That Way Madness Lies: The Mayan Immortality Curse

By William Rand

“What would you give to be young again, Hal?” Gene Gatz said. “I've almost got the cigs beat, doctor's orders, and I gave up drinking.”
Hal Scott let his eyes drift closed and slowly shook his head. Gatz noticed a patchy age spot near his temple. Hal opened his eyes and the sparkle was gone. “That only slows it down, Gene; believe me.”
“But just supposing, Hal,” Gene pressed. “What would you do?”
Hal studied Gene a moment then leaned back. “To really have my youth again?” He held his mutilated hand up. “To be whole again?” Hal chuckled and said, “Hell, boy, I'd kill for it.”

What would an aging archaeologist do to regain youth and fame?
That Way Madness Lies is a fast-paced, violent horror novel that also explores the human condition through themes of aging, faith, revenge, love, remorse and prejudice.
In a Spanish castle, University Professor Gene Gatz finds a rare, Mayan codex that promises eternal life, but the ceremony involves the blood sacrifice of a virgin bride. Possessed through the codex by the demonic spirit of the Mayan high-priest Xan Tak’An, Professor Gatz chooses one of his young students, Sara Drake, for the gruesome transformation ritual. What he doesn’t count on are the results: true, desperate love for the murdered Sara, a dark existence as a vampire, and the obsessive revenge of Detective Tony Drake, the bride’s brother, an atheist with latent but growing psychic power. Drake ́s pursuit of Gatz brings him into contact with Gene Gatz ́s friends Jay Johnson and the elderly professor Hal Scott.
Conflict erupts between Tony, who wants to destroy Gatz, and Hal and Jay, who want to help him. Their group is complete when they meet Angela, a Catholic prostitute, nursing a dying friend who had been attacked by Gatz. Angela ́s friend Emma dies, transforms into a vampire and nearly kills Tony and Angela.
Initially at odds, the confrontation brings Tony and Angela together romantically, maybe. At the same time, Tony realizes that a cross in the hands of someone without faith is useless against a vampire, definitely.
The story also follows Gene Gatz through his transformation ritual and his resultant vampiric existence. As Gatz tries to replace his lost love Sara with a trail of drained bodies, he falls further under the power of the spirit of the Mayan priest Xan Tak’An. What Gatz fails to realize is that the possessing spirit of the priest is only using him to conduct a much more evil ceremony intended to bring the powerful demon Moloch into the world. For that, Xan Tak ‘An ́s spirit needs the sacrifice of a psychic conduit: Tony Drake.
While Drake pursues Gatz from Mexico to California with a vengeance, Gatz grows more powerful. Their final confrontation makes Drake reevaluate his atheism as well as his past life, loses and new, unexpected love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Rand
• Release date: Jun 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301553402

William Rand

I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and I have been writing stories for most of my life. Although most have carried themes of social protest, the genres have included horror, science fiction and erotica. In addition to writing, I have spent the last twenty-four years teaching English composition, literature, cultural studies, ESL, and especially, creative writing. I have taught English in the United States, Costa Rica and Mexico. During my travels, I managed to earn my Ph.D. in literature and my TESOL certificate, and, in addition to fiction, I have published a few articles on topics such as literature, herpetology, and weightlifting. I like to read practically anything from comedy, Shakespeare, history and biographies to erotica, detective fiction and horror. I despise censorship in any form; I want to be able to read and write whatever I please. I am concerned about men's issues and the social oppression of political correctness. I have lived in five states, and I have traveled to China and through a good part of Central and South America. I have generally found a greater sense of justice there for men. I live with my wife in Mexico. In addition to writing, I am now trying to improve my Spanish with my wife's help and get back into the gym. My wife and I also travel throughout Mexico and raise reptiles, including a ball python and a couple of turtles.

Book preview

Prologue

The Yucatan Peninsula of New Spain

in The Year of Our Lord, Fifteen Hundred and Twenty-eight

May 3, 1528

My brother, Pedro, with consent of Capitan General Cortes, has allowed me to join the noble Capitan Francisco de Montejo and his company of three hundred and eighty men on a voyage around the So'Eastern tip of New Spain. After an uneventful sail, we have landed at the port christened, Conil (in His Majesty's name), and are moving inland to convert to the Word of Our Saviour the last of these Indian heathens. We only pray we do not find them engaged in the atrocities practiced by their pagan brothers to the west. Should we find them so enmeshed, it is yet our hope that, as did the Mexicans and Tlaxcalans, these Maya will also open their hearts and minds to His Scriptures with love for The True God.

From the diary of Manuel de Alvarado

translated by Dr. Eugene Gatz,

Professor of Archaeological Sciences, UCLA.

The priests came for the girl on her wedding night.

The three priests, all with soot-blackened skin and dressed in eagle feather robes, crept into the dark hut and surrounded the couple asleep on their mat. The high priest, Xan Tak'An, wore an obsidian knife at his waist, and the two chacs carried heavy piim clubs. Sakibuk, the bride's father, entered last with a torch. His back was bowed, his face and body mottled, feverish with the plague of the fair-skinned barbarians. Sakibuk raised his torch. Flickering light glowed from the rough walls to the crude mattress and the sleeping couple. His face twisted when he saw the wedding garments discarded on the floor of the hut. They were too late. Sakibuk crossed to the bed, threw the henequen sheets aside, and cursed aloud when he saw them naked. He needed his daughter as a virgin, for his own sake.

