The Repentant Demon Trilogy Book 1: The Demon Calumnius (10 page)

“Is there anyway we could just ride double?” she whispered, not wanting anyone to think she was chicken.

“That would be considered scandalous,” he answered quietly, “since we aren't married.  Actually, a woman riding a camel in itself is kind of inappropriate.”

“Oh, well,” she said, taking one set of reins, “what I don't go through to remain virtuous.”

He told her to watch and do exactly as he did, and not to scream.  Screaming would not only be embarrassing, it would cause the camel to act erratically.  She thought he said erotically, and looked at him, confused.  “Just don't scream,” he said.  “Take my word for it.  Camels don't like people much anyway, but screaming people, they hate.”

Doug jumped into the saddle with one major leap, grabbed the horn, and raised his knees while the camel rose from his kneeling position with his rump in the air first.

“You've done this before,” she joked.

“A few times,” he said.  “When you get used to the swaying, you'll find it's kind of fun.”

Jamal came out with a stool for Abigail, seeing that she could not jump into the saddle after several attempts and several bawls from the camel—whether he was laughing or crying, no one knew.

“Why don't they have stirrups?” she asked.

“Unlike a horse, the animal is not guided by your legs, nor would it help with leverage,” he said.  “You'll see.  After you get up and after he stands, swing one leg forward over the front of his hump.  That will give you an easier way to balance, and it will be more comfortable for your back.”  No sooner had he told her, she had mastered the climb into the saddle, shook her reins indicating “go” to the camel, and he rose quite smoothly with Abigail learning fast.  She moved her legs to mimic Doug, and felt ready to go.

“Hey, you didn't tell me how to steer,” she called as his camel walked away.  Then her camel turned and followed him with ease.

“He's by nature one to follow,” Doug called, “and don't worry.  That one is very well-trained.  All you have to do is hang on.”

“And you say that like it’s easy.” Abigail laughed.

The twenty miles to the dig at Nineveh took an hour of arduous riding.  But by the time they arrived, Abigail was smiling with delight.  Doug looked at her with admiration.  Could anyone be a more perfect match for him?  He couldn't imagine so.  They dismounted, again with Doug showing her how, and Abigail followed like a pro.  The camels walked over to join the others under the shade of an animal shelter without even a guide.  It was something they had done many times.  An attendant guided them to water and removed their saddles.

“Doug, Doug,” greeted a young American man dressed as an Arab on top, with a brightly colored tunic and head covering, then jeans on the bottom, “it is so good to see you again.  I had no idea you were coming.  But I recognized that blond head of hair sticking out of your hat even in the distance.  Come, and let me introduce you.  Of course, you'll have to do the honors as far as your friend is concerned, as I haven't had the pleasure.

“Come here, everyone,” the man shouted. “We have a few new recruits.  This is Doug Anderson from the United States.  We've been on several excavations together.”

“And this is Abigail Fitzgerald,” Doug announced. “She teaches Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, where I am working toward my degree.”

“Let's all say our names in rotation, just like in kindergarten, boys and girls,” joked another strangely dressed American in an effeminate way.  He wore a purple tunic over a muscle shirt and a bright yellow turban.  “I'm Matt Wood, from UCLA, and my significant other is—” he pointed with a “ta-da” gesture to another American man dressed in khaki garb, as if he were announcing him.

“I'm Brian Cheney,” the man complied, smiling and offering his hand for a friendly shake, “also from UCLA.”  And each told their names in succession.

“Kim Omeka,” said a Japanese student, “I'm from University of Okinawa.”

“Colin Gross, and my wife, Debbie,” said Colin, speaking for them both.  “We're here from University of Chicago.”

“I'm David McGuire, one of the sponsors of the expedition, from University of Chicago.  The other one is picking up some supplies and should be back soon. His name is Noah Wilkinson.”

“And last but not least,” said the older attractive woman, “I'm Joyce Michaels, a professor at U of C Berkeley.  How long are you two staying?  Do you have a hotel room?”

“We hope to stay for several weeks or more, but it isn't definite yet,” Doug answered.  “We are staying with some friends about twenty miles south of here.  So we'll just be joining you during the day, if that's all right.  We can pay for any provisions we use—like water and whatever you can spare, but we'll have our main meals with my friends.”

