“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.”