“Now,” he said, “in the Mayan version, history stretches back from the creation of man as well as forward. It goes back to a time before Tulan Zuyua, before mankind even existed, to a race that preceded us, a race the Maya called the wooden people.”

Danielle’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard the name. How do they relate to this?”

“In the Mayan view of creation, it took the gods four tries to successfully create the human race. On the first attempt they ended up with things that squawked and stuttered but didn’t speak. Seeing some value in these things the gods kept them around, letting them become the animals of the forest and going back to the drawing board once again. The second time, they used mud as the medium and it was more or less a complete failure. The creation kept dissolving into sludge and muck. So they let it die and tried again. On their third try, they used wood to create with and they brought forth the wooden people: a sort of a prototype for mankind.”

McCarter paused to make sure she was with him. “Now, the wooden people looked something like humans,” he explained. “They were intelligent, ambitious, they could count and talk and reason, but they were odd in many ways. The Mayan manuscript Popul Vuh describes them as having no muscle in their arms or legs, no fat on their bodies. They were said to be able to speak but had stiff, masklike faces and ungainly deformed shapes—like stick people, I suppose.”

Susan chimed in. “Basically they needed a good makeover, some time in the gym and about ten thousand collagen injections.”

“Right,” McCarter said, smiling. “But even in this somewhat decrepit state, they were viable, and according to the legend they grew prosperous and even powerful.”

“And this Seven Macaw,” Danielle said, pointing to the glyph on the slab. “He was one of the wooden people?”

“Absolutely,” McCarter said. “Their leader, in a sense. He was described as having eyes and teeth that shined like jewels. He had a throne or a nest made of metal, and the power to create light in the darkness. He boasted that he could light up the whole earth. But the Mayan writings also tell us he was a fraud, and though he could create brilliant light, it didn’t reach out into the great distance of the whole world, but only lit up his immediate surroundings. Despite this, Seven Macaw exalted himself, holding himself out as a god, forcing the others to worship him as if he were both the sun and the moon.”

Danielle seemed to understand. “I’m thinking the gods didn’t like that much,” she said.

“Not good to anger the gods,” McCarter replied. “Not in any culture. The outcome is predictable.”

“The wooden people were destroyed,” she guessed.

McCarter nodded. “The gods sent vicious beasts to attack them and even turned their own animals against them. And as if that weren’t enough, the sky god, Hurricane, sent a massive rainstorm to drown them like the sinners in Noah’s day. ‘Rain through the day and rain through the night. A rain of black resin that poured from the sky,’” McCarter said, quoting the Mayan text. “‘And the Earth was blackened beneath it.’”

“Burning rain?” Danielle asked.

“I’ve heard it described as a rain of fire,” McCarter said, “like hot oil or ash or napalm. And because the earth was blackened some think it might represent a volcanic event, with hot ash and fire falling from the sky, but the Popul Vuh definitely describes it as rain.”

“And Seven Macaw died in this rain?”

“Actually, he disappeared prior to the Black Rain,” McCarter said. “But the mythology of the work seems to suggest it was necessary to get rid of him to allow the rain to fall, as if his power could challenge the gods and prevent it.”

“I see,” Danielle said. “So what happened to him?”

“Two demigods were sent for him. They shot Seven Macaw with a blow dart when he was up in a tree, and after he fell to the ground, they removed the metal from his eyes and his teeth and took all his jewelry—the things he used to light up the night. Without these items he lost the power to light up anything, even the immediate surroundings. He went into hiding and never bothered anyone again. And then, with Seven Macaw vanquished, the gods sent the rain.”

She understood. “So the heroes killed Seven Macaw and then the rain came to destroy the rest of the wooden people. Take out the leader and then finish off the troops.”

“That’s one way of putting it, yes.”

She was gleeful. “This is good news. The slab certainly proves the Mayan connection,” she said. “No computer inkblots required.”

McCarter chuckled. “It does more than that,” he insisted. “It proves that these people were intimate with the particular mythology of the Mayan creation, a fact that not only connects them with all the other Mayan tribes, but suggests they were very early in the Mayan cycle.” He raised his eyebrows. “You may just be right,” he added. “Tulan Zuyua may be down here after all.”

Danielle smiled confidently and then turned back to the slab embedded in the wall. She looked at the other symbols—the big sad face, the dashes and swirls of the glyphs around it and the angry crocodilelike head with its bloody meal. “What about that one?” she asked.

McCarter’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. It was an important discovery. “That one is Zipacna,” he said. “The Destroyer.”

Later that night, sitting beside a flickering Coleman lantern, Danielle was pressing McCarter and Susan for more details. Hawker had joined them.

McCarter began by explaining the obstacles. “One problem we face is the condition of the find.” The glyphs on the Wall are in terrible shape, for the most part unreadable. The ones found on the great stone in the pit are better off, perhaps because they’ve been buried and protected from the elements for much of their life. The exposed tree roots and steep incline of the vertical walls suggest the pit to be quite a recent excavation.”

This response concerned her. She wondered if their adversary had somehow gotten here before them. McCarter, unknowingly, assuaged that fear.

“For whatever reason, the natives seem to be using it as a trap.”

“With all the bones we had to fish out of there, you wonder if they ever came back to check it,” Hawker said.

“Apparently, we’re not the only ones that can be wasteful,” McCarter said. “But from the look of things, it seems to have been dug with fairly primitive tools. And almost without regard for the relics it uncovered. In many places we see chips and scratches from their digging that have damaged the wall. My guess is that they knew of the slab and chose to excavate there to make specific use of having one solid, steep wall.”

Hawker rubbed his sore shoulder. “The sheer face makes for a better trap,” he said, ruefully. “You don’t see the drop coming.”

“And the glyphs in the pit,” Danielle asked, bringing the conversation back on track. “You were going to tell me something good.”

McCarter got down to business, opening an aged, leather-bound folder stuffed with drawings and notes. He pointed to a group of sketches he’d made. “Remember what I told you about the wooden people and Seven Macaw—that they were a mythological race the Maya believe existed before man?”

“And how the gods destroyed them with a burning rain,” she said. “Yes, I remember all of it.”

“Remember the other glyph you pointed out?”

“Zipacna,” she said. “The Destroyer.”

“Well, much of the writing on this slab concerns the two of them. Seven Macaw, the father, and Zipacna, his son.”

Danielle was surprised. “Zipacna looked like some type of reptile to me.”

“I know,” McCarter said. “He was, sort of. But you have to remember, it’s mythology. Like the Minotaur and the Kraken in Greek mythology, much of it is mysterious and nonlinear. So even though Seven Macaw was a proto-human, so to speak, his son was this beast, this destroyer, who was usually described as resembling a hideous crocodile, though he walked and lived on the land.”