“Friends? That's quite unusual,” said David McGuire, “especially that near to Mosul.  We hear the gunfire coming from that direction all the time.  Are you sure it's safe? You are welcome to join us at the hotel.  We have an extra couch in our room.  It opens into a bed.”  He had assumed they were a couple traveling together.

“Thanks for the generous offer,” answered Doug, “but there is no need to be concerned for our safety.  These are Iraqi friends of mine from the war.  They know how to guard against danger, and if I wasn't sure Abigail would be safe with me, I wouldn't have brought her.”

“So you teach Anthropology,” said Joyce, addressing Abigail. “That’s also my major.  Is this your first dig?”  The woman stood showing her well-built body to its full height, wearing a loose cotton kaftan that revealed the curves of her form and the solidness of her physique.  Her silky, silvery hair hung loose and straight about shoulder length but was tied back with a scarf to cover most of it.  She was tanned and healthy with attractive dark eyes, well-formed brows, and a straight, Grecian nose.  She gave Doug a sensual glance, obviously admiring the most attractive man in sight.

Abigail explained her past few experiences to the others as they all walked together to the current excavation site.  David McGuire explained the layout of the current dig at Nabi Yunus, just south of the slightly bigger site of Kouyunjik.  Nabi Yunis was the one in which Abigail had tremendous interest.  Its name is Arabic for the name of the Prophet Jonah, and a Muslim shrine dedicated to Jonah sits nearby.  Apparently the Assyrians have regard for the prophet who warned them to repent, saving them from the wrath of God, while much of the Western world still doubts his existence.

At this location, the city of Nineveh had been excavated to the level of the time of King Sennacherib, who reigned in 705 – 681 B.C.  It would have been truly magnificent then with broad paved roads, fountains, mosaics, and a palace without rival.  Unfortunately, most of its treasures had been looted, and it continues to be threatened.  Many archaeologists have had their finds stolen by Bedouins, who have been known to turn around and sell them back to them.  Sometimes they have found their precious objects for sale on eBay.  Many of the best specimens that survived such disasters were housed in the museum at Baghdad before being destroyed in the war that deposed Saddam Hussein.  Those who study antiquities moaned in horror at the television images of the Iraqis looting and destroying the museum.  Through all of these perils, archaeologists labored to discover the secrets of the ancients.

Noah Wilkinson arrived back in a jeep with eight cases of bottled water.  It wasn't cold.  Cold water in the intense heat would have caused them to vomit, making dehydration inevitable.  Doug gave Noah cash, which more than covered the amount that he and Abigail would consume.  She told him she would get the next one.  They introduced themselves to Noah, and he assigned the two of them to a roped-off section under a tarp, which helped to keep the worst of the sun off them.  It was uncomfortable, but not dangerous for anyone in reasonably good health.  They both had done this before.  Abigail carefully dusted off shards of broken pottery with a soft paintbrush and placed the pieces in a cardboard box lid—very sophisticated equipment.  Doug worked next to her along with Joyce Michaels, unearthing tiny bones, which had not yet been determined as animal or human.

Joyce was using her proximity to the new man on the scene to introduce him to her voluminous charms, bending down so that he could see her breasts beneath the loose opening of her tunic.  He smiled politely, amused by her obvious attempts to seduce him.  He had seen all of that so many times before, it really had no appeal.  And just beyond her, he watched Abigail bending with her rump in the air to push away loose debris from another chunk in the deepening hole where she worked.  Joyce saw him looking at her and felt anger, though her face was smiling.

“Abigail, I'm not sure if I heard this correctly,” said Joyce in a snide remark, “but are you by any chance the Abigail Fitzgerald that was married to Ashton Petty?”

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Abigail rose to her feet and walked closer to Joyce's section.  Doug had stopped working as well and was standing there with a puzzled look on his face, waiting to hear Abigail's response.

“Whatever you may have heard along the academic grapevine, let me assure you that none of it is true,” she answered in the closest thing to an angry tone that Doug had ever seen in her.

