Confederate Gold and Silver (10 page)

Beginning the ride to Richmond, they soon left the protection of the Confederate camp and its surrounding area. Francis wanted to arrive as early as possible so he could properly plan for his assignment. As he rode with the others through the countryside, he could not help but think of the money he would soon be responsible for protecting. He could not imagine what a great deal of money really looked like. While he had come from a well-to-do family, he had never really seen much money as his family had traded and bartered for many of their needs. His father had never really spoken about how much real money the family had and he had never given too much thought about it either as he had been far more interested in being the typical country boy growing up.

As they rode south, Francis prayed he and his men would perform well together as he did not want to embarrass those who had chosen him for this mission. Nor did he want to disgrace his family.

In the weeks to follow, Captain Francis and his men would face several challenges during their assignment. It was his job to complete the assignment and to bring his men back alive. One of the tasks would be somewhat completed, the other would not. Despite the many difficult challenges he would face, Francis would not disgrace his family or his uniform.

Summer,
2011

5
A
Tree
Reveals
Her
Secret.
 

“When
the
sun’s
at
his
back
and
the
winds
in
his
face,
it’s
just
him
and
the
wheel;
He
wouldn’t
take
a
million
for
the
way
it
makes
him
feel
 . . .”
Kenny
Chesney—Lyrics
to
his
song
‘Boats’

The day after he agreed to purchase his new boat, one which was everything but new, Paul also purchased a used truck so he could tow the boat to and from a storage facility close to his home. He appreciated the offer Steve had given him, one which allowed the pontoon boat to be moored at the marina for the rest of the summer, but he had declined the offer. He planned on mooring it at one of the marinas situated along the Waccamaw River as the water in the river was generally not as rough as the constantly changing tides were inside Murrells Inlet. For now though, he decided he would keep the boat at the storage facility until he found a marina he liked along the river.

The truck he purchased was a used 2002 Chevy V-8 Silverado four door. It had four wheel drive capability and was one with a tow package already installed on it. The truck was pewter in color and had just over 72,000 miles on it. While it had a couple dents on the front hood, the rest of the truck was in very good condition despite it being close to ten years old. He purchased it for only $2,500.00 from a widow who had recently lost her husband. She had priced it on the low end so it would sell quickly as she wanted one less sad memory of her late husband being around the house. As he drove the truck out of her driveway on the morning he purchased it, Paul could not help but to think his good luck was still continuing.

After buying the truck, Paul stopped for a late breakfast at the Waccamaw Diner on Frontage Road, just off Highway 17 in Murrells Inlet. With Donna having started her new job earlier in the week, he had already made the diner his new place to grab a quick breakfast and to read the paper.

After ordering his breakfast, and after opening up the sports section of
The
Sun
News
, a local newspaper in the Myrtle Beach area, Paul glanced out the diner window at his newly purchased truck. He caught himself smiling at the excitement of soon picking up the pontoon boat he had dreamed about owning for years. Drinking his coffee as he looked out the window, he had one other pleasant thought. “Retirement life is working out pretty well so far!”

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Betty Repko said as she placed Paul’s breakfast of scrambled eggs, home fries, and sausage down on the table. “You’re becoming a regular here, ain’t ya? I’ve seen ya here three times this week.” Paul introduced himself to Betty, telling her he had just recently moved to the area from Connecticut after retiring.

“Well imagine that, another Yankee moving to South Carolina!” Betty quickly laughed at her own good-natured joke. He could tell from her demeanor she had just been joking with him when she had called him a Yankee. “Let me tell ya something, if y’all are going to become a Southern gentleman we are going to have to teach ya to eat grits with your breakfast, not home fries,” