The Demas Revelation

by Shane Johnson

  The much-chagrined boy kicked his legs against the pillows around him, knocking one to the floor, where the nanny retrieved it.

  Anna, having seen too much such behavior from Scooter this trip, rolled her eyes and turned away.

  “Joe?” she called out toward the adjoining room.

  “Just a sec,” came the response.

  “Sam didn’t say what he’d found?” asked the weary nanny.

  “No, as usual. I could tell he thinks it’s something important, though. He gets that sound in his voice … like a kid on Christmas morning.”

  “Think it’s the ark?”

  “Could be, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up.”

  A man dressed in a blue, short-sleeved shirt and khakis and toting a large metal equipment case entered through the door linking the two rooms. Joe Grant, a fellow professor and one of the brightest young archaeologists with whom Anna ever had worked, set the case on the floor and patted his breast pocket to verify that his sunglasses were there.

  “You be good while I’m gone, sport,” Grant said, reaching over to tousle the boy’s hair. “Don’t give Ruth any trouble.”

  “I won’t,” the boy said, never tearing his eyes from the television.

  “I’ll probably be gone most of the day, but we’ll have supper tonight at that restaurant I was telling you about … The one with the game room.”

  “But you said we could go there for lunch,” Scooter whined.

  “Something came up,” Grant replied. “This could be very important.”

  “But you promised!” Scooter exploded, grabbing the remote in his small, sticky hand and hurling it across the room. On impact, the back plate came off and batteries scattered everywhere.

  “I said tonight.”

  Whatever the boy muttered in response, it was unintelligible.

  “Everything in the Jeep?” Anna asked after an uncomfortable pause.

  “So far as I know,” Grant said. “If you’ve got what you need, we’re all set.”

  Anna picked up her equipment bag and looked at the nanny, whose frustration with her charge was poorly hidden.

  “We’ll call when we get there,” Anna said. “And then again around lunchtime.”

  “Fine,” Ruth groaned, pulling a ragged, half-eaten sandwich from under the edge of the bed, where Scooter had left it. She glared at the boy. “Sure you don’t want to take this one with you?”

  Grant turned away, hoisting a backpack and the large case. “It’s what you get paid for, Ruth.”

  “Not nearly enough,” she muttered as he departed earshot, the door closing behind him.

  Pausing to don their shades in the bright of day, the archaeologists crossed the newly striped parking lot where Grant’s dusty, well-used vehicle waited.

  “Gonna be a hot one,” he said, glancing upward.

  “It always is.” Anna smiled, the glossy red of her lips catching the light. “Just once I’d like to do an excavation in Alaska. Or Antarctica.”

  “Not much to find in Antarctica,” Grant laughed, lifting their equipment into the scarred rear bed of the Jeep.

  “Well, if there ever is, I’m there. Who knows … maybe an Atlantean parking garage will turn up.”

  They opened the doors and climbed into their seats. With everything secure, they clicked their safety belts into place.

  “You say that now,” Grant went on, “but even where there’s no sheet ice to contend with, frozen ground gets mighty hard.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You were on that dig up in Barrow. The prehistoric Inuit site. I remember your letter to Sam. ‘Never again,’ I think you said.”

  “And I’ve lived by those words,” he laughed.

  As Grant switched on the air-conditioning, Anna glimpsed herself in the visor mirror, played with a stray tress of chestnut hair, and closed the cover.

  “I’ll never understand why you keep your nails like that,” Grant said, looking over his shoulder as he backed out of the space. “Or how, for that matter. You’re just asking for it.”

  She waved the fingers of one hand briefly before her, enjoying the perfect polished nails she always carefully guarded. Almost half an inch beyond her fingertips they stretched, glistening red in the sunlight.

  “Are those real?” he asked.

  “One hundred percent homegrown,” she said. “Sam loves having his back scratched. He says they’re like steel.”

  “So when you’re in the field, how can they not be in your way?”

  “There are just some things I refuse to concede,” she said, smiling. She picked up a pair of heavy work gloves from the seat beside her. “These protect them well enough. Plus, I’m careful. You learn how to manage. No big deal.”

  “‘Refuse to concede,’ huh?” Grant said. “Do you ever regret following Sam into this field?”

  “Never,” she said, her tone sharp. “It’s like, I don’t know … history with texture.”

  “And scorpions, and sand in your food, and blowing dust out of your nose for a week after every dig.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  Well, mostly, she thought.

  “Okay,” she confessed. “I could lose the scorpions. And the snakes.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Anna had refused to let go of the vanities she had so easily maintained as a young classroom-bound history teacher, far different from the dramatic choices and changes her marriage had wrought. Her decision, however joyful, had not been an easy one, when in order to follow her new archaeologist husband around the world, she had pursued a new vocation, a new life.

  And, as all who knew her had expected, she had excelled in it.