The newlyweds snapped awake and grabbed for the sheets. Chiya looked up wide-eyed at her father; Acohay tried first to cover his bride, but when he saw the priests' blackened skin, he turned and grabbed for his spear. A foot jammed his wrist to the dirt floor, and he was shoved back onto the mat. Two of the priests held him down as Sakibuk yanked Chiya up by her hair. Is the marriage consummated? he yelled at her. Bad enough that she had not been properly prepared, he thought. Now she may have ruined any chance they had to appease the sacred Jaguar—any chance he had to be cured of the curse laid upon him. Spittle ran from a corner of his mouth; his eyes bulged. Chiya tried to cover her bare breasts and the dark patch of hair between her thighs. She hung in her father's grip and struggled to find Acohay. Her husband fought, drawing loud gasps, but the priests pinned him, one knee driving his face into the dirt off the edge of the mat.

Father,stop! Chiya screamed.

Acohay yelled for them to let his wife go, and one of the chacs swung a club into his ribs. The thorns drew blood, but the boy twisted, got free and kicked, catching a priest in the stomach. The other crashed the sacred wood down on Acohay's shoulder. Something snapped loudly in the joint, and the young groom went down, moaning. Sakibuk's eyes never left Chiya's face. Are you yet a virgin? he rasped.

Her father’s old eyes were yellow and sick. Fear showed there. His breath was sour smelling and hot against her face. She recoiled, hanging from his hand, fisted in her hair. Chiya's hair was long, black and almost thick enough to cover her heaving breasts. Her brown eyes, usually gentle and warm, sparked with fear. Everyone thought the priests would soon take someone to appeal to the gods, but Chiya and Acohay had felt reasonably safe, especially after the wedding. It seemed all the people loved her and, by extension, Acohay. The white men with their sickness and strange gods were coming, but Chiya was neither the eldest, nor sacred, nor especially gifted, and so had no reason to expect to be chosen. She had not been prepared.

Are you, girl? Sakibuk said. He felt the disease spreading through him, and he knew that the ceremony on that particular night would be his only chance. The stars had aligned, and the high priest had come. Sakibuk needed to be cleansed through the ceremony; they knew of no other way. Still gripping Chiya's head by a handful of her hair, he shook her, and she cried as much from shame as pain. Her new husband looked up from the floor, his face squeezed in pain. She turned to him, and Acohay shook his head once so only she saw and she said, No, Father.

Sakibuk threw her down and kicked her. He pulled his leg back to swing again and Xan Tak'An stayed him with a raised hand. The high priest's eyes were on the boy, who had stopped struggling and lay wheezing on the floor like a stunned animal. One of the assisting chacs, of Sakibuk's years with heavy knuckled hands, looked at Acohay and examined their bed matting. He stepped to the prone girl and thrust a hand up between her legs. Chiya hid her face and pulled away toward an empty corner of the hut. The priest turned to Sakibuk and shook his head. She lies, he said. They've done nothing.

Take her, said the father. His rage spent, he gave his torch to Xan Tak'An and hobbled from the hut.

No! Acohay yelled. Finding a rage of his own, he rose to his knees and reached his wife before the third priest brought the piim wood club down on his head. Chiya tried to shield him with her body, but Xan Tak'An held her back and made her watch as the two chacs beat her husband with the thorny clubs until he bled to unconsciousness. And as the clubs rose and fell and Chiya struggled, the high priest whispered to her that she had no future in this life and should accept the honor her father had chosen for her. Acohay twitched, lolled onto his back and lay still. Chiya begged them to cover him, and one of the chacs flipped an end of the sheet over his genitals. The priest's hand left blood on the henequen.

The priests' robes were stained and their clubs and hands were speckled with bits of flesh. Sweat on their faces tiger-streaked their natural copper brown skin with the black ceremonial soot. The breathing of all of them came heavy and loud and, against the taboo, one of the chacs ran his gaze across Chiya's heavy breasts and down her glistening body. She couldn't manage the look of contempt she wanted to flash him; all she could do was watch Acohay's shredded chest bleed him to death on the floor of their hut. She saw no honor there—only her love, gone. The musk of exertion and the syrupy sweet odor of blood thickened the air. Chiya's head grew dizzy and her legs weak, but she refused to look away. She saw her husband's blood flow across the floor to wet her bare feet, and the high priest had to shift his grip on her from restraint to support as her vision blurred, and she toppled.

They carried Chiya out into the jungle and had nearly reached the old temple path before she roused herself and was able to walk on her own. She accepted the blue gown from one of them and walked behind Xan Tak'An, following his heavy headdress of eagle feathers illuminated in the darkness by the torch he held high. An owl called. Something larger slipped through the bush beyond the darkness. The sharp odor of fresh cut wood and leaves mixed with the smell of the burning torch, and the howl of a jackal chilled the darkness. The chacs flanked her. She heard her father's wheezing breath behind.

The black jungle squeezed the new path, and they ducked beneath or scraped past reaching branches, shrouded in shadow. She heard her father stumble on hastily cut roots. The path curved, and she realized it led toward the old city, long forbidden by taboo and fear. All Chiya knew of it was that her people had been chased out many generations before, when they had learned the final secret of the gods. Whispered legends told how some of the high priests stole the secret of life and were punished by the gods for their arrogance. The secret had remained with those priests—the few not caught and destroyed by burning—but they had been cursed to live their eternal years like the bat and jackal. They became creatures of the night, slaves of the evil god, Mam, yet spawned of the Feathered Serpent, with his fangs and hunger for the blood of sacrifice.

