CHAPTER 38
GOLDFISH POINT,
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
COFFEE IN HAND, SAM AND REMI WALKED INTO THE WORKROOM at eight A.M. to find Selma, Pete, and Wendy standing before a six-foot-wide map of the Indian Ocean tacked to the wall with blue painter’s tape.Six hours earlier, at Pete and Wendy’s urging, Sam and Remi had gone to bed, leaving them to plot the coordinates on a world map.
“Of the one hundred sixty-nine locations in Blaylock’s grid, eighty-two of them were null,” Pete now explained. “Of the remaining eighty-seven, fifty-three were located in the middle of the ocean, which left us thirty-four latitude and longitude points that matched up with land. That’s what you see plotted here.”
The coordinates were marked by red pushpins connected by white string. In rough, the pins formed a giant inverted V that started near Madagascar, peaked 2,800 miles to the northeast at Sri Lanka, and ended off the central coast of Sumatra, 1,400 miles to the southeast.“Where are the other pins?” Sam asked.
Selma replied, “We pulled some out, most of them well inland. We wanted you to see this particular pattern first.”
Both Remi and Sam recognized the gleam in Selma’s eyes. During the night, she, Pete, and Wendy had discovered something significant.
“Go on,” Remi prompted.
“After you got back from Madagascar and proposed the east-to-west Aztec migration theory, I started doing a little digging. In recent years a number of archaeologists and anthropologists have been finding more and more evidence that the Malagasy people of Madagascar arrived there in the first or second century, having sailed there from Indonesia-specifically, the island of Sulawesi. I came across a map of the route the Malagasy were believed to have taken.”Selma picked up the remote and powered up the TV across the room.
The route, depicted as a red line on a map of the Indian Ocean, from the Indonesian Archipelago to the east coast of Africa, was nearly identical to the one on the workroom’s wall.
“Incredible” was all Sam could say. “So Blaylock beat present-day experts to this theory by a hundred twenty or so years,” Remi said. “That’s impressive, but I don’t-”
“There’s more,” Selma said. Pete and Wendy got up on step stools, removed the pushpins, peeled back the tape, and pulled away the map. Beneath it was a second map, this one spanning from the east coast of Africa to South America. Like the first map, this one was covered in red pushpins connected by white string.“These are all Blaylock’s?” Sam asked.
“Yes.”
The pushpins began near the coastal city of Lumbo in Mozambique and proceeded across the waist of Africa to the west coast of Angola before island-hopping first up the coastline, then west across the Atlantic to the easternmost bulge of Brazil, where they turned north and followed the coast of South America past Trinidad and Tobago and into the Caribbean Sea.Remi asked, “Are we to believe Blaylock visited all these places?”
Sam replied, “He captured the Shenandoah in 1872, then went treasure hunting for his jeweled bird. Who knows how long he was at sea? It could have been decades, for all we know.”“This looks familiar,” Remi said. “Pete, Wendy, put the first map up beside this one, please.”
They did as she asked.
Remi stared at this configuration for almost a full minute before smiling faintly. “Do you see it?” she asked.
“See what?” asked Sam.
In answer, Remi walked to one of the workstations. “Wendy’s been teaching me a little Photoshop. Let’s see how good a learner I am. Everybody go sit down. This might take me a few minutes.”With her upper body blocking the computer monitor, no one could see what she was doing. At the worktable, Sam leaned sideways on his stool, trying to get a peek.
“Forget it, Fargo,” Remi muttered. “Sorry.”
Twenty minutes later, Remi turned in her seat and addressed the group. “Okay. We all remember the Orizaga Codex?”
Everyone nodded.
“Remember the symbol spanning the upper half?”
More nods.
“Turn on the TV, Selma.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Sam. “We were staring at it the whole time. It wouldn’t win any cartography awards, but all the big pieces are there. Remind me: When did the Malagasy arrive in Madagascar?”“First or second century.”
“And when did the Aztecs first emerge in Mexico?”
“Sixth century.”
“The Malagasy blaze the first trail from Sulawesi, then a few centuries later, a bigger armada-a hundred ships if the Orizaga Codex is accurate-arrives in Madagascar, but they don’t stop there. They keep heading west until they find Mexico.”
“The journey must have taken years,” Pete said. “The walk across Africa alone would have lasted six months or more. If you figure, conservatively, eight people to an outrigger, we’re talking about as many as eight hundred people.”
“Sam said it before: an exodus,” Remi replied.“How do we know they didn’t go around Africa’s southern tip?” asked Wendy.
“Two reasons,” Remi said. “First, you’ll notice that area doesn’t appear on their map; second, they may have tried it, but I can’t imagine anybody getting around the Cape of Good Hope in outriggers.”“Those are some of the most unforgiving waters on earth,” Sam agreed. “Here’s the million-dollar question: On your map, where exactly does the big question mark fall?”
“You’ve got me. Indonesia’s a big place. For Blaylock, it was probably where he thought he’d find his treasure. For the Aztecs, it was Chicomoztoc. When King Cuauhtemotzin dictated the codex to Orizaga, he was trying to show where his forefathers came from, but after centuries of having the story handed down through one generation of royalty to the next Cuauhtemotzin himself couldn’t be more specific.”Pete said, “What I want to know is why they left in the first place.”
THAT QUESTION was at least partially answered two hours later when Remi’s old professor, Stan Dydell, called Selma and requested a video conference. The group gathered around the TV in the workroom. Dydell’s smiling face appeared on the screen. In appearance, he was the exact opposite of George Milhaupt: tall, thin, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.“Good morning, Remi, nice to see you again.”
“And you, Professor.”
“And that man beside you would be Sam.”
“Nice to meet you, Professor.” Sam introduced Pete and Wendy. Dydell nodded in greeting. “My secretary is helping me with all this. You don’t mind, do you? I think technology has outpaced me a bit.”“Not at all,” said Remi.
“I imagine you’re anxious to talk about your find, so I’ll get right to it. First, let’s talk about the photos you sent. The vessel itself isn’t unique: canoe shaped, two outriggers, and a single mast. The size is impressive, however. Next: I’m probably not telling you anything you haven’t already worked out for yourself, but the carving on the bowsprit looks remarkably like Quetzalcoatl, the Great Plumed Serpent God of the Aztecs.” “Our guess as well.”“We’ve talked about Quetzalcoatl,” Sam said, “but what’s the significance?”
“As in most Aztec myth systems, Quetzalcoatl plays an array of roles that depend on the period and the circumstances. In some cases, Quetzalcoatl was related to the wind, the planet Venus, arts, and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood. He was also believed to be responsible for the separation of the earth and sky, and an essential player in the creation of mankind.”“That’s a lot of hats to wear,” Sam remarked.
