Canyon of the Sphinx (7 page)

"Not at all. So it became my
objective to find this city. It took me a lot of years of putting in my dues at
other sites, but I'm finally where I want to be, but so far, the city has
remained elusive. That's why you're here."

"So you want to prove the
Egyptians settled a colony in this area?"

Murphy shook his head slowly.
"I want to prove that they didn't."

CHAPTER
FOUR

Without Kathlyn and her team
around, the dig was exceptionally quiet. Even Juliana was quiet, going about
her work without her usual sparkle. Lynn knew, as did Marcus, that her heart
was in the Yucatan with Kathlyn.  Marcus never said a word to Lynn about it;
the man was feeling guilty enough, torn between his own wants and those of his
wife.

 It was early in the morning, the
dawn of the third day of Kathlyn's absence, as Juliana made her way across the
encampment toward the mess tent. Lynn was still asleep, having put in about
twenty hours the day before. She left him alone to go get her coffee, feeling
strangely alone in Egypt even with her husband fifty feet away from her. She
kept expecting Kathlyn to pop up somewhere, repeatedly disappointed when she
didn't.

The smell of strong Arabic coffee
was heavy in the air. It was like one of those cartoons where an odorous hand
slithers out, luring unsuspecting victims with a tantalizing smell.  Juliana
inhaled deeply as she walked across the warm sand, fortunate that she had no
morning sickness yet. Glancing over at Marcus' tent, for no other reason than
she wanted to see if he was up yet, she caught sight of Jensen emerging from
it.  Startled, she watched the woman skulk back across the encampment and
disappear behind a cluster of tents.

Juliana stood there a moment,
wondering if she had just seen what she thought she saw. Jensen Elder emerging
from Marcus' tent at the crack of dawn, looking as if she hadn't slept a wink. 
She couldn't believe it.  The more she thought about it, the more shocked she
became. But even then, she still couldn't believe it. It was like a bad dream.
Forgetting her coffee, she ran back to her tent where Lynn lay in a dead
sleep.  She brutally shook her husband awake.

"Lynn!" she hissed.
"Wake up!"

Lynn's smooth brown eyes rolled
open. "What... what's wrong, baby?"

Juliana was flushed. "Do you
know what I just saw?"

Lynn blinked. He was still half
asleep. "Is something wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Juliana
fumed. "I just saw Jensen coming out of Marcus' tent. What in the hell was
she doing in his tent at this time of the morning?"

Lynn blinked again, trying to
understand what she was saying. When the pieces fell together in his sleepy
mind, he scowled and threw a big arm over his eyes. "What kind of madness
are you talking about?" he demanded. "Go back to sleep."

She wouldn't let him get away.
"I don't want to go back to sleep," she insisted angrily. "Lynn,
are you listening to me? It's the goddamn crack of dawn and Jensen is coming
out of Marcus' tent. Her hair was all messed up and so were her clothes. What
does that look like to you?"

He didn't answer her and she
pulled his arm away from his eyes, pinning it down. He just lay there for a
minute and she thought he had dozed off. But the brown eyes opened and he
looked at her, suddenly very lucid.

"You're not serious."

"The hell I am!" she
stood up, arms flailing dramatically. "What in the hell is going on?"

Lynn took a deep breath.
"Maybe they've been up all night working on the books. You know they've
been putting in a lot of hours trying to clear up some things. It's not what
you're thinking."

Juliana crossed her arms. "I
want you to go over there and see if Marcus is in bed."

Lynn's head came up off the
pillow. "What?"

"You heard me. I want you to
go see if he's still in bed. And if he is, you ask him why I just saw Jensen
leaving his tent. And if you don't like his answer, I want you to punch his
lights out. Do you hear me?"

Lynn scratched his bald head.
"Baby, I've known Marcus Burton for many, many years.  I know that he is
mad, crazy in love with his wife. He lives for the woman and you know it.  He
would never do anything to jeopardize that; it wouldn't even enter his mind.
He's the model of marital integrity and honor."

"Then what the hell was that
woman doing there?"

"I don't know."

"Go ask him!"

"I am not butting into
anyone else's marriage."

Juliana turned for the tent
opening. "Then I will."

"Hold on," Lynn leapt
up from the bed and grabbed her. "You're serious about this?"

"As a heart attack."

He stared at her. Then, he sighed
heavily. "All right," he threw his hands up in defeat and went in
search of his pants. "I'll go over there. But I'm going to look like a
damn idiot."

"I don't care. If it clears
up what's going on, then I don't care."

Lynn pulled on his jeans.
"Of course you don't care, because you're not the one looking like a
fool."

Juliana didn't say anything. She
just stood there with her arms crossed. Lynn buttoned his pants and looked at
her. "That baby is making you crazy."

"Just go ask him."

He growled at her but obediently
left the tent. In his bare feet, he hopped across the sand.  He cursed when he
stepped on a sharp rock, stumbling and skipping until he reached Marcus' tent. 
He stood there a moment, calling Marcus' name a couple of times, softly.
Receiving no reply, he walked in.

The room was empty. No Marcus
anywhere. Looking around, Lynn could see that nothing was out of place, nor was
there anything unusual. The bed hadn't been slept in at all. Turning for the
door, a flash of color at the base of the futon caught his attention.

Lynn bent down and picked up a
pair of blue satin panties. He stared at them a moment, absolutely refusing to
believe anything negative. Perhaps they were Kathlyn's, somehow misplaced. He
trusted his friend and would not believe any wrong doing had gone on. But the
panty thing didn't look good. He thought about not telling his wife, but then
again, maybe she could identify the underwear as being Kathlyn's and the
mystery would be solved. But if it wasn't Kathlyn's, he'd have a wild tiger on
his hands and he didn't want that. Therefore, the only person to ask was
Marcus. He could identify them in a heartbeat.

