The Kukulkan Manuscript (4 page)

The facts leapt at him as if alive and about to escape the muggy room.

He focused on the map once again. He couldn’t believe it was real, and yet there it was. The size of the site was enormous, rivaling Teotihuacan. Surely, an entire mountain must have fallen onto it. With all the volcanic activity that had occurred in the region, he could understand how such a place could be lost for so long. No digging had yet been done. They were waiting for the storm to first subside. In the meantime, there was plenty of work to do on the finds available.

He still couldn’t believe it. But all the facts came together. This discovery put Mesoamerican archaeology in a new perspective. It would give fresh reasons to start excavating the many known but heretofore untouched local sites of ancient origin. He just wondered how the rest of the world would take this!

Albright didn’t care about Ulman’s slow opinions. He chose not to.

Albright had worked with Ulman at Stratford University for seventeen years before Albright lost tenure, due to an incident with a female student that he didn’t like to think about. Archaeological departments in universities throughout the states were steadily dissolving, as if digs were growing more scarce. When he’d first read of a university in Arizona closing an archaeological department, Albright hadn’t worried much. One scholar went around proclaiming the end of the world for archaeologists, and Albright had shrugged it off until Stratford shrugged him off. Then he’d gone to Ohio, where he’d learned to appreciate his job.

For Albright, this find would renew the importance of the study of archaeology, especially ancient Mesoamerican studies. It would broadcast to the world in every newspaper and magazine,
“We’ve had it wrong from the start! There is a need to pursue these new ideas!”
His job would thereby steady and affirm itself, and Albright could relax

At the same time, Albright and Ulman had been close enough friends at Stratford for Ulman to contact him about the find. Obviously, Ulman couldn’t live alone in the highlands of Guatemala with his precious discovery without others learning of its existence.

There was no telling who else Ulman had contacted, or what he’d told them. That factor alone kept Albright working as quickly as possible. What if others developed the same idea he and Peterson had and decided to duck out of the spring semester to join Ulman in Central America? Albright had to collect all the data he could, following Peterson’s dubious example, and submit articles to professional journals immediately, thus tying his name to the project. Then, if anyone else joined the excavation, they would be seen as latecomers. Albright could be back in the states sewing a book on the Kalpa site before the summer began.

Albright recognized that his conscience repeatedly dodged the guilt and compassion he felt for his old friend. Ulman had actually found the site, after all. But Albright didn’t care. If it was one thing that historians agreed on, it was survival of the fittest!

*  *  *

March 22
8:07 a.m. EST

Panting like a lost mutt beaten to the point of exhaustion, Ulman finally made it into Kalpa. He carried the packages under his arm. All night long he’d written the pages he carried. Now it would be a game of strategy and a test of trust.

Ulman’s wife would receive one package, with instructions. A more trustworthy friend at Stratford would receive the other. He only hoped they did as he asked in the letters.

Ulman’s heavy body slid down a soaked, muddy slope. He turned his head back to see if anyone followed him. Trees and high brush waved at him in the wind. There was no way to spot a tail if there was one. There was no time to cover tracks anyway. He continued into the shabby village, accidentally ramming into a native so hard he knocked him over.

“Sorry! Excuse me!” he muttered, without translating, and kept moving. His legs felt weighed down with the previous night’s rain, heavy and dragging in the moss-scented mud. He’d already dropped the packages three times. He had to get one of those peculiar-looking cars headed for the Valley of Guatemala immediately. His parcels needed to be in the mail right away, and he wanted to see to them himself. His own writings would be behind Peterson’s by only a few days. They would reach America, and hopefully his wife would contact the names of the editors in the letter. With a little luck, his article would come out at the same time as Peterson’s, winning for him the credit for the find.

He needed to make a few more bundles and send them off with the next mail.

But Peterson couldn’t find out. Men willing to come thousands of miles, paying good money to do so, all to steal another man’s work, might be capable of worse.

Looking behind him again, expecting to see Peterson’s dry face with tightened muscles smiling at him from a nearby building, Ulman stumbled a little faster.

The sun was barely rising when Ulman left the dig. Soon, they would find out that he was missing. He figured they would search the camp, then walk around the site for a while trying to locate him.

