Deity

by Theresa Danley

  Abe took her up on the idea. “Let me handle this,” he said as he stepped toward the boy. Lori tagged right behind.

  The boy brightened as they approached, his face gleaming with expectation. He retrieved a second bottle of water from his bag. Abe, however, didn’t acknowledge his wares and cut straight to the chase, asking about the Zapatistas.

  The boy nodded enthusiastically, chattering back to Abe and pointing to the northwest.

  “There’s been Zapatista activity around here,” Abe translated. “In fact, there’s a rumor that they shot down a private plane just this morning, about ten kilometers from here.”

  “They haven’t done anything that bold in years,” Tarah remarked.

  “Back when they thought they were close to finding the Talking Cross,” Abe added.

  “Do you think they have the cross?” Lori asked.

  “If they don’t, they must be close. They must be using Matt to lead the way.”

  Abe turned back to the boy and asked him another question about American archaeologists.

  The boy shrugged, shaking his head slowly.

  “There have been a few archaeologists,” Abe interpreted. “But the last working project wrapped up in September.”

  “What about a Mormon archaeologist,” Lori suggested. “Maybe that will jog his memory.”

  Again, Abe asked and again the boy shook his head.

  “Izapa must not hold any clues about the Talking Cross,” Tarah concluded.

  But before she could finish, the boy was chattering again, this time pointing in another direction. He started backing away, beckoning them to follow him shouting, “Americano!” as he climbed onto a rusty bicycle.

  “Apparently there’s an American that lives not far from here,” Abe said.

  “What do you suggest we do?” Tarah asked.

  “I guess we follow him.”

  * * * *

  They followed the boy and his bicycle another two kilometers down the highway to an Okanagan trailer parked just off the shoulder of a farm road that branched off into a cornfield. To Lori’s surprise a Robinson twin-turbine helicopter rested in a harvested corner of the field, just behind the trailer.

  “Americano,” the boy announced, straddling his bicycle as Abe killed the engine of the 4-Runner.

  “The man sure likes his TV,” Tarah said wryly.

  Lori knew exactly what she was referring to. Besides the helicopter sitting in the backyard, the trailer’s only other eye-catching features were the two large antennas perched like antlers atop the roof. The trailer reminded Lori of a redneck lot—of the science fiction kind.

  “Those aren’t your typical rabbit-ears,” Abe said, reaching down the inner panel of his door. Just below the door’s lever he peeled away the fabric from the door panel and reached down into a hidden compartment. He withdrew a small wad of money and tossed it out the window to the waiting boy.

  The boy’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when we realized what had quite literally landed in his lap. Lori didn’t see just how much Abe had thrown him, but judging by the kid’s reaction, it was far more than he’d ever seen at one time.

  Lori herself was just as shocked. Hidden compartments. Piles of money. Clearly the 4 Runner wasn’t just a rental which left her wondering if Abe possessed some mode of transportation in every city across Mexico.

  With the hidden compartment concealed once again, Abe finally got out of the vehicle. He waved a dismissive hand at the boy who peddled away shouting a chorus of “Gracias, señor! Gracias, gracias!”

  Lori climbed out of the 4 Runner behind Tarah. Abe’s attention was already drawn back to the trailer where a man now stood holding the screen door open at the top of the aluminum steps, curiously watching them while his jaw worked over a wad of gum.

  “Hola,” he greeted rather cheerily.

  “Buenas tardes,” Abe said, strolling up to the trailer and extending an arm out to shake the lanky man’s hand. “We’ve been told you’re the only American in town.”

  The man smiled. He had a simple smile but it brightened his entire face with such friendliness that Lori immediately felt at ease. He had yet to say two words but she already knew she liked him.

  “I’m Canadian, actually,” he said, running a hand over his receding hairline. “But I live close enough to know the American National Anthem.” He laughed in the hearty French-Canadian style. His accent had already given away his Quebecian roots. “Name’s Remi Lafyette. Most folks call me Laffy.”

  His eyes sparkled with laughter, proving just how suitable his nickname was.

