The Last Mayan (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Yeah. He said he was surprised I’d been able to stand her as long as I had. We actually had a pretty decent conversation. I feel sorry for what the old boy’s had to go through. Remind me, if my kid ever gets like that, to smack her in the head. If my wife ever lets me see her again, that is.”

  “Sorry.”

  He waved it away. “One of those things. You think of all kinds of things when you’re down here. Things you’d like to change, things that happened …”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m wandering. Goddamn project’s getting to me, I guess.” He rubbed his eyes. “Hell, you know how it is, Alan: While everybody else is sleeping, the director’s up writing field notes, going over the expenditures, trying to decipher other people’s field notes, going over photo logs …”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Where was I? Oh, old man Blake: The short of it is he thanked me for putting up with his daughter and asked if I’d do him ‘a further favor.’ That’s the way he put it: ‘a further favor.’ Real Old South gentry. He asked if I could see my way to keep April to the end of the field season—just another couple of weeks, until the semester starts, and she’d be coming home anyway. And he said that he’d be very grateful. So grateful he’d be honored—that’s another one of the words he used—honored to do everything he could to further assist in my important work.”

  “How much assistance was he talking about?”

  “Enough to let me keep the project going to the end of December. Enough to let me tidy up all the loose ends and get some data we need like hell. The outlier group, for instance,” he said, talking about a small group of ruins at the south end of the site. “I haven’t been able to do anything but a surface collection from that area. When I write the report, you know what people are going to say: ‘Why did he leave those? Why did he start near the north end? Why did he do this? Why the hell did he do that?’ Like I had all the frigging time and money in the world. Well, I chose the north group because it looked promising at the time: The surface collection was full of everything from Tepeu to Plumbate. When we finished with the test excavation units, though, everything was all jumbled up subsurface. But that’s not something you can predict ahead of time. But the result’s still that months were spent on an area that didn’t answer any questions at all except that the Maya built the goddamn thing, which we knew before we came here.”

  “The best part of the site’s always under your back dirt,” I said, quoting a familiar axiom in archaeology.

  “Exactly.” He leaned forward, jabbing at me with the pipe again. “But now we’ve got a chance to do something about that. We can test the southern group and some of the muuls—the stone mounds—in satellite areas. We can get some good settlement study material, and with that we can make a damn proposal they won’t be able to turn down for next year and the year after that. Hell, this goddamn dig could go on for ten more years.”

  “That would be great.”

  “To put it mildly. But you see what I’m getting to, Alan? I’ve got a commitment for the money: He told me to name a round figure and when I did the old bastard didn’t blink. He said to put it in writing and he’d call the president of the university and tell him to hire a temp for my fall classes. And since the university takes forty percent of the amount of all grants for overhead, they aren’t going to complain.”

  “Sounds like you’re set.”

  “Yeah. All I need is another archaeologist.”

  It was what I was hoping he was going to say.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “Alan, do I have to beg you? You made your goddamn bones down here. This contract work you do in the States is something you do to stay in archaeology, but this is where your heart is. This is where you belong. Pepper’s told me and I can see it all over you. Hell, people down here remember you. They know what a good archaeologist you were. This is what you want to do. Deny it.”

  I couldn’t.

  “Look, Alan, I don’t know what all went down here years ago. Pepper said a little about it.” He held up a hand. “Not much. She wasn’t blabbing. But I’ve heard a little scuttlebutt from Geraldo. He says there was a woman and I figure you got screwed over by her.”

  I felt my face redden. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s history. We’re talking about now. This year. A whole new damn millennium!”

  “I don’t know, Eric …”

  “Why not? Your business at home? Are you that indispensable? You don’t have anybody else who can handle your job?”

  “Well …”

  “Call ’em. Tell ’em you’ll fly back a couple of times to see how things are going. It’s not that far, with Cancún just a few hours up the highway. In three hours you can be at the airport and an hour and a half after that …”

  “Whoa. It’s not that simple. I have commitments, projects. …”

  “But you’re the PI, the principal investigator, right? They don’t need you there all the time. And Alan, this is the age of the fax machine and the cell phone and e-mail. Hell, they can call you or e-mail you and you can call whoever it is from down here. I’ll even pay the cost of the call.”

  I tried to imagine La Bombast, our contact at the Corps of Engineers, negotiating with me via long distance from Mexico: What do you mean, you’re not in the States? You’re where? Alan, if you think you can take the government’s money and go spend it on a beach at Cancún, you’re way off. I have a responsibility to the taxpayers and I have to tell you that if this is an example of how you conduct business …

  But how likely was it she’d call, really? Couldn’t I just be out of town when that happened? Or sick? If it was something really important, like a contract negotiation, I could fly back. Or David could fax me all the documents and I could call her from Geraldo’s and she’d never have to know I was anywhere but in the office.

  Sure.

  Alan, what’s that music in the background? Are you calling from a bar?

  Making contractors miserable was her raison d’être. She’d love having something real to complain about.