Peterson and Albright would put their heads together and decide upon one of two things: either Ulman had gone crazy, run off through the woods, become lost in the cold and died, which was unlikely, or he’d run down to Kalpa. They would ultimately track him through the fresh mud to the village and find out he’d gained passage to the valley. And why would he go to the valley unless he planned on going home—thus abandoning his find, which was an absurd idea—or perhaps he’d taken in his own writings to be mailed, with memories of the screaming discussion the three scholars had had the night before.

In which case, Ulman might not be welcome back at the site. Peterson and Albright would wonder what he would have sent—what he could have shipped out of the country—that would override Peterson’s work in importance. This might lead them to suppose the possibility that Ulman had sent more than paperwork. Mailing archaeological finds across boarders was illegal, not to mention unethical, when it competed with the work of other archaeologists.

Of course, this was exactly what Ulman was doing.

Nevertheless, Ulman had to return to the site. He had to go back, even if the choice could kill him.

March 24
10:55 a.m. PST

“This can’t be happening.” Kinnard sighed into a cup of bitter coffee before putting it down. He put his muscular hands together, blew through his fingers, and closed his eyes.

It seemed that Kinnard was always pulling Ulman out of trouble. But he didn’t know what to do with Ulman’s latest predicament.

In 1948, Troy Kinnard caught Chris Ulman slyly taking candy from the smooth glass jar on the counter of the First corner store. Kinnard remembered his amazement. He had no idea how Ulman had removed the metal lid from the jar so quickly. There wasn’t even the faintest sound. Mr. Hefleiter, the storekeeper, busily spoke to Maria Higgins, which for once was a turn of events. Maria Higgins, weighing in at three hundred pounds, could talk more than a bird could sing! Somehow she and old baldy Hefleiter had come upon a subject Hefleiter had way too much interest in. Hefleiter interrupted her repeatedly, overexcited about the topic. Mrs. Higgins stuttered and wrestled to get a full sentence in as he rambled at high speed. Kinnard didn’t have a clue as to the subject of the conversation, and that was when he turned to find Chris with his hand in the candy jar.

Wham—bam! Without a sound, Ulman’s hand was out of the jar, the thin metal lid miraculously back in place, and Chris grinned, showing yellow, orange, and green hard candies for a split second before sliding them into his pocket.

They were only ten years old, but Troy had considered himself as intelligent as if he were twenty.

His wide eyes darted to Higgins and Hefleiter, both rotund and still talking like two dogs yipping face to face. Mrs. Higgins’s round face flushed red. Hefleiter’s glowed as if he was about to win a very long tennis match. But unfortunately for the ten year old boys, both adults slid down the counter toward the candy jar.

The counter had been built right onto the floor, wood against wood. The planking was old, and Hefleiter liked it that way. Someone, before Hefleiter’s day no doubt, had put the small building on its short stilts and set the warped wood down over the anciently sturdy frame. The boards had crumbled over the years, so it creaked quite a bit when walked across. Hefleiter appreciated the sounds because he could shout, “May I help you!” from anywhere in the store as soon as someone entered. The squeaky planks did the job that laser lights and bells do today. By listening quickly, Hefleiter could discern the number of the customers, whether they were children or adults, and in the case of Mrs. Higgins, he could even tell it was her without hearing her voice or seeing her face. Hefleiter claimed he knew the sound of everyone in Greenwich who happened to play on his old accordion deck.

But as Hefleiter and Higgins tromped in the direction of the two ten-year old boys, Kinnard remembered glancing with guilty eyes at the candy jar.

The lid hadn’t gone on all the way.

The floor creaked and bounced, and the counter rocked just a little.

Ulman turned around. Both boys knew the alarm was about to sound; the metal top would slip clear of the jar and sound their capture. They had seen the jar as it swayed ever so slightly on the counter.

Kinnard watched the metal lid as it barely hung to a lip of glass lining the hole of the bottle. The steel cover rocked and swung as if only held on by a string.

Heavy Hefleiter’ and Higgins’s feet pounded on the wood. Their arms pushed against the counter as they dueled back and forth with words.

