her mind. The aunt after whom she’d been named had died a faithful fanatic at Jonestown. The rest of her living family had a peculiar fear of God, one she would never understand.
Porter’s fire would not go out. The more persecution, the better. He’d shine like a sun in this courtroom if Comer didn’t drop this.
Of course the Prosecution wanted Porter to go nova. When emotions got involved, people lost all sense of logic. Alred wanted to look over at Porter, to shout out a warning. It was a trap, and no one would fall harder than the eccentric Latter-day Saint in the room. But she kept her eyes sturdy and rethought the question- why would people try to murder Porter? “For scholarly reasons.”
“We’re talking Indiana Jones here, aren’t we?” said Comer. He turned to the judge and jury, but didn’t bother looking at them, keeping his eyes on the black ground instead as he slid his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks. “Will you be telling the court that this killer scholarship is normal among the highly educated?”
Alred didn’t blink. “Everyone who has ever been directly connected with the study of Dr. Ulman’s find in Guatemala is dead now. Only one individual I know of, other than Porter and myself, who has placed his own hands on comparable portions of the relative discovery is still alive, and he has sharply turned his back on the project…as if it were never found.”
“Really,” said Comer. “And who is that?”
“Dr. Alexander Peterson of Ohio State University. Porter chose to stand alone.”
Comer smiled and squinted his eyes as if playing along with this new revelation. “Who would organize such devious acts?”
Alred set her jaw, looked around, then locked eyes with the Prosecuting Attorney. “I believe the man in question…has been here in the courtroom today. You know him by the name of Peter Arnott.”
“ Has been here?” said Comer, glancing once at all those watching the proceedings.
“I no longer see him at present,” Alred said, realizing how much this probably sounded made-up. “I am sure Dr. Kinnard will concur with my statement.”
Comer nodded, pushing his bottom lip against his top teeth. Walking over to the jury, Comer pondered thoughts Alred could not discern. Had she led him down a blind alley, or was she walking the path he’d devised during the recess? He looked at her again. “Ms. Alred. You are a specialist in…”
“Ancient Mesoamerican Archaeology, but I am also well-read in numerous ancient American cultures.”
“What relationship does Mormonism have with ancient Mesoamerica?” said Comer.
“Objection,” said Sowerby.
Judge Panofsky put his mouth to his microphone. “Mr. Comer, will you state the relevance of your question before carrying us into a religious trial. I hate those.”
“Your Honor, according to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, published by the Macmillan Publishing Company in 1992.” Comer lifted a brown leather-bound notebook from his desk and read his words aloud. “Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons, believe a number of Israelites settled somewhere in America in approximately 600 BC. The Book of Mormon specifically describes these people and their approximate 1000 year existence, with an included supplementary book describing another group who came from the Old World to the New just after the fall of the Biblical Tower of Babel.” Comer looked up. “John Porter is a Mormon, and I suspect would therefore be more interested in Central American archaeology because of his religion than for scholarly reasons.”
“Objection overruled,” said the judge, looking at his desk. “Proceed.”
“Ms. Alred, based on your knowledge of Ancient Mesoamerica and your personal contact with Mr. Porter, would you say the defendant made no religious connections with Dr. Ulman’s discovery?”
“I do not feel inclined to say such a thing,” Alred said, her eyes relaxed but her head growing hazy. She prayed inside that the Prosecutor would turn the discussion away from religion, then sighed with inner embarrassment for praying at all in any form.
“Porter is a specialist in Ancient Near Eastern Studies,” said Comer, looking back at his notes. “In your expert opinion as a doctoral candidate in Ancient Mesoamerican Archaeology, Ms. Alred, what relationship does ancient Arabia, Egypt, or Israel have with America?”
Alred moved her tongue around in her mouth before speaking. “None.”
“On what basis do you make this decree?” said Comer.
“Archaeologists refute claims that anyone came from the Near East to the Americas in ancient times,” said Alred. She felt her conviction tearing away at her inside. After all she’d studied personally, in Dr. Ulman’s papers, KM-2, and especially KM-3, there ached the constant possibility deep inside her that the connection really was clear. But everything else, all her schooling, every measure of her logical mind told her to ignore Ulman’s finds-they only confused the truth.
“Tell us why then was a scholarly young man like John D. Porter, a specialist in Near Eastern Studies, given the ancient manuscript dug up by an American Archaeologist from Stratford University.” Comer stopped his slow pacing.
“Porter believes there is a connection from both sides,” she said. “This does stem from his faith and more precisely from the Book of Mormon. He has used numerous Mesoamerican texts to back up his claims and has found KM-2 to be the greatest of all, expressing the heretofore undiscovered evidence linking the Old and New Worlds. He is
…motivated by his religious standing.
“I do not concur with these ideas,” said Alred for her own peace. “The bottom line is that both Porter, a Near Eastern scholar, and myself, a Mesoamericanist, were commissioned by Stratford University to complete a project which would result with our Ph. D’s, following our dissertations given on the fifth of May. As does Porter, I have a full Fellowship and am therefore… paid to do exactly what Stratford asks. This was a paid assignment. Porter had more at stake than anyone else relative to KM-2. I do not believe he sought money or even fame from this study, but very much hoped to earn his degree and bring to light what he would deem as more evidence that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be. Due to a technicality, this excellent student who is on trial today wouldn’t graduate without the KM-2 project. As I said, Stratford took KM-2 away at the last moment, dissolving all possibilities and inadvertently disposing of our work.”
Comer grinned. “And you believe this.”
“I have no religious convictions-”
“You think some underground religious freaks might try to kill the both of you, just as you see others murdered for-”
“I see two Ph. D’s stolen from the hands of worthy students, and a university that is attempting to-”
“Why can’t you see what is going on here?!?” said Porter standing suddenly and speaking fast as one thump of the gavel echoed through the room. “Archaeological evidence in any good textbook confirms the dates suggested in the Book of Mormon, which was written years before our modern information had been found, gathered, and compiled.
“Both modern studies and the Book of Mormon describe a society which lived at the same time and died in the Middle Preclassic period of Mesoamerican history.
“Both sources accurately present us with a new civilization that sprang suddenly out of the Middle Preclassic period, ran for one thousand years, ending with major social catastrophes and changes culminating in the end of the Early Classic civilizations.
“While scholars for decades have called the Mayans a peaceful people, the Book of Mormon describes tribes and kingdoms at constant war with one another. Now archaeologists confirm the description-the Book of Mormon proving to be accurate again. New art filled with armed men and tangible evidence of widespread cannibalism in and around Teotihuacan in the North and Mayan lowlands in Guatemala and the Yucatan begin exactly at the same time as the record of Mormon-describing the same situation-purportedly ends.
“As the Book of Mormon prophesies, in the years following its last pages, as Alred and any competent ancient Americanist will confirm, all major population centers completed a shift from theocratic governments to secular lifestyles. The old ceremonialism was done away with. Mayan and Mesoamerican stones were defaced for reasons archaeologists are unable to give. And from the Middle Classic period on, religion became a means to secular ends just as it too often does today.
“I could cite to everyone in this room, the Popol Vuh and other ancient Mesoamerican documents which describe scenes from the scattering of people from a mountain-your Tower of Babel, Mr. Comer-to the great flood