  She had known Grant since their junior year of high school, when history had been her passion. She looked over at him as he drove, knowing that in those days he had made a point of noticing her whether across a crowded cafeteria or a busy street or a student-filled campus. He had confessed as much at her wedding, telling her even after she had walked the aisle that, though he had married someone else, Anna still haunted his thoughts from time to time, stirring creative imaginings as romantic as they were fleeting.

  Had things been only slightly different, he might have loved her.

  “But don’t you miss the lectures?” he continued. “The lively hallways, the tutoring sessions …?”

  She gazed at him as he adjusted a dashboard vent, her dark eyes hidden behind mirrored lenses.

  “… and the air-conditioning?”

  “Just drive, Joseph,” she said, hiding a smile.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Although,” she went on, “I may not be doing this for too much longer, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sam and I have been thinking of starting a family.”

  “Congratulations,” Grant said, grinning. “You’ll make great parents.”

  “Think so?”

  “Know so.”

  Miles fell behind them. Mountains rose in the near distance, the rough terrain already wavering in the convective air.

  “Witches’ brew,” Anna said, indicating the widespread, silvery phantoms hugging the ground far ahead. “That’s what my grandmother used to call a mirage.”

  “My wife called it that too,” Grant said, nodding. “Drew many a desert traveler deeper into the desert, thinking water was waiting just ahead.”

  “I’m sorry I never really knew her … your wife, I mean.”

  “She was a lot like you,” Grant said, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “But she wouldn’t have been caught dead standing in a sand pit. City girl, through and through. Smart. Wonderful mother. I hope Scooter remembers
her when he’s older … She died when he was only three.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Anna reassured him. “You’ve shown him pictures and videos and told him all those stories about her.”

  “Yeah, but I’m afraid that’s what he’ll remember. The pictures and the videos and the things I’ve told him, instead of his own memories. It’s been four years now. He says he misses her, but who knows.”

  “I’m sure he does, Joe,” she said. “The bond between mother and child is very strong.”

  “I know.”

  For a moment she thought of the child—a child she wasn’t fond of, but who, she knew, had lost much in his short life.

  “Scooter,” she said. “How did he get that name?”

  Grant chuckled, pausing to remember. Despite the shades he wore, Anna could tell that happier times were playing themselves out in his mind’s eye. “Well, you know how most kids, when they start to move around, will get down on their hands and knees and crawl everywhere?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, he never did that. I’m not sure he ever crawled in his life. See, we had these polished hardwood floors and, well …”—the man stifled a quiet laugh—“instead, he’d just sit on that thick plastic diaper of his and scoot around the house, pushing himself backward with his feet. Everywhere he went you could hear that diaper sliding across the floor, and the patter of those little feet with his legs pumping away.”

  Anna laughed with him. “What a sight that must have been.”

  “It was. And how he kept from bumping into everything in the house, I’ll never know. I used to tell Susan I hoped he would get over doing that before college rolled around.”

  “Looks like he did.”

  “Yeah, finally.”

  A silence followed, during which Anna decided not to bring up the child’s obvious lack of discipline.

  “Look,” Grant told her, seeming to read her mind, “I know he’s a handful. I know he’s even a pain sometimes, but I’m sure he’ll outgrow it.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said. “He’s got a lot to deal with. And he’ll be okay … Once things settle down and you get into another place, he’ll be fine.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  Anna turned her attention back to the way ahead and saw Sam’s truck in the distance, well off the road. “There,” she pointed.

  They slowed, and Grant turned onto the rough dirt road that branched to the east. Meridian climbed out of his truck and waved as they approached. Anna rolled down her window. When they came to a stop, she noticed bicycles piled in the back of his truck and the faces of children through the tinted glass.

  Looking into her husband’s eyes, she saw the sparkle she had always adored. Seven years her senior, her husband had gained enough field experience to develop a sense of impending victory, and it had served him well.

  “Hiya, stranger.” She smiled, removing her shades. “Need a ride?”

  He held up the shovel, and her eyes went wide.

  “Time to put up the tree,” he said. “It’s Christmas in July.”

  The children had been sent home on their bikes, sworn not to reveal what they had found. It was far too early, with far too much still to verify. In exchange for their silence, Meridian had promised them a share in the find, their names forever recorded in the annals of history.

  Laden with the tools of discovery, the three archaeologists gently prepared to work the wide floor of the chamber. Nylon straps, ropes, and pulleys stood by, just in case. Simple torches atop tall metal stands threw conflicting shadows, their constant dance casting an amber glow onto ruddy stone.

  Just such a grotto had surrendered the hidden Old Testament scrolls of the Essenes more than six decades earlier. Now, Meridian hoped, the caves would give up an even greater treasure.

  The thick air crackled as, with pick against stone, trowel turning soil, and whisk broom sweeping away the dust, the work began in earnest. Grant, impatient to see what lay just beneath the surface, cast the earth aside little by little, his eyes reflecting the hope he gained with each passing moment.

  “The underlying soil isn’t packed as hard as it might be,” he commented, ribbons of yellow light playing across his face as he flipped the trowel again and again. “I’d say it’s been turned at some point.”