Another step—just one more jolt!—and….

As the lid slid free from the top of the glass, rang against the counter, and spun to the ground, ten-year old Troy Kinnard felt his hands fly to the mouth of the candy jar.

The lid crashed like a cymbal into the planks at Troy’s feet. Both his hands locked onto the top of the jar. His eyes darted to the two older people who focused on him like circling hawks without motion.

Kinnard figured he looked like a dog caught messing in the garbage. He couldn’t see his friend from his angle, but he froze motionlessly until Hefleiter spoke up.

“Well now,” the old man said with his clogging voice, a light smile coloring his dry mouth. “You plan on paying for that before dig’n in?”

Kinnard nodded. What else should he do? His dark brown eyes were huge circles. His fingers gripped the lip of the jar, only white knuckles showing. He didn’t smile. He squeezed away the blood of embarrassment attempting to fill his face. Cold swept through his little body. But he managed to say with a weak voice, “Yes, sir.”

“How much money you got?” Hefleiter said, prying the jar away from Troy’s hands with one quick motion.

Kinnard had to think about it fast, rummaging through his pockets with his mind. “Got a penny,” he said with the same shaky voice.

“Let’s see it.”

Then Kinnard remembered flipping the penny he and Ulman had found earlier that day. Heads, it was Troy’s. Tails, Chris kept it. Flip…tails.

It was in Ulman’s pocket.

“Well?” Hefleiter said, spotting the hesitation.

Kinnard spun around and Ulman turned to face him. Chris’s face lacked the little color he normally had, and Kinnard realized Ulman’s eyes screamed, “
Yes I have it, you idiot! But it’s in the pocket with all the candy! It’s
beneath
all the sweets!”

Ulman didn’t move.

“Let’s see that coin,” Hefleiter said. In the past, the old man had given the boys candy for free once in a while. But the two were getting older, and it seemed Hefleiter wanted to teach them the rudiments of business. Once he said he wanted money, he never backed down. That probably accounted for Ulman’s impulsive attempt to snag all he could.

Kinnard felt the air point fingers of accusation. He remember the lightness in his head, the swaying sensation. Lies to protect his friend surrounded his mind. Nothing Troy could say would get him away from the crime. His eyes dropped to the ground. He prayed for a miracle—for a forgotten penny to wait somewhere on the planks that had betrayed him….

“Oh, land sakes!” Mrs. Higgins said, “I have a penny! Candy for you both.” She promptly produced the funds and jumped just as quickly back into her previous debate with new ammunition spewing from the edge of her lips.

A moment later, Troy and Chris scurried quickly from the corner store with sugar in their hands. Energy surged through Ulman as he bumped again and again into Troy’s shoulder, laughing about their stolen treasure, their free food, and the close call.

Finally, Troy shoved back. “I can’t believe you, Chris! You stole that candy!”

“He wasn’t gonna give us none for free, Troy!” Ulman said, leaning into his friend’s face.

“We were dead meat back there! We could’ve been dubbed robbers and ruined for life!”

“We was fine,” said young Ulman. “You want some?” He produced a lint-layered palm full of hard candies.

“I don’t want any!” Kinnard said, shoving him away with a wave. “Don’t you know stolen candy’s got no taste! It’s filthy! It’s rotten! And it’s no good when guilt’s fill’n your stomach!”

Ulman shrugged. “I heard untouchable goodies taste sweetest.”

Troy stopped walking and shoved his face into Ulman’s. “It’s a lie, Chris! A fib told you by thieves! You wanna be a looter? You wanna be a no good, dirty rotten, two-faced, lying, cheating, stupid-bag-of-potatoes criminal when you grow up! This is all how it starts, you know! Everyone in prison begins this way, Chris!”

“What’s wrong with potatoes?” said young Ulman.

Troy pounded his open hands into Chris.

Ulman lost his footing and skidded to the ground, one leg bending under his bottom while the other stretched out in front of him.

Breathing so hard his shirt felt tight, Kinnard stood with clenched fists over his friend. “You ever do something that dumb again, Chris,” his said through labored breaths, “and you can find yourself a new friend.”

Kinnard remembered storming off in a hurry.