Chiya had never imagined her ceremony would be there. They wouldn't . . . . She twisted away and found herself diving for the cover of the jungle. The chacs roughly pulled her back to the path. She pulled and scratched at them until she felt a dizzying slap to the back of her head.

Do not shame me, Daughter.

Years of discipline stopped her. Chiya looked down at the shadows swept about by the wave of a breeze through the torch fire. She knew the blood she gave in p'a chi would help her people, but she didn't understand why it must be done in the forbidden place. Her heart raced and her legs tensed for another try, but she felt the priests too close, too watchful. Someone gripped her arm and she shook her head. I will not shame my father, she said, and she let them lead her on.

One of the chacs asked if she'd kept her fast and she nodded. He put a black mushroom in her hand and told her to eat it. Chiya watched him eat one himself and hand more to the high priest and the other assisting chac. She slipped the mushroom into her mouth, chewed and winced at the bitter taste. Soon, the priest gave her another, and after the third, Chiya's eyes misted and she too stumbled over the roots in the dark. She felt no fear at all when they finally walked into the ancient forbidden city of Chitchen Itza, moonlit and nearly hidden by the jungle.

They entered near the ancient High Priests' tomb, and Sakibuk spotted the great pyramid off to the left, towering above the trees. Sharp, black lines of stone defeated the hungry jungle to rise like cliffs from the surf to their highest point, the sacred temple, thrust up into the moonlight. He thought of his daughter at the altar and knew he would be cleansed and his people would be saved. When Xan Tak'An turned south to another fresh path instead of north toward the pyramid, Sakibuk stopped him.

Lord Tak'An, have we not come for p'a chi?

Xan Tak’An paused and turned to him. The old man took a step back, intimidated by Xan Tak’An’s height. The high priest was tall for a Mayan, towering over them all, with skin like polished oak, dark, penetrating eyes and cheekbones so prominent that they gave his face the appearance of a skull. Sakibuk thought for a moment that Xan Tak’An was not born of their people. Mexicali, he mused. But how could that be? Then he looked to his daughter. The girl swayed between the two chacs. Sakibuk saw that the eyes of the three priests were nearly as dulled as his daughter's. For a moment, it seemed as if the high priest were surprised by his presence. Sakibuk made to speak again, but Xan Tak'An recovered himself and looked from Sakibuk to Chiya and back. Of course we come for sacrifice. We come to satisfy the sacred Jaguar and so to beg the healing gods to relieve us of the barbarians' plague. But the girl must first be prepared. Attend us, old man. You do not know this place; you only know of it.

Sakibuk looked away at the stone city through the moon's soft glow. Five hundred years of neglect had sunk most of the buildings in an angry, frozen ocean of flora that looked black in the night air. He had never before seen the home of their ancestors; he had never dared. A breeze chilled his neck. The flesh along his spine shivered. He felt dizzy with fever, and his bowels clenched to knots. He nodded and the high priest turned and walked away. The two chacs followed with his daughter suspended between them. No one spoke. Sakibuk spared the great pyramid another glance. True, he had only heard of it, but heard enough to recognize it and the tomb, even though he knew none of the other buildings. Generations after their exile from the cities, the loss of the secrets of time and space, and the extermination of the defiled ones, the memory of the pyramid and its sacred temple remained in the minds of the people.

When the priests had heard he was sick, and they came to him, he volunteered his affianced daughter to their request. He imagined her at the top of the temple, above the jungle, above the changes brought by the invaders—the pox brought by them. The priests said they needed a virgin bride, but there were other promised girls in the village. Only Chiya had a father already struck down by the plague, and so they knew to ask him. And he gave her to them to save the people, but mostly to save himself. The old man pushed the thought away. He shook his head and quickly followed the priests, before he lost sight of the torch entirely.

They stopped at a small cluster of stone buildings cleared of the jungle. The high priest led them around what looked like a temple of the rain god, Chaac, to a courtyard in back, and he circled the perimeter to light several torches from his own. The chacs held Chiya by the doorway of one of the buildings, beneath the looming image of a stone god. Sakibuk stood close to give her courage, but could think of nothing to say. She looked at him and smiled with eyes like shiny, mindless jewels. Something inside the old man withered under her drugged gaze. He looked away as Xan Tak'An passed by them to light torches inside. The high priest emerged with two small, painted bowls in place of his torch and crowded Sakibuk away to whisper to the chacs.

Sakibuk stepped back. He saw no windows on the side of the building, but a glance through the doorway showed more of the sacred tools of p'a chi, the ritual sacrifice, within. He saw a folded book of crushed wood paper and a number of bowls on the floor within the torches' orange and yellow flickering glow. He took a chance and stepped inside; no one stopped him. The temple was divided into two chambers, with a small window at each end, beneath a high, steepled ceiling. He looked down, seeing the book first, but something he sensed about it repelled him; he did not touch it. It was a sacred thing, meant for the hands of priests. He looked on. Two of the bowls contained honey, and another, clear zuhuy water. All were items of preparation necessary to purify the sacrifice—all sacred. Yet even the purified cenote water did not quiet the tight, cold fear beneath Sakibuk's skin. The place felt like a tomb, and he felt somehow unclean. The air was too still, too moist. The old man hurried out and saw his daughter standing naked between the priests, her robe in a pile at her feet.

