High in the Andes
Mountains on the legendary Inca Trail, four professional women embark on an
adventure to help them confront their online dating woes––only to find themselves
victims to a predator’s ruse, and in a fight for their lives. But,
unbeknownst to the hikers, they have been under the vigilant presence of Taki
and Koyam, two elderly indigenous women who understand the danger the women are
facing. By following the wisdom of their mummified Andean ancestor, Taki
and Koyam work to save the women and act with spine-tingling resolve against
the sinister forces of Rodrigo and his minions.
Chapter
One
Gossip is the hot brew that warms an icy heart.
Koyamaki could
always count on the mouthwatering taste of gossip to fire them up on the bitingly
cold Andean mornings. The promise of
chitchat made these two elderly street vendors suck their shriveled fingers
with anticipation of the succulent details coming their way. But they were no mere chattering birds: they saw
themselves as honorable listeners who never passed the tattling down the
grapevine without a good reason or acted maliciously on hearsay.
Gossip simply provided tasty tidbits they could mull
over while they sold their homemade souvenirs to the foreign tourists wandering
Cusco’s frigid Plaza de Armas. For the last three years, ever since Machu
Picchu was added to the list of the Seven Wonders of the World, foreigners had
descended like ravenous locusts, hungry to check yet another “Third World” Eden
off their bucket list of exotic vacations.
“Rodrigo! Did
the gringa just say––Rodrigo?” she
hissed, strangling the corners of her old alpaca shawl.
“Indeed, she did,” said Taki. “But the youngest gringa said Rod. Perhaps they are speaking about a different
man.”
“If it is Rodrigo, they are not talking about a
human being––they’re talking about a
monstrosity––”
“Calm down, Koyam, you always overreact. Let’s get a little closer to the gringas and listen to what they’re
saying.”
“We can get as close as flies in
quinoa stew, but we’re still not going to understand all the gringa chatter,” Koyam retorted.
“We understand a lot more than they
think we do.” A mischievous grin lit up Taki’s wrinkled bronze face. “How do
you think we haggle and pester them into buying our souvenirs?”
Koyam didn’t answer. She stared across the plaza
towards the twin bell towers of the cathedral, silently invoking the sacred
mountain beyond: Huanacauri. She didn’t
dare utter the name Rodrigo, not even as she begged her ancestors to curse this
beast for eternity. She thought he had
left Cusco for good, but if he was back, Koyam would be forced to
retaliate.
Her lips were clamped, her mouth tight as the stone
walls her Inca ancestors built in their sacred city. All these centuries later, it was impossible
to wedge even a credit card between those stones. She and Taki loved to watch the tourists try,
laughing whenever they broke their funny money: it was their very own
street-clown show. Koyam didn’t care if
the credit cards were ruined. She and Taki only dealt in cash.
But today Koyam wasn’t laughing. She sealed her lips
so her prayers could not be observed by anyone else in the plaza. Her great-grandchildren often scolded her for
openly talking about the ancient ways: the old beliefs in huacas, the sacred places and objects so revered by their
ancestors. They forbade her to mention the supernatural being who feasted on sacrifices
on top Anahuarqui Mountain. They admonished her as if she were the village
idiot, and not their seventy-year-old matriarch who still helped support the
family. She felt sorry for them. Not
only had they lost respect, they were forgetting the ancient ways. It would be their loss not to have Anahuarqui
on their side.
Koyam tried to remind them of the words of Manco
Capac, their emperor from centuries ago: “Do not forget us, your ancestors.
Adore and cherish what we hold dear. The deities, the sun and moon, speak to
us. Don’t forget your ancestors who are all around you, watching everything
that you do. Honor them. Respect them or they will––”
She never got to finish the rest of Manco’s speech,
made hundreds of years ago at nearby Ollantaytambo. Once her great-grandchildren had accomplished
the purpose of their visit––to lecture Koyam, as usual––they fled to their next
appointment. They all wanted to be perceived as young and modern professionals,
working diligently in the tourist-related industries that had blossomed in
Cusco in the last decade.
Every once in
a while Koyam’s sweet-talking great-granddaughters stopped by the plaza, saying
they just wanted to chat with her and Taki before meeting up with a tour group
outside the cathedral. They liked to
remind Koyam that she should be happy they were living in such an advanced and
technologically superior era. Taki knew what they really wanted: to shame their
great-grandmother into silence, to stifle what they saw as her antiquated
mumbo-jumbo about mummies and sacrifice and the afterlife. They didn’t want her to feed tourists any
pseudo-mystical gruel like the bogus shamans who set up shop in the shadowy
outskirts of the plaza, offering the tourists a temporary high, and lots of
nonsensical talk about the cosmos and harmony.
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