Chapter Two
John Reid was frustrated, very frustrated. He’d looked through three dictionaries and failed to find a definition for one particular Hebraic word that made any sense in its context. He would have to give a call to the Jewish professor who had given him this ancient parchment transcription, and that would have to wait because it was currently three thirty in the morning. He’d been in his office since school let out yesterday, working on his paper in the puddle of light cast by a cheap desk lamp.
Still, apart from this setback, he was rather satisfied. It looked to be a highlight of his career. He had carefully avoided any mention of the Book of Mormon, but as soon as that text was recognized as a legitimate subject of study, as he knew someday it would be, he would have a head start. And in the meantime this stuff was interesting in its own right.
He looked at the word for the fifteenth time and wondered again, what could be the meaning of sticking it in there? No matter how you looked at it, it didn’t come even remotely close to making sense. Then he realized the tail of an a was in fact an ink smudge on an o. With a lightheaded giggle he reevaluated the word as it now stood and reached again for one of the dictionaries.
His head snapped around as the door flew open – it wasn’t locked – and in marched a pair of gorilla-sized figures covered in robes that bore more than a passing resemblance to the Ku Klux Klan’s infamous attire. He'd never seen any in person, but he was familiar with J. Golden Kimball's account from his missionary service in the southern states: “They cover themselves with a white sheet and there's a hood for the head with two small openings for their eyes. This hood has a point to it, which is more than could be said for their beliefs.”
On another occasion he had said simply, “It's a waste of a good sheet.”
These quotes jumped through Reid's mind now and would have made him smile to himself, except that it wasn't the figures' uniforms that concerned him. It was the Smith and Wesson revolver that each held aimed straight at him.
He rose to his feet with his hands raised in the air, even as his heart rose into his throat. “Can I help you?” he asked, and was disappointed to hear his voice come out in a pathetic croak. He’d hoped to conceal his fear.
“You certainly can,” said one figure in a deep baritone voice, moving around in front of the desk. The other moved behind his chair so he couldn’t see them both at once. “This is your famous research paper?” the first one continued, gesturing at the stack of handwritten papers on his desk.
Reid had never been much of a liar, and with guns pointed at him he figured now wasn’t the time to start. “Yes,” he said.
“All of it?”
“Yes.” He didn’t feel the need to mention the pile of supplementary documents next to it, of which the scroll transcription was at the top.
The hood pocketed his gun, grabbed the papers and stuffed them into his robe as well. Then he retrieved a rag. At the same time the thug behind Reid pulled his arms behind his back and forced him back into his chair. The rag was brought towards his face, and he smelled what he imagined to be chloroform, or worse.
Only seconds remained for him to think, and he used them well. As the rag made contact with his skin he jerked his head forward and sank his teeth with all the force he could muster into the man’s right hand, not intending to let go. The man screamed a curse and jerked his fingers away, worsening the gashes in them. Then using the thug holding him as leverage Reid kicked his desk over into the man’s toes. Papers flew everywhere and the desk lamp shattered, plunging the office into blackness.
His other persecutor released him to retrieve his gun, but Reid was already turned around and on top of him. The gun went off into the wall as together they stumbled back into a bookshelf. It wobbled and sent one of its heaviest tomes down onto the thug’s head. He went limp.
Reid pulled the gun away and smiled, until a smaller but decidedly hard book landed on his own head. His vision wavered and he swayed as he fought to keep from blacking out.
The next thing he knew the first thug was standing over him, revolver in his bloody hand, snarling, “Think you’re so damn smart, you damn egghead, you,” and a few less flattering words. Reid decided to feign unconsciousness. The man put away the gun, picked the professor up, cast a glance at his downed comrade, and headed for the door.
Reid reached into the voluminous pocket of the robe. As soon as his fingers found the second revolver, he drove his knee as hard as he could into his captor’s solar plexus. He was dropped to the floor and had both guns trained on the hooded man before he could react.
“Status quo’s a little different now, eh?” he said, getting to his feet. “Why don’t you just give me back my research paper and we’ll forget we had this little meeting.”
“I have a better idea,” said the hood. “Why don’t you just shoot me and take it.”
Reid’s blood ran cold. He swallowed. “I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”
“Seriously, shoot me, Mormon boy,” the thug taunted. “Pretend like I’m Laban, and you’re Nephi, and the Lord has delivered me into your hands. You have to kill me so you can have the ‘brass plates’, so to speak.”
“Look, I –”
He sensed movement behind him and spun around with the guns, but too late. The second hood brought down the book on his head again – the same one, fortunately, not the bigger one which was too heavy to lift that high – and he crumpled to the floor with pretty girls from various world mythologies dancing through his vision. The two thugs loomed over him, and they were not happy.
Then out in the hall – “John! What's going on in there!?” It was Frank Henderson's voice.
The thugs looked at each other, then bolted for the door. They nearly ran Henderson over as he came rushing from the opposite direction, and one of them elbowed him on the way past out of spite.
Henderson rushed into the office and crouched over Reid's prone form. “John, buddy, speak to me!” he said. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Reid tried to count but couldn't concentrate through his headache and Pandora's sashaying. “I give up,” he moaned.
“Well, um, who was the first emperor of a unified China?”
“Qin Shi Huangdi, real name Ying Zheng. Too easy.”
“Can you stand?”
“Let's see.” Reid tried to push himself up, got dizzy and slipped back down. “No.” Pandora was shoved aside by Aphrodite, who began her own routine but was distracted by Tinkerbell buzzing around her face.