  “A couple thousand years ago?” Meridian hoped, flipping the latches on a large blue padded case. Lifting the lid, his eyes met the ground-penetrating radar unit that had become a mainstay. Even though it was an older model, it had still cost a fortune, but time and again it had proven itself worth every cent.

  “Lots of loose stone,” commented Anna, examining one of the flat shards layering the floor. “Small and irregular. I’d say these were put here. Good sign.”

  “Never expect the obvious,” her husband said, smiling. “Keep all possibilities open. Don’t narrow your options with too sharp a presumed focus.”

  “Jeremiah’s cave,” Anna speculated, referring to the apocryphal book of Second Maccabees. “What if the account is true after all? What if this is it? They bring the ark in here, with a pit already dug and waiting. They lower it, along with who knows how many temple implements, into the pit, then cover everything with some kind of protective layer. Fabrics, wood shavings, what have you. Then, atop this, they place carefully sifted soil and pieces of flat stone.”

  “What happens if we do find it?” Grant asked.

  Anna shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Meridian’s mind filled with images of the ark, all varied, all theoretical. It was supposed to have been hidden under the temple mount, according to the best information they had, but—

  “Imagine the uproar,” Grant went on. “We wouldn’t dare breathe a word until it was safely locked away back in Tel Aviv. Lots of folks out there don’t want it found, mostly of the Arab persuasion. Last thing they want to see is undeniable proof that the temples really existed—no temples, no legitimate Jewish claim to the mount.”

  “Amazing,” Meridian said, fiddling with his digital camera. “Talk about denial.”

  “Politics,” Anna added. “They know. They just won’t admit they know.”

  “Even if we find the thing and get it secured,” Grant went on, “the university will be swamped. Press from all over the world. Archaeologists. Religious scholars. Artists. Probably even Steven Spielberg, assuming he’d be up to coming to Oldefield.”

  “I’d settle for any of the temple implements,” Anna said, smiling. “Doesn’t have to be the ark itself. Just to know for sure what happened to them … to know they were safe and hadn’t been melted down by the Romans …”

  “The silver shovel survived,” Meridian said. “And if it did, other things could have just as easily.”

  “What a find,” Grant said triumphantly. “I’m holding my breath until I see some test results. But given its apparent authenticity, I’d say we have reason to hope for much more from this site.”

  “You could wait for the radar,” Anna chided him as he continued turning his trowel. “No sense digging up the whole place.”

  “With any luck,” Meridian said with a wink, “we might have to anyway.”

  “Hear, hear,” Grant cheered.

  “I sure hope something’s down there,” Anna said. “I could stand a good party, and this already feels like a perfect day for one.”

  Grant paused and checked the date on his watch.

  “It’s Susan’s birthday,” he said. “I can’t believe I forgot until just now …”

  The words faded and he went quiet. His wife’s death had come far too soon, ended by the thoughtlessness of a drunk driver.

  “What better way to celebrate her memory,” Anna gently offered. “With the find of the century.”

  “Yeah,” Grant agreed, returning to hi
s work. “This one’s for you, babe.”

  Meridian shook his head and frowned at the radar unit. It had seen a lot of use, its crannies caked with dried soil from around the world.

  “Battery’s dead,” he sighed in frustration.

  “Terrific,” Grant moaned. “Where’s the spare?”

  “Where it always is,” Meridian said. “Will you get it, Anna?”

  She reached for the equipment bag and put her hand into the zippered side pocket. It was empty.

  “Oh Sam …”

  “What? What is it?”

  “It was on the charger, in the corner over by the window,” she remembered. “I meant to get it, but with all the commotion …”

  Meridian considered the unit. Without that battery, it was only so much dead weight.

  “Okay,” he said, closing the radar case and turning to leave. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “No,” Anna said, rising to block his path. “It’s my fault. I’ll go get it. You two stay here and get some work done.”

  “You sure?” Meridian asked. “I don’t mind.”

  “You and Joe just see what you can dig up in the next hour or two. I want to find a nice surprise waiting for me when I get back.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Grant saluted. “Hey, if you happen to pass that blintz place on the way back, maybe you could—”

  “Don’t push it,” she replied, grinning.

  “Fine,” he joked. “If we find the ark while you’re gone, it’s ours.”

  “I think God might have something to say about that,” Anna said, holding her hand out toward her husband. “Keys?”

  He fished around in his vest pocket and handed them to her.

  “Not a scratch, now.”

  “Honey, that ship has sailed.” She tugged at the brim of his hat. “Love you.”

  “Love you more.”

  She gave him a kiss and was off, Grant’s laugh echoing behind her. The sunlight ahead brightened as she carefully made her way along the ancient, water-carved passage.

  “Could it really be in there?” Anna wondered aloud, awe in her voice.

  Emerging from the tunnel, she quickly shielded her eyes. The sun seemed much brighter than she remembered before they had entered the cave. Her eyes fought to adjust, even beneath her darkened sunglass lenses. She dropped the truck keys twice as she repeatedly lost her balance, her descent along the rocky, sandy slope a difficult one.