Deity

by Theresa Danley

  “Abe checked in on you a couple of hours ago,” Tarah said, packing in another pillow.

  A chill swept over Lori’s skin. She didn’t like falling under the care of complete strangers, especially not while she lay naked and unconscious beneath a single sheet.

  Tarah must have sensed her animosity. “Don’t you remember him waking you up?” she asked.

  Lori shook her head as she leaned back into the pillows. There wasn’t much of anything she could recall, it seemed.

  “That’s to be expected,” Abe said, reassuringly. “We’ve checked in on you fairly regular. It’s just a precautionary measure. We thought it best to wake you every couple of hours. You can’t be too careful with head injuries.”

  Lori didn’t remember any of it. Her life, up to this point, felt wrapped up in a heavy fog.

  “I suppose you’re anxious to get back home,” Tarah said, handing the soup over to Lori. She settled herself on the edge of the cot. Lori noticed that Abe chose to remain standing.

  Lori poked at her food. The strange corn concoction certainly didn’t appeal to her appetite.

  “I’m not sure what to do,” she admitted.

  “What about that man you were asking about?” Tarah pressed. “That Doctor…”

  A flash of familiarity stirred Lori’s memory. “Dr. Peet,” she said, gently agitating the soup with her spoon.

  “Right. It seems your Dr. Peet is still missing.”

  Lori hesitated. The swim. The darkness. The frescoes. Patches of memory began to return.

  “It wasn’t a cenote,” she said, letting her spoon finally rest in the bowl. “I remember now. It was an underground cavern. There were some early Mayan frescoes inside, and a separate hieroglyph from a later time period.”

  Tarah’s eyes lit up. “That sounds fascinating.” She turned to Abe. “We must be in the company of an archaeologist.”

  “I’m still a student at the University of Utah,” Lori corrected.

  “Utah?” Abe looked surprised. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know an archaeologist from BYU, goes by the name of Matt Webb?”

  This time it was Lori’s turn to be surprised. “You know Dr. Webb?”

  Abe’s smile broadened. “Matt’s the one who led us to Tunkuruchu. He found the village while working in the area and recognized how impoverished the land wars have made them. It’s the paramilitaries. The people of Tunkuruchu are refugees in their own land.”

  “Dr. Webb originally found the hieroglyph in the cavern,” Lori explained. “I came down here to take a look at it myself.”

  Tarah exchanged a glance with Abe. “What a small world we live in,” she muttered in amazement.

  “How is Matt anyway?” Abe asked lightly. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

  “I can’t say,” Lori admitted. “I’ve yet to meet him.”

  “You mean he wasn’t with you when you went to view this hieroglyph?” Tarah asked.

  Lori shook her head. “No. He seems to have left the area before I arrived.”

  Tarah sighed. “Thank goodness.” She quickly collected herself as she added, “I mean, I was beginning to fear he’d become a victim of the cenote collapse.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Matt to leave without telling anyone,” Abe observed. “He was even in the habit of keeping us updated on his whereabouts.”

  “We were hoping the hieroglyph might offer a clue,” Lori said.

  “We?”

  “Me and my part…I mean, me and my professor, Dr. Peet.”

  “So were there any clues to where Matt may have gone?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “What did his hieroglyph look like?” Tarah asked.

  An image of the vibrant anthropomorphic figure popped into Lori’s mind, though whether she was remembering it from the inside of the cavern or from Dr. Friedman’s e-mail, she wasn’t certain. “He called it a calendar deity,” she said, but immediately frowned with uncertainty. “Or was it his Jesus deity?” Neither one sounded completely correct.

  “You mean he found an image of Jesus in Mayan artwork?” Tarah pressed.

  Lori felt the heavy cloud of confusion swirling into her mind. “I’ll draw it for you,” she said with a measure of distrust in her own memory. Perhaps if she drew it out she could solidify the image in her mind.

