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check, it looked to me.
Pillars of the community, that family, I decided. I didn t really know much
about them, of course. I was a little old for the college dorm thing, and
while we got along just fine, I hadn t encouraged the sharing of little
confidences with Tracey, because, as Rebecca, I didn t have any to share. I
wondered if it had occurred to Tracey that I didn t have a single photograph
of anyone with me, and if it had, if she found that strange.
By the next morning she wasn t any better, and Steve asked me to stay around
the hacienda as much as possible to keep an eye on her. I did pick up Ines as
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usual and took her in to the market. When I told her how ill Tracey was, Ines
insisted on going to a part of the market I d never been, known to the locals
as that of the witch doctors. This section of the market was darker than the
rest, and smelled very strongly, but not unpleasantly, of herbs. The stalls
had bunches of dried herbs hanging from every rafter, fresh ones piled high on
tables. Some, like the tiny flowers of chamomile, I recognized, others I did
not. There were vials of various herbs and roots in some kind of liquid, and
various objects, talismans of some sort, offered for sale. Ines stopped at one
stall, which appeared to be unstaffed, until a very old man, skin wrinkled
more than I would have thought possible, hobbled out of the darkness at the
back. Ines explained the problem, and he mixed up a packet of various dried
herbs and gave them to Ines with instructions.
Tracey was no better when we got back, and the swelling was getting
perilously near to the point where the doctor had said to bring her back in.
By this time she d had another round of antibiotics, but I knew they d take a
while to kick in and I was getting really worried. Ines carefully measured out
some of the herbs, made a tea of them, which she then strained, and got Tracey
to drink it. Within twenty minutes, Tracey had fallen into a sound sleep.
 She ll be fine now, was all Ines said.
And she was. Partway through dinner that night, she appeared at the dining
room door.  I m starving, she said, and we all beamed.
 Wonderful stuff, that penicillin, Steve exclaimed, but I knew better. In a
pinch, I was sticking with Ines. By the following day we were more or less
back to normal. Ricardo Ramos had headed back for Trujillo, saying he d come
back and give us a hand in a few days. Tracey and Ralph were at work in the
lab, and I went back to the site in thealgarrobal. The team had very quickly
dug a couple of test pits at the foot of the huaca but had come across nothing
that would warrant more extensive work, and thus had begun work on the huaca,
the hill itself. I heard a shout and, shielding my eyes from the very bright
sun, could make out Steve, a black shadow against the light, waving at me from
the top.  Come on up! he called, and I climbed up the forty or fifty feet to
the summit. Here too was massive evidence of looting, large pits, some of them
reasonably fresh-looking, marring the surface.  I d have to say someone s been
here before us, I said ruefully, picking up a potsherd that looked recently
broken even to my untrained eye.  Does this mean we re too late?
 Not necessarily, Steve said.  The Moche built their huacas in stages,
platforms on top of platforms. So even ifhuaqueros have found a tomb here and
cleared it out, it doesn t mean there isn t another below that, which would be
an even earlier burial. We re starting to clear this area now, he said,
gesturing toward the activity around us.  Jose, he said, stopping for a
moment,  move that back dirt farther away, please. We don t want any cave-ins.
And, people, he added,  remember, go for themancha.   
 Themancha? I asked dubiously.  What kind of stain would we be looking for?
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 From what we ve been able to glean from Moche art, and from what we ve seen
on previous digs, we know the Moche had particular ways of burying their dead.
It varied a little depending on the status of the particular individual being
buried, but essentially it involved digging a shaft and then a chamber down
some distance. On Moche pottery, you can see depictions of bodies being
lowered down these shafts and then sideways into the chambers. Once the
body or bodies, as the case may be was placed in the tomb, the shaft would be
sealed up. But its position can be determined by the appearance of the soil
which differs from its surroundings. In other words, themancha or stain. So we
look for thismancha, which, with a little luck, will reveal the presence of a
shaft, and hence a tomb.
 We seem to learn a lot about the Moche from their art, I said.
 Well, they had no written language, so they couldn t leave us ritual texts.
But I think their art, like the scenes and rituals on their ceramics and the
murals in the huacas we ve been able to uncover, are an extraordinarily vivid
record of the times. Then he grinned.  For some inexplicable reason, and with
absolutely no evidence yet to support it, I have a good feeling about this
place! Now I gotta get back to work. He waved to Hilda, who was down below,
supervising the photography of the two test pits before they were filled in.
I stood at the summit and surveyed the surroundings: thealgarrobal, the thorn
tree forest, dark and brooding, hiding its secrets in the shade of the broad,
umbrella-like branches of the trees, and way off in the distance, if I
shielded my eyes, the sweep of the dunes and then the sea. In the other
direction, I could see the silver thread of the Panamericana, and along the
trail that led to the site, a little caravan of motorcycles and a couple of
trucks, dust billowing in their wake.
 Steve, I called out.  I think we have company! Steve looked in the
direction I was pointing.
 Trouble! he yelled down to Hilda, as the convoy moved closer. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]