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“Let’s tell him the truth,” Sam said. “If the codex belongs to anyone, it’s him.”
Remi nodded, reached into her carryall, and withdrew a manila envelope. She flipped through the photos and papers inside, then withdrew the scan of the codex. She handed it across to Dumadi.
Sam said to Marcott, “Tell him we think this belonged to Orizaga and that we believe it has something do with why he came here in the first place.”
Marcott translated. Staring at the scan in his hands, Dumadi nodded, but Sam and Remi could tell the old man had barely heard Marcott. The silence dragged out. Finally Marcott said something else to Dumadi, who laid the scan on the cardboard box, climbed to his feet, and shuffled off into the bedroom. He emerged a moment later carrying a frame. He stopped before Remi and handed it to her.
Drawn in stylized calligraphy, with filigreed edges and intricate swirls and flourishes, the original was far removed from the photo, but for Sam and Remi there was no mistaking what they were seeing: the picto-map from Orizaga’s codex.
Dumadi pointed at the framed photo, then at the scan, and said something to Marcott, who translated: “He doesn’t recognize the bottom portion, but the top portion’s been passed down through his family for centuries.”
“Why?” asked Sam.
Marcott asked, listened to Dumadi’s response, then said, “It’s the Orizaga family coat of arms.”
“Does he know what it means?”
“No.”
“No one ever talked about what it might mean?”
“No,” Marcott replied. “He says it’s always been part of the family. He assumes it was important to Orizaga, and that’s good enough for him.”
Sam flipped through Remi’s manila envelope and withdrew Wendy’s version of the Quetzalcoatl bird from the Chicomoztoc illustration. He handed it to Dumadi. “Does that mean anything to him?”
Marcott asked, listened. He smiled and replied, “Which part, the ugly snake or the bird?”
“The bird.”
Dumadi sat back down with a groan, then replied.
“It has no particular meaning to him,” Marcott said. “It’s just a bird. He’s seen them in zoos.”
“Here?” Remi asked.
“He doesn’t remember where, exactly. He saw one when he was a child. His father called it a helmet bird because of the bulge on the back of its head.”
Sam opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then said, “What is it? What’s it called?”
“A maleo. Dumadi says he recalls they’re much prettier than your drawing. Medium sized, black back, white breast, yellow skin around the eyes, and an orangish beak. Sort of like a colorful chicken.”
Dumadi said something to Marcott, who translated: “He wants to know if this drawing has anything to do with Orizaga.”
“It does,” said Sam.
“It reminds him of a story about Orizaga. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes, please,” Remi replied.
“Like most of their family stories, the details may have changed over time, but the gist of it is this: Near the end of his life, Orizaga was known by most of the people in Palembang, and they were fond of him. They were also sure he was possessed by a mischievous spirit.”
“Why?” asked Sam.
Marcott listened. “It’s similar to what I told you back at my home. He wandered the jungles a lot, talking about caves and gods, and that he’d come here to find the home of the gods . . .You get the idea. No one was afraid of Orizaga; they suspected this mischievous spirit was having fun with a poor old man.
“The day Orizaga disappeared, he announced to everyone that he was again setting out to find his ‘god caves’ and that he would know the place when he found a ‘hatchery of great birds.’”
CHAPTER 40