What to do with the guy in the hole?

Catching a scent of ashy decay, Tommy edged toward the rim and looked down. The high walls were too smooth to climb. Too wide to crab-walk up.

The man stared back, then moved to a corner, folded his hands, and bowed his head in prayer.

Tommy’s hands and feet tingled. The ground tilted. He stepped back from the edge and drew a long breath. He ran his fingers through his hair, locking them behind his head.

Of all days.

Blood trickled down his forearm. He pushed up his guayabera’s cuff and found a fresh gash.

He walked through the mist to where the guy had been. A neat row of quarter-sized holes punctured the ground. Tommy crouched, poked a finger into one, and scooped out dark soil. He rolled the dirt between his fingers and brought it to his nose, breathing in the smell of a struck match.

A splotch of yellow lay in a bush. Tommy pulled out a pistol-shaped device with an electronic screen on top. He turned it over. The glass lens at the muzzle was smeared with soil.

A prayer rose from the hole.

A half-hour earlier, Tommy brushed rubber cement across cardboard at a knotty table. The pungent smell filled his nose. Jesus, it dried fast—already tacky. He picked up a wide page showing solar panels before a volcano, aligned the edges, and pressed it flat, smoothing out the bubbles with his palm. He set it on an easel beside another panel showing wind turbines.

He placed a laptop on milk crates and checked the frame: green hills and scrub pines past the tall windows.

Impressive.

His phone chimed—a text about a problem at the hotel. Unspecified—the most annoying kind. He texted back: Have Sara handle it. Reply: Sara could not be found.

He checked the time. Ninety minutes until the video call. He tightened the metal cap on the cement canister.

Under gray skies, Tommy followed the path down to the hotel, gravel crunching under his boots. Pine scent drifted down the mountain, giving way to sulfur from the graywater by the biogarden. They’d watered early. He passed log cabins with hammocks on their porches. Judging by the quiet, most of the guests were up and out.

He slowed. A faint, steady buzzing came from a machine in the distance. He scanned the hillside.

The sound stopped.

He waited.

Far off, a lone dog barked.

Tommy kept on toward the lodge.

A few guests braved the morning chill to eat on the patio. A couple took selfies in front of the log cabin facade. He climbed the stone steps corkscrewing through palms and purple cordyline, passing Hippo lugging a cross made from tree limbs. Tommy nodded approval. They’d built a big one for the Day of the Cross.

Salsa music played as Tommy crossed the dining room. Fried plantains scented the air. Guests at long tables lingered over típico breakfasts. Wearing his slight, practiced smile, Tommy walked the hall. He worked to keep a gait that hid his limp—that old injury dogging him. He nodded, doled out buenos días. At the last table, Habitat gringos sat, dressed for town in windbreakers and trail shoes. Tommy gave each a friendly smile—maybe too friendly; one seemed ready to talk.

Tommy faked an incoming phone call and rounded the corner into reception. He almost bumped into a gringa. She was older than the Habitat crew, better dressed: linen instead of cotton and Gore-Tex. He tried to slip past her. She matched him, holding up a finger.

“Thank God, someone who speaks English.”

“Hi,” Tommy said. “Can I help you?”

“I sure hope so.”

She unfolded a creased sheet of paper on a café table. “I’m planning a hike, but I’ve heard some concerning things.”

He looked at the worn page. A map with graphs and numbers along its borders, dated May 1976. At the top, it read “Grupo Abundancia.”

She planted a manicured finger and traced a line, her slim gold ring flashing. “I’ve heard there might be thieves up there.”

Tommy leaned in. The mountain was unmistakable—the curve of the stream at its base was his. It could’ve been a map from the Internet, printed on scrap paper.

She leaned closer. “Maybe we could take a quick walk up there together?”

“That’s private property. Just an old building up there. Real safety hazard.” He gestured off. “Reception can help you with plenty of hiking options.”

He gave his standard smile, walked away.

Rounding the corner, Tommy was stopped by Vilma carrying a tray of juice in small glasses. She peered past him and whispered, “She is the problem. She is not a guest and not with the Habitat group. But she drank coffee that was for them and did not pay.”

This? You pulled me from meeting prep for this? But he said, “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”

Maybe there was something to take care of. He couldn’t have this lady—or anyone—wandering up to the old hotel. Lawsuit waiting to happen. Today’s procession would pass right by the entrance. Some might get curious, head up there. It had happened before. Understandable, given the place’s history.

Ten minutes later, Tommy walked down the main road with a handmade Private Property sign under his arm and a coil of clothesline.

At the turnoff where the red-brown lane veered up into the trees, he strung the sign between two trunks. Not much of a barrier, but enough to deter.

A buzzing sound—the same one as before.

Tommy looked up, straining for direction: East—beyond his property line.

He checked his phone; there was still over an hour until the call.

Ducking under the rope, he followed the sound up the red road.

The buzzing came and went as he climbed through pines and oaks, along grasses and ferns reclaiming the old track. The road showed its age—cracks, potholes, nature having its say. Mist thickened, obscuring the town of San Jacinto and the Honduran border beyond the billowy grey-white.

Then—a new sound. Close: a chik-chik-chik, something striking rock.

Tommy moved toward it. Higher. Near the top, beneath the old hotel veiled in mist, a red blur moved, bobbing with the rhythm of the metallic chik-chik-chik.

Tommy neared. The blur sharpened: a man in a red shirt twisted a handled rod into the ground, scraped soil from the tip, and dropped it into a plastic bag.

As Tommy was about to call out, the man spun around. He was slight and olive-skinned.

Their eyes locked.

The man raised the metal rod like a spear. His eyes flicked down.

Tommy followed his gaze to the labeled bags of soil inches from Tommy’s feet.

The man charged. Tommy backpedaled. The man barreled at him and whipped the rod back and forth, its pointy end slicing inches from his face. Tommy blocked the rod with a forearm and gripped the shaft. The man yanked it free and thrust it forward, tearing the tip along Tommy’s forearm.

Pain surged up his arm; he reeled back.

The man scooped the soil bags and ran. Tommy chased and tackled him. The man wriggled free, clawing at Tommy’s neck, scrambling to his feet. Tommy lunged up and took him back to the ground, flipping him over, getting him into a headlock. Smelling alcohol.

The guy writhed and kicked.

Tommy got a firmer grip and squeezed harder, his forearm throbbing.

The small man twisted, gasping for air.

Tommy pressed a fist into the strained neck. “It’s over, buddy.”

After futile elbows to Tommy’s ribs, the man went slack.

Tommy released him and stood, stepping back, heart hammering.

He pushed up on all fours, dragging in deep breaths. Rose, staggered forward, grabbed the stick, and ran blind into the brush.

Branches snapped.

A crack of plastic.

A dull thud.