“What happened? I heard a gunshot or something, and as soon as I saw the light was off in your office I knew something was horribly wrong. Who were those guys?”
“Sophomores disappointed with their grades,” Reid said. “What are you doing here at this hour any–” His whole world faded into oblivion.
“A joke!” Henderson yelped with glee. “You've made a joke! I'm so proud!”
***
John Reid was surprised to wake up in his own bed. Then he remembered the events of last night, how Henderson had rescued him and taken him first to the police station, then to the hospital to be treated for concussion, and then home to sleep off a throbbing headache which now only lingered on the fringes of his consciousness. He was still surprised, though, to see Eliana standing over him, looking more radiant than any of the mythological girls from last night.
As soon as she saw the recognition in his eyes, she stooped down and engulfed him in a hug and kiss on the cheek. “You poor baby,” she said, “what’s happened to you?”
Her embrace, though not unpleasant, made him feel rather awkward for some reason. “What makes you think something’s happened to me?” he sidestepped.
“We do hear things on the reservation.”
“This fast?”
“This fast? Silly, it’s four in the afternoon.”
“Four in the –?” He bolted upright in bed, tearing free of her grasp, and stared at her in panic. “You can’t be serious! I’ve missed three classes!”
“Settle down,” she said, gently pushing him back down onto his pillow. “It’s been taken care of. Why don’t you just tell your friend Eliana what happened.”
Reid groaned at the memory. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cops,” he said. “I’m working on my research paper, minding my own business, when a couple guys burst into my office dressed like the Ku Klux Klan. They take my paper and try to take me, too, only I’m not too keen on that idea, so we have a heated exchange of opinions until we reach a suitable compromise. They let me go and I let them keep my paper.”
“‘Heated exchange of opinions!’” Eliana guffawed. “You are so funny!” She cleared her throat. “That’s awful, though. What could it be about?”
“You got me there. My best guess is that it really was the Klan, or at least a copycat group. The other day I, ah, made a bit of a scene in public when one of my esteemed colleagues used a racist epithet. He would never be involved with people like this, but anyone nearby could have overheard and decided to put me in my place. The waiter, maybe. He looked like a bigot.” Then it hit him. James Martin. Who else?”
“You brave man, I’m so proud of you,” she said, giving him another squeeze. “But I wasn’t aware their influence extended this far west. You must really be unlucky. And how did they know about your paper?”
“It was never exactly a secret,” he said sheepishly. “All of the staff and many students at the college know about it, and everyone who was at church last Sunday. Heck, someone could have already been following me by that point, and standing outside the Davises’ backyard and hearing everything I said.” Or James Martin could have easily found out without even trying.
“But what could they want with it?”
“To hurt me, what else? That project means a lot to me – all my projects mean a lot to me. Maybe someone will even try to publish it himself, but I’ll be watching like a hawk for it.”
“Perhaps this someone is searching for the sword of Laban,” Eliana joked.
Reid laughed. “Right, why not? They should dig up the Liahona first, or Joseph Smith’s seer stone; either would lead them right to it.” He grew serious. “My paper wouldn’t help them a bit, though. It does talk a lot about swords, but nothing about this specific one. Actually, I do have an idea where it is. In 1877 Brigham Young taught that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery made visits to a cavern within the Hill Cumorah. In addition to the gold plates of the Book of Mormon and the breastplate and Urim and Thummim that went with them, the men saw Laban’s sword, unsheathed, and written on it was ‘This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and His Christ’.”
“Spooky,” Eliana said. “But what's so special about it? It didn't even come from a righteous man.”
“Maybe it did,” Reid said. “It was probably older than Laban himself. It may have been handed down to him in the same way the brass plates were, as a symbol of power. Like I mentioned briefly at church, swords in Israel were a symbol of power, even kingship. There are a lot of biblical instances of that as well, of swords being handed down through the monarchy and stuff. When Nephi killed Laban with the sword and then took it, the power, in a very real sense, became his. And it seems to have been handed down through his descendants in the New World, and when Joseph Smith held it, that was yet another symbol of his prophetic calling and divine authority. The sword being sheathed could well represent the end of man’s dominion on the Earth.”
“So if someone found it they could say, 'Look at me, I'm powerful'.”
“More likely sell it to a museum or collector for buckets of money. Disregarding its historical context, which would be hard to prove, its intrinsic value between the materials and craftsmanship has to be considerable.”
“Mmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Too bad it doesn't have 'Property of Laban' written on it.” Then her eyes brightened. “Wait, do you mean to tell me that the sword, the plates and all that stuff are just sitting in the ground under a hill in upstate New York?”
“Maybe, but that hill is a drumlin, a pile of gravel scraped together by a glacier, so it shouldn't have any caves. In fact, I don't think it's even the real Hill Cumorah. Joseph Smith never called it that himself, and the Book of Mormon specifically mentions Mormon putting all of his records in the Hill Cumorah except for the gold plates. Moroni could have put the gold plates in afterward of course, and the Brigham Young story does mention 'wagon loads' of other records. But its position in relation to the 'narrow neck of land', if you go by the traditional geography, doesn't match the text. No, I think the real Hill Cumorah is somewhere else, probably in Mesoamerica if my theory on that is correct. As to which hill Brigham Young's story is referring to, that's anyone's guess. He heard it secondhand from Oliver Cowdery anyway.”
“Wow,” Eliana sarcastically said, “that's not excessively confusing or anything.”