  “I might be able to arrange something,” I heard myself say.

  “Damn straight,” Eric said, excited. He jumped up and put a hand on my shoulder. “We’re alike, Alan. From everything I’ve heard about you, everything Pepper and Geraldo have said, I knew we were alike. Oh, I don’t mean in the little things. I mean in what counts: I love the Mayan people and so do you.”

  “I love Yucatán,” I said. “It may just be my romanticism, though. It’s easy to love a place when you can come and go at will. When you have modern transportation and you can get good medical treatment. It’s not the same thing as being a Mayan, though—having to deal with the economy down here, trying to make ends meet, having kids die before the age of one, having to walk two miles to a cornfield and carry charcoal back to your house with a tumpline or on a bicycle.”

  Eric let out a great laugh. “Pepper said you were like this: Full of that damned sixties guilt about anthropology and archaeology being evil because you’re exploiting folks by studying ’em. Come on, Alan. I don’t think for a minute we don’t help the people we work with. We’ve brought medicines and some damned good-paying jobs to this area. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, believe me.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” I said. “I just try to keep my perspective. But as far as staying down here with you …”

  “It’ll be worth your while,” he said. “I promise. I’ve seen you work now. We’ll get along. I may be the project director, but I’ll treat you like an equal. You can trust me on that. All I want is a good product, a project we can all be proud of. And your name will be on it. How long has it been since you’ve published in Mayan archaeology, Alan?”

  “A while,” I admitted.

  “Well, we can take care of that. What do you want to stake out? Settlement patterns? Demographics? Ceramics? Name it.”

  “It’s tempting, of course, but …�
��

  “But what?” He shook his head. “Alan, for Christ’s sake, listen: We’re not just talking about a project, we’re talking about you getting back into the field you were trained in, the field you love, being able to do what you really want to do for the rest of your life. What’s there to decide?”

  “Eric, this is sudden. I need to think …”

  “Sure. But I need to know pretty quickly. I need to start the paperwork. I have to put together a budget, and if you’re going to be in it, I need to have a salary figure.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I have to send some paperwork to the university, too, to have you put on.”

  “What?”

  “Research associate. No, better: adjunct professor. I’ll need your vita, if course, but that’s a formality.”

  He must have known he’d scored, because his little shrug said I was a fool if I doubted this was only the beginning.

  “Alan, look: You know as well as I do money talks. The academic world is no different than anywhere else. You may run a private business, but colleges are big business, too. There’s not a chancellor or university president out there who won’t bend over and take it in the butt if you bring in the green stuff. The heroes today are the money-raisers.”

  I didn’t dispute him, because what he was saying was true.

  “I lucked out with April, as ass-backwards as that seems. If it weren’t for her old man, I’d just be another academician trying to keep his head above water. Hell, when they hired me last year they wouldn’t even give me tenure, even though I was bringing them a continuation of the grant to work down here. But now I’ll get their damned tenure, because I’ll be a big hero. And it’s all luck of the draw. I’m not stupid: I know there’re fifty other faculty members out there with as many publications as I have and with better credentials in their fields. But some of ’em won’t get tenure and I will, because they didn’t hook up with the Blake family.”

  “And you’re saying …”

  “I’m saying right now, because I’ve got a little clout, I can get you on, at least in a temporary position. But that’s a foothold. Give it a year and we’ll be bringing in more money and they’ll change the damn temporary to a funded tenure-track. That’s the way it works.”

  He was right. I’d seen it work before.

  “Houston isn’t that far from Baton Rouge. Pepper’s at LSU. That’s just five hours away. Less by plane. Look, we might even be able to swing something for her. I’m thinking of a whole institute, a Mayan studies program, something that could compete with Tulane and the University of Texas. But I just can’t do it alone.”

  “I really need to think.”

  “Sure. I know this is sudden. Take a day or two. And I can work with you. I mean, arrange time away so you can keep your hand in with your business at home. I’m telling you what I see down the road, but right now we’re just talking the next few months, so you don’t have to commit yourself for the long term. You can stick your foot in the water and see if it feels good.” He gave a nervous little laugh.

  “A day,” I said. “Give me a day, Eric.”

  He took a step toward me, hand outstretched. “Fair enough. I hope you’ll decide to help me out, Alan. I think we’d make a hell of a team.”

  “Yeah.”

  I went back to our hut, my mind swirling. I hadn’t expected this and now the images were tumbling head over heels through my consciousness. A chance to reenter the academic world, to be a professor again, draw a secure salary, have students, and, most of all, work in the field in which I’d been trained. To start to make up for all those lost years …

  But was it too good to be true? In business I’d dealt with a lot of fast-talking promoters. I’d listened to visionaries wax eloquent about malls and residential golf courses and airports, some of which had never gotten off the ground and some of which had proved to be disasters. And I listened to some who’d gone on to bigger things, fueled by the success of their initial projects. I’d seen a few flim-flam artists, I’d seen some true believers, and I’d seen double-talking lawyers who promised the world and then backed out when it came time to pay the bill. I tried to run my impressions of Eric Blackburn through the filter of these experiences, but no red lights went off. The man was enthusiastic and he’d had a few drinks, but in the little time I’d known him he hadn’t blustered or expounded grandiose schemes. He seemed, in fact, as surprised as I was at his sudden good luck with Byron Blake. And if he was willing to let some of that good luck spill out on me, why should I question it? It wasn’t like I was unqualified or like he was buying me off. I’d been doing archaeology down here while he was in high school. Now he was in over his head with the project and he needed help. It made perfect sense that he should ask me.

