Effigy (33 page)

“There’s a man-made tunnel that enters the pyramid from the base of the main staircase,” Dr. Friedman said as he led the way around the massive structure.

“That seems simple enough,” Eva said.

“Yes,” Dr. Friedman said in a less than reassuring tone. “Except the entrance has been sealed since its discovery in 1970.”

“Maybe Mr. Gaspar opened it,” Lori said optimistically, but when they arrived at the Pyramid of the Sun’s grand staircase, it was immediately obvious that no tunnel entrance was awaiting them. In fact, Lori didn’t notice any sign of an entrance until Dr. Friedman stepped up to a slab of stone cleverly disguised into the cobblework of the pyramid’s base. Dirt and gravel were drifted around it and the ground was well-packed from foot traffic.

Clearly, the tunnel’s seal hadn’t been broken.

“My father wouldn’t have had the strength to move that,” Eva said.

“So now what?” Derek asked, carefully removing a lens cloth from its small plastic pouch and attending to his camera.

“Are there any other caves around here?” Lori asked.

Dr. Friedman shrugged. “Sure. Lots of them. The volcanic soils of the area account for a number of natural caves and lava tubes. And there are burial chambers within the
Temple
of
Quetzalcoatl
at the other end of the ruins.”

“Father’s body was found near that temple,” Eva said.

“That’s too easy,” Dr. Friedman said. “If he took the trouble to leave you a coded message, I doubt he would deposit an effigy of Quetzalcoatl in such an obvious location.”

“Especially if he thought it was the power of Quetzalcoatl,” Lori added.

“And his message seems to indicate he’d already hidden the effigy before he called you,” Dr. Peet added. “If he parked near the Pyramid of the Moon, then he must have intended to hide the effigy somewhere on this end of the ruins. My guess is, he accomplished his goal only to find himself being hunted, so he tried to escape through the other end of the park. Unfortunately, it appears that the killer caught up to him near the
Temple
of
Quetzalcoatl
.”

“It’s quite clear Mr. Gaspar was using every precaution to keep the effigy from whoever killed him,” Dr. Friedman added with a nod.

“Are there any other tunnels leading into the Pyramid of the Sun?” Lori pressed.

“There’s one other that we know of, but it’s several hundred meters east of here, and not so readily accessible to the public. Physicists have been using it off and on over the past decade to test their muon detectors, searching for evidence of possible burial chambers in the vicinity. Unfortunately, equipment problems have hindered much of their work.”

“That sounds like the entrance an eighty-four year old man would use,” Eva said.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Friedman agreed. “But it’s quite a detour through uneven ground for an elderly gentleman to be navigating in the dark.”

Eva was shaking her head. “None of this is making any sense.”

Dr. Peet glanced up the slope of the pyramid, following the lumbering flow of tourists as they scaled the main staircase. “Maybe a bird’s-eye view will give us better insight.”

With that, he began the long climb up the pyramid with Derek quickly tucking his lens cloth away and following close behind. Lori took note of the odd pair—one a tall, full-fledged archaeologist adorned in the weathered raiments of dirt work; the other a strapping, athletic jock posing as a weekend tourist complete with shorts, a pair of Oakleys and a camera slung around his neck.

She scaled a step or two as if to follow them, but then stopped, her mind working. She turned back around to find Dr. Friedman and Eva curiously watching her.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” she said, taking a tentative step back down. “If the effigy is really the power of Quetzalcoatl, how did it wind up in
Utah
?”

“I might know the answer to that,” Eva said, fingering a crack in the pyramid’s crumbling adobe. “According to my father, the Toltec boy entrusted with the effigy’s power built a capital city where he enlightened his people with the peaceful teachings of Quetzalcoatl. But an ancient cult overthrew his leadership and banished him from the city.”

“I believe you’re speaking of Ce Acatl Topiltzin,” Dr. Friedman interrupted.

Lori hesitated. “You know this story?”

“It’s a legend, rather,” he said. “Topiltzin founded the Toltec capital,
Tula
, where he assumed the namesake of his god and started a fellowship that promoted peace, art and science, not to mention putting a temporary end to human sacrifice. That was until followers of the Tezcatlipoca cult overthrew him.”

“So Shaman Gaspar’s story isn’t just a story,” Lori said thoughtfully. She turned back to Dr. Friedman. “You knew the effigy was the power of Quetzalcoatl?”

He shook his head, his Panama hat casting a wavering shadow across his face. “I’ve not heard of the power of Quetzalcoatl,” he admitted. “But there are different variations of the legend out there. One version ends with Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl setting himself on fire and thereby ascending the sky as the morning star.”

“That would explain Quetzalcoatl’s relationship with Venus,” Lori said.

Dr. Friedman nodded. “Yes, but the version I’m more inclined to believe states that the fair-skinned Toltec king was sent adrift on a raft of snakes. As he drifted away into the
Gulf of Mexico
, he vowed to return from the east in the year One Reed, thus entwining his story with the fabled return of Quetzalcoatl.”

His eyes were dancing now. He seemed almost giddy with the story but Eva apparently found no humor in it, and he corrected his enraptured smile. He couldn’t be blamed.
Teotihuacan
was clearly within his realm of expertise so it only seemed natural for his knowledge to gush forth like a PBS special.

