Bubba And The Mayans

Solved Mystery

We had no way to communicate with these people! They had been outside the perimeter of the morning mist the communication microbes had covered. They had also been beyond the range of the sleeping agent in the artificial rain.

They were a little on edge. It was understandable. The entire village was in a state of stupor. I pressed my hands together and pressed them against my cheek as I tilted my head, and then pointed to everyone lying on the ground around the village.

This drew an armed reaction as spears and blowguns were aimed at us.

“Espere,” I said and then repeated, holding up my hands. It meant stop or wait or something similar. I had heard our guides use it several times in the past few days.

I searched my frazzled synapses for something to say to explain things. “Dorrito,” I said, making the sleeping gesture again.

The leader of the group was looking at me like I was some crazed lunatic.

“Dormido?” He asked after a moment of looking at me.

Suddenly I remembered that my tablet was in a pocket of my pants. Moving slowly, I pulled it out, showed it to him and pulled up a translator program.

I said “sleeping” and it replied a moment later with a computerized version of “dormido.”

“Dormido,” I repeated, looking anxiously at them.

“Como paso esto?” he asked.

“How did this happen?” the tablet speaker squawked out. I looked at them and shrugged my shoulders. They raised any weapons that had drooped a little bit.

“Let’s wait for the chief to wake up,” I suggested.

“Esperemos a que el jefe despierte,” the tablet speaker vibrated into the air.

“Quedate aqui,” was the response. “Stay here,” was translated.

I nodded my head and began to put my tablet away. One of the warriors in the group gestured towards it and I handed it over to him. A couple of minutes later he had downloaded a game application and was smiling and laughing as he played.

“I didn’t know our tablets could do that,” I mentioned to Arlo. They were not anything you would find on earth.

“They have adaptive software,” he explained.

The leader looked at us for a moment longer and finally came to a decision.

“Americanos?” he asked.

I nodded in agreement.

“Let’s go drink until they wake up,” he said in perfect English. He then began laughing uproariously and slapped me on the back.

“Son of a gun,” Dingo exclaimed! “You understood us this whole time?”

“My name is Alejandro Vigilancio,” he answered with a smile after he quit laughing at his own joke. “I learned English from the nuns when I was a kid in the city. What happened to all these people?”

“There was a rain that fell right after the trial began,” I explained. “The god Waxaklahun Ubah Kan put them all to sleep because he was offended by their test and did not feel like sitting in the rain.”

“Uh huh,” Alejandro answered. I could tell he was less than convinced. “And where is this god now?”

“He’s over there with Mikimo,” Dingo blurted out, hooking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the hut they were in.

“Hey Bubba,’ I yelled out after shooting a dirty look at Dingo. “I’ve got some people out here that want to meet you.”

He and Mikimo came out a few moments later and walked towards us.

“How did you get out of the pit?” Alejandro asked when Bubba approached.

“He just switched places with Waziki,” I explained.

“I asked him, not you,” Alejandro replied pointedly.

“What authority do you have to question him?” Dingo jumped in.

“I’ve got twenty warriors standing beside me who give me that authority.”

“Instead of threatening each other,” I suggested, “why do not we find something to drink. I am sure we will be able to answer most of your questions. However, Bocephus,” I pointed at Bubba, “will decide if you have the right to question him.”

After a few seconds of silent standoff Alejandro shook his head and presented a big smile again. “Okay Gringo, you win for now. We will wait until everyone wakes up and see what happens.”

I nodded agreement and he instructed his warriors to drop their weapons.

“Hey Arlo,” I suggested, “maybe there is a software patch,” I emphasized, “that could help us communicate with the rest of the warriors.”

“I believe there might be. Let me look in our gear and see what I can find.” He headed back off towards the hut.

“And who is this?” Alejandro asked as he looked at Mikimo.

“This is the princess who is betrothed to Bocephus,” I said as she stepped forward. I hoped she would appreciate the update from concubine.

“When is the wedding?” Alejandro inquired.