“There's no knowledge of traditional swords in Mesoamerica,” he continued, ignoring her, “but the conquistadors did mention maquahuitls, which were like wooden swords with obsidian embedded in the blades. I wonder if there's a connection? The Nephites probably took their steelworking abilities with them to their graves. They were the more civilized group, you know. I wish I could examine one, but the last one was destroyed in a fire in 1884.”
“John, please, shut up for a minute,” Eliana said. “You're supposed to be resting. Hey, you must be starving. I'll make you something. What would you like?”
“No, I'm fine, don't trouble yourself.”
“I insist.”
“Eliana, I'm a grown –”
“If you won't choose something, then I'll decide for you. How about some tukya in tuma wutaki with someviki?” Baked prairie dog in dried boiled bean sauce with tamale cornbread.
His mouth began watering and he became aware of the emptiness in his stomach. “Well, now I'm hungry,” he said. “All right, I'll accept your hospitality this once. But I don't want you to overwork yourself. Nix the someviki for some huzusuki.”
“I'll make both. I'm eating with you, too, by the way.”
“Fair enough.”
“I'll just be off getting a prairie dog or two, then. If you need me, give a whistle.” She pulled a small bone flute from her pocket and gave it to him. He didn’t plan on needing it. He grabbed a book on stratigraphy to read while she was gone. It was fascinating, but he found it hard to concentrate. All he could think about was Mesoamerica and how badly he wanted to go on an expedition there.
Within the hour she returned with a tray of the promised Hopi cuisine, and he nearly fainted with joy at the scent of it. He had smelled it from the kitchen, but this close it was almost unbearably good. “You make me drool like a rabid coyote,” he said, mesmerized. She giggled and he shook himself. “With your cooking, I mean.”
“Nothing to it,” she said. “It’s in my blood.” She pulled a nondescript wooden chair, one of three in the house, up to his bed and sat down with the tray across her lap. “May I say grace, the way you showed me?” she continued. “I’ve been practicing.”
“And how’s that worked out?”
“Very well. I think I’ve really started to feel the Spirit.”
“Well, go ahead and see if you can’t feel it now.”
She prayed wonderfully, just as she had been taught. She thanked Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ for the bounty of delicious food they enjoyed during these challenging economic times, and asked that it be consecrated to the nourishing and strengthening of their bodies. Especially of Reid’s, she said, and hoped that he would make a full and swift recovery.
“Eliana,” he said when he was done, “thanks, but I’m fine. I can barely feel the headache now. I’ll be back in school tomorrow.”
“Perhaps you will,” she said, “but for now, you’re under my care.” She insisted on keeping him in bed and feeding him herself. He knew better than to resist. Afterward she read him a bedtime story about the excavation of Machu Picchu, by the end of which he could hardly keep his eyes open. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and quietly left so as not to disturb him.
John Reid felt better the next morning as anticipated, and returned to the college exactly on time. The spring had gone from his step and some of the enthusiasm from his lectures, however – the loss of his research paper weighed heavily on him. And he was preoccupied with what he was about to do, wondering how it would pan out.
He knocked on the door of James Martin's office, thinking as he did that he would rather be at the gates of hell. Martin answered after a few moments and from the expression that immediately crossed his face, he was thinking the exact same thing.
“Good morning,” Reid said.
“Can I help you?” Martin said, in a tone of voice suggesting that the answer had better be “no”.
“I think maybe you can,” Reid said. “I was wondering if you knew anything about –”
“About the Klan attacking you the other night,” Martin said. “Your buddy Henderson's already been here and the answer is still no. I'm not in the Klan, not associated with it, never have been. I have better things to do with my time.”
Reid stared hard at Martin to see if he was telling the truth, and couldn't tell. The man's defensiveness could easily have been a natural reaction to his distaste for Mormons – or not. But further questioning would avail him little. “All right,” Reid said, “sorry to bother you. I'll just be going –”
“Hold on a minute,” Martin said. “Let me just say before you go that you made a complete fool of yourself the other day and you've brought this on yourself. I don't necessarily endorse the Klan's activities but I can hardly blame them in this case.”
“Indeed?” Reid said, feeling his blood start to boil. “I'd have thought you of all people would understand that what is right isn't always popular. The early Christians, did they bring all that persecution upon themselves as well?”
“You leave Christianity out of this. Your entire religion is an assault on it already,” Martin said. “But this is about the seed of Cain. Why defend the honor of those the Lord God has seen fit to curse?”
“The Lamanites were cursed, too, but that didn't stop some of them from being decent and righteous people.”
“Don't quote your damnable book of lies at me. At any rate, you're going against your own church on this one. I know it gives the priesthood to every man and his dog, except for Negroes.”
“Yes, but –”
“Spare me your excuses. That wasn't a criticism. Now look, if I were you I'd drop the issue before those men return and finish the job. It doesn't seem wise, in your position, to be drawing attention to yourself.”
Reid studied his face again and listened hard to his voice. Both were laced with implicit threat, but whether that meant Martin had anything to do with it or again, whether it was just because he hated Mormons, was anyone's guess. Reid nodded. “Thank you for your time, and the advice,” he said, and left.
He went through the school day on autopilot while he contemplated his next move. Most of his colleagues sensed the change and for once refrained from ribbing him. There was an unpleasant moment when Martin said to someone else in the hall, loud enough for Reid to hear as he walked past, “The KKK is attacking Mormons again? Golly, I don't know which to root for.” Still, he couldn’t help getting some enjoyment from his job as always, but it just wasn’t the same.
