Two Eyes Cenote esquina

he revisits the grave of the gold-tribe's undoing. 

life's full of small ironies, but the one that gets his craw the most is that at the height of their power, they believed themselves better.

and yet, it is he that still lives while their bones rot in unmarked filth. 

how many ghosts now, then? juarez' voice has been quiet. nino barely speaks. 

occasionally, he suspects he sees marciela - but as he turns into the shadows where her eyes blaze, the light disappears; just a trick of the eye and nothing more.

rounding a sandstone corner, soto comes across a tortoise on its back. its weathery skin long dried of moisture, the life long beaten out of it. 

serving, he supposes, as a gruesome totem: the last testament that even armor can't prepare you for death.