Fallon took me down to the cenote and showed the the Mayan building and I found that I had passed it half a dozen times without seeing it. It was just by the side of the cenote in thick vegetation, and when Fallon said, There it is!' I didn't see a thing except another bit of forest.
He smiled, and said, 'Go closer,' so I walked right to the edge of the clearing and saw nothing except the dappled dazzle-pattern of sun, leaves and shadows. I turned around and shrugged, and he called, 'Push your hand through the leaves.' I did as he said and rammed my fist against a rock . with an unexpected jolt.
'Now step back a few paces and have another look,' said Fallon.
I walked back, rubbing my skinned knuckles and looked again at the vegetation through narrowed eyes. It's a funny tiring -- one moment it wasn't there and a split second later it was, like a weird optical illusion, bat even then it was only the ghostly hint of a building made up imperfectly of shadows. I lifted my hand and said uncertainly, 'It starts there -- -and ends . . . there?'
'That's right; you've got it.'
I stared at it, afraid it would go away again. If any army staff in the world wants to improve its camouflage units I would strongly advise a course in Quintana Roo. This natural camouflage was just about perfect. I said. 'What do you think it was?'
'Maybe a shrine to Chac, the Rain God; they're often associated with cenotes. If you like you can strip the vegetation from it. We might find something of minor interest. But watch out for snakes.'
'I might do that, if I can ever find it again.' Fallon was amused. 'You'll have to develop an eye for this kind of thing if you contemplate archeological research in these parts. If not, you'll walk right through a city and not know it's there.' I could believe him.
He consulted his watch. 'Paul will be waiting for me,' he said. 'We'll be back with some film in a couple of hours.'
The relationship between the four of us was odd. I felt left out of things because I didn't really know what was going on. The minutiae of research were beyond me and I didn't understand a tenth of what Fallon and Halstead were talking about when they conversed on professional matters, which is all they ever spoke to each other about.
Fallon rigidly confined his relationship with Halstead to the matter in hand and would not overstep it by an inch. It was obvious to me that he did not particularly like Paul Halstead, nor did he trust him overmuch. But then, neither did I, especially after that conversation with Pat Harris. Fallon would have received an even more detailed report on Halstead from Harris and so I understood his attitude.
He was different with me. While regarding my ignorance of archeological fieldwork with a tolerant amusement, he did not try to thrust his professional expertise down my throat. He patiently answered my questions which, to him, I suppose, were simple and often absurd, and let it go at that. We got into me habit of sitting together in the evening for an hour before going to bed. and we yarned on a wide variety of topics. Apart from his professional work he was well read and a man of 'wide erudition. Yet I was able to interest him in the application of computers to farming practice and I detailed what I was doing to Hay Tree Farm. It seemed that he owned a big ranch in Arizona and he saw the possibilities at once.
But then he shook his head irritably. 'I'll pass that on to my brother,' he said. 'He's looking after all that now.' He stared blindly across the room. 'A man has so little time to do what he really wants to do.'
Soon thereafter he became abstracted and intent on his own thoughts and I excused myself and went to bed.
Halstead tended to be morose and self-contained. He ignored me almost completely, and rarely spoke to me unless it was absolutely necessary. When he did volunteer any remarks they were usually accompanied by an ill-concealed sneer directed at my abysmal ignorance of the work. Quite often I felt like taking a poke at him, but I bottled up my temper for the sake of the general peace. In the evenings, after our picture show and discussion, he and his wife would withdraw to their hut.
And that leaves Katherine Halstead, who was tending to become a tantalizing mystery. True, she was doing what she said she would, and kept her husband under tight control Often I saw him on the edge of losing his temper with Pallor -- he didn't lose his temper with me because I was beneath his notice -- and be drawn back into semi-composure by a look or a word from his wife. I thought I understood him and what made him tick, but I'm damned if I could understand her.