Besides the void in his heart, there was a more literal one caused by his sudden overload of free time. He filled both by reading his Book of Mormon even more. The book had fascinated him ever since he had read chapter 84:54-58 in the Doctrine and Covenants, another book of Latter-day Saint scripture:
“And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received – which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all. And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written – that they may bring forth fruit meet for the Father's kingdom; otherwise there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion.”
When he read that passage for the first time, it had spoken to his soul in the same powerful way he imagined James 1:5 must have spoken to Joseph Smith himself. He resolved at that moment to take the Book of Mormon more seriously, and to do what he could to get others to do the same. That was why he spent so much time reading it when it could have little bearing on his archeological career. That was why he stayed after church to lecture on his archeological insights into the book. He knew such details were unimportant next to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the book contained – but by attempting to place it in a “real-life” context, to demonstrate that these were real people and places being described, he hoped he could encourage some to take it as seriously as the Bible.
But now, with the next step in his career torn away from him, he read the Book of Mormon for spiritual comfort only. He hoped to find some verse, some insight somewhere that would tell him things were going to be all right or, better still, give him some clue as to what on Earth he should do next.
After a few days of this, Paul Henderson approached him in his office after his last class. “John,” he said, “I’ve found something that may interest you.”
“Yes?” Reid said. Henderson knew the sort of things that interested him and wouldn’t waste his time with something trivial.
“I was speaking on the phone with a colleague at the Museo Arqueológico e Histórico in La Coruña, Spain. I told him the excitement we had a few days ago and he said that a woman in Lugo reported a pair of men in robes, like the ones who attacked you, breaking into her house and kidnapping her husband, a guy named Manuel Garcia Hernandez da Rosa.”
“How’s that for a coincidence,” Reid said, his interest piqued.
“You think so? There must be a connection.”
“No, I know, I just mean that the guy you talked to just happened to know something about it. There’s probably a whole string of these kidnappings taking place all over the world.”
“Actually, I’ve been looking into it and contacting everyone I know all over the world. This is the first lead that’s come up. I just got off the phone with him.”
Reid felt his heart warm up. “You – you did that for me?”
“Of course; what are friends for? I know how much that paper meant to you, and the whole event is strange enough that someone needs to get to the bottom of it.”
“Thanks, that means a lot to me,” Reid said, and he meant it. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Henderson saw him as more than a weird Mormon boy. “So then, this da Rosa guy,” he continued, “what's his story? What's special about him?”
“Not much. My friend remembered the name when he read it because a few years ago the da Rosa family offered an old document of theirs to the Museo. The Museo declined for some reason or other and apparently Manuel is still a tad bitter about it, even though this was before his time. Other than that, though, he has no apparent connection with the academic world.”
“So these kidnappers wanted my paper, and probably this guy's document, too. And they wanted to take both of us with them. Why? What's it all in aid of?” He rose from his desk. A decision had appeared in his mind, fully formed, and there was no debating it, none at all. “Whatever this is, it has something to do with me. I want to get my paper back but more importantly, I have to help da Rosa if I'm the reason he's in trouble.”
“You aren't suggesting – ?”
“I'm going to Spain. I'll talk to the folks at the Museo, and I'll see if I can give the police there any help in their investigation. I'm an archaeologist, you know, and I'm used to discerning the smallest of clues about people's behavior.”
“Ah, yes, excellent idea,” Henderson said. “There are a couple of complications, I'm afraid. First of all, as I'm sure you're aware, this academic year has just started and you're under obligation to teach. Second, as you may not be aware, Spain is having a bit of a civil war right now.”
“It's not convenient,” Reid agreed, “but it's the right thing to do. What's the fastest way to get there? Or the safest way, if that doesn't work.”
“Look, John, you're not thinking rationally. Your head injury could be acting up. Take a deep breath.”
Reid took a deep breath and said, “Come on, Henderson, I'm not going to let the matter drop. If you won't tell me I'll figure it out myself.”
Henderson sighed. “All right. Well, the Soviet Union's toying with the idea of using foreign Communist parties to recruit volunteers to help the Republicans, and rumor has it that the French and Italian Communist parties are already setting up a column.”
“Communists, you say? And here's me, not even a Democrat. I'd stick out like a sore thumb. But what's this about Republicans?”
“They're the Loyalists, the ones who want to keep Spain the way it was.”
“The good guys?”
“Yes. It's either them or General Franco and the Fascists.”
“So they're reduced to allying themselves with Communists.” Reid shook his head and sighed. “What a world this is, where the only way to preserve democracy is to join forces with the lesser of its enemies. Well, okay, I suppose I'll go meet up with them in France and get across the border with them.”
“No, wait,” Henderson said, thinking for a moment. “The Nationalist Army just closed the border with France at the beginning of the month. Getting through that way might attract too much attention.”
“What's this about Nationalists now? Never mind, I'll look it up myself,” Reid said before Henderson could respond. “Okay, then perhaps Portugal will do the trick. Has Portugal involved itself in the conflict at all, officially or otherwise?”
“No, not that I'm aware of.”
“Good. I'll go there and somehow get across the border to Lugo, and take things from there. Yes, it will be dangerous,” he added, seeing that Henderson was about to protest. “I know it'll be a lot more complicated than I'm making it sound, but with trust in the Lord I'll manage.”
“Unless the Lord doesn't want you to do this,” Henderson said.
