March 21
5:51 p.m. EST
Slamming the book down, Ulman shouted, “This is my find!!!” his throat trembling.
Something was burning. A sharp scent of black smoke thickened the air. Maybe the chimney had been obstructed.
Peterson smiled, pulling the long muscles in his face into view, his eyes thinning. “Of course it’s your discovery,” Peterson said in a voice as calm as sand dunes but as dry as papyrus. “ You found it, and no one’s going to take it away from you.”
Ulman didn’t look convinced. His eyes continued to bulge from his red face, and his lips puffed moisture. “You can’t come here and act as if you’re running things!” He waved his hands around.
Peterson remained unconcerned and unbothered by the professor’s hysteria. Native Indians pushed past him, speaking Spanish faster than he ever could. The work would progress no matter what Ulman was thinking. Over a table covered with quick notes and ruddy maps drawn with bleeding pens, Professor Albright stood with two other assistant locals dressed in brightly patterned outfits, who did their best to ignore the high-strung English conversation. Numerous tables filled the room, each piled with materials relevant to the study. Rain bombarded the outer walls of the small building, and Ulman seemed strangely determined to be louder than the thunder.
“This is my site, and I didn’t invite you!”
“You wrote Dr. Albright. He called me.” Peterson walked around the table, stretched forth his bassoon-length arms, and put an aging hand on Ulman’s shoulder. “My friend,” he said in the British accent he never lost despite his time in the states. “You have no need to worry. We are only here to assist you in this magnificent work. It isn’t every day that science has such a wonderful opportunity to look through the doors of hidden history!”
Ulman’s red cheeks filled with air which then seeped from his pierced lips. He stormed over to Albright, while Peterson watched him closely.
Alexander Peterson didn’t mind Ulman’s excitement, nor did he criticize the man for his quick defense. It was very understandable that Ulman would rather work alone on the project, but there was no way he could uncover the city on his own. Actually, Ulman had not really invited Albright in his memo, but merely said, “Oh, Dennis! You really must see what I have found! It changes everything we thought we knew about Mesoamerican archaeology!” Ulman’s caffeine-fired enthusiasm had become his undoing.
Nor did Peterson and Albright actually intend to steal the discovery of the century from their colleague. Dennis Albright taught as a professor of Mesoamerican studies at Ohio State University, and had been looking for a reason to get away. What better excuse was there than word of a new dig in Central America.
Peterson technically was already on sabbatical. Carving out his new book, Dispelling the Myths of the History of the Ancient Yucatan, had grown tedious and dry after a few months. In his slow voice, Albright had read him Dr. Ulman’s memo, and Peterson’s head filled with new ideas for his literary creation.
Together, they offered their assistance to Dr. Ulman-in person. Having procured funds from Ohio University, the two professors rented a run-down building up the hill on the far outskirts of Kalpa, Guatemala, hired some local help, and magnified Ulman’s study ten times. The find was located a stone’s throw away from the small Indian village from which they obtained the help.
It shouldn’t have been raining, for the rainy season had ended. Peterson listened as the water smashed against the roof. He had learned that Highland Guatemala, especially at Kalpa’s elevation of 7,000 feet, was cool year-round, but dry and otherwise bearable during the winter season. The surrounding Cuchumatanes rose above the ground, tall and beautiful. The mountains would be so much better looking without the cumulonimbi, Peterson thought, those giant clouds creating darkness in the day and growling like ancient gods through the night. Peterson couldn’t figure out why it was pouring so much. Rains usually came and went between May and November. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were messing with something protected by a higher influence. And he wasn’t thinking about the mountains.
Years of experience in the Bible Belt had taught Peterson to decide one way or another concerning religion. While he never bashed on the faiths surrounding him at the time, he had made the scientific decision that God didn’t exist. But ever since he’d set his resolve, the subconscious fear that something might exist beyond his temporal vision had fueled his fear of the dark, his dread of solitude, his anxiety when contemplating the unknown and the illogical.
He knew that the finds here would turn some religious heads.
Maybe there was no divine connection to the showers. Peterson shook his head and laughed at himself for thinking like a superstitious native. The smile didn’t stay.
“I’ll call in the law!” he heard Ulman say.
Peterson allowed himself a short laugh. “Dr. Ulman, we are not a threat to your work here.”
Ulman spun around and licked his lips. “No?! You’ve been here four days and you’ve already sold an article on the place.”
“No-”
“I saw you typing it in the room there!” Ulman shrieked accusingly. “I saw you mail the stupid envelope!”
“I am writing a book!” Peterson said. “I’ve been working on it for months now.”
“You carried your great scholarly opus to an archaeological dig?”
“There’s no digging going on here,” said Dr. Albright.
Ulman swung around and pointed a stubby finger. “Ah! Didn’t I say you were in this together? You want everything I’ve found! And I trusted you!”
