My grad assistant, Hector, and I flew into Valladolid several hours earlier and rented a Jeep so we could do a little shopping before Crystal landed. Our anonymous benefactor gave UNAM enough money that we had weekly use of a helicopter for supply runs. Most of the nonlocal staff flew into the international airport, so we timed Crystal's arrival for a special supply run. Hector requested a PIXIE to be shipped in, so this trip wasn’t a waste of resources. The PIXIE analyzed materials otherwise too difficult to move from its current location.
By the time we completed our shopping, it was time to wait for Crystal's flight. My daughter and I spent several weekends a year camping in the Rocky Mountains, and although the Yucatan Jungle was not Colorado, it was rugged in its own way. We were far enough away from civilization that we relied on satellite communication for both voice and data. The river north of camp was too congested and too shallow to boat our supplies in. I heard snippets of a conversation with Dr. Banuelos saying they were planning on clearing a road, but we were months away from that happening. The camp was, unfortunately, smack dab in the middle of nowhere.
After buying some supplies and picking up Hector’s PIXIE, we arrived at Crystals gate with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed and that left me pacing back and forth. Although it was warm here in Mexico, inclimate weather in Colorado in March is not unheard of, and so I tried to be patient.
"You will wear out the floor if you keep it up, boss."
"Hector, her idea of Mexico is Cancun. I just hope she doesn’t judge it too harshly.”
"I'm sure she'll love it."
I didn't share the same sentiment but hoped she'd give it a chance. The last thing we needed was a whiny teenager complaining about the weather every few minutes. I wouldn't worry about it any longer as she was escorted through customs. Since she was a minor, the airline helped her through the process. She saw me and broke for me.
"Welcome to Mexico, kiddo."
Crystal ran up and threw her arms around my neck. "I've missed you, Dad. You don't call; you don't write..."
"Oh stop it, I email daily. I can’t call you on the satellite phone every day. Damn thing is expensive."
"What? How am I going to call Jamal every day?”
“You two are still dating?"
"Yup."
"Well, he’ll have to wait for you to get back home.” I liked Jamal, but he was more into sports than he was into my daughter. It’s too bad she didn’t realize it. “How's your Spanish coming?"
"I can't learn Spanish in two months, Dad. I can say, 'hello' and 'Where is the restroom,' that's it."
“Please tell me you can say it in Spanish and not the English you just said.”
Crystal slapped my arm. “Si, Papi.”
I smiled. “Honey, this is Hector. He’s my grad from San Antonio.”
“Nice to meet you, Crystal,” Hector said while holding out his hand.
Crystal eyed him up and down and then winked. “I’m Crystal. If all the guys are as hot as you, I might like it here.”
I groaned and shoved Hector down and silently prayed he’d close his mouth soon. “Crystal, please don’t cause me any trouble. You’re still seventeen.”
“God, Dad. He’s cute, but he’s not getting into my pants.”
Hector started laughing so hard he chocked, so I cuffed him and grabbed Crystal’s bag. “Let’s keep it that way,” I mumbled under my breath.
Yup. My daughter’s barely in Mexico and within three minutes was making my life hard again. They exchanged niceties while waiting at baggage claim. I was glad she brought her Air Force Academy duffle bag. My brother, Allan, gave my daughter a duffle bag for Christmas one year. The bag had her name embroidered underneath the Academy logo and was easy to locate.
We exited the airport and stepped into the sauna-like weather of the Yucatan Peninsula. I could tell that Crystal will struggle with the humidity. She had straightened her hair this morning, and that would never hold. I should have warned her that moisture and natural curls are best friends. Jungles don't care if you like straight hair or not.
“It’s worse than Atlanta in August. Is it always so humid?”
"Crystal, the humidity isn't even that high, wait until we get to camp.”
Hector should have learned not to talk to Crystal earlier, but he decided to open his mouth again. ”When I first got here, I had to shower twice a day. Now, I go days without anyone noticing."
"Is that what I smell? Thought I stepped in rotten cabbage!”
"I've been trying to decide how to let Hector know he smelled,” I said with a smirk. “Thank you for saving me the trouble."
We laughed for a few minutes while we made our way to the Jeep. Hector took her duffel bag and stowed it next to him in the back while Crystal jumped in front with me. The drive to the small airfield with the helicopter wasn't that long, and before you knew it, we’d loaded up and flying to camp.