“He has plenty of time to tell me so before I leave,” Reid said. “The only issue now is getting permission from Dean Havelock.”
“I think that will be the biggest of your worries,” said Henderson, only half joking.
Next: Chapter Three
Still, apart from this setback, he was rather satisfied. It looked to be a highlight of his career. He had carefully avoided any mention of the Book of Mormon, but as soon as that text was recognized as a legitimate subject of study, as he knew someday it would be, he would have a head start. And in the meantime this stuff was interesting in its own right.
He looked at the word for the fifteenth time and wondered again, what could be the meaning of sticking it in there? No matter how you looked at it, it didn’t come even remotely close to making sense. Then he realized the tail of an a was in fact an ink smudge on an o. With a lightheaded giggle he reevaluated the word as it now stood and reached again for one of the dictionaries.
His head snapped around as the door flew open – it wasn’t locked – and in marched a pair of gorilla-sized figures covered in robes that bore more than a passing resemblance to the Ku Klux Klan’s infamous attire. He'd never seen any in person, but he was familiar with J. Golden Kimball's account from his missionary service in the southern states: “They cover themselves with a white sheet and there's a hood for the head with two small openings for their eyes. This hood has a point to it, which is more than could be said for their beliefs.”
On another occasion he had said simply, “It's a waste of a good sheet.”
These quotes jumped through Reid's mind now and would have made him smile to himself, except that it wasn't the figures' uniforms that concerned him. It was the Smith and Wesson revolver that each held aimed straight at him.
He rose to his feet with his hands raised in the air, even as his heart rose into his throat. “Can I help you?” he asked, and was disappointed to hear his voice come out in a pathetic croak. He’d hoped to conceal his fear.
“You certainly can,” said one figure in a deep baritone voice, moving around in front of the desk. The other moved behind his chair so he couldn’t see them both at once. “This is your famous research paper?” the first one continued, gesturing at the stack of handwritten papers on his desk.
Reid had never been much of a liar, and with guns pointed at him he figured now wasn’t the time to start. “Yes,” he said.
“All of it?”
“Yes.” He didn’t feel the need to mention the pile of supplementary documents next to it, of which the scroll transcription was at the top.
The hood pocketed his gun, grabbed the papers and stuffed them into his robe as well. Then he retrieved a rag. At the same time the thug behind Reid pulled his arms behind his back and forced him back into his chair. The rag was brought towards his face, and he smelled what he imagined to be chloroform, or worse.
Only seconds remained for him to think, and he used them well. As the rag made contact with his skin he jerked his head forward and sank his teeth with all the force he could muster into the man’s right hand, not intending to let go. The man screamed a curse and jerked his fingers away, worsening the gashes in them. Then using the thug holding him as leverage Reid kicked his desk over into the man’s toes. Papers flew everywhere and the desk lamp shattered, plunging the office into blackness.
His other persecutor released him to retrieve his gun, but Reid was already turned around and on top of him. The gun went off into the wall as together they stumbled back into a bookshelf. It wobbled and sent one of its heaviest tomes down onto the thug’s head. He went limp.
Reid pulled the gun away and smiled, until a smaller but decidedly hard book landed on his own head. His vision wavered and he swayed as he fought to keep from blacking out.
The next thing he knew the first thug was standing over him, revolver in his bloody hand, snarling, “Think you’re so damn smart, you damn egghead, you,” and a few less flattering words. Reid decided to feign unconsciousness. The man put away the gun, picked the professor up, cast a glance at his downed comrade, and headed for the door.
Reid reached into the voluminous pocket of the robe. As soon as his fingers found the second revolver, he drove his knee as hard as he could into his captor’s solar plexus. He was dropped to the floor and had both guns trained on the hooded man before he could react.
“Status quo’s a little different now, eh?” he said, getting to his feet. “Why don’t you just give me back my research paper and we’ll forget we had this little meeting.”
“I have a better idea,” said the hood. “Why don’t you just shoot me and take it.”
Reid’s blood ran cold. He swallowed. “I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”
“Seriously, shoot me, Mormon boy,” the thug taunted. “Pretend like I’m Laban, and you’re Nephi, and the Lord has delivered me into your hands. You have to kill me so you can have the ‘brass plates’, so to speak.”
“Look, I –”
He sensed movement behind him and spun around with the guns, but too late. The second hood brought down the book on his head again – the same one, fortunately, not the bigger one which was too heavy to lift that high – and he crumpled to the floor with pretty girls from various world mythologies dancing through his vision. The two thugs loomed over him, and they were not happy.
Then out in the hall – “John! What's going on in there!?” It was Frank Henderson's voice.
The thugs looked at each other, then bolted for the door. They nearly ran Henderson over as he came rushing from the opposite direction, and one of them elbowed him on the way past out of spite.
Henderson rushed into the office and crouched over Reid's prone form. “John, buddy, speak to me!” he said. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Reid tried to count but couldn't concentrate through his headache and Pandora's sashaying. “I give up,” he moaned.
“Well, um, who was the first emperor of a unified China?”
“Qin Shi Huangdi, real name Ying Zheng. Too easy.”
“Can you stand?”
“Let's see.” Reid tried to push himself up, got dizzy and slipped back down. “No.” Pandora was shoved aside by Aphrodite, who began her own routine but was distracted by Tinkerbell buzzing around her face.
“What happened? I heard a gunshot or something, and as soon as I saw the light was off in your office I knew something was horribly wrong. Who were those guys?”
