Free Tropic of Darkness by Tony Richards Page A

most contradictory place I’ve ever been to.”
    Luis relaxed a little, humor coming back into his expression.
    â€œMaybe that’s why we’ve survived so long. No one can quite figure this place out, not even those who live here.”
    They continued past the tombs and headstones.
    *   *   *
    Jack and Luis had reached a row of short, dense trees. About a dozen of them, planted very closely, with their branches so entangled that Jack could not make out what lay beyond. Almost like they had been put there deliberately, as some kind of barrier.
    Nearing them, he thought he could detect a curious, and unpleasant, odor on the hot, still air.
    Jack wandered around their edge and found himself looking at the last three graves before the cemetery wall. Each was topped with a small, rounded marker, heavily pitted with age and lichen dappled. And the one nearest him, set slightly apart from the other two, had a few fetishes placed around it, nothing more than that.
    But the other pair . . .
    Jesus, it certainly explained the smell.
    Both plots were covered to opacity with the corpses of small animals in various stages of decay. Many were bare bones and skulls, stripped completely of their flesh. Others appeared to be more recent.
    Jack fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, held it to his nose, repelled and fascinated at the same time.
    Many of the sacrifices—and he was quite certain that was what he was looking at—were of birds. Cockerels and hens and doves. But there were turtles and opossums too, and even what looked like a cat. They’d either had their throats slit or had been decapitated.
    Most of the small cadavers writhed with the motion of insects in their remains. A black blanket of flies continually rose and settled.
    Jack turned his attention back to the other, more abandoned headstone, and thought he could make out a date. 1760 something or other.
    It made him queasy getting any closer, but he’d never seen the likes of this before. He reached gingerly across, saw that there was moss obscuring the inscription. So he scratched at it with his thumbnail.
    SANTIAGO DEFLORES, 1713–1766.
    There was no further lettering of any kind. Not a hint of who this man had been, or what he might have done. Jack was just about to reach out for the other markers, which were completely unreadable.
    Luis grabbed him sharply from behind, yelling “No!”
    And pulled him back.
    Jack looked around, startled. And saw to his bewilderment that the young man was petrified. There was a rigid expression on Luis’s features and his pale brown eyes were very wide.
    The student clutched his chest.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Luis wheezed. “I shouldn’t have let you get that close.”
    Jack took another glance in the direction of the graves.
    â€œWhat is this, anyway?”
    Luis followed his gaze sideways, rather than directly. The young man’s eyes were hooded, the frightened expression still in place. And this wasn’t any illiterate street urchin either. Rather, a bright young fellow who until this moment had shown nothing but good sense.
    â€œWould you prefer to go elsewhere?” Jack asked.
    â€œNo, it’s good. Just don’t go touching anything else, okay?”
    â€œI promise. But you don’t strike me as the type to go getting all freaky over just a few dead birds.”
    â€œYou’re right,” the boy breathed, nodding. “Even now, I’m trying to tell myself that I am being stupid. But some things . . . they are part of you and never quite let go.”
    And this was apparently one of them.
    Luis turned his gaze away, trying to gather his wits a little.
    â€œIt’s like this, Jack. When I was small, some of the neighborhood kids used to come here for a dare.”
    â€œUh-huh? And?”
    â€œThey’d take turns jumping over those two graves. I was too little to join in, so I’d only sit and