The Kukulkan Manuscript (5 page)

But that hadn’t been the end of their relationship. Relatively, it was still sprouting. Chris had begged Kinnard’s forgiveness and told him he’d gone back to Mr. Hefleiter’s shop to return the candy. Kinnard never knew that for certain, but forgave him and decided to avoid the store for a few weeks.

The two boys grew up together as close pals all the way into high school.

A similar unhappy experience happened in their early dating days.

Ulman ditched his girlfriend, Lily Ungar, at a dance he’d taken her to their junior year. Kinnard found him hiding around the back of the building with Jennifer Broachman where they were kissing away. Kinnard saved his friend from a near disaster when Lily went looking for her boyfriend. Evidently, Lily and Chris had hidden in the same place to learn how to smooch just a year before, so she knew the spot well. Kinnard had to warn his friend without letting his date wonder where he’d gone. Of course, the chaperons were looking out for stragglers, so Kinnard had to dodge them. And if Lily spotted Troy walking alone in the dark, she’d know for sure his best friend, Chris, would be near.

Kinnard ended up climbing through a small window, or rather a fair-sized one, a little too high for his steadily swelling size. He broke the glass, ripped his jacket, and barely got away without being caught stuck in the portal.

Ulman also escaped, but got a scolding later from his friend. Chris must have known it was coming.

Kinnard had continued to save Ulman throughout his life. They both made unwise mistakes, but only Ulman made such absurd choices that they always required Kinnard to pull him out in the end.

Kinnard grew to be large and muscular while Ulman remained small. Size opened a number of avenues for Kinnard, but Ulman found few and thus sought escape from an unfair world through books. Fate gifted Ulman with an exceptional memory. It was a door to a level of prestige neither of the boys could have expected. In time, Ulman became the example and Kinnard the follower. Ulman wanted to study ancient history, so they both did. When Ulman went to Chicago University, Kinnard stayed close behind. They parted ways when graduate school came along, but both sought higher education in similar fields. Ulman went into the nit-picky study of archaeology with a focus in Central and South America, while Kinnard chose to follow the advice of a favorite professor and examine areas of oriental studies. Ulman graduated with a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Minnesota and quickly joined the staff at Stratford University in California.

Kinnard and Ulman remained close while Kinnard slowly finished his studies in Arizona after a short time at the American University in Cairo. Both became professors at Stratford, where they laughed about the past and murmured together concerning the future.

Well, the morrow had evidently arrived, and the grass wasn’t green.

Kinnard rubbed his eyes until they stung, then kept smashing them until the stinging went away.

“What is Ulman doing?” Kinnard said to his wrists.

Three knocks from the door.

Kinnard dropped his hands and tried to focus his bloodshot eyes. “Come in.”

John Porter was already standing in the room, but Kinnard couldn’t tell who it was.

Porter stepped forward and sat in the chair in front of Kinnard’s desk while speaking. “I apologize for not calling for an appointment. If you’re busy, I’ll understand.”

Kinnard watched Porter get comfortable in the chair, slouching a bit. It was obvious the student hoped to stick around and considered Kinnard a close enough acquaintance to freely relax in his small office.

Smiling, Kinnard looked out the window. “I’m always busy, but don’t worry about it.”

The window was of fair size and hung in the middle of the room on Kinnard’s right. The office was cramped and overlooked the married student housing district of Stratford University. At least he had a window. Pine bookshelves without paint or stain covered the walls behind him and to his left, and the tidy desk, a dark wood that didn’t fit in the white room at all, stretched nearly from wall to wall, making it difficult to get around. Actually, the contents on the top of the desk were orderly by Kinnard’s standards, though it needed serious dejunking in the opinion of the secretary just beyond the wall. Files, open books by Philip K. Hitti, Ibn-Khalhkan, and Kinnard himself, and a large pile of unread papers hid the tabletop calendar that covered two feet by two and a half of his desk’s surface. In the center of the heaps sat Ulman’s brown package of soiled paper, which Kinnard gently moved to the floor on his left.