“Sophomores disappointed with their grades,” Reid said. “What are you doing here at this hour any–” His whole world faded into oblivion.
“A joke!” Henderson yelped with glee. “You've made a joke! I'm so proud!”
***
John Reid was surprised to wake up in his own bed. Then he remembered the events of last night, how Henderson had rescued him and taken him first to the police station, then to the hospital to be treated for concussion, and then home to sleep off a throbbing headache which now only lingered on the fringes of his consciousness. He was still surprised, though, to see Eliana standing over him, looking more radiant than any of the mythological girls from last night.
As soon as she saw the recognition in his eyes, she stooped down and engulfed him in a hug and kiss on the cheek. “You poor baby,” she said, “what’s happened to you?”
Her embrace, though not unpleasant, made him feel rather awkward for some reason. “What makes you think something’s happened to me?” he sidestepped.
“We do hear things on the reservation.”
“This fast?”
“This fast? Silly, it’s four in the afternoon.”
“Four in the –?” He bolted upright in bed, tearing free of her grasp, and stared at her in panic. “You can’t be serious! I’ve missed three classes!”
“Settle down,” she said, gently pushing him back down onto his pillow. “It’s been taken care of. Why don’t you just tell your friend Eliana what happened.”
Reid groaned at the memory. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cops,” he said. “I’m working on my research paper, minding my own business, when a couple guys burst into my office dressed like the Ku Klux Klan. They take my paper and try to take me, too, only I’m not too keen on that idea, so we have a heated exchange of opinions until we reach a suitable compromise. They let me go and I let them keep my paper.”
“‘Heated exchange of opinions!’” Eliana guffawed. “You are so funny!” She cleared her throat. “That’s awful, though. What could it be about?”
“You got me there. My best guess is that it really was the Klan, or at least a copycat group. The other day I, ah, made a bit of a scene in public when one of my esteemed colleagues used a racist epithet. He would never be involved with people like this, but anyone nearby could have overheard and decided to put me in my place. The waiter, maybe. He looked like a bigot.” Then it hit him. James Martin. Who else?”
“You brave man, I’m so proud of you,” she said, giving him another squeeze. “But I wasn’t aware their influence extended this far west. You must really be unlucky. And how did they know about your paper?”
“It was never exactly a secret,” he said sheepishly. “All of the staff and many students at the college know about it, and everyone who was at church last Sunday. Heck, someone could have already been following me by that point, and standing outside the Davises’ backyard and hearing everything I said.” Or James Martin could have easily found out without even trying.
“But what could they want with it?”
“To hurt me, what else? That project means a lot to me – all my projects mean a lot to me. Maybe someone will even try to publish it himself, but I’ll be watching like a hawk for it.”
“Perhaps this someone is searching for the sword of Laban,” Eliana joked.
Reid laughed. “Right, why not? They should dig up the Liahona first, or Joseph Smith’s seer stone; either would lead them right to it.” He grew serious. “My paper wouldn’t help them a bit, though. It does talk a lot about swords, but nothing about this specific one. Actually, I do have an idea where it is. In 1877 Brigham Young taught that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery made visits to a cavern within the Hill Cumorah. In addition to the gold plates of the Book of Mormon and the breastplate and Urim and Thummim that went with them, the men saw Laban’s sword, unsheathed, and written on it was ‘This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and His Christ’.”
“Spooky,” Eliana said. “But what's so special about it? It didn't even come from a righteous man.”
“Maybe it did,” Reid said. “It was probably older than Laban himself. It may have been handed down to him in the same way the brass plates were, as a symbol of power. Like I mentioned briefly at church, swords in Israel were a symbol of power, even kingship. There are a lot of biblical instances of that as well, of swords being handed down through the monarchy and stuff. When Nephi killed Laban with the sword and then took it, the power, in a very real sense, became his. And it seems to have been handed down through his descendants in the New World, and when Joseph Smith held it, that was yet another symbol of his prophetic calling and divine authority. The sword being sheathed could well represent the end of man’s dominion on the Earth.”
“So if someone found it they could say, 'Look at me, I'm powerful'.”
“More likely sell it to a museum or collector for buckets of money. Disregarding its historical context, which would be hard to prove, its intrinsic value between the materials and craftsmanship has to be considerable.”
“Mmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Too bad it doesn't have 'Property of Laban' written on it.” Then her eyes brightened. “Wait, do you mean to tell me that the sword, the plates and all that stuff are just sitting in the ground under a hill in upstate New York?”
“Maybe, but that hill is a drumlin, a pile of gravel scraped together by a glacier, so it shouldn't have any caves. In fact, I don't think it's even the real Hill Cumorah. Joseph Smith never called it that himself, and the Book of Mormon specifically mentions Mormon putting all of his records in the Hill Cumorah except for the gold plates. Moroni could have put the gold plates in afterward of course, and the Brigham Young story does mention 'wagon loads' of other records. But its position in relation to the 'narrow neck of land', if you go by the traditional geography, doesn't match the text. No, I think the real Hill Cumorah is somewhere else, probably in Mesoamerica if my theory on that is correct. As to which hill Brigham Young's story is referring to, that's anyone's guess. He heard it secondhand from Oliver Cowdery anyway.”
“Wow,” Eliana sarcastically said, “that's not excessively confusing or anything.”
