikancha. 
She stopped at the dark threshold of the temple, not knowing why. She remembered: she must remove her sandals before entering. She placed them to one side and stepped across the threshold. 
Like the rest of the city, the Sun Temple had changed beyond recognition. There was a wooden roof instead of thatch. The Inti Punchao, the living god of gold, was gone. Not a bit of gold or silver remained, only the black stone of the foundations and the yellow stones of the New Men above. Someone had stripped the temple bare. 
Qantuta walked to the front of the temple. 
“Where are you?” she whispered, her words echoing flatly off the bare stone. “Where have you gone?”
It was clear now. Some great calamity had befallen the Sapa Inca, his chief priest and his mighty people. The all-mighty Viracocha had proven himself more just than people had given him credit for. The Sapa Inca and his descendants had paid for their haughtiness. Perhaps the new people had conquered him as he had conquered so many others? But these people? How could it be? They seemed far too thoughtless to take down such a great man, let alone his army. Yet it had come to pass. 
She turned and walked slowly back to the temple’s entrance. She put on her sandals and walked out of the Qorikancha, returning to the garden square looking toward the east. The black stone of the foundations laid down by the Incas glowed like polished flint in the moonlight. She gazed at the moon dreamily. 
“Moon Mother, forgive me for coming at night to Cuzco, but I had no choice. The day leaves me so tired that I cannot move.” 
She blinked at the moon and it seemed to shimmer. 
She sensed something in the distance and felt a longing well up inside her. A longing to depart, to leave. But where? She turned to the northeast, and in her mind’s eye she saw where the ceque line lay. She could follow it with her eyes shut all the way down into the jungle. 
“‘Come?’” she asked the moon, not knowing why. “But where?”
There was no answer, but a light breeze brushed her cheek, coming down from the heights of the city and heading east. 
The wind blew again in the same direction, but stronger. 
    “So be it,” she whispered to the moon and took the first step away from the heart of the puma down to the jungle. 

#

    The path under her feet had changed from stone to mud. The moonlight pierced the canopy above, casting beams on the path every few paces. Strands of mist snaked across the floor of the jungle like twisted rope. 
    She had put away her thread and spindle. The ceque line was faded here and harder to make out. No one had maintained it for some time and the cloud forest ate away at the works of man faster than the high, dry altiplano. She stopped and peered more closely at the shallow, worn-down ceque line. If she had interpreted it correctly, the place she was searching for was not far. 
She walked a few more feet and saw that she must turn off the main path. She ducked under a leaf the size of her head and came to a small clearing. 
    In the center of the clearing was a small pool under a stone basin carved with stylized grooves. There was a notch in the top of the basin through which water had once spilled. The notch was dry and water dribbled over the lip of the basin into the pool below. Qantuta climbed to the top of the stone basin and saw that small rocks had fallen into the notch, blocking the flow of water. 
Qantuta began to pull plants, weeds, stones and debris out of the channel at the top of the basin. After a couple hours of work, water began to flow slowly through the central channel again. She watched as a single thread of silvery water spilled into the center of the pool below. 
Her job finished, she climbed down and sat by the edge of the pool. Qantuta removed the K’eperina from around her shoulders and took off her sandals. She pulled her orange and crimson tunic over her head and combed out her hair, the feature that time had been kindest to. Her long, black braids gently tickled her naked back each time she moved her head. 
She stood over the basin and saw herself and the sliver of moon over her shoulder reflected in the pool. In that dark reflection of night, she saw herself as she had been, not as she was. Her skin luminous and brown, her breasts lithe and soft, her hair falling down the length of her torso. 
She stepped to the edge of the pool and wiggled her toes over the water. With a deep breath she jumped out into space and felt herself falling through the air. There was a loud splash and for a moment Qantuta disappeared under the water, holding her breath. 
The water felt refreshing at first, but turned colder. It began to sting sharply and burn. She burst to the surface with a scream and waded through the water, the water rippling violently behind her. She threw herself up onto the bank, panting. 
She grasped her right forearm and started to claw at it, trying to relieve the tingling burn of her skin. Something in the water had soaked through her skin. 
Her right hand began to tremble and she examined it in the moonlight. The fingers slowly stopped trembling and began to contort and freeze into place. Her left arm began to flinch. She felt the skin all over her body begin to burn uncontrollably. A spasm ran through her back like a lightning bolt flowing through her. Her mind raced as she turned over, grinding her back into the earth to feel something, anything besides the burning. 
In her mind’s eye she saw a mighty river pouring into the sea. A disembodied spirit, she raced up the river until it became a stream and the stream came to the pool. She saw herself writhing beside the pool, but her spirit stopped only for a moment. She traveled further on and came to a place where men huddled next to campfires on the banks of a river. Their day over, they poured something dark and silvery into the stream and headed back to their huts. The moon shone down on the surface of the river as silver clouds swirled in its depths. 
At that moment, she realized what she must do. With her remaining strength, she dragged her convulsing body to the edge of the pool, rolled on her side and let herself fall into the water. 