  Laffy invited them into his trailer which, despite its modest exterior, made for a tight fit for four people. The problem wasn’t the trailer itself, but all the stuff that filled it. Seismographic equipment accounted for much of the space. The countertops were burdened with GPS monitors, a satellite phone, even a laptop plugged into a larger computer. There wasn’t even room for an electronic coffee maker, Lori noted, as she spied the French press sitting near the sink.

  “You a seismologist?” Lori asked as they all vied for position within the camper.

  “A volcanologist, actually,” Laffy corrected, shoving a computer printer aside to give him a leaning post along the counter’s edge. “I’m the neighborhood watchdog, monitoring the local delinquent.”

  He slid open a thin curtain to what could be considered the trailer’s main picture window. It wasn’t hard to figure out why Laffy had chosen his location. The cornfield opened the jungle and trees in the immediate area, giving a clear view of the misty cone-shaped volcano beyond.

  “Are you expecting an eruption?” Tarah asked.

  “Not likely,” Laffy admitted. “But she has been stirring these past few weeks. Nothing threatening, but I monitor her just the same. It’s been rather boring to be quite honest, even for a volcanologist.”

  Laffy chuckled and settled himself back against the counter’s edge. “But enough about me, eh,” he said. “What brings you fine folks to my humble abode?”

  “We’re looking for a man,” Abe cut in. “An American archaeologist. We believe he’s been working in this area, perhaps with some Mexican escorts.”

  Laffy grinned. “Well, I don’t know if I saw the man you’re looking for, but I did come across an American working only a few kilometers from here. I’ll be happy to show you, if you like.”

  “Was he a Mormon, from BYU?” Lori asked.

  “I don’t recall him ever saying. Friendly gentleman though. Said he come from Utah.”

  “That’s got to be Matt,” Tarah said excitedly. She turned back Laffy. “Was his name Webb?”

  Laffy shook his head. “No, but as I recall, he mentioned a partner named Webb. It was just the two of them as far as I could tell.”

  Lori hesitated, confused. “His partner?”

  “Yeah, but Webb wasn’t around when I came across their site. It was just the one man working alone.”

  “What was his name?” Lori asked.

  “Fireman…Freeman, maybe…something like that.”

  Lori was stunned. “Do you mean Friedman?” she asked. “Dr. John Friedman?”

  “That’s the one! Friendly fellow, he was.”

  Lori could hardly believe her ears. Dr. Friedman had partnered up with Webb? Why hadn’t he told anybody? It wasn’t like him to leave others wondering about his whereabouts. Dr. Peet had been looking for him, and because of that, he was now dead. Or was he really alive hunting for the Talking Cross with Chac? Why so many secrets?

  “There was nobody with them?” Lori tried to clarify.

  Laffy shrugged. “Nobody that I saw.”

  “No Mexicans,” Abe cut in.

  Laffy shook his head.

  No Mexicans. No Zapatistas.

  Tarah sighed. “That’s a relief,” she muttered under her breath.

  Lori was troubled. So much seemed to have been grossly miscommunicated and errors were being made based on hasty assumptions. Yet, even as she made such a
determination she realized the irony of the situation. After all, wasn’t the whole reason she herself was in Mexico was due to the assumption that she could prove Matt’s fresco was not evidence of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl’s presence in Yucatan, therefore increasing the possibility that the Toltec priest was actually buried in Utah? If she could go through such lengths to validate a working theory could other colleagues act so vainly? Was that why Dr. Webb and Dr. Friedman teamed up so secretly? Could that explain Chac and Dr. Peet’s footprints secretly departing the collapsed cenote?

  Or was she treading along the edge of another hasty assumption herself?

  Lori needed answers, and fast.

  “Can you show us where Dr. Friedman and Dr. Webb are working?” she asked.

  Laffy didn’t even hesitate. “Of course.”

  “Please,” Abe prodded. “By all means, lead the way.”

  Tun

  Laffy’s Polaris 4-wheeler zipped along the nearly concealed vehicle tracks cutting through a mature stand of grass. Lori bounced in the back seat of Abe’s 4-Runner as they followed him at a close distance. Trees closed in around them until they were too thick to get the 4-Runner through. That’s where Laffy stopped.