“There's no knowledge of traditional swords in Mesoamerica,” he continued, ignoring her, “but the conquistadors did mention maquahuitls, which were like wooden swords with obsidian embedded in the blades. I wonder if there's a connection? The Nephites probably took their steelworking abilities with them to their graves. They were the more civilized group, you know. I wish I could examine one, but the last one was destroyed in a fire in 1884.”
“John, please, shut up for a minute,” Eliana said. “You're supposed to be resting. Hey, you must be starving. I'll make you something. What would you like?”
“No, I'm fine, don't trouble yourself.”
“I insist.”
“Eliana, I'm a grown –”
“If you won't choose something, then I'll decide for you. How about some tukya in tuma wutaki with someviki?” Baked prairie dog in dried boiled bean sauce with tamale cornbread.
His mouth began watering and he became aware of the emptiness in his stomach. “Well, now I'm hungry,” he said. “All right, I'll accept your hospitality this once. But I don't want you to overwork yourself. Nix the someviki for some huzusuki.”
“I'll make both. I'm eating with you, too, by the way.”
“Fair enough.”
“I'll just be off getting a prairie dog or two, then. If you need me, give a whistle.” She pulled a small bone flute from her pocket and gave it to him. He didn’t plan on needing it. He grabbed a book on stratigraphy to read while she was gone. It was fascinating, but he found it hard to concentrate. All he could think about was Mesoamerica and how badly he wanted to go on an expedition there.
Within the hour she returned with a tray of the promised Hopi cuisine, and he nearly fainted with joy at the scent of it. He had smelled it from the kitchen, but this close it was almost unbearably good. “You make me drool like a rabid coyote,” he said, mesmerized. She giggled and he shook himself. “With your cooking, I mean.”
“Nothing to it,” she said. “It’s in my blood.” She pulled a nondescript wooden chair, one of three in the house, up to his bed and sat down with the tray across her lap. “May I say grace, the way you showed me?” she continued. “I’ve been practicing.”
“And how’s that worked out?”
“Very well. I think I’ve really started to feel the Spirit.”
“Well, go ahead and see if you can’t feel it now.”
She prayed wonderfully, just as she had been taught. She thanked Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ for the bounty of delicious food they enjoyed during these challenging economic times, and asked that it be consecrated to the nourishing and strengthening of their bodies. Especially of Reid’s, she said, and hoped that he would make a full and swift recovery.
“Eliana,” he said when he was done, “thanks, but I’m fine. I can barely feel the headache now. I’ll be back in school tomorrow.”
“Perhaps you will,” she said, “but for now, you’re under my care.” She insisted on keeping him in bed and feeding him herself. He knew better than to resist. Afterward she read him a bedtime story about the excavation of Machu Picchu, by the end of which he could hardly keep his eyes open. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and quietly left so as not to disturb him.
John Reid felt better the next morning as anticipated, and returned to the college exactly on time. The spring had gone from his step and some of the enthusiasm from his lectures, however – the loss of his research paper weighed heavily on him. And he was preoccupied with what he was about to do, wondering how it would pan out.
He knocked on the door of James Martin's office, thinking as he did that he would rather be at the gates of hell. Martin answered after a few moments and from the expression that immediately crossed his face, he was thinking the exact same thing.
“Good morning,” Reid said.
“Can I help you?” Martin said, in a tone of voice suggesting that the answer had better be “no”.
“I think maybe you can,” Reid said. “I was wondering if you knew anything about –”
“About the Klan attacking you the other night,” Martin said. “Your buddy Henderson's already been here and the answer is still no. I'm not in the Klan, not associated with it, never have been. I have better things to do with my time.”
Reid stared hard at Martin to see if he was telling the truth, and couldn't tell. The man's defensiveness could easily have been a natural reaction to his distaste for Mormons – or not. But further questioning would avail him little. “All right,” Reid said, “sorry to bother you. I'll just be going –”
“Hold on a minute,” Martin said. “Let me just say before you go that you made a complete fool of yourself the other day and you've brought this on yourself. I don't necessarily endorse the Klan's activities but I can hardly blame them in this case.”
“Indeed?” Reid said, feeling his blood start to boil. “I'd have thought you of all people would understand that what is right isn't always popular. The early Christians, did they bring all that persecution upon themselves as well?”
“You leave Christianity out of this. Your entire religion is an assault on it already,” Martin said. “But this is about the seed of Cain. Why defend the honor of those the Lord God has seen fit to curse?”
“The Lamanites were cursed, too, but that didn't stop some of them from being decent and righteous people.”
“Don't quote your damnable book of lies at me. At any rate, you're going against your own church on this one. I know it gives the priesthood to every man and his dog, except for Negroes.”
“Yes, but –”
“Spare me your excuses. That wasn't a criticism. Now look, if I were you I'd drop the issue before those men return and finish the job. It doesn't seem wise, in your position, to be drawing attention to yourself.”
Reid studied his face again and listened hard to his voice. Both were laced with implicit threat, but whether that meant Martin had anything to do with it or again, whether it was just because he hated Mormons, was anyone's guess. Reid nodded. “Thank you for your time, and the advice,” he said, and left.
He went through the school day on autopilot while he contemplated his next move. Most of his colleagues sensed the change and for once refrained from ribbing him. There was an unpleasant moment when Martin said to someone else in the hall, loud enough for Reid to hear as he walked past, “The KKK is attacking Mormons again? Golly, I don't know which to root for.” Still, he couldn’t help getting some enjoyment from his job as always, but it just wasn’t the same.
