"Entry fee?" Brian asked.
"Beggar. This is a good spot, what with the tourists coming and going. She probably makes a living here, but I'm sure she has to split her take with the people who let her sit there."
The Director of Antiquities - the minister in charge of the entire country's ancient culture - occupied a dingy office up three flights of stairs. The halls were dark - there were massive chandeliers hanging far above, but the lights were off. What illumination there was came through dusty windows. The director welcomed them in and offered coffee.
In mostly French and some English they talked for half an hour about Haiti's reliance on American and British universities for archaeological help. As was also true in Mesoamerica, teams of students and professors came for several months, providing much-needed labor and expertise and occasionally making exciting discoveries. From that discussion it was an easy transition to La Navidad, and Brian told the director about their trip yesterday.
"We made an interesting discovery on the shoreline," Brian began, taking the pot and bag of coins from his satchel and putting them on the desk. "I want to apologize for disturbing an archaeological site, but I can assure you I conducted fieldwork to record the find. I'll send you all my notes, but when we found these things, I believed it was best to bring them here instead of leaving them to be stolen." It was an obvious reference to their local driver and the director nodded.
"Given your reputation in the antiquities business, I cannot fault your decision. You are somewhat of a celebrity even here in Haiti. Your television shows bring life to archaeology. Many people have become interested in the field because of you."
Brian showed him the single coin he'd cleaned and explained what he thought about it. "There are thirty-two others I've left alone," he added. "I'm hoping they can be examined in a research environment. If you will allow it, I'd be happy to take a few of the coins back to the States, where some experts I know can tell us what we have."
The director knew that was best and he trusted Brian. "Take them all," he said. "They will be better handled by you than by my own staff, I'm sorry to say. This is a very exciting discovery, but we simply don't have the manpower or the expertise to properly examine these artifacts. Just let me know what you learn about them."
He asked Tom if he'd accompany one of his staff back to Cap-Haitien soon so the ministry could properly secure the site. The agent agreed, reminding the director that it needed to happen quickly because the driver would undoubtedly keep digging.
The director understood that and explained that he didn't know when such a visit might really happen, given his limited budget. Brian had been thinking the same thing, and he told the man he'd be happy to help. He said to Tom, "If the embassy will allow you time off to accompany one of the director's men to Cap-Haitien, I'll pay for the plane and the driver. I'll donate an extra thousand dollars to secure the area, or wherever you think it's needed."
Tom thought his boss would jump at the chance to help with the project and the director was pleased. He told them it would be wonderful if Cristobal Colon's fort could be located. There would be an immediate increase in tourism, which would be a boost for the entire country’s economy. He said that for the last few decades the only activity in the area had been from some underwater archaeologists who thought they'd located the shipwreck. "I'm cautiously optimistic about where you found the coins."
The director concluded the meeting with a proposal. "You are a wealthy man, Mr. Sadler. Would you consider funding an archaeological expedition to find La Navidad? I would ensure you'd have all the necessary permits, and I'm certain we could work out an attractive split should there be a discovery."
Brian had thoroughly enjoyed the brief time today with this good-natured bureaucrat. It was unfortunate the man would never have the financial resources he needed, but Brian knew how difficult a cooperative project in Haiti would be. Much of the money an investor put up would disappear as the project progressed, requiring even more money to finish it. Brian had seen it time and again in third-world countries, and such an arrangement simply wasn't something he was willing to do. He agreed to consider it, but he also promised to send money from time to time if the minister began a formal search for La Navidad.
After the meeting, they toured the museum for a couple of hours. Tom translated the descriptions of artifacts that were in dusty cases in dingy, light-starved rooms. They visited two more galleries in the afternoon and dropped Brian at his hotel.
Brian and Tom sat in the lobby and watched a man pulling a small dirty rolling case enter the hotel. A security guard stopped him and the man handed over a slip of paper. The guard made a call and in a moment Brian's cellphone rang. They introduced themselves and escorted the shopkeeper up to Brian's room. He opened the case and removed the only things it held, two thick old books bound in what looked like leather and tied with string. He handed Brian one of them. As Brian thumbed through its pages, Tom and the man spoke in French for several minutes.
"Okay," Tom began. "Let me start by saying that most of what these guys tell you is bullshit. So here goes. This is the Barcelona Copy of Columbus's diary. He seems to think you'll be impressed by that revelation."
"Impressed? If it was, I'd be flabbergasted!" Brian exploded with a laugh. He knew what the Barcelona Copy was and the chances that he was holding it right at this moment were nil.
"I never heard of it," Tom replied, "but with these characters, it's always something far-fetched."
"To say the least. Let me explain for a minute what he's talking about."
Brian had done a fair amount of research on Columbus before this trip. At the end of his first voyage - the one on which the Santa Maria was shipwrecked here in Haiti - Columbus had turned over his logbook to the queen of Spain. She commissioned a copy - the Barcelona Copy - which she returned to Columbus in 1493. She kept the original, which has never been heard of since. The Barcelona Copy was around for years. Columbus gave it to his son Fernando, who used it to write his father's biography in 1538. By the 1550s the Barcelona Copy also disappeared.
