Free 12.21 by Dustin Thomason Page A

calm her after a nightmare or a bad scrape; her grandmother had done the same for her mother. As Chel rubbed her hand back and forth, she felt the tension in Volcy’s body loosening. She didn’t know how long the doctor would be gone. This was her chance.
    “Tell me, brother,” she whispered. “Why did you come from El Petén?”
    Volcy spoke.
“Che’qriqa’ ali Janotha.”
    Help me find Janotha
.
    “Please,” he continued. “I have to get back to my wife and my daughter.”
    She leaned in. “You have a daughter?”
    “A newborn,” he said. “Sama. Now Janotha must care for her alone.”
    Chel knew that, but for a twist of fate, she could easily have been Janotha, waiting with a newborn in a palm-thatched house for a man to come home, watching his empty hammock hanging from the roof. Somewhere in Guatemala, Janotha was pressing corn into tortillas over a hearth and promising her infant daughter that her father would return to them soon.
    Volcy seemed to fade in and out, but Chel decided to press her advantage. “Do you know the ancient book, brother?”
    His eyes suddenly focused on her in a way they hadn’t before.
    “I have seen the wuj, brother,” Chel continued. “Can you tell me about it?”
    Volcy stared at her. “I did what any man does to help his family.”
    “What did you do to help your family?” she asked. “Sell the book?”
    “It was broken into pieces,” he whispered. “On the floor of the temple … dried up by a hundred thousand days.”
    So Chel had been right: The man lying here in front of her was thelooter. Tensions in Guatemala had left
indígenas
like Volcy—manual laborers—with little option. Yet somehow, against all odds, he’d found a temple with a book that he understood would command a fortune in America. The amazing thing was that he had managed to bring it here himself.
    “Brother, you brought the book to America to sell?”
    “Je’,”
Volcy said. Yes.
    Chel glanced back over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone before asking, “Did you sell it to someone? Did you sell it to Hector Gutierrez?”
    Volcy said nothing.
    “Tell me this,” Chel said, trying a different tack. She put a finger to her cheek. “Did you sell it to a man with red ink on his cheek? Just above his beard?”
    He nodded.
    “Did you meet him here or in the Petén?”
    He pointed down at the floor, at this foreign land he would no doubt die in. Volcy found the tomb, looted the book, made his way here, and somehow hooked up with Gutierrez. Within a week, the book was sitting in Chel’s lab at the Getty.
    “Brother, where is this temple?” she asked. “There is so much good that could come to our people if you will tell me where the temple is.”
    Instead of answering, Volcy whipped his body toward his side table, his arms flailing at the pitcher of water. The phone and alarm clock crashed to the ground. He grabbed the top off the pitcher and poured the rest of the water into his mouth. Chel stumbled back and her chair fell to the floor.
    When Volcy finished drinking, Chel reached for the end of his blanket and dried his face. She knew she had little time to get the answers she needed. He was calm again, so she pressed on. “Can you tell me where Janotha lives?” she asked. “What village are you and Janotha from? We can send word to your family and let them know you are here.” The temple couldn’t be far from his own home.
    Volcy looked confused. “Who will you send there?”
    “We have many from all over Guatemala in
Fraternidad Maya
. Someone will know the way to your village, I promise.”
    “Fraternidad?”
    “This is our
church
,” Chel said. “Where Maya here in Los Angeles worship.”
    Volcy’s eyes filled with distrust. “That is Spanish. You worship with
ladinos
?”
    “No,” Chel said. “
Fraternidad
is a safe place of worship for the
indígenas.”
    “I will tell
ladinos
nothing!”
    Chel had made a mistake.
Fraternidad
meant
brotherhood
in Spanish.