#

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Alejandro said. 
“Maybe your instruments aren’t calibrated correctly?” Pedro, his father, said. 
“No, they’re working. I’ve tested them again and again,” Alejandro said, his fingers squeezing the end of a brown paper bag on his lap. 
“Maybe they’ve closed down the mine and moved on? Miners do that all the time. Whenever they feel the authorities are getting too close.”
“It’s possible, but I just don’t feel it in my gut.” He paused and asked, “I was wondering…”
“What?” Pedro answered.
“Tonight. Can we go up to the top of Taquile Island?” 
“Why?”
“It’s time.”
“Time? For what?” Pedro asked. “To make another sacrifice to Pacha-mama?” 
“Yes,” Alejandro answered, his eyes downcast. 
“Well, I never thought my own son would—” 
“Please,” Alejandro said. “You’re not making it any easier.”
“I just—” 
“Stop,” Alejandro said, placing the brown bag on the table. “I brought something.” 
He opened the bag. Alejandro pulled a small object out of the bag and delicately laid it on the table. It was a dried llama fetus, its head bowed and eyes closed. 
“Pure white?” Pedro asked, leaning forward. 
“Yes.”
“For Pacha-mama?”
“I searched every market stall in Puno until I found one.”
Pedro lifted the llama fetus from the table and carefully turned it over in his hands, examining it. “So it is,” he whispered. “Perfectly white.” 
“You won’t find a blemish on it. Can we go tonight?” 
“Tonight?” 
“It’s a matter of some urgency,” Alejandro said. “The mercury readings may have dipped, but we have reason to believe the mine is still growing. Men keep coming to the clinic, more than ever before.”
“I see.”
“I’ve tried everything else,” Alejandro said. “Please.” 
“I’ll gather my things. We’ll leave in fifteen minutes.” 

#

It was night in the mining camp and the sluices and smelters were idle and dark. Thunder echoed gently in the jungle night. A steady rain fell, thumping loudly on the corrugated steel roofs of the darkened huts. A sharp flash of lightning lit up the camp for a moment and then darkness took over again. 
In the dead hours of the night before the dawn, a small figure, more shadow than flesh, walked stealthily into the hut. Unnoticed by the men, it approached the makeshift shrine in the corner. A shaking hand—sinewy and dried out—reached toward the flames and grabbed the limes and coca leaves left as offerings. The ghastly hand, trembling, tucked the items into a K’eperina slung around her shoulder. 
Qantuta walked over to a cot where a workman slept. She studied him in the darkness. Even in the low light, she knew he was Aymara. She could tell by the line of his nose, the setting of his cheekbones and eyes. She wondered if he had been brought to work on the mine against his will by some new Sapa Inca who had overthrown the old one. Just like she had been brought to Llullaillaco to be sacrificed. To please the Sapa Inca and show his gods how mighty he was. Perhaps it was less grand than that. Maybe he was part of a mit’ma labor levy for the New Men who had defiled the Qorikancha? 
A wave of fatigue passed over her. She felt light-headed and stumbled to one side. She steadied herself against a beam that held up the roof. The poison she had absorbed in the pool was getting worse. 
She looked around the hut. Other men were sleeping in hammocks. She walked quietly up to each one, barely breathing and studied their faces. Some were Aymara, some Quechua. Some looked like the feather-hunters from the forest tribes she had seen when she went to Cuzco. Others looked like the strange, New Men with light skin and beards she had seen in Cuzco. Still others had different faces, unlike men she had ever seen before. Who knew how far the New Men had gone? How far the new Sapa Inca’s empire stretched? Perhaps it was even beyond the Western Sea? They must have spread over all the earth, she thought, forcing strange new tribes into mit’ma service. 
She turned from the sleeping men and walked slowly and deliberately to the hut’s entrance. Looking across the muddy field in the center of the camp, she saw a building like the ones in Cuzco with straight walls and a roof of steel. One of the torches without flame illuminated the main entrance to the building. She knew if the mine had a chief, he would be there. 