“We haven’t really decided yet,” she answered smoothly. “There have been some logistical problems with some family members,” she explained.

“Ah, the future in-laws,” he said nodded his head thoughtfully. “This can always be a problem.”

“My name is Jack,” I said as diversion. “My friend here is Dingo. And Arlo went back to the hut for a moment. Perhaps we should find some shade and a few chairs to relax for a little while.”

We made our way over to an area covered by the jungle canopy and a few chairs and stones that were arranged near a fire pit. There was a fat pig on a spit over the fire. We sat down and Dingo checked the pig, turning it one hundred and eighty degrees. The women who had been tending to it were passed out on the ground and inside an adjacent hut.

Arlo reappeared with a couple of bottles of whiskey. One he set down on a small table near us and the other he handed to one of the warriors. After a nod from Alejandro, the warrior broke the seal and took a hefty swig before handing the bottle off.

Alejandro looked around at the bodies lying in discord around the village. “You say they all fell asleep when it began to rain. We have seen no storm today.”

“I said Bocephus put them to sleep when it began to rain,” I corrected. “And, a few small puddles still remain,” I pointed out a couple near where we were.

“Strange happenings,” Alejandro observed.

“No stranger than the reincarnation of a god walking out of the jungle,” I countered.

“I suppose so,” Alejandro conceded, “if he is a god.”

“Isn’t that what the markings and the test are supposed to establish?” Dingo asked as he got up to look at the pig again. He took a brush and wet down the skin in a few places with a mixture from a bowl on the table. I watched him dip a finger into the mixture, taste it suspiciously, and then nod his head and add more to the pig.

“Did he pass the test?” Alejandro asked.

“I believe he did,” I answered. “He was to enter the pit and remain there for at least two hours before leaving. That was a little over four hours ago.”

“And did he remain for two hours? You are the only ones awake who are witness to what happened according to your story.”

“I did not,’ Bubba spoke honestly. “I did not want to take their stupid test in the first place. I put them all to sleep when the rain started about four hours ago and swapped places with that little twerp Waziki. Let us see how much he likes it when he wakes up and is surrounded by all of them snakes.”

“Don’t you want the honor of being a god?” Alejandro asked with surprise.

“Heck no,” Bubba answered. “Right about now I just want to get up there to El Mirador and find the stupid…”

“I’m not sure he needs to know why we are going to El Mirador,” I cut Bubba off.

“Why are you going?” Alejandro asked the obvious question.

“We are looking for a fabled Mayan artifact,” I answered slowly as I tried to think of a valid, if false, reason.

“The archeologists that are there have found many artifacts,” Alejandro stated suggestively. “Perhaps they have beaten you to the prize.”

“Perhaps,” Arlo agreed, “but we kind of need to find out for ourselves.”

“And what does this artifact look like? Or better yet, what power is it supposed to give you?”

“We are not expecting to find an artifact exactly,” I answered as I tried to think up and appropriate response.

“Then what are you looking for?”

“Aliens,” Dingo answered from the table where he was inspecting bowls of spices and keeping an eye on dinner. He gave me a wink.

“You are alien hunters,” Alejandro exclaimed with a guffaw. “Then how did you get roped into all this?” he asked as he spread his hands around and indicated the village.

“We’ve been asking ourselves the same thing,” Bubba answered. He reached over to the table where the whiskey was and broke the seal on the bottle. He took a shot and passed it to Mikimo on his left. She demurred but handed it to me.

I took a drink and passed it to Alejandro. “What happens if he isn’t a god?” I asked, indicating Bubba.

“Well, he’s not a god,” Alejandro answered after watching Bubba drink the whiskey. “I don’t know how you arranged all this,” he said as he pointed to the sleeping women around us, “but I am quite sure I would know a Mayan god if I saw one. Does he look anything like the supposed aliens you are looking for?”

“Of course not,” Arlo responded, “they are supposed to be eight to ten feet tall and slightly built.”