Kinnard examined the graduate student sitting before him. John D. Porter. Fair height, medium build, thin-boned. He wore a white button-down shirt and silver-gray slacks. Nice shoes: the ultimate judge of character. Porter had young skin, which made him look to be in his twenties rather than in his thirties. His thin hair had been cut short and rested like brown silk, slightly parted on one side, but otherwise simple—a commodity not found often in today’s society. It made Kinnard think of the far-too-modern Dr. Richmond for a moment. Richmond wore a style like many of the freshman young men: cropped in back, the hair grown out long on top; the result was a constant pouring forth of hair in front, which protruded outward from his face, leaving only a four inch tunnel of dark hair through which to see. Kinnard thought it was ridiculous, but then his own hair had thinned and now he was completely bald on top. Kinnard wore dark-rimmed glasses, a weak prescription, so at least he could take them off whenever possible. And the dark hair that wrapped around the sides of Kinnard’s head had begun to gray a few years ago. He didn’t consider himself as handsome as he used to be, but then he didn’t know why he was thinking about it. He hated pondering his looks.

“How’s your paper coming?” Kinnard said, rubbing his eyes again.

Nodding comfortably, Porter said, “Fine. I can have a copy of it to you by Friday.”

“That would be nice,” Kinnard lied. He had at least twenty-five thick essays to read and couldn’t pass them on to assistants because they came from the assistants. All he needed was another anchor to pull him down. He cursed Ulman inwardly and then all who worked for him.

“If you’d rather, I could give a quick oral overview of the project,” Porter said. “Stratford has reminded me recently I have other pressing work to get started on.”

“What’s that?”

“My dissertation.”

Kinnard stopped. His tired eyes looking over the tips of his fingers. His mind churned. Porter doesn’t have his dissertation done, he thought. How long has he been working at Stratford? It’s not seven years yet….

“I have this semester to do it—”

“May twenty-first?” Kinnard said, his eyebrows going up. “Can’t be done.”

“I appreciate the pessimism, but you know I’m not your regular Joe Bloggs student,” said Porter with his best humble grin.

That was for sure! Kinnard smiled. Few students were so comfortable around a supervising professor that they started bragging about their intelligence—especially in light of threatening impossibilities.

“I think I can accomplish the task, Professor Kinnard…but I could use your help.”

“How much help,” Kinnard said. His voice was strong. He could imagine getting sucked into some big project in order to save a student who hadn’t used his time efficiently. Of course, Kinnard also knew he was partly to blame. Instead of directing Porter toward his dissertation, he’d had the assistant running around doing dirty work. Kinnard had too many other jobs to attack.

“Well,” Porter said with a weak smile that quickly went away, “I could use an idea for direction.”

“You said you’d give me an oral review of your paper?” Kinnard leaned back in his chair. The high back of the seat squeaked.

Porter nodded. Kinnard could see the student fiddling with the dry skin on his knuckles.

Kinnard lifted a hand.

“Well,” said Porter. “I think I’ve found sufficient evidence indicating Nabataean trade with China.”

“Something new? Like what?”

Porter licked his lips and looked through the desk as he spoke. “The Parthians regulated the trade of most Indian merchandise—”

“And we know the Nabataeans traded with the Parthians. But that only indicates trade as far as Parthia.”

Porter nodded with a grin. “But I may also have found evidence of a Nabataean temple in Tengyueh.”

“
You
do. Who found it?” said Kinnard, focusing a little more on Porter.

“Dr. Bertrand from Crispin University in Maryland.”

“I’ve never heard of him or his college,” Kinnard said.

“Bertrand’s a Berkeley graduate, younger than I am, who’s taken the chair of the History department at Crispin. Crispin’s the youngest university in the states.” Porter straightened his slouching posture.

“Why haven’t I heard of it,” said Kinnard. His mind floated back to Ulman’s package. He thought he could smell the dusty paper. He tried to regain his declining attention in order to sound coherent. “Where did you say it was again?”

“Still small. You don’t have plans to leave Stratford, do you Dr. Kinnard?”

Kinnard didn’t bother shaking his head. He nudged away the image of Ulman writing quickly in some beaten box he called a house in the mountains of southern Guatemala. His mind finally clicked back to Porter’s insinuations. Evidence of a Nabataean temple site in China was sufficient to alter the history books—something scholars love to do. Relics of Nabataean temple sites had been found in Rhodes in the Aegean sea and Puteoli, just north of Naples, Italy, indicating such a high degree of trade that permanent structures were required so that Nabataean traders traveling afar could still worship Dhu-Shara, Hadad, Al-Uzza, and the rest of their gods.