"It was missing until this very minute." Brian chuckled. "Here I am holding one of the rarest manuscripts in the world. Priceless, in fact. It's worth millions. Can you believe our luck?"
Although Brian was certain it wasn't what the man claimed, the book was nonetheless very interesting. It was clearly very old and its title declared it to be the record of Cristobal Colon's first journey to the New World in 1492–1493. There were well over a hundred well-worn and tattered pages filled with faded words, drawings, charts and calculations in a flowing cursive script. Brian powered up his laptop and opened an article he'd seen earlier. He read for a couple of minutes, turned back to the old book, examined more pages, and then spoke to Tom.
"Tell him it's not the Barcelona Copy. I'm not interested in talking further if he wants to claim it is. But it has value simply because it's old. I'd like to know where he got it and if it actually belongs to him."
Tom translated. "He says he obtained it a year ago from a Spaniard. He defers to your vastly superior knowledge" - he rolled his eyes at Brian - "and says he bought it thinking it really was the Barcelona Copy. He paid many thousands of dollars for it, of course. Since you say it isn't real, he will take a loss if he must, because he has been duped."
"Let's put this one aside for a minute and see what else he brought."
Brian untied the string and opened the cover as the man began to describe it. It was in much better condition than the other and Brian quickly saw why. Presuming the first book was from the late fifteenth-century Columbus era, this one was at least three hundred years newer. The handwritten words on the title page took him aback.
Le Journal de Pierre Duplanchier, première partie. Ne St. Domingue (courament Haiti) 1647. Mort Nouvelle Orleans 1796.
It didn't take a degree in French to figure out those three sentences, but he didn't know the two words after Pierre's name. He interrupted Tom, showed them to him and was
told the lines read "The Journal of Pierre Duplanchier, part one. Born St. Domingue, now Haiti, 1647. Died New Orleans, 1796."
So this was supposedly the diary of old Pierre, the man who'd come from Haiti to New Orleans in 1699. He knew this could really be interesting, and he thumbed through page after page of handwritten entries. Brian figured the shopkeeper considered the Columbus journal the valuable one, and he'd probably brought the other simply because it was another old diary. But this one was by far the most interesting and he knew Oliver would think so too.
"What language is this, French?" he asked Tom.
He glanced at several pages and replied, "You're lucky I'm a language freak. I recognize some of the words as Creole, but they're mixed in with French ones in a sentence structure that hasn't been used for centuries. It's nothing like what you'd see today. It would be like comparing Chaucer's English to what modern Americans speak."
That was exciting news. Maybe this truly was Pierre's diary! But something was niggling at the back of his mind - something that had seemed odd.
Wait a second! It was the dates! As he turned back to the title page, he recalled back in New Orleans when Oliver had showed him the Duplanchier family tree. 1796 was the date of death on Pierre's tomb just as it was on the title page of this book. Oliver had estimated his date of birth at 1679 although that made almost no sense when they tried to calculate his offspring, and it would have made him over a hundred when he died. But this book made things even more confusing. Here his birth date was listed as 1647.
An adult named Pierre Duplanchier was on le Moyne's boat in 1699, so that date of birth was possible. Pierre could have landed in New Orleans at age fifty-two - but the date of death couldn't be the date on Pierre's tomb in New Orleans. He couldn't have died a hundred and forty-nine years later. He looked at the page, trying to think of what the author intended. Was it a clue?
The shopkeeper observed Brian's interest in the second book. He said something and Tom relayed, "Our friend here sees you like that one. He says it's very rare. It's the journal of a voodoo king. That statement's about as far-fetched as the other one was."
"Maybe not," Brian said. "How much for both?"
There was discussion, defiant head-shaking, grimacing and shrugging.
"Ten thousand dollars."
Brian closed the Duplanchier journal and began to wrap the string back around it. "Tell him thanks for his time, but I'm not interested."
More fevered, intense conversation.
"He says he is certain the Columbus diary will lead you to the fortress of La Navidad. Then you will be fabulously rich and famous too. To help you, he's willing to take a huge haircut on that one. He'll sell it for five thousand and throw in the other book for nothing."
"I'll give him four hundred dollars for both."
The man shook his head vigorously and countered at two thousand.
"We're too far apart. I'll pass," Brian declared, knowing this wasn't over. He took both books and put them in the man's suitcase, but the vendor stayed seated on the bed, seemingly deep in thought.
"Thank you," Brian said at last, extending his hand, but the man ignored him.
At last the man spoke to Tom. "Twelve hundred for both. Final offer."
Brian had been in this situation a hundred times, and after the latest counter he knew this transaction would happen. He was ready; he had five hundred dollars in each of his four jean pockets. If he made a deal, he wouldn't have to show his entire stash.
He pulled out five one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them on the bed. "Final offer. Take it or leave it."
The man shook his head. He stood, zipped his suitcase, rolled it to the door and stepped out into the hall. Just as Brian was about to be proven wrong, he wheeled around and said, "I take it." He handed over the journals and pocketed the money. Then he was gone.
Tom wondered why Brian had been willing to pay so much money. "Undoubtedly something got your attention. Do you mind telling me what you think these are?"