He didn't know what to do. He
shouldn't involve himself in things like this, but he could feel a misplaced
sense of outrage and curiosity sweeping him.  Balling the panties up so they
fit neatly in his closed hand, he went back over to his tent to get his shoes
and shirt on so he could go find Marcus. Juliana was waiting for him.

"Well?" she demanded.

Lynn was trying to hide the
panties from her; if he shoved them in his jean pocket, there would be a nice
tell-tale bulge, so he tried to keep them all wadded up in his fist. He reached
under the bed for his shoes.

"He wasn't there," he
said calmly. "Baby, can you find me a shirt please?"

Juliana obediently pulled a clean
tee shirt from the tall up-right clothes locker. She held it out to him and he
couldn't gracefully take it from her without revealing the contents of his
closed hand. Awkwardly trying to accept it, the shirt began to fall to the
floor and he reached out with lightning reflexes to catch it before it got
dirty. The panties fell to the ground instead.

Juliana was on top of them.
"What's that?"

Lynn knew he couldn't bluff his
way out of this. She was too sharp. Reluctantly, he picked them up and held
them out to her. "Are these Kathlyn's?"

Juliana looked at them. She
inspected the tag and Lynn watched her cheeks grow pink. "I doubt it for
two very good reasons; number one, she doesn't wear the Nordy department store
brand because they're not very well made. Secondly, she wears a small. These
are a medium." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "God, Lynn,
please tell me you didn't find these in Marcus' bed."

He shook his head. "I didn't
find them in the bed."

"Thank God."

"I found them on the floor
near the bed."

Juliana stared at him in
disbelief. "Damn!" she spat. "I can't believe this is
happening!"

"It's not," Lynn said
calmly. He still refused to believe the worst.  "I'm going to go talk to
Marcus right now. Something's just not right."

"You're damn straight that
something's not right," Juliana seethed. "He's cheating on my best
friend!"

"Do you really believe
that?"

Juliana thought before she replied
and she cooled dramatically. "I guess I really don't," she finally
said. "But what else am I supposed to think? Jensen was leaving his tent
and...."

"And I went over there not
three minutes later and Marcus wasn't there, and the bed hadn't even been slept
in." He held up the panties. "All I found were these, near the base
of the bed. So what does that tell you?"

Juliana just shook her head.
"I don't know. Lynn, I'm just sick about this."

He tied his shoe and stood up.
"Don't get all worked up," he said. "Let me talk to Marcus
before this gets all out of control."

"What do you think is going
on?"

"I have no idea," Lynn
admitted. "But I'll ask Marcus. Whatever answer he gives me is God's truth
and I'll believe him. And you will, too. He wouldn't lie to us, ever."

Juliana nodded. "You're
right. I shouldn't have been so suspicious. But it just looked so bad, and with
Kathlyn gone...."

He kissed her, grabbed his
bandanna, and tied it around his naked head; he figured he might as well go
back to work now that he was up. "I know," he said understandingly.
"Like I said, that baby is making you crazy."

"Bite me."

"It's making you mean,
too."

"I was already mean."

He grinned and left the tent in
search of Marcus.

***

All she saw was jungle. Hills and
valleys and stinky, steamy jungle. Perched on a rise overlooking what appeared
to be a long, expansive gorge as the sun rose on the eastern horizon, Kathlyn
scratched her head curiously.

"This is Site A?"

Murphy was standing over her
shoulder.  "Yes; this is where I've narrowed my focus.”

"So where's the actual
dig?"

"Down there," Murphy
pointed down a trail, into the growth. "We've got about a twenty square
foot area down there sectioned off. We've found a few potsherds, a cooking
area, minor things like that."

Kathlyn rested her hands on her
hips, looking down the trail as it led into a jungle-enshrouded hole, and then
finally looking back up over the rise of the gorge on either side. After
sleeping on last evening's discussion, she should have felt more comfortable
with what she was doing. But she was only more confused.

"Dr. Murphy," she said
slowly. "You know, I'm still not sure why I'm here."

He looked at her with his pale
blue eyes. "What's still unclear about this?"

She lifted her hand to her
surroundings. "All of this," she said. "Look, no offense, but
I'm not some flesh and bone divining rod to help you pinpoint your lost city. I
don't work that way. My field is Biblical Archaeology with a specialty in
Mythology and Theology. You seem to have a nice dig going here, with some luck
in locating relics, and we discussed earlier that I'm not an Egyptologist if
that's what you really need.  I still don't understand why you need me to help
you find this city. Now, if you were looking for a tomb or some other sort of
divine or spiritual relic, that would be more my speed. But this...."

Murphy wiped the sweat off his
brow. "So you're saying you don't have a crystal ball for this."

"Is that what you're looking
for?"

His attempt at dry humor had been
missed. He put his baseball cap back on, bill side reversed, and looked her in
the eye. "No," he said flatly. "Look, I'll be honest with you.
It wasn't my idea to get you to come here. It was my University's. All I know
about you is what I've seen, heard, and read.  If you're telling me you can't
help me with this, then maybe this has been a huge waste of time for you and
for me.  But I was told you had a sixth sense about things and that you
produced results, which is why I agreed. This whole thing is an enigma to me
and maybe I was just hoping for an objective opinion. Like I said, your being
here wasn't my idea."

Kathlyn shook her head.
"You're the leading brain in Mesoamerican studies.  It seems to me like
you're doing all the right things on this dig. If your university thought they
could bring me in to magically find your objective, then they're misinformed. I
feel like just my presence here is insulting to you, Dr. Murphy. You're
qualified a thousand times more than I am on this."