At the moment Lori wasn’t concerned about Dr. Friedman’s excitement, or the conflicting fates of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. Instead, she was pondering over the familiarity of his story. She recalled a similar legend and as she thought about it, she felt a flash of revelation—as though she’d lifted the last straw from her dissertation’s needle in the haystack.

Her thoughts carried her back to a Hopi legend about a lost white brother they called, Pahana. Supposedly, Pahana was expected to one day return from the east, bringing peace and prosperity with him. Then she remembered Awanyu, the horned serpent that adorned Hopi pottery. The parallels were striking. Could the horn at the back of Awanyu’s head actually be a feather? Could it be that Pahana and Awanyu were the Hopi versions of Quetzalcoalt?

“What happened to the effigy after Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was thrown out of
Tula
?” she asked.

Eva sighed. “That’s what I was going to tell you, until John took off on a tangent.”

Dr. Friedman cleared his throat, straightening his composure. “Pardon my fervor,” he said humbly.

Eva turned back to Lori. “But he’s right. The new cult banished the king from
Tula
and the power of Quetzalcoatl mysteriously disappeared amid the turmoil.”

“Obviously, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl didn’t take it with him,” Lori said, trying to read Eva’s face for an explanation.

Eva shook her head. “The cult of Tezcatlipoca supposedly destroyed the power of Quetzalcoatl, but my father never believed that.”

“So now that the power of Quetzalcoatl had been found, he was trying to return it to its birthplace in
Teotihuacan
,” Dr. Friedman observed.

Lori’s mind was in high gear, shifting back and forth between the Hopi and Toltec legends. Perhaps more than trade goods had been swapped between the two cultures. It seemed Pahana could be traced back to Ce Acatl Topiltzin, Awanyu to Quetzalcoatl—evidence of an exchange in beliefs. But where did the belief begin—with the people of the southwest or with the Mesoamericans?

No matter the origins, the similar, and presumed traded, stories were stunning to think about. Lori hadn’t really discovered a trade relationship through tracking pottery. Her dissertation was being suddenly swayed by something she couldn’t dig out of the ground, something she couldn’t study under a microscope. In an ironic twist she seemed to have found her answers through the exchange of intangible beliefs.

“The Hopi are thought to be descended from the Anasazi,” she mused. “And the effigy suggests the Anasazi had ties to the Toltecs.”

“What are you trying to say?” Dr. Friedman asked.

“There was a reason the Anasazi would have traded for the effigy after all,” she said. “The Trader had found his Awanyu!”

The revelation was fantastic, but Lori felt a vain level of disappointment when she considered Eva’s story. She’d been searching for the effigy’s story from the wrong angle. The question wasn’t why the Anasazi would want the effigy. The real question was why the Toltecs would give it away. That answer seemed to lie with Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. It wasn’t the answer Lori had been looking for, and it surprisingly pained her to admit that she’d been wrong.

“I think I owe you an apology, Dr. Friedman,” she said.

The professor stopped, stunned. “Pardon me?”

“I always thought your summary conclusion on the effigy was too hasty,” she admitted.

He shrugged. “I can’t say that it wasn’t a bit presumptuous.”

“But all this time I was trying to find the true story behind the effigy, when it appears you already found it. The effigy really
was
traded to the Anasazi.”

Dr. Friedman looked flabbergasted. “Well, in all honesty, Lori, I may have to amend my conclusions. Given the story Eva just told us, I’m having difficulty believing Ce Acatl Topiltzin would trade away the power of Quetzalcoatl.”

“But you were right in another sense,” Lori insisted. “I don’t think it was Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl who traded it.”

“Who then?”

Lori smiled wryly. She’d found her needle, even if it didn’t have the sharp point she’d expected.

“It was traded by the cult of Tezcatlipoca.”

* * * *

John hadn’t considered a third party trade to explain how the effigy made its way to
Utah
, though he should have. Of course, that conclusion depended on the accuracy of Eva’s tale, but it certainly wasn’t out of the question. Ethnoarchaeologists often relied on a peoples’ traditional stories to help explain certain behaviors within the archaeological record. Why couldn’t a story reveal trade behaviors between two cultures?

Archaeologists researching ancient civilizations all around the world commonly questioned direct acquisition theories with down-the-line trade possibilities. Even without Eva’s story, how could he have allowed a secondary explanation to slip his academic reasoning? It’s a sign of old age, he thought.

But even as he considered the Tezcatlipoca cult trading off their spoils of war, it was Eva who’d immediately dismissed the idea.

“I think you’re both wrong,” Eva said. “I don’t think the effigy was traded at all.”

“What do you mean?” Lori asked.

“It doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t it seem logical that someone taking possession of their rival’s power would either destroy that power or find a way to use it for their own advantage?”

Lori’s face twisted in confusion. “So you think the Tezcatlipocans brought the effigy to
Utah
?”

“To the contrary,” John said. “Perhaps the Tezcatlipocans never took possession of the effigy in the first place.”

“You said it yourself, John,” Eva said. “Why would my father move north to
Utah
when he could find all he wanted about Quetzalcoatl in
Mexico
?”