"How about you go off duty? I'll buy you a drink and dinner to repay you for your hospitality and especially for the translating I couldn't have done without. And I'll explain why I went out on a limb for these books."
Tom agreed at once. He had found Brian's visit a pleasant break from his routine at the embassy and looked forward to hearing more.
"There's a great Creole restaurant - maybe the best in town - a couple of blocks from here," he suggested. Brian replied that he was starving and it sounded wonderful. Tom got the concierge to book a table while Brian put the coins and books in the hotel safe since now the one in his room wouldn't hold everything.
At dinner Brian explained what the Columbus book might be. It almost certainly wasn't the Barcelona Copy, but it could still be authentic. Friar Bartolome de las Casas had been with Columbus on his first voyage. Like Columbus's son, the cleric had used the Barcelona Copy to create another one. His version was written around 1530 and it portrayed the admiral as an overambitious tyrant. This wasn't it either - that one was in a museum in Spain. But the existence of several copies meant this could be yet another, created around the same time. And it might hold clues about the site of La Navidad.
"The other book's more interesting to me," he revealed, explaining his having seen the Duplanchier family tree while visiting a friend in New Orleans. "This one could help us solve some missing pieces about one of New Orleans' oldest families." He didn't mention the puzzling dates, nor had Tom apparently noted it.
"The guy said it was a voodoo king's journal," Tom recalled. "Could it be?"
"Yes. In the 1700s the Duplanchiers lived across the street from the Laveaus, and they were undeniably involved with voodoo. I think this journal could give my friend in New Orleans some new information."
"I'm glad I could help and I've learned a lot in the past couple of days. You've got me hooked on Columbus now." They agreed to keep each other updated if anything new developed.
The next morning he called Oliver from the airport and gave him a recap of events. The discovery of thirty-three coins was exciting news, especially since they could mark the site of La Navidad, but the books were even more intriguing.
Oliver thought Brian had done well negotiating the price of the coins but even more the two volumes, since both could be significant.
"If you happened to have bought the Barcelona Copy, then we've won the lottery, but I'm not getting my hopes up on that one. It disappeared in the mid-1500s in Spain and I doubt it ended up in Haiti. We may still have hit a jackpot if it's one of the copies dating from the sixteenth century. It would be one of maybe two or three that exist and the only one not in a museum."
"What about the other book? I think it's the journal of Pierre Duplanchier and I'm anxious to find out what's in it. I can't stop thinking about it, but there's no way I can translate it!" He told Oliver the book was apparently written in a mixture of Creole and early French. "One interesting thing I did see was that Pierre's date of birth was shown as 1647. If he's the same one - the guy you pegged around 1679 - then we still have a date problem. He'd be way too old to have died in 1796. What do you make of that?"
Oliver's words resounded with excitement. "Maybe when the book’s translated we'll learn something about the dates. I need to see it. I studied the Creole language in university and I can probably read it. I want to see the last pages and find out where part one ends. Since the book was in Haiti, I'm hoping it ends when Pierre left on the boat in 1699. That would be fascinating! Can you send it to me so I can get to work on it? Maybe by the time you're home we'll have exciting information!"
It sounds as though the journal really may be Pierre's, Oliver thought to himself. If it is, I need to get hold of it. There could be things in there that no one else needs to know.
Since Brian was en route to Guatemala City, he had needed a plan for the coins and the book anyway. He flew to Miami, cleared customs and then went to a FedEx counter in the concourse. He shipped Oliver the books, the pot and
all the coins except one. He kept the single coin he'd wiped clean. It was going to be his good luck piece for the rest of the trip.
Before lunch at the airport, he spoke with Nicole. "Remember all of your concern about the dangers of Haiti? I'm reporting in to advise the dangerous part of the trip's over and I'm off to Guatemala in three hours."
She breathed a sigh of relief; Brian knew his way around that country and was decent in Spanish. It was still third-world, but it didn't scare her like Haiti had.
He told her about finding a pot of coins and buying the two old books and she could sense his excitement. "Once I got here, I shipped everything to Oliver so I didn't have to take them on the rest of the trip." He told her that the single coin he had examined was Spanish and probably from the 1400s, potentially tying it to Columbus and his doomed fortress. He talked about the two books but didn't have much to offer. The real work on those would be done by the expert - Oliver himself.
"Stay safe, sweetie," she said. "I'm so glad the scary part’s over. Come back as quickly as you can."
He promised to do just that; if things worked out, he hoped to surprise her by being home tomorrow night. Since everything would have to fall into place for that to happen, he didn't get her hopes up. Things didn't always go as planned in Central America.
CHAPTER TEN
Chichicastenango, Guatemala, was a beautiful town with fifty thousand residents mostly of Mayan descent, nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains. Chichi, as everyone called it, was remote and wasn't an easy drive from the main highway. Most tourists came to visit its sprawling crafts market, a veritable city of stalls and narrow passageways extending for blocks that flanked the ancient church of Santo Tomas Apostol. Locals for miles around came to town on weekends. The market and the church were a place for socializing with friends and family and the party atmosphere lasted from dawn until late at night.
The Black Cross Page 7