Unclean.

Sakibuk's hands shook. He looked to the high priest facing Chiya. Lord, Xan, this place—

This temple contains the altar of the ancient healers, Sakibuk. We will appeal to them with a purified sacrifice to cleanse our land and people of the white barbarians and their sickness.

With long, steady fingers, Xan Tak'An held his cupped palm under a bowl tipped by the older chac, and poured the zuhuy water gathered there over Chiya's head. He chewed a mushroom and began to sway. True god, he said as he anointed the girl again, Great Snake Father, accept the purified sacrifice I offer you in exchange for the gift of life.

Chiya accepted another mushroom as the high priest dipped his fingers into the second bowl. Sakibuk watched as Xan Tak'An raised the fingers to his daughter's face and smeared a line of blue pigment across her forehead. He felt his palms begin to sweat and his mouth go dry. The two assisting priests began to chant a singsong call to the Feathered Serpent.

Xan Tak'An dipped his dark, thin fingertips again and trailed wet blue lines down the girl's cheeks and along her jaw. His fingers traced over her shoulders and down her bare arms. He said louder, We offer the blood of a virgin bride, our most precious possession, in exchange for your most precious gift. Chiya's breasts rose and her dark nipples hardened under the blue liquid from the high priest's fingers. Her eyes closed and her head tilted back and she swayed gently, her palms cupping the stone wall behind her. Wet pigment touched her skin, and she pushed herself out to meet Xan Tak'An's fingers. Blue paint streaked her quivering stomach and the firm lines of her thighs. Her breathing became audible. The chacs squatted as Xan Tak'An worked his way slowly down the length of her body.

This thing you do is no prayer to the healing gods, Sakibuk said. The sacred Jaguar will not accept it. I am not so old that I do not remember. He saw the high priest paint blue claw marks on Chiya's feet, heard the song of the chacs rise as his lord Tak'An prayed, I come to you pure, in the dark hour of the Snake Father, with an offering of blood. I demand your life secret in return.

"Blasphemer, Sakibuk screamed. She offers herself for her people, not for you!"

The old man had no chance. Before he could decide between fighting for his daughter and fleeing into the jungle, the chacs seized him. He tried to fight, but the fever had left him no strength. One of them held him to the ground while the older man drew lengths of cord from within his robe. They moved him several feet over to an 'X' shaped platform lying shadowed in the courtyard grass, and tied him to it, spread eagled, facing up to the stars. Sakibuk gasped for breath and fought the ropes. The older chac went to the high priest and accepted the bowl of paint. The other ripped the old man's shirt away. Sakibuk watched as the older chac dipped his fingers.

What is this? Sakibuk said. I am not to be sacrificed. I am—

You are the first offering to our new god, Sakibuk, the chac said, and he drew the writing picture for life on the old man's chest.

The old man looked at his daughter and the high priest standing in shadows rippled by torchlight. Release me, ajit; free my daughter from the trance. It was through this same greed that our people lost the great knowledge. The final life secret is for the gods only; it will bring you nothing but pain. The village will learn of this and they will burn you for what you are.

The high priest is no sorcerer, old man, the chac said. Kukulcan has returned from beyond the rising sun, and we wish to commune with him and follow his path. For that, we must become gods ourselves, and Xan Tak'An shall be first. Who would dare burn a god?

Sakibuk told them that the invaders were no gods; he screamed it until the fever swelled his head and his lungs felt about to burst. But the priests ignored him, and finally he lay exhausted. He realized too late that he had given his daughter over to madmen. Now, he could only watch as they took Chiya through the doorway beneath the stone idol. The high priest drew the knife from his belt and entered last.

Lunatics! the old man shouted. You are monsters, not gods.

He received no answer from within. Shadows from the torches feathered about the doorway and the ritual chanting continued. Chiya screamed once, her wail cut away abruptly to silence. High Priest Xan Tak'An's voice rose again in prayer. The chacs responded in song. Soon, a glowing mist rose from the ground and enveloped the temple. Tiny spots of light flickered within. As Sakibuk watched, the mist seemed to ooze into the rock until it disappeared, and the flickering lights showed only through the doorway. The air became heavy and cold.

Weeping softly, the old man turned his eyes from the scene. With his help, the high priest had brought evil among them. And they had used his innocent daughter as a tool in the bringing. Filled with guilt and fear, the old man looked up to the stars and waited for the punishment to fall.

Part One: Immolation

There's no art

To find the mind's construction in the face.

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.

William Shakespeare

from Macbeth

Chapter One

August 24, 1531

Circumstances may soon force me to leave the expedition of Capitan de Montejo after three difficult years. Our situation here is unchanged. While we make slow progress, our death count stands this day at eighty soldiers and we have lost most of our horses, including, today, the chestnut mare I raised from a colt. I and my countrymen have suffered many arrow wounds from the Indians, yet the jungle is the greater enemy. Our hardships do not dispel me, however; my fortitude and courage have never been questioned. On the contrary, I must consider leaving our Company because the pagan priest, Xan Tak'An, has proven the power he claims. I crave the Indian’s power, yet I dread to look upon him, for his countenance resembles that of a skull.

