Chapter 7

Sunday

Fully rested, I dressed for the day and dragged out my camp chair and sketching supplies, as well as a battery-powered light. I chose colored pencils for the portrait of the deceased priest since his funerary garb had been so colorful.

Beneath a feathered robe, the body had been wrapped in some sort of whitish cloth and then had red cinnabar powder liberally sprinkled all over it. The most commonly accepted theory is that the red symbolized blood.

The jade rod and whistle in his hands were more of a whitish green jade while the breastplate had been a slightly darker green. The jade bead in his mouth was even darker than the breastplate. The kernels of maize in his mouth and in the shell were a variety of colors, as were the shells holding the maize and the water.

The way I did the drawing made it look like I’d been positioned slightly above and to the side of the body, as if the upper portion of the crypt hadn’t been there. The sketch was a long oval and only used the center half of the paper. The edges were blank, although some details about the inside edges and the front of the crypt were visible.

I’d been so intent on my drawing that I hadn’t noticed the sun starting to color the eastern sky by the time I finished. I debated sketching the beautiful sunrise but felt the sketches of our dream last night were more important.

Finished with the detailed sketch of the deceased priest in the tomb, I started on a sketch of the procession carrying his body to its final resting place.

“Damn, you’re good,” Erica said from behind me. Since I hadn’t heard her approaching, she scared the crap out of me. I’d learned long ago that I tend to zone out when I’m concentrating on a sketch. Mom had learned that she had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention, but she had usually swatted me on the head or shoulder instead.

“That’s what you saw last night?” Raelene asked without specifying who she was asking.

“It’s so accurate that it’s like being back there,” Erica replied.

“You sure changed your tune quickly,” Raelene commented to Erica.

“It’s like Johnny said yesterday, believing is one thing, but experiencing something and knowing it is totally different. I’m still not sold on the idea of ancient gods, but I’m positive that Johnny has some sort of spiritual connection to someone or something,” Erica explained.

“Can you draw the gold statue of Ah Kinchil next?” Erica asked me.

“Yup, I’m almost done with this one,” I told her as I finished the final bit of shading with my pencil and then signed the picture.

Once I finished, Erica leaned over and kissed me. “Any chance of a repeat tonight?” she asked in a sultry voice that let me know she wasn’t talking about visiting the interior of the temple again.

“Do you really think I’d turn you down?” I asked with a grin.

“Can Raelene join us?” she asked nervously.

“If she wants to, but don’t pressure her to do something she doesn’t want to do,” I told her.

“She’s interested. She’s been interested since you arrived, but you haven’t seemed interested in anything but work,” Erica explained.

“I was just trying to get a good start on what I came here for, the diving. Plus, I wanted to have an idea of what people here are like, let them get to know me, and have an idea of what relationships have already developed so I didn’t step on anybody’s toes.”

Even though I was talking, my hands were busy sketching. The girls had been watching with interest as I both talked and sketched the gold statue. I finished the third sketch several minutes before both Doctors showed up for breakfast. Once they arrived, Erica started to drag me over to talk to them except they made a beeline for us.

They seemed hesitant to begin whatever they wanted to say, so I showed them the drawings. “That’s it,” Dr. Gonzalez exclaimed excitedly in Spanish. He was pointing to the statue.

Looking at me, Dr. Cooper said hesitantly, “We ... uh ... both had a weird dream last night. We dreamed about a room beneath the temple and saw that statue, as well as the funeral procession that you’ve sketched. We ... uh ... heard a voice tell us that you had to remove the statue from this plane of existence before we could explore that room and others that we’d be led to.”

“That’s what the woman from the Tribunal told us, too,” Erica told them.

“You had the same dream?” Dr. Gonzalez asked Erica.

“Our dream took us down to the main room that we’ve already explored and showed us how to reach the crypt where the priest was buried,” Erica told them.

“You know how to reach the area?” Dr. Cooper asked excitedly.

“As soon as Johnny removes the statue,” she replied.

“How do you plan to move a statue that must weigh hundreds of kilograms?” Dr. Cooper asked me.

“I have no idea except the woman from the tribunal told me that it wouldn’t be a problem. She didn’t elaborate. My guess is that they’ll provide some sort of portal right next to the statue and I just have to scoot the statue into it,” I replied.