“Calm down, Dr. Ulman,” Peterson said as the rain beat harder on the roof. “Do you honestly think I’ve written about this site already?”
Ulman’s voice dropped in pitch, then slowly rose, as he turned on Peterson. His hands shook violently, and his eyes filled with tears. “Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you wrote your mother. Go ahead! Tell me she lives in an office suite in New York or works for the Archaeological Journal!”
“You’ve been poking around my materials,” Peterson said, his eyebrows bending down.
But Ulman’s voice rose to a hysterical scream, and he started stalking toward the skinny professor while Peterson backed just as quickly away. “ Your materials?!? The mail only comes up from Guatemala City once every two weeks! You asked me about that specifically two days ago! Tell me why! I’ve kept my eyes on you two thieves! Go ahead! Tell me, Dr. Peterson, that you haven’t already informed the world about my discovery!!!”
Peterson ran into the wall behind him, imitating a freshly hammered doornail. Ulman pushed his face so close that his stale cheese breath was distinct from the rotten smell of the wooden building. But instead of attacking as Peterson expected, Dr. Ulman slid by him, passing through the portal to Peterson’s right and out into the rain.
Sighing, Peterson looked around him. The entire room had grown still. Every eye waited on him until he grinned and looked at the ground. “Dr. Ulman doesn’t seem to understand the eclectic nature of our business.”
Albright sagged as well. They both knew Peterson’s words were lies. But that wouldn’t change the future.
Ulman felt the rage fighting inside him like a million baby spiders struggling to push out of their giant egg sack. The rain was cold, and his hot skin turned the liquid to steam. He was going back to his hut near the site, and he’d walk the whole way even though it was dark. He’d been traveling by foot among the black mountains long before these fly-infested robbers had come to take his glory. He insisted that he didn’t need their help.
He knew the truth. They both wanted to share in his find. Or to twist it into something that it wasn’t, to protect old reputations.
Ulman wanted the honor of addressing his worldwide colleagues with the information from his site personally. He ached to see their faces. He longed to watch their jaws go limp, their fingers tremble, their eyes wander. They would be lost! Years of work would be overturned! He wanted to witness their shock and dismay himself. He would be the new king and Hitler of scholarship, both admired and hated. His finds would put his picture in every archaeological magazine, his name on each professional journal, and his voice in numerous television documentaries throughout the planet. At last, the relatively neglected history of Mesoamerica would become important enough for universities and private parties to fund, just as people had once paid for more and more and more research in Egyptian studies!
He scowled as he rammed his way through the door of his leaking shack.
The chill of the refrigerator room surrounded him, but at least the rain was off his head. A dusty scent of soaked cardboard momentarily choked him, but he wouldn’t go back to the main operations building. Not for a while at least. He shook dramatically in the dark, then searched for his lantern.
Peterson and Albright were two fine scholars. Dr. Peterson had studied primarily in Europe, but moved to America to teach. The old man with mint breath saw his knowledge as exceptional when around the other aging professors of the United States. The way Peterson walked and talked reverberated this feeling, but his colleagues put up with him, for his publications gave the university in which he taught the prestige all schools coveted. Nevertheless, he’d danced his way from one academic institution to another, beginning in Louisiana and then curving northward. Peterson knew that no one had a shot at a faculty position before he did, so he skipped from one complex to the next without worrying that one day the simple Americans around him might discover his disloyalty and pride and no longer welcome him in any institution of higher learning. Peterson’s only other positive attribute was his reputation as a good family man. He’d been married for almost thirty years and had four children to speak of, all of whom had attended Harvard.
Albright was a much nicer fellow from Los Angeles, and Ulman really couldn’t see how he fit into this dastardly duo. Having grown up as an overweight bookworm, Albright had personified scholarship before entering college. Reading and memorizing what he read gave him a reputation that put him in the news-something Ulman never experienced.
It wasn’t that Ulman wanted to be on television, but didn’t all scholars dream of the limelight from time to time? Every worthwhile professor had found himself at his desk, circling the name of some notable historian. Ulman had written hundreds of papers, citing other historians who were always closer to the facts under his mental microscope. Just once, Ulman thought it would be nice to know that he was the one being cited!
This Mesoamerican find would be Ulman’s key to the highest heaven. He had been so sure of it! And he still was.
His shoes squeaked with wet leather as he moved to his wooden chest. He set the lamp down and grappled with the lock.
Peterson and Albright may want their fingers in the pie, Ulman thought to himself, but they don’t know about this dessert!
He opened the box and looked inside.
Within an hour, Ulman was writing his own article. It was all done by hand, and he had no publisher lined up, but that was irrelevant. He may have lost the site, but he still had enough to make him famous…first!
Dr. Albright looked at the papers strewn across the table before him.
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.