  Tarah handed her a clipboard with the back side of a blank medical form clipped to it. Lori took a pen from Abe and roughly sketched a stick figure with broad shoulders and outstretched arms, holding something between its hands. The image looked right, but Lori felt even less certain as she realized its similarity to The Trader petroglyph in Utah. Was she confusing the two?

  There was one difference that stuck in her mind.

  “There was a halo around the figure’s head,” she said as she traced it out. “And within the halo there was a pegged cross.”

  “A pegged cross?” Abe said.

  Lori nodded. “Just like any ordinary cross, only this one had three pegs, one at the end of the head and each crossarm.”

  “What does it mean?” Tarah asked.

  The fog gradually lifted. “Dr. Webb thought the hieroglyph represents the second coming of Christ.” Her memory was coming faster now. There was more to the hieroglyph. “He thought Jesus taught the Maya the concept of calendars as indicated by five accompanying glyphs from the Long Count Calendar.”

  Quickly she drew five small boxes around the hieroglyph to indicate the locations of the calendar glyphs. “Maybe that’s why he called this the Calendar Deity too,” she said, but the doubt had returned to her voice.

  Was she remembering everything correctly?

  “So this frescoe is linked to the very first Long Count Calendar?” Abe asked.

  Lori shrugged. “Possibly.”

  Tarah suddenly sounded doubtful herself. “And you’re sure this isn’t some sort of hoax?”

  Lori placed a hand to her throbbing head. “I can’t be sure of anything in all honesty.”

  “The original Long Count Calendar and a cross,” Tarah thought out loud. She turned to Abe. “What could it mean?”

  “Whatever it means,” Lori said, “I get the feeling it spelled trouble for Dr. Webb.”

  * * * *

  Abe immediately recognized the drawing of the cross. He wasn’t sure how he could be so certain. He’d never seen a pegged cross like this one before, but there was something about those three pegs that left little doubt in his mind. This cross did not come out of the Jesuit conquest. This cross was more special than that.

  The cross aside, there was another, more important issue to consider as Lori explained Matt Webb’s strange disappearance. Abe knew Matt’s work had something to do with linking biblical history to the new world, but beyond that he knew very few details behind the study. Regardless, he had no doubt there was a link between Matt’s disappearance and the pegged cross.

  “Lori,” he said thoughtfully. “If you are going on to search for Matt, we would like to help.”

  Both women looked up at him in surprise. Tarah appeared speechless while Lori dropped her eyes in bashful declination.

  “That’s very kind of you, but I can’t ask you to go out of your way. You’ve done enough for me already.”

  Abe grinned. The poor girl looked tired and confused. He didn’t know if it was her long blonde hair, the youth in her face or the way she held the bedsheet in an amiable attempt to conceal her nakedness, but there was a virgin quality about her that he found irresistible. How sweet it was for her to think his intentions might center around her needs and yet, how pitiful.

  “We would like to help,” he insisted. “Matt’s a good friend. If he’s in trouble, we want to help him. It wouldn’t feel right leaving you to search for him alone.”

  “I don’t know that I am looking for him,” Lori admitted. “Our research seems insignificant in light of all that’s happened.”

  “Insignificant?” Tarah interrupted. “Our friend’s life could be in danger
and you’re calling this insignificant?”

  Lori retracted. “That’s not exactly what I meant—”

  “We want to help you find him,” Abe insisted.

  “But how? I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “I think I can help with that. Matt may have stumbled upon an image of the Talking Cross.”

  Lori looked up, a studious curiosity thawing her wearied expression. “The what?”

  “The Talking Cross of the Maya,” Abe explained. “God himself is supposed to speak through that cross.”

  “How does this help me find Dr. Webb?”

  “Can you imagine the power one would achieve with such direct access to God? That’s why the Zapatistas of Chiapas showed great interest in finding it during their revolution nearly twenty years ago. Luckily, they never found the cross. However, that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped trying. If Matt found some link to the Talking Cross, I fear he may have been captured by the Zapatistas.”

