What are they going to do? They have no idea what just happened.
"Morgy," Sarah said, gazing blankly at the sky, "the colors are so beautiful. Can we—?"
"Shhh, we'll talk in a minute."
I smiled and nodded and began walking past the young privates, holding my breath. Then a spectral form emerged out of the rain just behind them.
It took me a moment to recognize who it was. I was hoping it might be Steve, but instead it was a man dressed in white, now covered with mud, and holding a knife, not obsidian this time but long and steel. His eyes were glazed, and I wasn't sure if he even knew exactly where he was. Why had he come down to the river? Had he known I'd come here, too?
For a moment we just stood staring at each other, while the Army privates began edging up the hill, as though not wanting to witness what surely was coming next.
"Why don't you put an end to all the evil?" I yelled at him finally, trying to project through the rain. "Just stop it right now."
"Baalum was my life's work," he said. Then he looked down at the knife a moment, as though unsure what it was. Finally he turned and flung it in the direction of the river.
"It could have been beautiful," I said back. Thank God the knife was gone. But what would he do next? "But now—"
"No," he said staring directly at me, his eyes seeming to plead. "It is. It will be again. To make a place like Baalum is to coin the riches of God. I want you to stay. To be part of it. Together, we . . ." But whatever else he said was lost in the cloudburst that abruptly swept over the embankment. In an instant it was a torrent, the last outpouring of the storm, powerful and unrelenting. Nature had unleashed its worst, as though Kukulkan was rendering his final judgment.