“You weren't married to him?” asked Joyce, unabashedly determined.

“Yes, I was married to him,” said Abigail, not trying to control her emotion at the question.  “But all the gossip surrounding that whole situation was completely untrue.  That's the kindest word for it—actually.  I did nothing wrong, and neither did he.”

“Well, excuse me for saying so,” said Joyce, “but his wife and children have a side to the story, too.  That must be the one I heard, having acquaintances among so many of Professor Petty's colleagues.”

“Really, like which colleagues might those be?” challenged Abigail.  “I knew his closest friends.  He had many rivals and malcontents that followed him around like leaches to feed one way or another off of his success.  Could your friends possibly be included in that crowd, perhaps?”

“I can see this is a touchy area,” said Joyce sarcastically, “Perhaps I should never have brought it up, but if you intend to travel in these circles, you might expect to run into people who know of the scandal surrounding his death.  It seems to me that at least your close companions should have been made aware of the details so they won't be taken by surprise when the subject arises.”

Abigail had no more to say on the subject.  She went back to her work excavating the pottery shards.  When she cast a glance in Doug's direction, she saw that he seemed somehow more distant.  He wouldn't look at her—as he had seemed to be always doing before the ugly conversation had started.  She needed to talk to him, and wondered when a good time for that would come about.  The excavation site was not confidential enough.  It was impossible to talk while riding a camel, and with a whole household of people where they were staying, it would be difficult to find a private moment. 

Abigail felt now that she should have explained everything in the beginning.  But this wasn't something she discussed on a first date.  Then things seemed to have moved so fast with them.  He might be more upset that she hadn't told him this significant part of her past than he would at the actual details. 

As the day crept into late afternoon, the group started cleaning up their areas to close up the campsite for the night.  Whatever they found would remain at the site overnight until the Iraqi Chief of Antiquities arrived in the morning.  They locked up their findings in a large metal toolbox, like the kind used on construction sites to keep thieves away from the expensive power tools.  Like back home, thieves were known to somehow get at them. 

The eight-member troop who comprised the official entourage left in the minibus for the hotel.  The translator, Amir al Rashid, returned to his nearby home in his jeep.  The native workers who did the heavy lifting around the camp went to their camels, as did Doug and Abigail.  She realized when she faced the man who handed her the reins that she did not have a stool. 

Doug dismounted his camel to offer her a leg up, something he had not really done before.  After several attempts, which ended the first time with her crotch in his face and the second time with her hanging over his back facing his rump, which she needed to grab with both hands to right herself, she suggested, “Let me just try to jump up, the way you did.”

“You can't do it,” he argued politely. “Abigail, you are too short.”

“I'm not short,” she said, insulted. “As a matter of fact, I am above average height at five foot six.”

“Okay,” he said with moderate exasperation, “the camel is too tall.”

She would have laughed, but her mood would not permit it.  His mood did not seem great, either.

“We are hot, tired, and hungry,” he said.

“And it's actually much worse than that, isn't it?” said Abigail. “In spite of that, we need to talk—I need to talk, Doug.”

“Well, I was surprised to find you had been married,” he said.  “And at first I was upset that you hadn't told me about such a major thing.  But I calmed down inside after a while.  I realize that we haven't known each other very long, and I'm sure you were going to tell me about it when the time was right.”

“You aren't the slightest bit concerned what kind of scandal I might have been involved in?”

“No, I'm not,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don't believe anything I hear as gossip.  It's something I consider wrong to participate in at all.”

“Everyone seems to be gone now, except for a few Bedouins,” Abigail began, feeling better. “It's just you, me, and the camels.  And it’s a very short story.  What do you say we get it behind us?”

He nodded, climbing down from Al Fahl.  They sat on the tool trunks.

“I was twenty-three, and it was my first expedition.  The lead professor was Ashton Petty, who I knew very well, having had him for two classes at that point.  He was sixty-seven, and I admired him very much—there is no way I even considered a romantic relationship with him as I knew he was married with two sons.  Not being a gossiper, as you understand as well, I hadn't heard any of the rumors about the estrangement with his family.  But after a while of working together, he explained his situation.  He had a plan, and he asked me if I would help him with it.