by Ann Charles
The Baatz’ Temple reminded her of the Ik Temple at her last dig site, but she doubted this one had as many sub chambers due to its design. The three stories seemed to be more for prestige rather than use. Not to mention this temple appeared to be a couple of centuries older, judging from the architectural style. It wasn’t as elaborate as the Post-Classic temples located farther north, nor did it have the elegance of Palenque to the south.
She shone her flashlight around, noticing several more faded paintings up near the ceiling where her father had been inspecting the fractures.
Still, the place might have secrets to share under its plain wrapper. Secrets that her mother had discovered and left behind for Angélica to unearth. If only she could find a single freaking clue where to start digging, she could stop obsessing about what was on that damned stela and maybe even get a solid night’s sleep for once.
“What are you contemplating, gatita?”
She lowered her flashlight, avoiding her father’s eagle eyes. “Where’s Maverick?” she asked, changing the subject. “I thought he was working with you in here this morning.”
“He was. Right before I came to find you, Bernard came over to get him. Fernando needed his help in the other temple.”
“I thought Lorenzo was there helping.”
“María needed him to help her gather water this morning since Teodoro flew off with Pedro to get your snake hunting supplies.”
Quint crossed his arms, taking a wide stance. “Has Maverick asked either of you any prying questions?”
“What do you mean by ‘prying’?” Juan asked.
Angélica chuckled. “Quint means questions like he was asking us at the last dig.”
“You mean questions like you had about Dr. Hughes and the site’s history?” Juan dabbed his neck again with his handkerchief.
Quint nodded once.
“Or the ones about my daughter’s availability?”
“Yes. Wait. What?” Quint’s gaze narrowed. “Maverick’s been asking about Angélica?”
Juan snorted with laughter.
Angélica grabbed Quint’s elbow and tugged him toward the temple’s exit. “He’s messing with you again.”
“How do you know? Maverick could very well be interested in you.”
“Because I have eyes.”
“You think you can read men as easily as you can Mayan glyphs?”
“Maya glyphs. Mayan refers only to the language. And no, I can’t.”
“Ha! See.”
“Maya glyphs are harder to decipher.”
Her father laughed again from behind Quint.
“Oh, really?” Quint said as they stepped back into the sunlight. He shielded his eyes. “What am I thinking right now, Miss Mind-reader?”
She stood for a moment staring up at him, the midday sunshine baking the top of her head. The jungle rippled behind him in the heat. Sweat trickled down his cheek. “You’re thinking that it’s really freaking hot.”
His lips twitched. “No fair. That was too easy.”
“Trust me, Quint, not once has Maverick pestered me for answers to anything out of the ordinary.” At his continued tight jaw and gunfighter squint, she added with a small smile, “Nor has he tried to put any moves on me. Unlike you, his intentions from the start have been clear. He’s here for hands-on research for his next book.”
“My intentions were clear, too, especially after I met you.”
“And if memory serves me right,” Juan chimed in, “Quint did plenty of hands-on research with you as well.”
Quint’s deep laughter rang out, scaring away several squawking parrots from the trees nearby.
“You’re having way too much fun these days, Dad.” She planted her hands on her hips, hitting him with a mock glare. “It’s time to get back to the business of archaeology.”
“Bossy women,” Juan scoffed, hitting Quint with a wink. “They muck up all our fun, don’t they?”
“Sometimes a good mucking can be quite titillating.” Quint gave her a thorough once-over, his gaze warming her more than the ball of fire in the sky. “Wouldn’t you agree, boss lady?”
“On that note,” Angélica said, holding up both hands in surrender. “I’m outta here. Quint, make sure my dad takes it easy on that leg, please.”
“Scaredy-cat,” Quint taunted as she walked away.
“Don’t forget to check each of these broken stone pieces for glyphs or other important markings,” she shouted orders over her shoulder, smiling at the mutterings that followed as she veered off toward the ballcourt.
A short time later, Angélica was kneeling on the ground next to Daisy, checking out the older woman’s finds since breakfast. It was like Christmas morning, with excitement filling the air along with the lemony eucalyptus scent of Daisy’s homemade bug repellent. This end of the ballcourt was beginning to look like a checkerboard with all of the squares marked off and excavated.
“How in the world are you finding these things so easily?” she asked Daisy. “Do you have some kind of X-ray vision in your fingertips?”
“Esteban has come up with a theory. He thinks I used to live at this site in a past life.”
“Where is Esteban?”
“He’s in the trees taking care of business.”
Angélica held up a two-edged obsidian blade. It was almost as long as her hand. Parts of its sharp edges had been chipped off, but much of the blade remained sharp and deadly. Rarely had she come across tools in such great shape, especially obsidian blades this big. “Maybe Esteban is on to something,” Angélica said, placing the blade back into the shallow bin with the other carefully stored and labeled pieces Daisy had found. It would certainly help make sense of how she kept hitting the jackpot.
“Where did you find this flint one?”