#

Qantuta flung the twisted, ruined metal lock to the ground and pushed back the iron door. She stepped into the darkness, her sandals falling softly on the brick floor. 
Qantuta walked down a corridor, bracing herself against the wall as the world swayed from side to side. She turned around a corner and looked through an open doorway. In the middle of the room, a man slept on a raised platform, with only a light sheet covering him. He was all alone without servants or wives nearby, but she knew he must be the chief. Why, unlike the other men, was he locked away like some treasure? 
She walked toward him. Halfway to the bed, she stumbled and caught herself. She looked down at the man, but he did not stir. Carefully, she stepped forward again. Near the edge of the bed, her foot hit something on the floor, making a slight noise. The man stirred and sat up in the darkness. 
    “Who’s there?” he said. “Claudia?”
    She reached out with her shaking hands and clasped his leg under the sheet. The man cried out—more in surprise from the coldness of her grip than pain. He yanked his leg out of her grip and she lunged at him. He rolled on his side and raised his hand to strike her, but she reached out and caught his hand in the darkness. He felt the icy hand shake violently as it grasped his wrist. 
He reached back with his free hand, reaching toward the head of the bed. She flung herself on top of him, pinning him to the bed and grasping his free hand by the wrist. She brought his hands above his head, pressing them into the bed with superhuman strength as he grunted and writhed under her. 
She began to chant in Aymara and closed her eyes. She quickly let go of his hands and grasped his neck tightly. He struck and hit her with his free hands, but the blows glanced off her. He started to claw at her face. He felt the flesh give away in shreds in his hands, but no blood flowed from her wounds. 
He tried to scream for help, but only a strained gurgling came from his throat. The only reply was the rhythmical chant of her prayer. Her grip became tighter, his eyes grew wide and his arms began to flail uncontrollably. He felt the skin on his neck under her hands grow colder and colder and begin to sting and burn. He kicked his legs violently and arched his back. His struggle continued for a few moments. There was one, last violent twitch and he sighed profoundly. His body grew still. 
She opened her eyes and stopped her prayer. The room around her no longer seemed to move. The man was silent, but still warm lying under her. She removed her hands from his neck. 
She held up her left hand in the semidarkness and looked at it. It was still. 
    