“Darfons?” Bubba asked. It was a reference to a planet we had visited and been kicked off of as punishment after our trial.

“What?” Alejandro asked.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” I stated quickly. “The gods the Mayans worshipped are supposed to be tall and elegant. We are looking for proof of their existence.”

“You have been watching too many movies,” Alejandro said with a laugh.

“Perhaps,” I answered. “You and I both know Bubba is just a normal guy. If we convince them he is not the reincarnation of the warrior god, what happens then?”

“We could kill you,” Alejandro suggested with a smile.

“You could try,” Dingo offered. “It hasn’t worked out so well for people who tried in the past though.”

Alejandro gave me an appraising look. “And how many people have you killed?”

“To quote another movie,” I replied, “It is not important how many people I have killed. What is important is how I treat those that are still alive.”

Alejandro appraised me for a moment before he spoke again, nodding slowly. “Yes, we should avoid bloodshed if possible. It would take a lot of discussion and deliberation to decide what course of action to take if Bocephus is not the god.”

“What if he has passed the test, but claims he does not wish to be worshipped, or lead an army, or whatever it is he is supposed to do when he reappears?” Arlo asked.

“When these people wake up,” I said pointing around, “Bocephus is out of the pit. Waziki is in the pit. By the standards they set he is a god reincarnate.”

“But he isn’t a god,” Alejandro repeated.

“I agree but saying it would delegitimize the test he went through,” I argued. “How do we save face for everyone?”

“If he is seen as the god reincarnate,” Arlo suggested, “doesn’t that mean that he can do whatever he wants without regard to the expectations anyone has for him?”

“A valid point,” Dingo offered as he continued to rub spices over the pig.

“Theoretically, we could have walked out of here about four hours ago while everyone was asleep and continued on our journey,” I stated. “We want to find a solution that appeases everyone, but we aren’t going to leave anyone in our group behind as a sacrificial lamb, so to speak.”

“A sacrificial lamb,” Alejandro repeated. “There may be something there.” He took a drink from the whiskey bottle he had been holding absently and then passed it back to me.

“Can you switch places with Waziki again?” he asked Bubba.

“I could I suppose, but I ain’t going to,” Bubba answered.

“How about just stripping back down to the loin cloth and waiting for these people to wake up?” Alejandro suggested.

“Hand me that bottle and I’ll consider it,” Bubba answered. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I think you could well be the reincarnation of Waxaklahun Ubah Kan. I would be willing to endorse that position for the right compensation.” Alejandro said as he looked to me. None of his warriors were within earshot. I was fairly sure they could all understand us by now with the way the whiskey bottle had been handed around.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” I said as I rose from my chair and headed to the hut. A few minutes later I set a small eight-ounce bar of gold down on the table.

“That will suffice,” Alejandro said as he nodded his head and lifted the bar to feel its weight. He slid it into his pocket.

“I think it’s time to go change,” I directed to Bubba. “After all, you’re a Mayan warrior god.”

“You know,” Mikimo reminded us, “we still have that other issue to deal with in the hut.”

“Damnit Janet!” I replied.

“What is wrong?” Alejandro asked.

“Janet,” I answered. “Janet is what is wrong.”

Alejandro stood with us in the hut as we looked at Janet, bound to a support pole in the floor. There was duct tape over her mouth with a hole cut in the middle to make breathing easier. She was still dozing, but I knew that would not last long.

From out of nowhere the contents of a bucket of water covered her. She did not begin to melt. She did come awake slowly.

I turned around to see Dingo standing there with a disappointed look on his face. “Arlo suggested it earlier! I figured it was worth a try,” he said as he turned and walked out.

When I turned around to face Janet again, she was glaring at me. I assumed her anger had quickly burned through the effects of the sleeping gas.

“Why do you consider her a danger?’ Alejandro asked in amusement.

“She’s tried to have us killed a few times,” Arlo explained. “Although,” he said thoughtfully, “we haven’t really done anything to warrant that as far as I can remember.”