Daisy took the curved and sharpened flint knife, fitting her hand around it like she knew how to use it. “Over there, in grid square E4. It was about six inches under the dirt.” She twisted her hand, looking at the backside of the weapon. “Its creator must have been a woman. It fits my hand almost perfectly.”
Angélica took the flint piece from Daisy, gripping it. “The Maya were a smaller people. Their bones show the males being close to my size on average, like Esteban, only a couple of inches shorter.” Quint would have been a giant among them, which was why he often got extra sweaty and ducked his head in the sub chambers inside of their temples.
She placed the flint back into the container. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, lifting another of Daisy’s finds.
“A jade bead of some sort? Maybe from one of their necklaces?”
Angélica held the tiny piece of round jade up in the sunlight. “It’s a jade tooth inlay.” She looked down at the other inlays in the container, counting eight. There must be teeth around there somewhere, too. “The Maya were a fashionable culture. Did you know that they revered anyone who was a little cross-eyed, believing them to be very beautiful? They’d put a headband on their babies with a stone hanging from a string between the child’s eyes, hoping the babies’ eyes would cross.”
Daisy crossed her eyes at Angélica, curling her lips back in a toothy smile. “How do I look now?”
Chuckling, Angélica set the jade piece back in with the others. “Absolutely stunning. You’re sure to have all of the warriors at the ballgame worshipping you tonight.”
“So long as they don’t decide to sacrifice me for some rain from Chac.”
“The rain god will have to be satisfied with some chickens tonight, since that is what María has planned for supper.”
The bushes across the court rustled, sending several jays flying. Esteban came stumbling out seconds later. He waved and headed their way.
“You show it to Dr. García?” he asked Daisy when he joined them.
“Show me what? The blades?”
He shook his head.
Daisy shared a conspiratorial smile with him. “I wanted to wait until you were here, too.”
“W
hat is it?” Angélica looked from one to the other.
Daisy lifted her blue and white bag with ‘Mexico’ written on it that lay next to the container of treasures. Under it was half of a skull. “Ta-da! We found another one.”
Angélica pulled out her paintbrush and hooked it through the eyeball socket, lifting what was left of the skull. The back half was gone, but the front looked mostly intact, except a piece from a cheekbone. This one was human, no doubt about it this time. And Maya, too. She could tell by the forehead.
“Esteban told me that Maya parents would press boards against a newborn’s forehead to flatten it like this skull.”
Angélica nodded. “A sloped forehead and elongated skull was another indication of beauty to the Maya. It had to do with the maize god.” She looked at Esteban. “You marked this thoroughly, I’m assuming, noting the location and position and anything else of interest.”
“Sí. We drew pictures and took many photos, too.”
“Were there any other pieces around it?”
He shook his head. “Solo el cráneo. Only the skull,” he repeated in English for Daisy’s sake.
Angélica lowered it into a container with care. She frowned down at the empty eye sockets. Why was there another skull here? In the ballcourt, of all places? Often the losers of the game were sacrificed, sometimes even the winners, but not right here on the field. Depictions she’d seen usually had them either on top of or inside a temple with other Maya around to witness it. A ritual sacrifice, performed for appeasing one god or another.
She stuffed her brush back into her pocket and stood. “Good job, you two.” Wait, there were supposed to be three of them here. “Where’s Gertrude?”
“Bernard came and got her a while ago.” Daisy rose, too. “He said Fernando needed her at the Chakmo’ol Temple.”
“What’s going on in there?” Fernando had started the day with Bernard and Jane, but now he had Maverick and Gertrude, too.
“Maybe they’re having a fiesta?” Daisy joked.
Angélica scoffed. “Fernando’s idea of a fiesta involves everyone working overtime carrying rocks around.” She’d have to go check out what he was up to in the Chakmo’ol Temple. She glanced down at her watch. “It’s almost lunchtime. You two can take a break and get out of this sun for a bit. Today is really cooking.”
With a wave, Angélica headed off across the plaza toward the site’s largest structure, curious as to what her foreman was up to that required so much help.
She found Gertrude and Jane first. They were outside of the temple working on a pile of what at first glance appeared to be rubble. However, it was actually a three-feet-high, long and narrow platform running parallel to the temple that was in the process of crumbling into the ground in spots. On the remaining pieces of the low wall that wrapped around the base were carvings containing Maya symbolism. Most were still visible through the lichen that had coated much of the stone over the centuries.
What was Gertrude doing out here? Hadn’t Fernando needed her help inside the temple?
“How are things going here?” she asked the two college students.
“We’ve seen four rattlesnakes so far today,” Jane said, her mouth downturned as she carefully toed another rock onto its side. “And that’s four too many, in my opinion.”
“You think there’s a burrow under here?” Angélica asked, bending over to dislodge several stones, searching for signs of more snakes.
“No,” Gertrude said, sounding certain. She stood on the platform looking down at about twenty to twenty-five stones that were laid out in front of her in three horizontal lines.
Angélica climbed up next to her. “Any luck putting the puzzle together?”