#

“Where is he?” Dr. Rodriquez asked. 
“Inside, Señora,” the foreman answered with a sheepish bow. 
Dr. Katharina and Alejandro walked up the simple wooden stairs and stepped inside the building. At the end of the corridor was a simple, small room with a bed at its center. A lone light bulb gave the room a sickly, yellow pallor. The room was close and hot. The foreman who had led them in stood behind them, looking on. 
The naked man lay on his side in a fetal position. At the foot of the bed was a red-and-orange woven rug. In the middle of the rug was a small silver llama carved in the pre-Columbian style. 
Dr. Katharina kneeled next to the man and grabbed his wrist, feeling for a pulse. 
“Is the boss dead?” the foreman asked. 
“No,” she answered.
Alejandro saw the man’s chest rise and fall slightly. His right arm twitched and the man’s entire body shook for a moment and froze again. His hands curled in on themselves like claws. 
“Can you hear me?” Katharina asked. 
The man shivered, but there was no outward sign that he had heard her. 
“Mercury poisoning, I would bet my life on it,” she said. “A severe case.”
Alejandro nodded. 
“We’ll have to take him back to the clinic,” she said, standing and turning to the man. “Can your men help? There’s a stretcher in the ambulance.” 
“Yes,” the foreman said. 
He walked out and they could hear muffled shouts. 
    A few moments later, the foreman and four workers came into the room, carrying a stretcher. They walked over to the man on the bed and grabbed his arms and legs, trying to pull him straight.
    “No, stop!” Dr. Rodriquez said. “Take him as he is. On his side.”
The men looked at the foreman. 
“Just like she said,” he told them. 
They put their hands under him and lifted him onto the stretcher, placing him on his side. The muscles in his arms, legs and face would twitch from time to time, but he showed no sign of consciousness. The men cursed quietly at one another as they maneuvered the stretcher through the doorway and down the corridor. They carried him through the narrow door and out into the tropical sun. 
Outside, around the bottom of the steps, the men of the camp had gathered. The mine workers stood to either side of the stretcher as it passed, creating a column for it to pass through. They looked on in silence at the figure on the stretcher. 
When the stretcher was about halfway to the waiting ambulance, two of the men in the crowd whispered to one another softly. The whisper passed from man to man until one could just hear it above the eternal buzzing of the jungle. It was unmistakable. 
“Pacha-mama.”
It was said in a conspiratorial, low tone, but there was no mistaking it. Alejandro and Katharina heard it as they walked behind the men carrying the stretcher. 
“Pacha-mama,” one man said loudly above the rest. 
The whispers stopped. 
“She has done this. Her day has dawned,” the man continued.  
The man crossed himself in the Catholic fashion and fell on his knees in the mud. The men carrying the stretcher trudged forward. A few men fell to their knees and crossed themselves, but the rest of the men stood without saying a word. Either because they did not believe or simply did not know what to do. 
“Ave Maria,” the man began, a desperate strain creeping into his voice. “Llena eres de gracia…”
The men kneeling near him repeated the phrase. 
“El Señor es contigo,” the man continued. Those kneeling around him repeated it again. 
As they did, the men carrying the stretcher walked through the mud, sliding toward the ambulance. The man on the stretcher twitched slightly, his head jerking sharply to one side.
As they loaded him into the ambulance, the men of the camp reached the end of their prayer.
“Santa María, Madre de Dios,
Ruega por nosotros pecadores,
Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.” 
The men kneeling in the mud crossed themselves a final time. 
Dr. Rodriquez and Alejandro climbed into the ambulance on either side of the stretcher. The foreman slammed the ambulance doors shut and hit the back door twice. 
The red brake lights went out and the wheels spun in the mud. The tires found traction and the ambulance began to head back to town. 

#

“That was the last I saw of him,” Alejandro said. “Carried away by his own men.” 
    A wind blew off the lake, flying up the cliffs of the island and passing through the archway of the stone temple at the island’s summit. Alejandro and his father gazed at the setting sun. 
“What became of him?” Pedro asked. 
    “He’s still at the clinic,” Alejandro said. “There are some treatments available, but his condition is grave.”
    “And the mine?” 
    “It closed down. All the nearby villages have heard about what happened. The rumors have spread all the way downriver to the Brazilian border, they say. They’ll have a hard time finding anyone willing to work the mine again. I plan to go back every few months just to make sure it’s still abandoned.” 
    “What about the mercury in the river?” 
    “It’s still there, but it’s trace amounts. But there are other illegal mines and other rivers. As soon as one site closes, another one opens up somewhere deeper in the jungle.”
    “So what now?”
    “We look for the next one.” Alejandro paused. “I have something for you.”
    “What’s that?”
    Alejandro unzipped his backpack and pulled out a narrow orange and red carpet. “This was placed at the victim’s feet,” he said. “Somehow, I thought you should have it.”
    Pedro turned the carpet over, examining it carefully. “It’s odd.”
“What?” 
“It’s a very old style Aymara. The dyes are natural. Whoever made it didn’t use chemical dye. And the pattern. It is Aymara, but not from here. Not Titicaca. It comes from further south.” Pedro lifted his hand and motioned across the lake, indicating a great distance. 
    “Whoever did this,” Alejandro said, “placed it at his feet and left this.” He handed his father a silver llama figurine. 
    “Old style too,” Pedro answered. “But from where, I can’t tell. It could be Inca.” 
“Maybe it meant something to the one who left it?” Alejandro asked. 
“Perhaps. In the ancient days before digging a mine, the priest and the community would gather and perform a sacrifice to ask Pacha-mama permission to cut into her flesh. Maybe instead of sacrificing a living llama, whoever did this left the figurine instead.”
Pedro let the figure fall to his lap. 
“Come on, old man,” Alejandro said, reaching into his backpack and pulling out coca leaves, chicha, limes and tobacco. “We have our own sacrifice today. This time, to give thanks. Let us begin.” 