“Refresh my memory; where’s Tengyueh, exactly,” he said. Kinnard was a professor of Ancient Near Eastern studies, and regardless of what he may have learned in the past, he continued to recognize areas of his own ignorance—something many of his colleagues refused to do.

He saw Porter smile before speaking. At least someone was happy with Kinnard’s deteriorating mind. “In China. Southwest from Yangtze Kiang. Close to the Northeast border of Burma.”

Kinnard nodded. “And this Beartrend—”

“Bertrand.”

“—thinks he found a Nabataean temple site?”

Porter shifted in the chair. “Not…exactly…but what he describes, the pictures he presented…it looks Nabataean to me.”

Kinnard’s tense eyebrows relaxed.

In other words, Porter didn’t have anything at all. Just another organized example in speculation. Porter was a master at this sort of thing, but plenty of people disagreed with him as a common practice.

“I think you’ll agree with me, once you read—or hear—my paper.”

“I’m sure,” Kinnard said without interest. Porter was in a difficult situation, and they both knew it. He looked at the Near East books on his desk. “Do you intend to continue your study of the Nabataeans for your dissertation? It will definitely give you something to argue.”

Porter stuttered a moment, then said, “I was…hoping for—for some advice.”

Leaning forward and putting his elbows on his desk, Kinnard looked Porter right in the eyes. “You know, some universities don’t even accept students anymore without some idea of their intended thesis. Stratford just hasn’t jumped onto the wagon yet. Do you realize the predicament you’re in?”

“I am well-reminded,” Porter replied without feeling. He knew he was stuck, and it was obvious. But Kinnard could see that the student planned to go out fighting. May twenty-first was still a full two months away.

“I don’t think I can help you, Mr. Porter.” Kinnard said, leaning back and putting his hands in the air. “I’d love to, but I don’t have any ideas for you.” He let his hands fall to his lap and sighed. “You really should have come to me sooner.”

Porter nodded to the window, squinting his eyes. He stood and put his hands on his thin hips. His lips twisted as he thought. “Then I’ll come up with something on the Nabataeans.”

The problem was, Nabataean finds were relatively few and didn’t say all that much. Besides, Dr. Glueck and a few others had already said it all. How Porter could come up with a new Nabataean idea in the next few weeks, then write, present, and argue a paper about it by the end of the semester seemed impossible. They both knew it. Porter was in real trouble.

“Call me tomorrow,” Kinnard said, glancing from his desk to his student, to his desk again, then back to his student. His face showed no emotion. The gravity of the game demanded seriousness. Kinnard’s brown skin hardened, and his muscular jaw flexed. He had to think this out. Turning his eyes and hands to the papers on his desk, he said in a low tone, “Pray for magic, and maybe we’ll come up with some.”

Porter nodded without a sound, without a smile, without a single sparkle in his eyes. He closed the door behind him.

March 25
11:27 a.m. PST

“What do you think you’re do’n here!?!” the old man bellowed. He was lean and tall, but had a hunched back and a mustache that drooped to his chin. All his thinning hair had gone gray. He once said he’d been a huge boxer before old age had settled in, which was why he kept the nick-name, Bruno, and his bar-bouncer attitude.

Porter froze halfway in the glass door frame. “Just came for more fries.”

“And all my hot chocolate, right?” Bruno wore a white T-shirt, stained yellow by years of grease and the colored bulbs in the place.

“I’ll drink cup after cup ‘til you take away the ‘free refills’ promise in your menu.”

Bruno smiled and continued wiping down tables while Porter, wrapped in the restaurant’s scent of juicy chicken, took his seat. “So what’ll it be?”

“Same ol’.”

Porter chose his table by the door. He always did. Bruno said it was for a quick escape, and regularly thought up reasons which might necessitate such a flight. Porter said he might need to make a quick get-away due to the food served in Bruno’s cafe. Bruno blamed Porter’s choice of food or his uneducated taste buds. Sometimes Porter would actually come and eat a meal like normal people: biscuits and gravy in the morning, a hamburger around lunch time, or some fish or a French dip for dinner. But generally, Porter ordered a cup of hot chocolate, a plate of French fries, and a side of ranch dressing. He’d dip the fries in the dressing and order the advertised free refills of the hot chocolate a minimum of five times before leaving. And he did this at any hour of the day.