Sam spoke loudly. “We would like to know why you would want to harm us at all.” He whispered to Remi, “Help me with the language.”

Remi called out, “We came to your town twice. Both times, we told whoever would listen what we were doing here. Yesterday we told Father Gomez what we were going to do today. We came with the most peaceful of intentions.”

Señor Alvarez, the restaurant owner, said, “I’m sorry that you have to die. Nobody here hates you. But you’ve found this place. It’s a sacred place to us. We’re not rich people, but we have a rich past. Our town was founded as part of this complex nearly two thousand years ago. This was a refuge where the people of the city twenty miles to the east came after they were defeated in war. This mesa is one of the highest places in Alta Verapaz. The king and a few loyal survivors came here, turned and fought. Then, hundreds of years later, a period of war came again. Then again. Each time a king of the city was defeated, he and his faction fell back to this place and held out. Up here there are the remains of five great kings. When the Spanish soldiers came the first time, the king prepared the place one last time. But they defeated the Spanish again and again and never needed to come here. Instead, they made peace with the priests. The watchtower on the hill was torn down and made into a church. Nobody from this town has ever betrayed its secrets.”

Sam said, “This place can’t be a secret forever. It’s marked on a map in a Mayan codex we found on a volcano in Mexico. It’s shown up on satellite photographs and been noticed by university professors.”

“We don’t have to let you dig up our ancestors and steal their belongings,” said Señora Velasquez. “You’re like Columbus and the Spanish. You think knowing about them makes them yours.”

Remi said, “You don’t have to let us study your special place. If you didn’t want us to climb up here, you could have told us while we were with Father Gomez. We thought we were finding a place nobody knew about.”