For the moment it seemed that he did. His directions were concise and accurate, and the tiny Mayan workmen were used to lifting heavy things in cramped spaces. Working efficiently, they spoke quietly to each other in their soft, rustly language. In twenty minutes they had one edge of the lid raised three or four inches, enough to force several wooden rods under it to prop it up.
Howard jumped forward as soon as they were in place, his flashlight already flicked on. He knelt in front of the chest like a man before an altar and shone the light into the narrow opening, leaning forward to get his eyes up against the crevice. For long seconds there was no sound other than the clinking of the metal flashlight barrel against the rim of the chest as he moved it along.
He peered into the chest without saying anything, forearms braced against the rim, forehead leaning on them. The only sound now was an erratic flutter above their heads, like spattering fat: insects igniting against the lights. Nobody in the crew spoke, nobody moved. If they were like Gideon they weren't even breathing. Howard's back was to them, his soft, slabby shoulders buttery with sweat. He looked, thought Gideon, as if he were well on the way to melting into a greasy puddle at the foot of the chest, like something out of H. P. Lovecraft.
"Jesus Christ,” he said; tight-voiced and expressionless. “Gideon, look at this."
Swallowing hard, his neck aching with anticipation, Gideon moved forward, not sure whether Howard was looking at the find of the century or the letdown of his life. When he stepped into the recess, stalagmites crunched underneath him, a startlingly crisp sensation in the mucky heat. He dropped to one knee beside Howard while the others watched avidly. Howard shone the light into the chest for him.
Gideon leaned intently forward, profoundly grateful for his life. What other occupation offered moments like this?
Once he got used to the bobbing shadows from Howard's trembling flashlight his reaction was piercing disappointment. There was nothing in the chest but a few dusty, common objects like hundreds of other objects from dozens of other digs: a few jade beads in a heap; a pair of ear ornaments made from scallop shells; two painted plates; and two slim, rectangular, neatly folded bundles of bark lying side by side, also daubed with paint. They all had value from a scholarly point of view, but they were definitely not the find of the century. Why in the world had the Maya gone to such elaborate trouble to hide and preserve this homely junk?
But Gideon was a physical anthropologist; bones were his specialty, not artifacts. Howard was an archaeologist, and he knew better. The flashlight jerked in his hand.
"A codex!” he whispered thickly.
Gideon looked again and of course they weren't simple bundles of bark at all. Now he could see the glyphs across the tops of the leaves and the comicstrip-like panels with their gaudy drawings as the beam from Howard's flashlight picked them out. It was a Mayan codex, a pre-Conquest Mayan “book,” lying on its spine, opened in the middle so the two halves lay flat.
His lips parted for speech, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe it was the find of the century after all. At least in Mayan archaeology.
Chapter 4
Literally of the century. There were only three other Mayan codices in existence, and the last one had been found in 1860. All of them were owned by state libraries-in Dresden, Madrid, and Paris-and none were yet completely translated. Assuming that the subject matter of this one was like the others', the fund of knowledge about Mayan ceremony, religion, and language had just been increased by a whopping thirty-three-and-a-third percent.
Howard invited the rest of the crew into the recess to have a look. Whether more than one or two had any idea of the significance of what they saw was doubtful, but they peered through the slit into the stone chest in respectful silence, then backed off a few steps to leave the two anthropologists to their professional talk.
"God, do you know what that must be worth?" Howard exclaimed with a rumble of laughter.
A telling comment, but not quite up to professional standards; not in Gideon's view. Its market value was irrelevant; the codex was the property of the Republic of Mexico and properly so. It would never be sold.
"It could be the most significant Mayan find since Palenque,” Gideon said stuffily, as much for the crew's benefit as Howard's.
It didn't do much to enlighten Howard. “I could get you two million bucks for that tomorrow,” he said. “Easy."
He laughed again and stood up. “Let's get on with it.” He turned to give instructions to the foreman on completing the delicate process of levering up the lid and getting it off without damaging the intricate inscriptions.
Gideon retreated to an unoccupied corner of the landing and watched quietly, occasionally wiping the sweat from his eyes. He was no expert in this kind of work, which had more in common with engineering than with anthropology.
Neither was Howard, it turned out. As he and the laborers grunted, pouring sweat, to wedge more poles under the lid, something went wrong. One of the poles was tapped too sharply with a sledgehammer and popped out like a cork to clatter on the floor. The great lid teetered to the right, swayed on its ropes like a colossal pendulum while the workers fought to balance it, and then, with agonizing slowness, tipped and went grinding ponderously over the rim of the chest with a sound like that of the last terrible block sliding into place at the end of Aida. It smashed into the wall, one of its richly carved corners crumbling away. That was bad enough, but on its way it also bumped against one of the props that had been erected as shoring while the passageway was dug out.
The prop was knocked off its footing, and for a breathless moment it hung askew, suspended from the crossbeam above it. Then the crossbeam groaned and came down, and it seemed as if half the vaulted ceiling followed with a roar and a billow of sour, choking dust. There were frightened shouts, but when the coughing stopped they found, amazingly enough, that none of the big, wedge-shaped stone blocks had hit anybody, although everyone had been showered with the rubble that the ancient Maya had used to fill their interior walls. Gideon came out of it with another dent in his straw hat and a scrape on the back of his hand. One of the crew had broken his watch; another had chipped a tooth somehow. Almost everyone was coughing and spitting.
While Gideon was still checking to make sure they were all right, Howard hissed sharply; a sigh of relief.
"It's okay,” he called shakily, meaning the codex.
It had been shielded by the lid, which still lay across the chest at an angle. Only Gideon seemed to notice that the wonderful bas-reliefs had been chipped by falling rock in four or five places. Add those to the broken corner, and a gloriously preserved find was now just another piece of moldering Mayan art. And it was going to get worse if Howard persisted. But surely he would quit now and sit down to do some planning.
But no. “All-right,” he said in a way that told Gideon he was just getting started. “All right now."
He spat dirt from his mouth, leaned over the chest, and shoved his sleek arm under the lid as far as he could, grimacing with the effort. But he could only get it in up to his elbow, and with a grunt of frustration he jerked it out. He got to his feet and stared sullenly at the lid, as if it were keeping him from the codex out of stubborn perversity. Two angry-looking welts from the rough stone ran down his forearm, slowly oozing blood. Apparently he hadn't noticed.
"I'm going to need everyone's help,” he said. “Preston, Gideon, Leo, you three-"
Gideon decided there had to be a confrontation, like it or not. “Howard-” He had to stop to wipe the dust from his lips with the back of his hand. Perspiration had turned it to a gritty mud. “I think we'd better stop right now and get everyone out of here. This place is going to need more shoring up."