“She blames us for Hello’s death,” I commented. She nodded her head.

“That was the,” Arlo paused and looked at Alejandro for a second, then me, “the uh Ozzies.”

“Who are the Ozzies?” Alejandro asked.

“No one important at the moment,” I answered.

“She dated Jack for six months,” Bubba reminded everyone.

“There is that” Mikimo said with a laugh. “What did Osned tell you about her?” She asked of me.

I turned to Janet. “Okay nod if I’ve got this right,” I instructed. “You have been banned from Oz.” She nodded. “You have been in Guatemala looking for me for the past few months.” Janet paused for a moment then nodded slowly.

I thought for a moment or two. “You have not just been here. You have been other places.” She nodded again.

“And now that you have found us you want to kill us all.”

She shook her head no. I found that surprising. She was still glaring at me though.

“You want to kill Jack,” Mikimo prompted. Again, there was a delay, but Janet finally shook her head no.

“Then what is she doing here?” Dingo asked.

Janet tried to mumble something. We could not understand her. I pulled my weapon out and set it to a low stun setting.

Forgetting Mikimo’s earlier violence I asked her to remove the duct tape. She is usually the gentlest of our group. She giddily tore the tape from Janet’s mouth.

I gave Mikimo a stern look, but Janet was not apt to garner grace from me.

“They abandoned me, Jack!” Janet said after a moment. “They took everything I had and sent me to earth. My family disowned me! They blamed me for all the crap you did on Elva and Sesterisia. They blamed me for what happened with Hello on the ship! They think I should have stopped you somehow.

“They could have sent me to Octavia or Darfo Seven. I could be making a living on Sesterisia somehow or the other. There are a hundred places they could have exiled me to! But Earth Jack, they sent me to Earth! They told me this is where I had to live with my failures.

“I have been roaming around the states and frigging South America for the last eighteen months trying to find some trace of you. I thought you might be willing to take me with you or at least get me off this planet.

“Osned said you had not been back since you recovered your ship from Sesterisia. That was after you left me in Kansas.” She added.

“I’m surprised you talked to Osned,” I stated. “After all, he shot you with the tranquilizer in our living room. That allowed us to escape whatever plans you had for us on Elva or Kelvekia.”

Janet shook her head slowly and seemed to be crying just a little. “I didn’t blame Osned,” she said after she gathered herself. “I saw him at your funeral service and wondered why he was still on Earth. It took me a while to track him down in Guatemala.”

“Funeral service?” Bubba wondered.

“Holy crap!” Alejandro said, from seemingly nowhere. I had forgotten he was in the hut with us. “You’re the guys!” he said loudly.

“Yes, we are,” Dingo said boldly. I had been so intent on Janet that I had not noticed his return to the hut. “What guys?” He asked after a moment.

“You are the Unsolved Mysteries guys!” Alejandro announced. “You were a special segment about four guys abducted by aliens. There were crop circles in the field outside your house and traces of unknown chemicals. There were burn marks on the ground and a bunch of other stuff that could not be explained.”

He looked down at Janet, still bound in the middle of the floor. “You’re that Janet?” He queried with surprise.

“This doesn’t sound good,” Arlo commented.

“Maybe you would like to explain this,” I said turning to Janet.

“Maybe you would like to untie me,” she retorted.

“Maybe not!” Mikimo stated defiantly.

“I don’t mean you any harm,” Janet pleaded. “I just want a way to get off this planet.”

“What does she mean by that?” Alejandro asked.

“Er, um, she’s out of her mind,” I managed to reply after a moment.

“I am not,” Janet defended.

“Are you saying they are aliens,” Alejandro asked, “or were they abducted by aliens?”

“We were abducted by aliens,” Bubba answered.

“Whoa, hold on there just a minute Bubba,” I started. “I’m pretty sure Alejandro here knows there are no such things as aliens.” I said with a light laugh.

