Eye of the Jaguar

 A story from the What If? Anthology

Martina Crestada focused her binoculars and looked down into the cenote, one of the sinkholes riddling the karst landscape of the Yucatan peninsula. The building storm clouds scuttled across the face of the moon making it flicker like a guttering candle.

“Philip, hold the flashlight still, this one isn’t filled with water and there’s a carved altar stone in the center.”

He balanced his flashlight on the cenote’s rim to steady it. Philip lived to make Martina happy. While he’d become fascinated with Mesoamerican history and lore, his love of Martina was the primary reason he’d majored in Mayan culture and the only reason he’d joined this archeological expedition.

“Martina, we’d best hurry, the clouds are building. I smell rain and we’re an hour from camp. It’s dangerous at night. Ocelots, jaguars, and wolves, oh my!”

Martina pointed her flashlight upward from under her chin ensuring Philip could see her look of disgust. “Don’t be a crybaby. I see an altar stone on the bottom. There’s writing, but I can’t read it. Red veins. Could be iron oxide. Maybe blood. How exciting! Philip, I hope they’re bloodstains!”

“I’ll record the GPS reading and tell the guide we’re ready to leave. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

 The guide screamed. He pointed at a jaguar skulking quietly as a gentle breeze and shouted “B’alam! B’alam!” The beast moved nearer the explorers and pinned them against the pit’s edge. Philip was unarmed, he had a flashlight, a pocketknife, and a pith helmet like the explorers wear in a Tarzan movie.  

The jaguar's eyes glowed like red coals. Philip froze in place. The cat charged without warning and Philip threw his helmet like a flying disk and hit the jaguar in the shoulder. He shoved Martina to one side and stepped backward away from the leaping cat. He struggled futilely for purchase on the crumbling pit edge. He fell into the cenote and the jaguar flew over his head and into the pit with him. They both screamed all the way down.

Philip woke up on the decayed leaves that dotted the altar stone. He felt his left arm. Shit, broken. Dark down here. Where’s my damn flashlight?”

Martina shouted, “Philip!”

“I’m alive. Broken, but alive.”

“I’ll send the guide for help.”

“Have them bring a harness. Pretty sure my arm is broken. I can’t climb out. The air is stale, and it stinks of rotten fruit.”

“Is the jaguar, or should I say, the B’alam, dead? We can practice speaking Mayan until help comes.”

Philip found his flashlight. The jaguar draped the altar stone like a praying supplicant. Chiseled images of cats, snakes, and wolves appeared and vanished with the sweeping of the flashlight’s beam. Philip crept slowly to the jaguar and gently touched its throat seeking a pulse.

The creature opened its eyes, snarled, and bit Philip’s arm. He tried to jerk away and cursed. “Christ, damn thing bit me. Probably has rabies!” He searched the altar with his free hand, the one attached to a broken arm. He caught a brief vision of an obsidian knife stored in a cubbyhole. He gritted his teeth against the pain, stretched for the knife, and stabbed the jaguar in the neck. The creature released his arm. He wiggled the knife until the glow in the beast’s eyes faded to darkness. Their blood mingled and flowed into the red-stained cracks atop the limestone altar. The stench of rotted fruit grew overpowering. Philip couldn’t breathe, he gasped, staggered back from the altar, his head spun, and he passed out.

The pain from the jaguar bite or his broken arm woke him. Flickering torchlight and rancid smoke filled the cenote. Several men, costumed in ancient Mayan ceremonial regalia, filled the cavern. He shouted for Martina. She didn’t answer, but above him, the pit’s edge was lined with women and children.

The quiet was frightening. It was like the silent moment in a horror film before all hell breaks loose. Philip remembered from a class on negotiation that the person who speaks first, loses. He couldn’t stand it. The people just stared at him.

Read the full story in the book: 

https://books2read.com/u/m27NQd

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