Amerika (13 page)

‘Hallelujah,’ he said softly.

The reel screeched as the fish took hold and started fighting. But it didn’t last long. Never met a fish that could beat Orlando. I waded out into the shallow water to net it.

‘Let it go, brother,’ he said. ‘Bonefish.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘By feel.’

‘No way.’

‘Want to bet?’

‘No.’

Moments later the silvery bonefish lay twisting in the net. One of the best fighters around, but terrible eating. Orlando grabbed it by the gills while I removed the hook. The fish flashed away into the shallow blue waters.

‘Wished they tasted as good as they looked,’ Orlando said.

I examined the low-lying brush and palm trees that dotted the beach line. ‘What’s with this place? I’ve never seen it on a map.’

‘Keys come and keys go.’

‘Look at the size of it. Something this big belongs on a map.’

‘Not on any I’ve ever seen.’

‘Except Ava’s.’

‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’

I cast my line into the water. ‘Let’s hope he gives us a real Treasure Island.’

Orlando didn’t say anything. Instead he busied himself opening a can of sardines.

‘That trick never works,’ I said.

‘Never works for you, you mean.’

He took two sardines, broke them in two, rubbed them in the palm of his hands and then swished his hands in the water.

He crooned, ‘Come and get it, little friends.’

Then he baited his hook with a whole sardine and smoothly cast it nearly on top of mine.

‘Find your own place,’ I grumped.

‘Don’t worry, won’t be here but a minute.’

Five minutes later, a pile of plump mangrove snappers lay flopping and twisting on the beach, their coppery-red skin the color of the sunset now blazing in the western sky. Unable to resist the sardine oil, they had struck Orlando’s line almost immediately. So fierce was the feeding frenzy that even I managed to land a few.

The trick to catching snapper is to not set the hook when the fish first bites. If you do you’ll be looking at an empty hook. Instead, slowly lift the line, tempting the fish to attack it even harder. And if you’re lucky, it will.

We cleaned and dressed the fish in the seawater.

I said, ‘Know any scripture for helping us find buried gold?’

Orlando thought for a moment. ‘How about ‘Thou shalt not steal?’’

‘This isn’t stealing, it’s finding.’

‘That gold belongs to its rightful owner, not us.’

I grabbed a clutch of fish and stomped away, saying over my shoulder, ‘Don’t you ever stop preaching?’

He just smiled and kept working.

To my surprise, Ziggy was as good a cook as he was making a fire. I was going to rustle up a simple camp supper, but when he caught sight of our fish, he clapped his hands with glee and took charge. Before we knew it, we were eating herb-crusted, baked fish, spring potatoes, and fresh corn. And just before we started he scampered off to a shady spot and dug up two bottles of white wine he’d had cooling there. He even brought wine glasses and poured like a
sommelier
.

‘Compliments of the house,’ Ziggy said.

Ava lifted her glass. ‘To buried treasure.’

We drank.

Ava lifted her glass again, her face suddenly somber in the flickering firelight. ‘To the United States of America. May she triumph and prosper over all adversity.’

‘Amen and alleluia,’ Orlando said.

The hard and hopeless work of the day soon gave way to the pleasure of Ziggy’s perfectly cooked meal and crisp white wine. We ate in happy silence; the best compliment you can give a chef. While we finished off the second bottle of wine, the clear night sky filled with stars.

I broke the silence. ‘Storm brought some good weather behind it.’

‘Billions of stars,’ Ava said.

I pointed out the ones used for navigation: blue-white Sirius, bright yellow Capella, Cassiopeia, and the North Star.

‘How do you keep track of them all?’ she said.

‘Same way you remember your dialogue. Practice.’

‘Running lines is a lot easier than taking a star sighting in the middle of the Pacific,’ she said.

‘I’ve done it many a time.’

‘Ever get lost?’

‘Sure.’

‘What’d you do?’

‘Figured it out. Otherwise we’d end up in the drink.’

‘We’re flying blind now.’

‘Not finding it, you mean?’