Since Gertrude’s field of study was more along the lines of Juan’s, ancient architectural styles, she’d been put in charge of reconstructing the broken wall pieces so the carvings all lined up again. It was no easy feat, but according to Juan, the young woman was making progress, albeit slower than Angélica would have liked. At the rate Gertrude was going, she’d have only a small section of the wall pieced together again by the time they had to leave.
Such was archaeology, Angélica thought with a smirk. It moved along at a snail’s pace at best much of the time. With all of the cataloging and sketching and recording, it was a wonder they kept ahead of the lichen growth down here in the jungle.
“You two need anything?” Angélica asked.
They both shook their heads.
“It’s almost lunchtime, so if you want to take a break and head over to the mess tent, feel free to go.”
Angélica hopped down off the platform and trod around the side of the temple, watching for snakes as she walked. The pathway was clear … for now.
As she neared the vaulted entryway, she could hear the deep rumble of Fernando’s voice. Inside the stone walls, the heat wasn’t as bad. There were more large shade trees at this end of the site, like the ceiba tree she’d pointed out to Quint earlier, which seemed to help keep the temperature down a little inside the temple throughout the day.
She made her way through the limestone-whitewashed walls, careful not to touch the paintings made so long ago that were in various states of decay. They had much work to do inside this temple as soon as they finished cleaning out the mess left behind by the looters.
After a left turn and a short trek down an uneven slope she found Fernando, Bernard, and Maverick all in one mid-sized chamber. The room smelled like a blend of bug spray, sunblock, dust, and sweat. “What’s going on?” she asked her foreman, moving over to where he was studying something in the far corner.
Fernando glanced at her over his shoulder. If he was surprised to see her, his frown didn’t show it. He grunted and rose, his knees popping. “We found this.”
He held out what looked like an old wrinkled sausage casing. It crackled when she took it from him. It took her a second to make sense of it.
“Snakeskin?” She’d expected to find something Maya under all of the looters’ mess, not something more recent from a whole other species.
“There’s more,” he said, pointing at the floor.
It looked like someone had peeled off the outer layers of a bag full of onions and littered the floor with the flakes of dried skin.
“This was under the looters’ rubble?”
Maverick and Bernard worked together to lift the last few stones and place them in the wheelbarrow.
“Sí,” Fernando said, watching Bernard struggle to push the wheelbarrow up and out of the chamber. After he’d cleared the slope and turned toward the exit, Fernando waved Angélica over to another corner of the chamber.
She followed, glancing over at Maverick, who leaned against the far wall, gulping water from his canteen. “You doing okay?” she asked him, Quint’s questions about the writer’s true purpose flitting through her mind.
“Never better.” Maverick capped his canteen, actually smiling for once. It was a rare sight since his arrival. Something usually only her father had been able to spur. “All of this hard work and sweat is good for a bruised spirit.”
Quint might beg to differ. But then again, Parker didn’t seem to be battling demons like Maverick had been for the last couple of weeks. She too had a feeling the writer was here for more than research purposes, but she’d lay down money that his other reason for coming to this nearly forgotten jungle had nothing to do with his profession. Maybe she was inventing drama for him, but she suspected something back home had sent him running. Whatever it was, he’d arrived here scarred up and pissed off.
She wasn’t sure that a Maya dig site was going to heal whatever ailed Maverick, but he was a hard worker and didn’t complain about the heat, snakes, or rough quarters. So long as he kept his nose to the grindstone like the rest of her own crew, she had no issues with his profession back in the more-civilized world.
Focusing on Fernando, she shone her flashlight in the direction of where he was pointing. She squatted in front of a square carv
ing and leaned in close, studying the story left behind on the chamber wall. “Is that …” she tilted the light, deepening shadows, and trailed her fingers over the stone relief.
“Sí,” Fernando said. “Yum Cimil.”
“What’s Yum Cimil?” Maverick asked, still leaning against the wall.
“It’s the Maya lord of death, ruler of the ninth level of the Maya Underworld.”
Maverick sniffed. “Sounds like a happy-go-lucky guy.”
Scooting back a little, she shone her light around, trying to make sense of the larger picture. The carving was lined with snakes, tail to tail and head to head, the tails intertwined to make a contiguous border around the whole scene.
“It looks like he’s down a steep slope, sitting inside a small chamber,” she said, taking up her paintbrush and dusting at the carving carefully.
“This chamber, maybe?” Fernando asked.
Footfalls coming closer told her Maverick had joined them for a better look. “Are those snakes he’s sitting on?”
“Yes,” she said. “It looks like a throne of snakes.”
She leaned closer, angling her light again.
A draft of slightly cooler air brushed across her face. She paused, looking at Fernando and then Maverick. Both were too far away for their breath to hit her, and the air from their lungs wouldn’t be cooler anyway.
She unhooked her canteen from her belt loop and uncapped it, pouring a small pool of water into her palms, and then rubbed them together.
“What are you doing?” Maverick asked. “Is this some kind of archaeological magic trick?”