He has offered to me and a few others of our Company that which is not found in this world. But his bargain comes with set conditions that will make our stay here impossible. The first (being the Indian's price for the secret) is an immediate sail for Spain. The others I cannot yet repeat even here.

My greatest concern is that this power, this secret, is not of Our Lord Christ. There exists a force within these people I understand not, yet fear most strongly as I fear the Devil, himself. I read their language not, but when the priest laid the book of picture writing in my hand, I wanted to follow him. It must not be so; I must not be led by his witchcraft. The decision must be mine; I must not suffer Xan Tak'An to influence me thus. I must consider matters with a clear head, for if I accept the Indian's offer, it may mean that I shall no longer be one with My Saviour.

From the diary of Manuel de Alvarado

translated by Dr. Eugene Gatz,

Professor of Archaeological Sciences, UCLA

Santa Monica, California

Present Day

Early June

Gene Gatz woke up fifty years old. He'd gone to sleep forty-nine, but he woke up, shut off the buzzing alarm clock, and realized he had turned fifty. He laid a hand beside him on the bed like he expected Carol to be there. Of course her side was empty; nearly a month had passed since she had left him for the twenty-five year old hotshot computer salesman from Santa Barbara. Without her, the room felt too big, the bed too empty. The parted curtains dropped a slash of morning light onto the headboard, burning the room's night shadows. A car revved up the street somewhere. A dog barked from what sounded like right below his window. Gatz wished he had left the thing shut overnight, hot in the room or not. He never seemed to remember that the neighborhood awakened before he did. Gatz rubbed sleep from a corner of his eye, coughed hard, and glanced around, trying to wake up.

The bedroom was in its usual end-of-quarter mess. A stack of library books for his research lay in one corner atop a pile of laundry. The pyramid of pop cans took up more space on the computer table than the Macintosh. Back issues of Archaeology magazine sat around the room, folded open to articles Gatz began to read but never finished. Most of the marked articles concerned ancient Mexican civilizations, Gatz's specialty. Occasionally, he appreciated the fact that he did most of his university work in the master bedroom; it kept the rest of the apartment from getting trashed. At least Carol wasn't around to complain. She did enough of that about their second bedroom he used as a studio for his canvases. The only solace he found since she left came from painting in peace and teaching. Gatz needed something new. He wanted to find renewal in his life.

A breeze flicked the curtains and whispered about, cooling Gatz's face and rustling a pile of exams on the card table he used for a desk. He would have to get them graded before the day ended. He watched the papers settle, dance again, and he turned to the clock: forty minutes before he gave his 'anthropology intro' final. If he got his ass moving, he just might have time for a cup of coffee, a very necessary cup, in his present state.

Gatz peeled the sheet back and sat naked on the edge of the bed. He hacked a series of stomach knotting coughs and cursed. The room felt cold. He turned left and saw an almost divorced, middle-aged guy in the mirror looking out at him: a lot of scalp showing beneath recently dyed blond hair, pasty white skin, puffy eyes, and a nose that was just too damn big. At least the hair coloring had shaved a few years off. The framed photo on the end table showed Carol with her arms around a Gene Gatz looking ten years older and with hair totally gray. And the picture was five years old. Gatz allowed himself a satisfied grunt until the focus of his gaze shifted from the image of his gray hair to that of his ex-wife. Her arms were wrapped around someone else now. He sighed and once again decided he hated both mornings and birthdays. Gatz heard the timer click the coffee maker on in the kitchen. His nose imagined the aroma of fresh brew, although what he actually smelled was mildew from the pile of clothes, the odor diminished below notice by the breeze from outside. He spotted yesterday's Jockey shorts draped over his chair. The chair was closer than the dresser across the room. He hooked the dirty shorts with a finger and stood to put them on.

Halfway through brushing his teeth, the phone rang. Gatz rinsed his mouth and went into the bedroom. On the way, he thought of the hot coffee waiting and glanced at the clock, hesitated before lifting the receiver. The phone and clock were on the same end table as the old picture of himself with Carol, along with the paperback copy of Othello he'd finished rereading the previous night. The phone rang again. Probably a student with a last, desperate question, he figured. He shrugged and picked it up.

Hello? Gatz swirled the minty taste around in his mouth, sat, and pulled the sheet over his underwear.

How'd you like to spend the summer in Spain, teacher-man?

What? Jay? Gatz smiled, then checked the time again and winced. Jay was chuckling on the other end like a man with no place he had to be. The dog outside barked again with what seemed a sense of urgency. Gatz tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder, found his socks on the chair seat and pulled them on, his birthday forgotten. As Jay said something about Gatz shaking the sleep from his ears, the breeze from the window died and Gatz's nose crinkled. He glanced around, then tugged a sock off and sniffed it. When he realized the odor came from the pile in the corner, he shrugged and replaced the sock on his foot.

'Course it's me. And happy birthday. Now about—

Not that I needed another one; I already had forty-nine of'em. Gatz buttoned pants on, closed the zipper and looked for a shirt.

You gotta forget her, Gene. And the young twerp she ran off with.

It's not that. I just feel old.

Hey, I got a few big ones on you, old buddy.

Well, 'old buddy,' Gatz said and laughed, everybody knows Black people don't age. You and the Chinese.