Besides the void in his heart, there was a more literal one caused by his sudden overload of free time. He filled both by reading his Book of Mormon even more. The book had fascinated him ever since he had read chapter 84:54-58 in the Doctrine and Covenants, another book of Latter-day Saint scripture:
“And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received – which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all. And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written – that they may bring forth fruit meet for the Father's kingdom; otherwise there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion.”
When he read that passage for the first time, it had spoken to his soul in the same powerful way he imagined James 1:5 must have spoken to Joseph Smith himself. He resolved at that moment to take the Book of Mormon more seriously, and to do what he could to get others to do the same. That was why he spent so much time reading it when it could have little bearing on his archeological career. That was why he stayed after church to lecture on his archeological insights into the book. He knew such details were unimportant next to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the book contained – but by attempting to place it in a “real-life” context, to demonstrate that these were real people and places being described, he hoped he could encourage some to take it as seriously as the Bible.
But now, with the next step in his career torn away from him, he read the Book of Mormon for spiritual comfort only. He hoped to find some verse, some insight somewhere that would tell him things were going to be all right or, better still, give him some clue as to what on Earth he should do next.
After a few days of this, Paul Henderson approached him in his office after his last class. “John,” he said, “I’ve found something that may interest you.”
“Yes?” Reid said. Henderson knew the sort of things that interested him and wouldn’t waste his time with something trivial.
“I was speaking on the phone with a colleague at the Museo Arqueológico e Histórico in La Coruña, Spain. I told him the excitement we had a few days ago and he said that a woman in Lugo reported a pair of men in robes, like the ones who attacked you, breaking into her house and kidnapping her husband, a guy named Manuel Garcia Hernandez da Rosa.”
“How’s that for a coincidence,” Reid said, his interest piqued.
“You think so? There must be a connection.”
“No, I know, I just mean that the guy you talked to just happened to know something about it. There’s probably a whole string of these kidnappings taking place all over the world.”
“Actually, I’ve been looking into it and contacting everyone I know all over the world. This is the first lead that’s come up. I just got off the phone with him.”
Reid felt his heart warm up. “You – you did that for me?”
“Of course; what are friends for? I know how much that paper meant to you, and the whole event is strange enough that someone needs to get to the bottom of it.”
“Thanks, that means a lot to me,” Reid said, and he meant it. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Henderson saw him as more than a weird Mormon boy. “So then, this da Rosa guy,” he continued, “what's his story? What's special about him?”
“Not much. My friend remembered the name when he read it because a few years ago the da Rosa family offered an old document of theirs to the Museo. The Museo declined for some reason or other and apparently Manuel is still a tad bitter about it, even though this was before his time. Other than that, though, he has no apparent connection with the academic world.”
“So these kidnappers wanted my paper, and probably this guy's document, too. And they wanted to take both of us with them. Why? What's it all in aid of?” He rose from his desk. A decision had appeared in his mind, fully formed, and there was no debating it, none at all. “Whatever this is, it has something to do with me. I want to get my paper back but more importantly, I have to help da Rosa if I'm the reason he's in trouble.”
“You aren't suggesting – ?”
“I'm going to Spain. I'll talk to the folks at the Museo, and I'll see if I can give the police there any help in their investigation. I'm an archaeologist, you know, and I'm used to discerning the smallest of clues about people's behavior.”
“Ah, yes, excellent idea,” Henderson said. “There are a couple of complications, I'm afraid. First of all, as I'm sure you're aware, this academic year has just started and you're under obligation to teach. Second, as you may not be aware, Spain is having a bit of a civil war right now.”
“It's not convenient,” Reid agreed, “but it's the right thing to do. What's the fastest way to get there? Or the safest way, if that doesn't work.”
“Look, John, you're not thinking rationally. Your head injury could be acting up. Take a deep breath.”
Reid took a deep breath and said, “Come on, Henderson, I'm not going to let the matter drop. If you won't tell me I'll figure it out myself.”
Henderson sighed. “All right. Well, the Soviet Union's toying with the idea of using foreign Communist parties to recruit volunteers to help the Republicans, and rumor has it that the French and Italian Communist parties are already setting up a column.”
“Communists, you say? And here's me, not even a Democrat. I'd stick out like a sore thumb. But what's this about Republicans?”
“They're the Loyalists, the ones who want to keep Spain the way it was.”
“The good guys?”
“Yes. It's either them or General Franco and the Fascists.”
“So they're reduced to allying themselves with Communists.” Reid shook his head and sighed. “What a world this is, where the only way to preserve democracy is to join forces with the lesser of its enemies. Well, okay, I suppose I'll go meet up with them in France and get across the border with them.”
“No, wait,” Henderson said, thinking for a moment. “The Nationalist Army just closed the border with France at the beginning of the month. Getting through that way might attract too much attention.”
“What's this about Nationalists now? Never mind, I'll look it up myself,” Reid said before Henderson could respond. “Okay, then perhaps Portugal will do the trick. Has Portugal involved itself in the conflict at all, officially or otherwise?”
“No, not that I'm aware of.”
“Good. I'll go there and somehow get across the border to Lugo, and take things from there. Yes, it will be dangerous,” he added, seeing that Henderson was about to protest. “I know it'll be a lot more complicated than I'm making it sound, but with trust in the Lord I'll manage.”
“Unless the Lord doesn't want you to do this,” Henderson said.
“He has plenty of time to tell me so before I leave,” Reid said. “The only issue now is getting permission from Dean Havelock.”
“I think that will be the biggest of your worries,” said Henderson, only half joking.
Next: Chapter Three