“Where will the statue end up?” Dr. Gonzalez asked.

“I have no idea,” I replied. “It’s possible that it will just disappear from this plane of existence.”

“That’s not acceptable!” Dr. Gonzalez insisted angrily.

“The way I understand it, your choices are to accept it and discover the rest of the area beneath the temple, or not accept it and find absolutely nothing new beneath the temple,” I explained.

“How do we know you’re not taking the statue instead of letting the people of Mexico have it?” Dr. Gonzalez demanded.

“How could I possibly hide a statue weighing nearly five hundred kilograms?” I asked him. “Do you seriously believe that I have the ability to create portals to move items to wherever I want them?” I laughed.

Dr. Gonzalez stormed away angrily.

“Idiot,” Erica hissed once he was out of earshot.

“He wants the credit for discovering the statue,” Dr. Cooper said sadly.

“And now he’ll get nothing,” I commented.

“Can’t you show us how to reach the room?” he asked me.

“I could, but I won’t. What I can do, visiting sites in a dream and then drawing them, is something the Tribunal allows me to do. I have no intention of pissing them off. I can’t even guarantee that the hidden door will work unless we’re allowed to do what they want with the statue. You’d have to blast a hole in the wall to access the passageway to the room with the statue.”

With a sigh of resignation, Dr. Cooper told us, “Well, since we can’t explore the lower levels of the temple today, what Dr. Gonzalez and I decided to do yesterday was to add five more people to your team. Once you’re down at the water’s edge and ready to dive, set up a second set of ladders and have them start processing the top thirty rows, removing, and cataloging the clay and wood statues. When Tim and Johnny finish with their dive and have taken a break, they can start on the bottom twenty rows. Carlos, Erica, and Raelene can show the new group how they’re doing things. I’ll let the new group know that they’ll be helping you and have them join you at breakfast.”

“Do you really think the Tribunal can make it so we can’t reach the lower levels of the temple?” Erica asked me once he was out of earshot.

“No doubt in my mind,” I replied. “I’ve already seen stuff nobody else would believe.”

The rest of the day went smoothly. Tim and I finished laying out the grid squares for the bottom of the lake and then finished clearing statues from the lower half of the grid squares for two more columns of the cliff. Carlos had the new team start on row 22 so they were two squares above where the silver and carved stone statues should have ended. We wrapped red tape around the chain at the side of the chain ladders we used to mark where they should start. White tape on the chain had the grid numbers for each step on the ladders.

We even moved the ladders and started two more columns in the afternoon. Carlos, Erica, and Raelene managed to keep the three new people helping at the top of the cliff from seeing the gold, jade, and silver statues as they photographed and then packed them. Each statue was wrapped in bubble wrap and packed in a plastic bag to keep it from being damaged.

Like we did when we finished last night, the wooden crates were screwed shut and then locked. There was even an alarm attached to the closed crates that would give off a shrill shriek if anyone tampered with it. To open the crate, the alarm had to be deactivated. It took fingerprints from three people to deactivate the alarm. Carlos, Erica, Raelene, Tim, and I were the only authorized people aside from Drs. Cooper and Gonzalez.

Dr. Gonzalez was still sulking at dinner and ate by himself in his tent.

After dinner, the group of us working in the cave made enough tags to work two complete columns of grid squares and made sure that we had enough to finish the additional columns we’d started today.

Erica and Raelene joined me in my tent after we showered. “How come you have a king-sized air mattress to sleep on and we only have those lousy cots?” Raelene asked.

“One of the people I work with at school suggested that I bring this instead of the standard cot I originally planned to bring,” I explained.

“I know where I’m sleeping for the rest of the summer,” she laughed.

We did sleep, after enjoying a sweaty threesome. The sex continued in our dreams after we fell asleep. At least until the Tribunal woke us up. Once again, I was in front of the Tribunal naked, as were Erica and Raelene. Neither girl seemed to notice while we were there. I had to wonder what the Tribunal thought as often as I showed up with a naked woman or women.

“You should retrieve the statue of Ah Kinchil before sunrise this morning. Even if Dr. Gonzalez doesn’t change his attitude, it will still allow the exploration of the temple to proceed,” one of the members of the Tribunal said.