Yeah, right. You get my present? Jay asked.

Gatz smiled. Yesterday. And thanks, partner, really. You're finally learning to appreciate good music.

My butt. I just know what you like. Surprised me though. I didn't know Tony Bennett still made albums—and on a CD no less. Maybe Elvis is still alive.

Yeah, you wish. Real music is real singing: Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra. You just listen to that new stuff to try to stay young. Gatz tapped a cigarette out onto the computer table. He caught it rolling and put it between his lips.

I'm old on the inside, Gene my man; believe me . . . . Is that a match?

Gatz blew it out and slipped the cigarette back into the pack. Match? No. I, uh, I scraped the table, uh, getting dressed here. He waved a hand to clear the burned sulfur odor as if Jay could smell it over the line.

You're supposed to be quitting.

I am, big brother, cutting down, way down.

What's this 'big brother' stuff? You're the one saved my hide back in 'Nam, Jay said over the line.

I owed you that one several times over, Gatz said. He settled into a rerun of their year old ramble, and felt himself relax. He found his shirt on the floor on the opposite side of the bed and figured he must have kicked it off in his sleep. You're the one talked me into playing G.I. Joe, Gatz said. He stood to shake the white Dior shirt out to see if it would work.

Got your lazy butt into school; didn't it? And how did you thank me? Dragged me into a coal mining job.

Gatz laughed and covered the receiver to cough. That's a new one; how can you equate archaeology with coal mining? And what's this stuff about Spain? They actually offered me a new grad course in lab methods, but we didn't get enough students registered, so they dropped it. The shirt was just too wrinkled. Gatz tossed it into the corner atop the text books and pulled a laundered one from a drawer.

So you're free?

Free, broke and bored. What's going?

Got an overseas call 'bout a week ago. It seems that Baron or Count Somebody died without heirs and bequeathed an old castle near Almazan to one of their museums.

Gatz switched the receiver from ear to ear to get his arms in his shirt sleeves. Nice of him. Almazan's where? Just north of Madrid, right?

Closer to Soria City, right off the Duero River.

Gatz smiled. The heart of Spain, as far as history goes. Para castillos, Castilla.

You know it, Bro. Well, these people want it dug out and cataloged for public display.

Sounds like a deal, Gatz said. And you won't even miss Mass with all your fellow Catholics over there.

He heard Jay laugh and say: You know I cover all the bases.

You always did. And your first two bases are getting to Mass and getting laid. So how old's this castle? Gatz asked.

Fourteenth or fifteenth century, they think. The museum sent me some pics though, and it seems to be built, or rebuilt, on something else that's older. Foundation's definitely Roman, but most of the rest looks Moorish and Spanish Gothic, not quite Mudejar style, but close.

We'll have to dig it out to see, I guess. Why you, Jay, if you don't mind my curiosity? You don't specialize in Spain or the fourteenth century.

Because, specialty or no, I am a supremely qualified archaeologist.

I need a cup of coffee; hold on. Gatz dropped the receiver, buttoned his shirt and went to the kitchen, tucking the tail in on the way. He took his tie from the kitchen table and tucked it around his neck under the collar. He grabbed the phone. Still there, Jay? He was, and Gene talked as he poured a cup. How 'supremely qualified' are you?

Well, Jay said, a buddy of mine here at the Smithsonian is guest lecturing in Madrid, and he has a friend on the Numancia Museum's committee.

That's qualified enough. Gatz bagged an orange and a can of Pepsi for lunch while he sipped coffee and talked. What's my job? The new May/June issue of Archaeology was on the table, so Gatz flipped idly through it, looking at the pictures.

Well, they offered me money for an assistant to help with translations and anything else I need—professor level—and it so happened that part of the bequest included a couple of vases that looked Mayan: three-legged, the right blue and brown pigment, you know. They were in the guy's private residence, but the estate executor told me they originally came from the castle. I checked their archives and the castle does in fact have a connection with the de Alvarado brothers who sailed with Cortes. You awake yet?

Gatz forgot the magazine. He had the phone clenched so tight his fingers cramped. You're doing better than the coffee here.

And?

And, Gatz said, nearly breathless, the name Sylvanus Griswold Morley comes to mind.

I thought it might, with Chichen Itza and all. So, New World archaeology is your specialty; your Spanish is much better than mine, and I know you get a hard-on for those Mayas.

Elegantly put, Jay. Gatz leaned back from the table, one hand cradling his cup, and gazed unseeing at the pile of dishes in the sink. The dog barked outside louder, and someone yelled for it to shut up; Gatz didn't hear. His mind drifted to Kabah, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Tulum, and all the important discoveries already made before his time by Morley and others, the ones he had never made.

Whatd'ya know, Gene, you just might be able to find that suit of armor you've been wanting, to decorate your house.

If I ever have another house, the way Carol cleaned me out. Mayan artifacts, huh?

It may be nothing, Gene: a few trinkets brought back by the Spaniards. We find that stuff all the time, but it’s worth at least a look.

Gatz stared at the dishes, his coffee forgotten, his final exam forgotten. He imagined an undiscovered codex tucked between dusty volumes in an old, closed off library. The Gatz Codex. Carol said archaeology was boring, that he was boring. Gatz’s fingers drummed the Formica tabletop. The bitch. His fingers tapped harder. Gatz couldn't see the thrill in selling a new IBM PC to a surfboard company, Carol's type of thing. Gatz’s hand stilled, relaxed. But a new Mayan find was something else: a codex, one of their ancient folding books of picture writing, never seen in this or the last two centuries . . .