  “Looks like your friends have left, eh?” Laffy said, stepping away from the Polaris. “I don’t see their Jeep anywhere.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Abe said.

  “Where do you suppose they could have gone?” Lori asked. She had hoped to end their chase there. However, if there was one thing she could be at peace with it was that the Zapatistas had not kidnapped Dr. Webb after all.

  “They must have finished their work and gone home,” Laffy suggested.

  If that was the case, Lori felt foolish for having come all this way for nothing. She desperately wished she had her cell phone. Maybe she could reach Dr. Friedman and find out exactly what was going on. Then again, remembering the satellite phone in Laffy’s trailer, she doubted her cell would pick up any service out in the middle of a Mexican jungle.

  “Can you show us what they were working on?” she asked. After all, she’d come this far. She might as well see what the hubbub was all about.

  “Oh sure. Right this way.”

  They followed Laffy deeper into the forest, stepping through a tangle of limbs and brush that made Lori wonder how anyone managed to keep their bearings straight. The trees smothered the mountains and choked the sunlight from the sky. It was easy to see how ancient ruins could be lost for centuries. It was hard to imagine why anyone would traverse the area unless they were looking for something. Then again, looking for ancient ruins was as good a reason as any.

  Lori wasn’t sure just how far they’d gone when they reached the slightest clearing, an unnatural clearing specific to a stone pillar and some sort of altar behind it. A pile of cut vegetation lay nearby, barely a few days old, and the earth around the legs of the altar had been disturbed, excavation-style.

  No doubt this was where Dr. Friedman and Dr. Webb had been working, but the confusion on Laffy’s face seemed to suggest otherwise.

  “This doesn’t look quite right,” he said as they entered the clearing. His eyes were trained upon the pillar. “This doesn’t look right at all.”

  “What’s wrong?” Lori asked, stepping toward the pillar.

  “This rock,” Laffy said, slapping a hand upon a round ball of stone perched atop the pillar. “This wasn’t here before.”

  “I’m sure they found the ball somewhere in these trees and put it back where it belongs,” Tarah reasoned. “Archaeologists are always trying to restore things.”

  “No,” Lori said, allowing her fingers to lightly trace the anthropomorphic handprints chiseled into the ball’s sides. “I think this ball was found first.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Tarah asked.

  “It’s been cleaned to preserve the carvings on it. A field brush couldn’t have done this neat of a job. If this ball had just been found, there’d still be dirt and soil packed into the crevices.”

  “I don’t know about any of that but I’m quite certain that this pillar has shrunk,” Laffy said.

  “Rocks don’t exactly shrink,” Abe said.

  “I’m telling you, the top of this pillar reached just below my neck. It’s almost as if the weight of the round stone pushed it into the ground.”

  Abe snorted. “C’mon. It can’t be that heavy.”

  He stepped up to the pillar and attempted to lift the ball from the top. It didn’t budge. Laffy joined him, but even the two of them could not lift the stone from its pillar.

  “How in the devil did they get this rock on top of the pillar?” Abe groaned.

  Laffy looked even more confused. “Volcanic andesite can be dense, but two men should be able to move a piece this size without much problem.”

  “Why would they put it up there in the first place?” Tarah asked.

  “It’s the Calendar Deity,” Lori said, stepping back to get a fuller view of the pillar. “In the hieroglyph, the Calendar Deity was holding a ball between his hands—hands that have been actually carved onto this ball. The legs continue down the pillar.”

  “So where’s his head?” Tarah asked doubtfully.

  “We supply the head!” Lori stepped behind the pillar, placing her hands over the handprints. “Essentially, we become the Calendar Deity holding the ball!”

  “That’s a stretch,” Tarah remarked.

  “Maybe not,” Abe said. He touched the ball between Lori’s fingertips. “Is this one of the glyphs you said accompanied the Calendar Deity?”