Monday

All three of us awoke immediately upon our return. “Holy shit!” Raelene exclaimed. “Was it like that yesterday?” she asked.

“Almost,” Erica replied, grinning. “Yesterday, we had clothes on.”

“Eep,” Raelene squeaked.

“They’ve never commented on what anyone wore or didn’t wear before,” I tried to comfort her.

Fortunately, the girls had brought clean clothes for the morning, so we all dressed. It was also a good thing that they dressed in long pants for working inside the cave as I figured it would be cool below the temple. I even wore one of the two pairs of jeans that I brought.

The girls stared at me when I slipped the Glock into my waistband. “Just in case,” I explained. I also took my atlatl and quiver of darts.

In addition to my collection of dive flashlights, I had two normal flashlights, so each of us carried two, although I carried one of mine in my back pocket so I could carry my atlatl. Fortunately, the guards were at the perimeter of the city and not watching the buildings or specific sites. We were able to make our way to the temple unobserved. While I probably could have led us to the first room that Erica had recognized, I let her lead the way since she’d been to the room numerous times previously.

Once there, Erica pressed the two spots she’d seen the priest depress to make the secret door open. If we’d been outside, I’d have worried about the noise it made. Here, in the depths of the temple, I wasn’t worried about the noise attracting anybody’s attention.

We made our way through dark passageways. I went first and used a dart to brush away the cobwebs. Erica aimed one flashlight high and to the left and the other low and to the left. I aimed mine high and to the right while Raelene aimed low and to the right. That way, everything in front of us was illuminated so there would be no surprises.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the first room, we entered the room with the statue. We had taken even longer than the funeral procession because we were unfamiliar with the passageways and because there were so freaking many cobwebs to clear away.

“Oh, my,” Raelene gasped when she saw the statue. The flashlight’s reflection off the statue cast an eerie golden glow around it.

I, too, gawked at it, wondering exactly how I was supposed to move it. I’d done some rough calculations and figured that it weighed in the neighborhood of five hundred kilograms.

I walked over to it and cautiously touched it as if it were red hot, pulling my finger back the instant I touched it. I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t feel anything unusual.

“What’s the matter?” Erica asked.

“I had to deal with a different statue once. Fortunately, I’d been worried about touching it and was letting go of it even as I grabbed it. When I touched that statue, I felt some sort of power surge through me. I’d dropped the statue into a portal that opened right next to me. When the portal closed and the statue was gone, I started to miss it. I felt as if I had to have the statue. Evidently, some sort of power had been added to the statue to make people crave it, kind of like the ring in Lord of the Rings.

“I was a bit worried that this statue might be similar. Now, I just have to figure out how to move it.”

Both girls wanted to touch it, too. “Damn, someone would be a bazillionaire with that much gold,” Raelene commented. Neither girl could make the statue rock even a tiny bit.

“How are you going to move that?” Erica asked.

I’ll try to walk it towards the portal when it appears,” I replied.

As I said that, an opening appeared in the air right behind the statue, only a centimeter away. I hugged the statue and tried to rock it so I could walk it towards the opening a fraction of a centimeter at a time. Imagine my surprise when I inadvertently picked it up instead of rocking it back and forth. I quickly dropped in into the opening as if putting it into a garbage chute and jerked my arms back before the opening disappeared. Aside from wanting to let go of the statue, I’d been shocked when it greeted me mentally, saying, “Welcome Priest Johnny Campbell.”

Erica and Raelene were staring when I turned around.

“How did you lift that thing?” Erica gasped.

“Where did it go?” Raelene asked.

“I have absolutely no idea how I did that; neither am I going to waste any time trying to figure it out. Like I said earlier, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe and that I can’t explain. As for where it went, I have no idea and don’t want to know. That way, I can honestly say that I don’t have a clue where the statue is. In fact, when we return to my tent, I intend to burn my sketch of the statue. That way, there’s no evidence of the statue except dream memories, and those can be denied,” I replied.

“It’s a shame that Dr. Gonzalez is being such a prick,” Raelene said.