She nodded.

By now Orlando and Ziggy were rigging the tents for sleep. I took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘Does finding this have to do with that toast you made about the United States?’

To her credit, only her eyes gave her away. ‘You’re getting warmer.’

‘Spill the beans.’

‘Rules are rules, captain.’ She stood up and brushed sand off her beautiful bottom. I confess I didn’t look away.

‘We start again at first light,’ she said.

She thrust her shoulders back, rolled her neck and then, like a panther stretching after a meal, she bent over in a smooth motion of touching her toes and groaned.

‘I am so out of shape it’s a crime.’

‘You don’t look it.’

She punched my arm lightly. ‘You don’t look it either.’

‘Trust me, there’s not a joint that’s not aching.’

Sleep came fast. One moment I was staring at the night sky through the mosquito net, the next, oblivion. What woke me up I’ll never know. All I remember is that the stars re-appeared, only this time the familiar ones had moved slightly because of the earth’s rotation. I raised up on an elbow. My motion awakened Orlando instantly, who slept as lightly as a cat.

‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered.

‘Heard something. I’ll be back.’

I slipped out of the netting we’d rigged beneath the plane’s wing and made my way up the beach to Ava and Ziggy’s tents pitched near the brush line. Both were closed and dark. The fire was long dead and all I could hear was the soft lapping of water on the beach. Then I heard the other sound again. I followed it into the underbrush and came upon the path that led to where we’d been working during the day. The sound grew louder as I grew closer, and within minutes I spotted Ava digging furiously, some distance away from where we had failed.

‘What’s going on?’ I said.

She kept digging and said, ‘I’m kicking myself for not figuring it out.’

‘Figuring what out?’

‘The map was reversed. On purpose. To trick us. And it sure as hell did. This is where they buried it all along. I just know it.’

A loud thump instead of the scratchy sand sounds.

‘My God!’

The hole was about three feet deep. I grabbed a shovel and joined her in clearing away the remaining dirt. The faster we worked the faster she talked.

‘I was looking at the map in front of the fire after Ziggy turned in. I put it down to do something, and then picked it up again and got confused. The handwriting didn’t make sense, and then realized I was looking at it from the other side. Look. Like this.’

She pulled out the map. Her small penlight wavered and wobbled as she shined it from behind. ‘I didn’t think anything of it. Went to sleep, but then woke up suddenly and it came to me. The words are reversed.’

‘So?’

‘Look at the very bottom. On this side it looks like waves around the island, right? Like squiggles. But what does it look like on your side?

The shadow of Ava’s finger traced the spot in question. I looked closer. ‘It says ‘TURN OVER MAP’.’

She laughed. ‘And I did, and they buried it here. The treasure’s here!’

I played her penlight over the surface of the dirt-covered chest. Three feet wide by four feet long. How deep, I didn’t know yet.

‘We need help,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back.’

I returned with Orlando, some rope and sleepy, complaining Ziggy. ‘This couldn’t wait until morning?’

Ava had already widened the hole considerably. She stared into it, her arms folded, head bowed.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

She didn’t say anything. Just handed me her penlight and pointed. I played the beam over sand and rocks at first, and then a skeletal hand and a scrap of cloth poking out from the side of the hole.

Ziggy said, ‘Tell me this is a bad dream.’

I said, ‘They must have killed one of their own.’

Ava said softly. ‘Dead men tell no tales.’

I carefully covered the hand with a shovelful of sand. ‘Rest in peace, old fellow.’

Working in somber silence, we widened the hole around the chest, being careful not to disturb the dead man’s resting place. Then we dug down three more feet before we reached the bottom of the chest. If filled with gold coins it would weigh a ton. Fortunately we had brought along a crane for just such a contingency: Orlando Diaz.

We dug two tunnels beneath the chest, snaked lines through, and back up to the top. Then, with each of us holding an end, we gave a heave and it rocked slightly, but that was it. Orlando tied off my end to a nearby palm tree. Then he took his end in one hand, looped it over his shoulders and grabbed it with his other hand. He squatted like a weightlifter, took a deep breath and dead lifted. The chest came free with a crunching, sucking sound. The four of us managed to wrestle it up and out of the hole.