  Lori looked. Indeed, a small glyph carved between her fingertips looked very similar to the third glyph that was directly in front of the Calendar Deity hieroglyph, directly in front of the ball in his hands.

  “Tun,” Lori recalled. “The third point on the Long Count Calendar is Tun.”

  Tarah glanced blankly at Abe. “Doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  Lori turned away from the pillar, her mind rolling over the Tun glyph. “The ball is the Tun piece,” she thought aloud.

  “What is she talking about?” Tarah asked. Abe only shrugged.

  “It’s almost as though someone used the Long Count Calendar points to label certain artifacts. Maybe the Calendar Deity fresco was used as a guide. The Kin glyph had been drawn over a gear-shaped piece inserted into the wall. That’s the first piece. The Tun glyph was drawn right before the ball in the Calendar Deity’s hands.” She slapped the ball crowning the stone pillar. “And here this ball is labeled with the same glyph. That makes the ball the Tun piece, or the third piece.”

  “Third piece to what?” Tarah asked.

  Lori could only shrug. As much as her observations seemed to be making sense, they were raising more questions—more puzzles.

  Abe rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So what is the second piece?”

  Again, Lori didn’t have an answer. She began calculating numbers. There were twenty Kins to a Uinal, eighteen Uinals, to a Tun. That didn’t help. Her mind flashed back to the Calendar Deity drawn on the cavern wall. The Kin glyph had been located above the Calendar Deity’s head. The Tun directly in front of the ball in the Calendar Deity’s hands. The Uinal had floated somewhere before the figure’s face. What could possibly be labeled with the Uinal glyph that might tie to the Calendar Deity’s face?

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Laffy piped in. “It seems to me that these calendar glyphs you’re chasing amount to nothing more than a trail of bread crumbs. Sounds like you found the first crumb. Now you’ve found the third. Who cares if you skipped the second crumb. It seems like you should be more focused on the trail ahead—the fourth crumb.”

  Abe snapped his fingers. “He’s right. These points must be leading us to the Talking Cross. Lori even saw a picture of the cross drawn behind the first clue.”

  “So Dr. Webb and his partner must be on their way toward the fourth clue,” Tarah added.

  “And once they find that,” Lori said, “it�
��ll lead them to the fifth and final position—the cross!”

  ‘That is, if the Zapatistas don’t catch them first,” Abe said glumly. “Remember what the boy on the bike said. A plane has been shot down by the Zapatistas. They must know someone is in their area looking for the cross.”

  “We must find Matt before the Zapatistas do,” Tarah said. “But where do we go from here?”

  Lori squared herself with the pillar once again and placed her hands on the ball. She looked over the top to find herself looking through a slight path of slashed tree limbs that opened the view of a cleft peak glowing in the western rays of the dropping sun.

  “There,” she said. “We have to go there.”

  “Where exactly is ‘there’?” Tarah asked, craning for a glimpse of Lori’s point of view.

  “Tacana,” Laffy answered.

  “What’s so special about Tacana?”

  “You mean other than the fact that it’s the volcano with a heightened presentation of seismic activity?”

  They all hesitated, waiting for Laffy to continue. The scientist merely stared back at them, his blank gaze shifting from Abe to Tarah, then on to Lori, as if expecting them to be deterred by his insight.

  Abe didn’t appear impressed, much less dissuaded by a little rumbling beneath the ground. “We need to get to the top of that volcano.”

  “I’m not so sure the top is where you need to go,” Laffy said.

  “You know where the fourth marker is?” Lori asked.

  “I can’t tell you if it’s a marker or not, but there is another pillar, just like this one, in a small clearing just below the tree line. I happened to notice it one day as I was performing an aerial survey of the volcano.”

  Tarah turned a hard gaze in Abe’s direction. “Matt has at least one day’s head start.”

  Abe nodded, following her train of thought. “If the Zapatistas are in fact following him, then they are that much closer to the next clue. But I doubt they know someone with a helicopter.”

  Laffy back pedaled. “Le Vol De Feu? I never offered to lend out my chopper. It’s on loan to me strictly for the use of volcanology and…”