  Lori looked uncertain. “We’re at the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. Correct me if I’m wrong but Chiapas is down in the southwestern point of Mexico.

  If Dr. Webb recently discovered the cross hidden with the Calendar Deity in an underground water chamber, how would the Zapatistas know about it already?”

  “Never underestimate the Zapatistas,” Abe said. “There is a specialized force within their paramilitary operations that is highly secretive and unusually intelligent. This force was assigned the specific task of locating the Talking Cross. If there are any links to the cross, I have no doubts the Zapatistas know about it.”

  Lori frowned, setting her cold corn soup aside to rub the side of her head. “This sounds way out of our league, not to mention dangerous. What chance do we have against such a skilled troop of paramilitaries?”

  “It’s really not as difficult as it may sound. As equipped as the Zapatistas are, they wouldn’t suspect an archaeologist traveling with a couple of Red Cross aid workers.”

  “So what are you suggesting, that we go in and sneak Dr. Webb out of some Zapatista stronghold in the middle of the night?”

  “It could be that easy.”

  Lori glanced at Tarah who shifted her sleek frame on the edge of the cot in silent expectation. There was a sudden energy about Tarah’s posture. Her eyes had brightened with anticipation. “Together, we can save Matt’s life!” she urged.

  Lori turned back to Abe, defeated. Perhaps she simply didn’t have the energy to argue. Abe supposed she hardly had the energy to search for Matt Webb, but they were going to need her. Who knew what other archaeological puzzles lay ahead. If the Zapatistas were using Webb to locate the Talking Cross, he and Tarah were certainly going to need someone with similar expertise, and Lori was it.

  “Even if what you say is true,” Lori began, “Chiapas is a big area. Where do we begin looking?”

  “Izapa,” Tarah jumped in perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

  Abe read the confusion on Lori’s face. “It’s an old Mayan city,” he explained. “The oldest Long Count Calendar dates are recorded in Izapa. It’s believed the Long Count Calendar originated there.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.”

  Abe smiled. He had to hand it to her, this girl was sharp. He offered a modest shrug. “I don’t know a whole lot about the site. Just some tidbits I picked up from somewhere—you know, with all this 2012 doomsday stuff going around.”

  Lori nodded as if she knew exactly what he was talking about, but she still looked hesitant.

  “So you’re planning to go to Izapa based on the assumption that the Zapatistas have captured Dr. Webb.”

  “It’s the only logical explanation for Matt’s disappearance,” Abe insisted.

  “How so?”

  Tarah leaned forward. “Did we mention the Zapatistas are Mayan?”

  PART III

  Thursday, December 20, 2012

  TUN

  “You are going to live, those of you who understand the words of the written scriptures of life, children of Mayapán!”

  -Chilam Balam

  Chicxulub

  Chac paced the edge of the cenote, occasionally glancing into the pool that had swallowed the collapsed ceiling of the cavern. The water level had risen considerably and the divers had been underwater for over an hour now, having come up only once to report finding the crushed generator. There’d been no mention of the Calendar Deity. There was no sign of Lori.

  But that wasn’t what kept Chac prowling the limestone rim.

  His mind was preoccupied with the five glyphs that had accompanied the Calendar Deity. Despite Matt Webb’s interpretation that the glyphs marked the day of the second coming of Christ, Chac knew better. The glyphs were a sign, a link to the very first Long Count Calendar ever created. His hunch had been confirmed by the pegged cross that had been conspicuously drawn within the hole vacated by the Kin piece. No doubt Matt would have claimed the cross as indisputable evidence of his Jesus theory. Chac didn’t see it that way at all. The pegs on the arms and head gave it away. The cross was not that of the cross of Jesus but that wasn’t the only thing that worried him.

