The Salt Keepers
an excerpt

Yucatan, May 11

Miguel swung the machete again. Milky fluid seeped from the X-shaped gash in the sapodilla tree. He secured the gourd bowl to catch the green-tinted sap. The color was just as he had heard. The thought gave him pause. If this much of the legend were true, what other parts might be?

He checked the flow of the other eight collecting gourds. Every tree was bleeding a shade lighter than their leaves; trees that had no marks upon their bark from a former harvest; trees that were supposedly centuries old, but no larger than the surrounding jungle. The priestly ahmans from his village believed it was a trick by the Dejadoras to hide their wealth.

In the silent jungle, Miguel wiped sweat from his clammy brow and reminded himself he didn't believe in old superstitions. He thought of making the sign of the cross, but God had proven to be nothing more than another kind of superstition; otherwise He wouldn't have allowed this drought to fall upon them. Like the priests in the church at Valladolid, the ahmans of his own village told stories to keep old ways alive in young minds. Miguel knew better. One piece of the jungle was just like any other. This place happened to be more fertile, maybe it had a cenote, an underground well, feeding its roots.

It's how he pictured Eden, though he didn't believe he would see any devils today. When food was scarce and his family hungry, why ignore the bounty around him because of imaginary demons?