#

    The dimmest stars had started to fade, but hundreds still spilled across the sky of the high Andes. Toward the east, the dark dome of night had turned midnight blue. 
    Looking down from the peak of Llullaillaco, a small dot could be seen. The dot climbed the path below slowly and, as it went, grew larger. It grew legs and arms, and as it came closer, a black and red hat sprouted from its top—the only color in a dusty, brown world. 
    As she trudged up the path, Qantuta wove a small pouch, her spindle clacking as it struck the stones of the ceque line leading to the summit. She slowly chewed coca leaves tucked between her molars and cheek. And why shouldn’t she, after all? The Sapa Inca’s empire had fallen down to dust. Coca belonged to the people now—all the people—not just the haughty nobles of Cuzco. 
    She paused and looked up, her hands still turning upon themselves as she wove. It wasn’t far now. She pulled her hat down tightly and continued up the path. 
    She turned up a bend that exited on a ridge just below the summit. She paused to face the east and watch as the eastern sky changed from midnight blue to pale light blue. The last of the stars began to fade and only the Morning Star remained in the sky when she finished weaving the small pouch. 
    She put the spindle away in the K’eperina across her shoulders. At the summit, she turned to her brother, who sat motionless, just as she had left him. 
“The Sapa Inca is no more,” she said. “For his avarice and evil deeds, Viracocha has overthrown him. The Qorikancha has been stripped and the gods and kings it housed have fled. Strange men from afar have laid the Sapa Inca low. I do not know where they have come from or how far their empire stretches, but it must be to a great extent.”
    She paused, waiting for her brother to respond. He did not speak, not in his living voice. So, she continued. 
    “As for me, I have completed my mission. The call that awoke me here led me to wander. I found the heart of the puma and there the moon spoke to me. It ordered me down into the jungle to find a mine, a place the New Men had cut into the earth. Arriving there, I sensed they had done so without the proper sacrifice and due consent. And suddenly, I understood why I had been called there.” 
    She held up the pouch she had just finished making. “I brought this for you,” she said, “as a reminder that this was not a dream journey, no illusion. But a real journey to the furthest limits of Tawantinsuyu.” 
    She loosened the pouch and showed him the inside. “See?” she said. “Limes and coca. Could I have found that in the mountains? Or could a spirit or sorceress have conjured them in all their living glory? No. I brought them for you from the edges of the empire.” 
    She smiled and placed the pouch at the head of the little procession of silver figurines on the mat in front of him. 
“I am tired,” she said. “I have journeyed far. It is my time to rest.” 
    She walked over to her mat and sat down, crossing her legs. 
    She began to rock back and forth slowly, chanting a spell she had been taught as a little girl before the men had come to take her to the holy mountain to be sacrificed with her brother. She asked Pacha-mama to give her centuries of rest before calling her again. She rocked more slowly with each sway until she felt herself become motionless, one hand clasped over another. 
She felt her body grow stiff and her mind slow. She bowed her head. 
Her mind echoed from within, saying, “I go to rest. I return to the vast house of sleep with many rooms. I dream of men and mountains. I listen and wait.” 
    Before darkness overcame her, she saw an image. It was her own brown ear, shot through with an ingot of pure gold with a wisp of black, braided hair falling over it. She saw it suspended in a dark space without anything near. Then, silence began to fall like a fine mountain snow. The image dissolved into nothing and darkness spread its veil over her mind. 
On the silent peak, Qantuta fell back to sleep. 


THE END

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