  I slipped off my clothes and shut the door softly behind me. From under the gauzy mosquito netting I could hear Pepper’s breathing, slow and peaceful, from the big hammock. A couple of nights ago, for mutual comfort, we’d agreed that I’d string my own hammock, because the matrimonio, while fine for lovemaking, was a little cramped for normal sleeping. I lifted the mosquitero, slid into the hammock, and lay there, listening to the sound of waves lapping and the buzz of a beetle against the mosquito bar. But after a time I realized the sound of my heart was drowning out the other sounds. I turned over and tried to make myself sleep, but excitement kept shoving sleep away.

  Who’d run the business if I stayed down here? David? He was certainly capable, and Marilyn, our office manager, was the one who handled the accounts in any case. But David had gotten into archaeology for the love of it, not to formulate budgets, soothe clients, and go to meetings.

  But maybe it was time for him to learn. Why should I deprive myself?

  I must have drifted off to sleep, because at some point I ceased being in the hammock and found myself in a lecture hall, being introduced as the new Nobel Laureate in the field of Mayan studies. I started across the stage and realized, halfway across, that I’d forgotten to put on my pants and I wondered if anyone would notice.

  I never knew, because my dream was interrupted by a buzzing sound. The lecture hall vanished and I saw a Mayan priest in ancient ceremonial regalia, felling trees with a chain saw, until even this dream shattered and I recognized the sound as that of a plane coming in low. Then the sound died away and all I heard were the beetles and the waves and, I thought at one point, a door shutting somewhere in one of the other cabañas.

  FIFTEEN

  When we got up the next morning, Paul Hayes was already on his way to Mérida. But, as expected, April was still with us. No one alluded to the scene of the previous night and even though it was Saturday, April climbed into the van without protest as we started the drive to the archaeological site.

  I’d slept poorly after the plane passed over, my dreams a bizarre interweaving of imagined future work at the site and pastiches from fifteen years ago, when things had gone to hell. I didn’t say anything to Pepper about my talk with Blackburn, but it didn’t take more than a couple of hours for her to ask.

  “So talk,” she said, when she was sure there was no one else near the excavation unit but ourselves and the Mayan-speaking workers above, manning the screen. “What the hell’s going on?”

  I stood up slowly and wiped a trickle of sweat from my face. Condensation, caused by the effect of the plastic cover above us, seemed to make up in humidity for the loss of glare.

  I reached for the water bottle, took a deep swallow, and then told her what Eric had said.

  She listened, nonplussed. “Son-of-a-bitch,” she said finally. “And Minnie thought he and April were sleeping together.”

  She sat down on the edge of the excavation and picked up her own water bottle.

  “So are you going to do it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. It’s written all over you. You’re just scared of what I’ll say.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would mean living i
n different cities. Not seeing each other that much.”

  “That’s a long way down the road,” I said. “All we’re talking about now is the next few months. I mean, if this happens—and I’m not saying it will—but if it does, we’ve been apart all summer, and you were gone last summer, so it’s not like …”

  “Tit for tat, huh?”

  “Jesus, Pepper, that’s not like you. I didn’t say anything when you decided to come down here.”

  “Bullshit. I thought I was going to have to get you a therapist, the way you were moping around and looking like a whipped dog. And every letter from you had some little thing about how you guessed you’d make it okay, trying to guilt me out.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “It’s true.”

  “I missed you like hell. Is that so abnormal?”

  “So you took up with that widow in Jackson, the one who—”

  “I told you all about that,” I said quietly, surprised at her vehemence. “Nothing happened. Of course, if you don’t believe me …”

  “Oh, hell,” she swore. She got up and walked out into the sun. I started after her and then stopped. Suddenly I felt a petty sense of satisfaction.

  All this time I’d been the one agonizing about her being down here without me. I’d been jealous of Eric Blackburn and jealous of her chance to work in Mayan studies. Now, ironically, the situation was reversed and she was the one with the insecurities.

  Now she knew what I’d felt. And I realized I didn’t want anybody else to feel that way. Not someone I loved.

  I was just starting out from under the covering when I saw her coming back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was a bitch.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s just something we have to work out.”

  “Yeah. Any ideas how?”

  “I don’t know just now, but two rational people with doctorates, who love each other …”

  “Right.”

  There were steps outside and when I looked up I saw Eric. He ducked down under the canopy, sweat staining his old straw hat.