###
Crystal had never been in a helicopter and spent the entire ride pointing out landmarks, ruins, villages, and pretty much anything that caught her eye. I was smiling like a little boy in a candy store because she was enjoying herself. Even with the headphones, you had to yell over the noise, so I spent my time watching her. She reminds me so much of my late wife it hurts. I find myself seeing my wife in her mannerism, especially when she smiled. It’s the little things she says or does that nails home how much I miss my wife. It’s been over five years since Ruth died from cancer and I wish she could see how amazing our daughter has turned out.
All too soon I saw the camp as we circled so Crystal could see the temple walls on the north end of camp. The temple was buried under eight feet of soil as if buried intentionally. There is a lot we don’t know about the Mayan culture, and we’re still finding ancient cities and temples in the Americas, but this temple kept surprising me.
"That was fun!” Crystal exclaimed once she doffed her headset. “Do you fly in helicopters every week? I might change my mind about archeology. I can't believe how dense the jungle is."
Her questions and statements rattled off one after another without waiting for either Hector or me to respond. Hector chuckled at her behavior and ducked away to unload our supplies before I could say anything. The landing pad sat on an elevated flat mound overlooking the temple and camp. The area had been cleared away, so it gave a semi-unobstructed view of our home away from home. It was a jungle, and we had plenty of trees, but at least you could see the tents and temple from up here.
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Our camp was laid out in a rotary design with our research tent set in the middle. The infirmary sat closest, and I noticed that Doctors Marler and Landry were making their way up to meet my daughter. Dr. Marler had become a close friend over the past couple months. He had a family practice in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota before retiring, but his wife died a few years back, so worked with archeologist as a way to escape. I understood all too well what it was like to be a widower and was glad Doc signed on for this project. He looked liked he wore a Santa suit each Christmas and was as friendly as Saint Nick.
Dr. Landry was an enigma. She had a movie star look to her if you could get past her personality. I’m not talking the pin-up girl, but Dr. Landry defiantly had the girl next door look working for her. She had chestnut brown hair and if you ever caught her smiling, dimples. However, ‘personable’ is a description you’d never assign Dr. Landry. You called her Dr. Landry, or she'd lecture about respecting the degree. Don’t get me wrong, she has a hell of a pedigree and deserves all the respect she demands. However, when you're in a camp with six Ph.D.'s or in Doc's case, an MD, the protocol gets tiresome. She taught at a well-respected university in Louisiana and was smarter than anyone else in camp, but her attitude was off-putting.
Crystals once semi-straight hair transformed into a curly disaster. Crystal kept messing with it, but her hair ties were still in her duffel, so nothing she tried seemed to help. Dr. Landry noticed her plight and offered her a hair tie that magically appeared in her hand. I introduced everyone, but Crystal was too excited to pay much attention, and so I apologized for cutting our greetings short and took Crystal on a campus tour.
"I guess you could say we're on the southern spoke. This building here is where Dr. Marler reigns in all things medical. He's fortunate enough to have an outhouse between here and the research tent since he’s so full of shit.”
Crystal laughed at my dumb joke, but I knew she was rolling her eyes. We took a left at the research tent, and I showed her the mess, communication and supply tents. I gestured to the berm behind us where we deposited the debris from the excavation of the temple.
“The temple was buried under a lot of soil. It’s taken us a long time to clear away the dirt and haul it over here. Francisco is still trying to uncover the entrance; I expect we’ll do that in the next day or so.”
“You’ve been here for two months.”
“It takes time. You can’t just use a backhoe. We’ve been finding jewelry, pottery, stone carvings and signs that this area used to be populated fairly heavily. Unfortunately, no human remains have been found, but we’re still looking for the village or city that would have been built around it.”
“There are no homes?”
“Not yet, but we’ll find support structures sooner or later. Now that we know how deep to dig, it’s a matter of time.”
We walked back past the research tent towards our housing section. Our living area occupied the majority of the east side of the campsite and I, like the other Ph.D.’S, had a private tent. 'Tent' is used loosely. When Francisco said “glamping” he meant it. Glamorous camping has its advantages. All I needed now was plumbing and a kitchen to make my life pure comfort.
Earlier, I'd arranged for Francisco, who acted as our quartermaster, to set up a bed for my daughter. He provided a small footlocker that contained bathroom supplies a woman will need and I came close to slapping myself for not thinking of it. He was smarter than me as well.
Crystal dropped her bag near the entrance forcing me to step over it. "This is a big tent, does everyone get a tent for themselves?"
“The brains do.”