The trip out of the temple went a lot faster than the trip into the temple. It was light enough outside when we exited the temple that we didn’t need flashlights. Back at my tent, I connected the dive flashlights to my solar panels so they could recharge before our dive today. Then I took my sketch of the gold statue over to the kitchen area and burned it.

Seeing me up so early, Marita asked me to hunt again. I noticed that Paloma was off today and remembered that the two cooks alternated being off Sunday and Monday so one could attend church. The other two cooks were off Sundays because the local workers were all off Sunday.

The girls wanted to go hunting with me, so I let them follow me. Half an hour later, I returned with two peccaries. After I killed the first, Raelene had screamed and fled.

Raelene ran until she reached camp and Erica was a bit pale as I loaded the two animals onto my travois. Erica followed numbly as I trudged back to camp.

“That was ... intense ... and gory,” Erica finally commented as I dropped the travois off with Marita.

“That’s the way life has been for tens of thousands of years,” Marita told her nonchalantly.

“Johnny only kills what we can eat, and one of these will go to the local workers to help reduce what they have to spend for their food, leaving more for their families. In addition, the skins will be used to make things they can use or sell,” she added.

“Really, you killed one of them for the workers?” Erica asked me.

“I would have taken a second for the workers, but the rest of them suddenly decided that they had somewhere else to be,” I replied while laughing, finally coaxing a small smile from Erica.

Raelene rejoined us a couple minutes later. “God, but that was gruesome,” she said as she shuddered.

“You must have a lot of hunting experience,” Raelene said to me.

“Before the dig I left to come here, I’d never been hunting before. I practiced with the atlatl just to learn how to use it. I had to use it down there to protect the camp and then the cook there asked me if I’d hunt to supplement the camp’s food. I hunted there several times and here a couple of times.”

“What about the jaguars I heard someone talking about?” Erica asked.

“I was just trying to protect the camp again. The girls had grabbed all my guns by the time I was dressed so I grabbed my atlatl. Two of the camp’s three guards took off into the jungle with their guns and flashlights. They went right past where the two cats were lurking and didn’t even see them.

“I let my eyes become accustomed to the darkness before venturing into the jungle and saw one of the cats crouched down trying to hide. The other, I saw starlight reflect from one of his eyes.”

We all looked up to see what Raelene started staring at. Dr. Cooper was walking towards us with his arm around Dr. Gonzalez’ shoulders and Dr. Gonzalez looked dejected.

“I apologize for my actions yesterday,” Dr. Gonzalez told us contritely. “When I saw the statue in my dream, I became excited because I hoped its discovery would prompt the Mexican government to release more money for the research here. If it weren’t for the National Geographic Society and Dr. Cooper’s school helping to fund us, we’d have to shut down the site,” he explained.

“Can you take care of removing the statue today? That way, we can at least explore the crypts,” he said resignedly.

“It’s already done. We took care of it first thing this morning,” I replied, making both Doctors stare at me in surprise.

“We couldn’t even budge that damn statue and then watched him lift it like it was no more than a bag of potatoes,” Raelene told them.

“He lifted it?” Dr. Gonzalez gasped.

“Like I told the girls, I have absolutely no idea how I did it. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe and that I can’t explain,” I told them.

“It must have been an alloy,” Dr. Cooper mused.

“Even the lightest alloy would weigh hundreds of kilograms. The only way I could have lifted it naturally is if it were just gold-plated wood, and a lightweight wood at that. The thing felt like it weighed less than twenty kilograms. No metal could have been that light,” I countered.

“Given what he is able to accomplish with his dreams and sketches, I tend to believe him, even though the skeptical scientist in me says it’s impossible,” Dr. Cooper said.

“I felt the statue and it sure wasn’t wood. It was cold, solid metal and extremely heavy,” Erica insisted.

“If I could make a suggestion on a different subject,” I interjected. “You should talk to the local workers and find a Mayan shaman or priest to perform a ceremony before you start opening the tombs. When you finish, you should reinter the skeletons and have him perform another burial ritual. Use some of those plastic skeletons that look realistic when you display the artifacts you find. Take plenty of photos so you can align the bones the same way that you found them. The local Mayans would probably make one of the robes like the priests wore. I can make another sketch of one for them to copy.”