Gene? You there?

Sure. Gatz blinked and looked at his watch. Got to get moving, he thought. I know it's probably nothing new, Jay.

But you never can tell, and the beaches of Spain sure are fine during the summer.

So the truth comes out, Gatz mumbled, part of his mind keeping the conversation going while the other part thought of possibilities. He thought of his teaching routine and retirement on the horizon. Gatz wanted a major archaeological find before he checked out. He needed it.

Nothing wrong with mixing a little sun and sand with business, Jay said over the line.

And I'm sure you're going to the beach in Spain for the tan, Gatz said, but his eyes never left the tall pile of dishes, his mind fixed on the Gatz Codex—the Gatz-Johnson Codex, he amended, but only briefly. The Gatz Codex. He coughed dry, and his hand turned the cup on the table, round and round. What must it have been like, Gatz wondered, when Howard Carter had entered King Tutankhamen`s tomb in 1923? Gatz wanted to know, wanted to feel the excitement and enjoy the fame of such a discovery. Perhaps, with Jay, he could finally make the discovery that would immortalize him. As Gatz finished his conversation with his friend, his eyes drifted back down to the magazine and the smiling archaeologist on the cover, holding up the small bronze statue of a god.

* * *

Gatz rushed to the university and apologized to his class for being nearly five minutes late. He promised them the extra time at the end, then sat through the test and stared at the pages of a novel, his mind on his advancing age and on Spain. Occasionally he scanned the rows of students over the top edge of the book. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled. He had colored the gray out of his hair over Christmas break, between quarters. Most of the staff and a few faculty members had noticed and complimented, so forth, but the change he really appreciated had come from his students. Since he had lightened his hair, his students, especially the women he had taught before, had warmed to him as a teacher. It hadn't stopped Carol from leaving, but to hell with her.

Gatz took a final look around and went back staring at his book. At the end of the test, he collected the papers, answered a few questions and wished his students a good summer. Someone reminded him when he forgot his lunch bag on the front desk. He went back for it and left the building with no memory of his frantic run to arrive on time, the two hour final itself or the novel. He went for his mile run, managed an extra lap, showered, and ended up in the student center cafeteria across from his friend Hal.

Dr. Harold Scott was already past retirement age, white-haired and frightfully gaunt. Gatz used the word 'friend' loosely in reference to him; actually they were long time faculty acquaintances who frequently ran into each other at lunch and less frequently sought each other out on scholarly matters. With Dr. Scott lecturing in the History Department, their work sometimes overlapped, but Gatz consulted Scott because of the older man's hobby, handwriting analysis. Hal Scott had learned the skill during his younger years serving in Army Intelligence. Peacetime snooping is the most boring job around, Scott often said.

He did part time work for the LAPD after his enlistment but, as the years passed, the skill became more an amusement to guess at students' emotional states as well as a tool to uncover the occasional cheater. He sometimes helped Gatz match authors to old manuscripts, for which Gatz bought dinner and credited Scott in published articles as his expert source. For reasons Gatz couldn't fathom, Scott seemed to find mirth as well as pleasure in the title. Gatz liked the older man, respected his opinion, but considered him too blunt and a bit of a lecher. He realized that Hal's crude remarks bothered him less now that Carol wasn't around. Hal looked up with a cheek full of tuna salad sandwich as Gatz sat. They nodded and Gatz plucked the orange from his bag. Hal laid a Trevanian novel aside and arched his heavy brows.

What's with that measly orange? he said. Hal's voice rolled in a gravelly, Bostonian twang. No fried chicken? I know you're cookin' for yourself now, but old Colonel Sanders—

I always cooked for myself, Hal. You just assumed Carol made my lunches.

You cook for her too?

Gatz shook his head. She made her own food, but I washed all the dishes, hers and mine

Hal had a surprised look on his face, and one cheek bulged out with tuna salad. "Huh. Joannie cooks and I clean; that's the deal. It's worked for years since we got the kid outta the house and she went back to teaching. Damn, Carol never cooked you anything?"

She'd cook for both of us . . . oh . . . once a month or so when we had company, but never just for me. She said that was sexist. I asked her once to help me with lunch when I was running late, and she called me a chauvinist.

Hal chewed and swallowed. Seems to me she just needed a lesson in common courtesy.

Gatz shrugged. Maybe. I still miss her though. He regretted his words as soon as he said them. And he wondered why he had said them at all.

Hal glanced off and dabbed at the side of his mouth with a napkin. Oh, I guess . . . Hal cleared his throat, and Gatz watched the professor's big Adams-apple lurch when he swallowed. It seems you're handling things well enough.

Gatz waved him off, coughed and laughed. Sorry, Hal. Yeah, I'm doing just fine. I'm up to a mile and a quarter running. Not bad for a couple weeks’ work.

Hal recovered and took another bite of his sandwich. So when's the marathon?

As he laughed in reply, Gatz caught an oily fish odor from Hal's sandwich or his breath, and his nose almost wrinkled before he caught himself. His eyes strayed to the shiny nubs that used to be Hal's index and middle fingers. His index finger was lopped off at the base, leaving only a skin covered ball of gristle. A hairy stump remained of the middle finger; it extended nearly an inch out from the lumpy knuckle and Hal wriggled it as he put his sandwich down momentarily. Hal wore a tight wedding band on the next finger, the ring finger. Gatz wondered what Hal's wife was like—wondered if she liked for him to touch her with that mutilated hand.