Crystal ignored my response and sat down at my desk and started to rifle through my drawers. She found an Inca necklace I was working with and held it up to her neckline.
"Put that back. Honey, please don't mess with my stuff.”
"Relax, Dad. I won’t break anything. This necklace is cute, did you find it here?" Crystal held up the jade and copper necklace to me.
I walked over and took the neckless. "Yes, it's old, and I'm translating the hieroglyphs found on these copper pieces. Please don’t touch.”
She got up from the desk and moved her duffle to her cot. "You're far too uptight. Why do you have it in your tent if you don't want it stolen?"
"We need not worry about theft here. Plus, nobody would know it's inside my desk drawer. It get's dark early here, so I spend a lot of time working at night. I forgot it was still there. Why don't we take it back to the research tent and I'll show you where I work?"
"I didn't know why you kept skipping the building on our tour."
"I didn't want to go inside and discover a massive pile of work."
"What do you do every day?"
"My job is to categorize, tag, translate, and try to guess the age of every artifact found. It's not bad, but it's time-consuming, and Dr. Landry's team keep finding Incan and Aztec artifacts."
"I thought this was a Mayan temple?"
"So did I."
When the prospectus landed on my desk, several months ago, I doubted we'd unearth anything. It didn't take long for Francisco to prove me wrong. By the time my plane landed they'd already cleared away part of the southern face of the temple. The temple wall appears to made of black granite rather than the limestone found with most Mayan temples. Limestone if plentiful and quarried from local sources. You can't find granite in this jungle, but yet it was here. My grad assistant came a week later once they noticed the anomaly. Hector's specialty was Mesoamerican architecture with a minor in geology. He couldn't break away a sample of the stone and had a PIXI system shipped to Valladolid. He hoped it’d give him a better idea where it was quarried.
"If it's not a Mayan temple, is it Aztec?"
"Unlikely. It could be Olmec, but we don't know. I'm still waiting until we find the temple entrance before I speculate."
"Did the Olmec use granite in their construction?"
“No. Only a couple civilizations occupied this area, so I guess one of them did. As I was saying, I'll hold off speculating until we find the entrance. It would have been helpful finding adornments since they're unique to the culture who built them."
"This temple isn't adorned?"
"Crystal—,” I paused, “no, it's one massive slick slab of granite. Let's take this neckless back, and if we have an opportunity, I'll show you the temple wall."
Gathering up my notes and necklace, we left for my office. I'd forgotten I left an artifact in my drawer and shouldn't have left it unsecured. I downplayed it to Crystal, but it violated a policy I set. If Dr. Landry found out I had left it in my tent unattended she'd lecture me for hours. It was a rookie move.
###
That night the staff threw a nice party for my daughter. A young graduate assistant, Michael, took a particular interest in Crystal. Micheal was a prodigy, 19 years old, and working on his Ph.D. under Dr. Landry's tutelage. Once he discovered she planned on attending to CU as an art major, they were inseparable.
During one of the few moments Micheal had to use the restroom, Dr. Landry approached and introduced herself.
"Welcome to the jungle, Crystal. You are lucky Dr. Haws allowed your visit to the middle of nowhere. My name is Dr. Samantha Landry; we met on the helipad this afternoon."
"Right, You were with Dr., um. Marley?"
"Marler."
"Oh yeah, that's his name. I doubt it's luck why I'm here. To be honest, I thought my aunt was just trying to get rid of me for a week." We laughed together. "I’m so excited that Dad's allowing me to sketch the of the artifacts for his research paper." Crystal said.
“Oh?” Dr. Landry looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You are fortunate then. Have you had much experience drawing?”
I rolled my eyes but caught myself before Dr. Landry noticed.
“I’ve been drawing since I was a toddler. Dad has many artifacts in the house from his different projects, and I’ve been drawing them since I can remember.”
Dr. Landry turned to me, "I bet her skills are excellent if you're allowing her to do your job. You must be proud.“
“Oh, I am. Crystal’s better at art than I am, I couldn’t be prouder. I’m sure she’ll do well.”
Dr. Landry will be a major pain in my butt if those sketches aren't 100% accurate. If it’s not up to our standards, I’ll just have Michael redraw them again after she leaves.
“Well, once again, welcome to the dig, I look forward to working with you over the next week.” Sam hugged Crystal and rejoined her assistants.
“Dad, was she being mean or nice?”
“Well, she was nice and snarky. Don't let it bother you too much, at this point in our careers, those of us with Ph.D.'s are snarky from time to time.”