Three rusted hasps along the front held it closed. It took me a while to break them free with a hammer and screwdriver, but they finally yielded. I stood and turned to Ava.

‘You have the honors.’

She grabbed my hammer and screwdriver and chiseled along around the lid until it loosened. She looked at me, took a deep breath, grabbed the lid and lifted. It opened with a squeal and fell back to reveal the long sought after treasure.

Rocks. Big ones, small ones, from top to bottom. Rocks.

Nobody said anything for a long while.

The laughter, when it came, was a high and shrieking whoop from off to our right.

‘Like flies to honey, by God,’ the old man shouted as he ran out of the shadows and into the moonlight, his snow white hair going in all directions, his short bandy legs scuttling like a crab’s. Someone to laugh at, if it weren’t for the .30 caliber Winchester rifle trained on us as steady as a snake staring you down. He stopped a short distance from us and cocked his head to one side.

‘Mr. Riley,’ I said. ‘Put down that damned gun before you hurt somebody.’

He took a start, and then grinned as he recognized me. ‘Sammy Carter, what the hell you doing down here, boy?’

Ava said, ‘Who is he?’

‘Mr. Riley is lighthouse keeper at Loggerhead.’

He sidled closer and lowered the rifle. ‘I’m a lot more than that, Sammy-boy. How’d you like them rocks? Clever huh? You dug up that chest and what’d you get? Nothing!’ He looked heavenward. ‘Daddy, you were one clever man.’

He whooped and danced a little jig.

Ziggy said, ‘This must be Ben Gunn’s stuntman.’

I grabbed the old man by his shoulder. ‘Where’s the gold?’

‘What gold?’

‘The gold supposed to be in this chest.’

He grew instantly sober. ‘Well, it ain’t here, I can tell you that. But more than that...’ He raised his rifle. ‘You ain’t never going to find it. Now clear out of here.’

Ava stepped forward until the barrel was touching her chest. ‘That gold belongs to the Confederate States of America.’

Riley’s eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed. ‘Maybe it do, and maybe it don’t.’

She continued, her voice steady, soft and confident. ‘In 1865 a group of sailors mutinied on the British blockade-runner
Mirabella
. They killed everyone on board and set sail through these straits, heading for the Gulf of Mexico - am I right, so far?’

Riley said nothing, but the rifle barrel wavered slightly. She stepped closer and continued.

‘But a Yankee picket boat spotted them and set off in hot pursuit. A storm came up and they made good their escape. But being better mutineers than seamen, the
Mirabella
ran aground on the coral reef right over there and started breaking up. The mutineers made it onto this island with their chest of gold and they buried it. Right so far?’

Riley lowered the rifle. Ava tapped my shoulder

‘Of course, the Key West wreckers, got word and raced out to salvage it. The mutineers waited on the key until the salvagers were swarming like locusts around the
Mirabella’s
remains. Their plan was to set off in their longboat from shore and act the role of abandoned seamen. But a fight broke out, one of mutineers was shot and left for dead.

She aimed her penlight at the spot where I’d re-covered the skeletal hand. I brushed away the dirt.

‘This would be this gentleman here. The rest of the mutineers drowned when their boat overturned. But the man they left for dead didn’t die until he told the story I’m telling you to your daddy who tried to save him.’  

Riley went peered at the skeleton. ‘I’ll be damned. Daddy said he buried the man but I never believed him.’

‘Your daddy also made a map,’ Ava said. ‘Recognize the handwriting?’

Riley put down his rifle and squinted while Ava played her penlight over its details, her voice soft and steady and relentless.

‘Before the mutineer died, he said the gold was bound for Richmond to aid in the Confederate cause. Your daddy, being the good rebel he was, wrote down every word and sent this map to President Jeff Davis by secret messenger.’