I turned towards Alejandro. “I’m also sure Janet can explain how she faked the crop circles and mysterious evidence to claim we were abducted from my,” I emphasized, “house in the middle of the night.”

“Bubba, were we abducted from my house?” I asked him.

“No, not from your house,” Bubba answered, catching on slowly.

“Then, why would she be on television claiming you were abducted by aliens?”

“Well, there was insurance money,” I offered lamely.

“We weren’t married Jack,” Janet reminded me. “Besides, there were no bodies. When a Guatemalan showed up at your funeral people began to think you had run off to the Caribbean or South America. Lo and behold, here you are two years later.”

“Osned is not exactly Guatemalan,” I stated.

“No, but is wife is,” she replied. “Now untie me and get me off this backwater planet.”

“Why does she think you could get her off the planet?” Alejandro asked as he looked at Janet.

“She is a little crazy. You know how it is with redheads,” I explained.

“I am not crazy!” Janet said a bit loudly in her defense. It made her look a little crazy.

“I’m going to check on the pig,” Dingo announced and left the hut.

“Give us one valid reason to trust you,” I directed towards Janet. I leaned down to eye level with her. I was searching for something in her soul or spirit that might give me a reason to untie her. We had spent six months together, although under false pretenses.

“My word,” Janet exclaimed. “What is that smell?”

The little baggie in my pocket had shifted when I squatted down and there was a rather pungent scent coming from it. I also had not bathed in a few days.

I pulled the baggie out and showed it to her. “A little something from earth lore to ward off magic,” I said as I showed it to her.

“You’re an idiot Jack!” she stated flatly.

“Maybe so,” Bubba said, “but he ain’t the one tied to a pole in the middle of the jungle.”

“I’m all for leaving her here until this is over,” Mikimo suggested. She approached with a fresh strip of duct tape.

I motioned for Mikimo to stop. “I’ll make you a deal,” I offered, looking at Janet. She waited without making a sound.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Arlo warned.

“We are heading to El Mirador. If I let you go, you will walk away from the village and go there to wait for us.”

Janet nodded.

“Second, you will use your special abilities to wipe about three hours of Alejandro’s memory,” I said as I turned and shot him with my gun; still on stun setting. “I want him to remember drinking with us, but everything else should be foggy.”

“I can do that,” she replied and waited.

“And third, I want to put a tracking device on you so we will know where you are. If you approach us before El Mirador all bets are off.”

“Will this gain your trust back?” she asked.

“It will be a first step in a long journey,” I answered.

She nodded thoughtfully for a moment before she spoke.

“And if I prove trustworthy you will get me off this damned planet when you leave?” She wondered.

“I’ll do my best,” I replied. I wanted to believe her.

“It’s a deal,” she said. “Now, will someone untie me?”

“I don’t like this,” Arlo repeated.

“I’m not sure it’s a great idea either,” I answered. “For the moment let’s see how it plays out.”

I began to loosen her ropes. Arlo had a weapon trained on her while I did so. Once she was free, she walked over to Alejandro where he lay on the floor. A few unintelligible words and laying on of hands and she stood up again.

I handed her a small weapon from my pack. She looked at me with surprise.

“You won’t be able to fire it,” I said. It has built in tracking, so we know where it is.

“How long until you get to El Mirador?” She asked as she looked towards the door of the hut.

“No more than a week I hope,” I answered. “There is one more thing,” I stated. “What do we call you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your name is Felicia. Would you prefer that over Janet?”

“I’ll let you know in El Mirador,” she answered before she headed out of the hut.

When she walked outside Dingo shot her with his stun gun. I had forgotten he was out there tending to the pig.

We retrieved the gold from Alejandro’s pocket. Dingo grabbed another bucket of water to wake Janet up after we explained what was going on to him.

A few minutes later I watched Janet walk out of the village and off to the north. She was soaking wet, bedraggled, and carrying a weapon I hoped she could not figure out a way to use.

While I was standing there pondering the wisdom of offering her any kind of second chance, I heard Waziki start screaming.