Seriously, though, what's with the running? Hal said. Chasing your youth, Gene?

Gatz shrugged. Guess you can look at it that way.

Hal grunted a laugh and picked at the little indented spot on the end of his stump with a fingernail. Gatz quickly shifted his glance away to a young man swinging a backpack onto his shoulder and taking a laughing woman's hand to hurry them out to the street. Gatz bit into the orange rind and tugged a flap of it away so he could peel it. He bit again and sucked the juice. A wisp of smoke trailed by them, and Gatz remembered the morning cigarette he never got to smoke, one of the three a day he still allowed himself. Probably just as well, he thought.

The door behind Hal banged open, and Gatz watched a group of students come in. They weaved through the tables to get in line as the place filled up for the lunch hour. Most of the students carried piles of books, presumably to sell back, and a few of the instructors were bent over stacks of papers while they ate their meals. Voices rose and fell around the big room and chairs scraped the floor as people came and left. A young woman in shorts and a tight, silk blouse stopped a couple of tables over with her tray. She was slender, Asian, and beautiful. To Gatz, she looked definitely foreign but not Vietnamese—Korean maybe. Black hair hung to her waist, and she deftly flipped it over the chairback as she sat. With smooth, delicate hands, she shifted the items from her tray to the table. Hal tilted his head her way and winked. Nice hair, huh?

Gatz nodded without turning from the woman. Really beautiful.

Maybe you should try one of these coeds instead of the running, Gene. You know, tit for tat.

Gatz looked at Hal. Speaking from experience?

Hal leaned back and shook his head. Not at all. My Joannie's all I've ever needed, and I'm sure the opposite's as true; the woman's an angel, outside the bedroom anyway. Hal grinned slyly than sobered. No, Gene, I couldn't be happier, seriously. You're the one needs a little pick-me-up. Hal leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Might not be under consent of the king, but you never know where it could lead. And you certainly wouldn't be the first.

Gatz laughed softly and shook his head. They're not much more than kids, Hal. I'm not chasing my youth that hard; I just need something to do, and I want to keep healthy.

Yeah, we always say it's the blood pressure and cholesterol. Trying to keep your hair healthy, too? Hal and Gatz watched the Asian woman put her hands to the small of her back, arch and stretch, molding the blouse to the shape of her breasts. She checked her watch, glanced around then opened a text book onto the table beside her meal. As the lunch crowd grew heavier, she ate and studied. Gatz worked on his orange. Hal chewed on his sandwich.

Presently, a shaggy haired blond youth in a varsity jacket, full backpack, and jeans came over and put his tray at her table. He produced a red rose and handed it to her. She smiled up at him and her face brightened at the gift. She laid it gently on the table and then got up to clear his tray for him while he shrugged out of his backpack and jacket. Beneath the jacket, he wore a T-shirt as tight as her blouse. Before they sat down again, he kissed her, and Gatz watched her hand explore the muscles in the boy's arm. Gatz turned to Hal and saw the older man was looking at him. He found the source of their bond in Hal's eyes.

Perhaps they had little in common beyond university teaching; perhaps they weren't even friends. But they were both on the down side of the hill. Gatz felt his shoulders slump. Carol's part of it, I guess. Part of me doesn't want to be alone, and another part is glad she left. Gatz indicated the next table with a subtle nod. Truth is that boy there's got a better girl than Carol ever was. But there's a lot more to this than that. There're the things I've put off or planned for later, that I'm starting to realize I might never see. It may be nothing: a few trinkets brought back by the Spaniards. Gatz pushed the thought away and continued: This smoker's cough scares me, too. But you know what it really is that eats away at me?

Yup, Hal said. The future. That point that'll come when you have to sit and watch everything you've learned wither away along with your body. Maybe end up pissing your dignity away into a bedpan. Hal shrugged. That point's out there, Gene, waiting for all of us.

That doesn't mean we have to just walk up to it and shake hands.

Hal shrugged. Maybe not. But that down slide is inevitable, and being too preoccupied with it might cost you more than your dignity now.

Everybody does it.

It's a matter of degree, Hal said. Gene, you're starting to remind me of the type of person one of our great writers describes: someone who figuratively pisses all over his present life because he's got one foot in the past and the other straddled over into the future.

Sounds like Hemingway or maybe Joyce, Gatz said and grinned. I’m assuming you’re paraphrasing a bit, Hal.

Hal laughed. That's just what I mean.

Gatz grunted dismissively and said, What would you give to be young again, Hal? I've almost got the cigs beat, doctor's orders, and I gave up drinking.

Hal let his eyes drift closed and slowly shook his head. Gatz noticed a patchy age spot near his temple. Hal opened his eyes and the sparkle was gone; they looked serious, thoughtful. That only slows it down, Gene; believe me. Hal turned to the couple and back. You let this old age thing get to you, and it'll drive you crazy. And that's no bull.

But just supposing, Hal, Gene pressed. What would you do?

Hal studied Gene a moment, then relaxed and leaned back. To really have my youth again? He held his mutilated hand up. "To be whole again?"