  Matt Webb was the only person besides himself that knew of the cavern, but something about that reality had changed. Either someone had gotten to Matt, as Peet suspected, or Matt himself had separated the gear-shaped Kin artifact from the cavern wall. Whoever did it would have certainly found the cross drawn inside the hole, and whoever found the cross also planted the bomb. It made Chac’s stomach churn to realize that the bomb had been planted to keep him from noticing the Kin piece missing from the Calendar Deity. The bomb had been planted to keep him from finding the cross.

  The very idea had plagued Chac’s thoughts ever since he left Peet at the Mayaland Resort. He spent a restless night marching the floors of his home, not once considering his bed. He’d been on the phone, dialing numbers, leaving messages, contacting nobody. He supposed the approaching Christmas holiday had something to do with everyone’s absence, but surely he could reach someone.

  Or had his communications been cut off?

  Having accomplished nothing in the hours since he parted ways with Peet, Chac decided he’d rather pace the jungle floor with the search crews than sit in the emptiness of his own house. And so he remained pacing, wishing for a phone call, wishing they’d find the girl, wishing for anything to take the edge off his nerves.

  The phone call came first.

  He answered his cell before the end of the first ring. “Bacab.”

  The voice on the other end spoke Quiché. “Chac, what’s going on? There were nine messages on the machine this morning.”

  Chac released a long-pent breath, but his muscles tensed for action. He recognized the voice. It was the first man he’d called last night, and the first voice—the only voice—he cared to hear right now.

  “It’s urgent, Sabino.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Chac stepped away from the cenote, keeping his voice low. “Get everyone together as soon as you can. The last thing we ever expected has happened.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The calendar wheel. We have to get it running if we expect to see the end of this.”

  There was a shock of silence at the other end. And then, as if suddenly understanding, Sabino gasped, “Oh!”

  “It’s my fault,” Chac blurted. “I should have recognized the signs.”

  “What is their progress?”

  “They’re on their way, if they aren’t there already. Stop them.”

  There was a pause. “If they’re coming here, then that means—”

  “They have the cross,” Chac said impatiently. “Stop them at all costs.”

  “What if we don’t find them in time?”

  “Be sure you have the calendar running. It’s our last resort.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “I’ll join you tonight.”

  “No. We can cover the front from here. We need
someone watching the highland route. Cover the ground there. Good luck.”

  Chac disconnected the call. Without missing a stride he glanced back at the cenote. There was no sound of activity. He felt even more jittery than before.

  Screw it!

  He picked up his pace as he disappeared into the jungle. They would have to find the girl without him.

  Ladybug

  The Ladybug leveled off at cruising altitude and KC McCulley, feeling refreshingly cool and quite comfortable in her blue-gray tank top, had just settled in behind her controls when Father Ruiz sneaked into the cockpit, unannounced, and took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair. KC groaned inwardly. She didn’t ask for company, least of all his.

  “Everything all right back there?” she asked, struggling to keep a civil tone.

  “I think the Profesor will be sick,” the priest said.

  KC glanced over her shoulder to find Peet strapped and hunched over in his seat, looking much the same as he did on their first take off from Salt Lake City. She grinned and turned back to her controls. “I think he’ll hold his own,” she said.

  There was an awkward pause. KC’s skin all but crawled with the priest sitting next to her. She didn’t know if it was his vocation that repulsed her, or if it was his size. She’d always had a distaste for small men. They reminded her of the track jockey that tailed her for a year trying to get into her pants. Every small man after was just like him—weasely, arrogant and always trying to prove themselves against their taller cohorts. But she had to admit, Father Ruiz was in a league all his own. He was short, and he was a priest. Somehow, it seemed the one should cancel the other out, but in KC’s mind, the negative was only compounded.

  “This has been a rough journey for Peet,” Father Ruiz said, interrupting KC’s inner affliction.

  His observation lifted KC’s barrier, if only momentarily. It wasn’t what Father Ruiz said so much as the opportunity to turn her attention on Peet. She had spent a restless night thinking about him, about his loss and what she should do about it. The situation was delicate. It was never easy tiptoeing around death, and she recognized how deeply Lori’s death affected Peet.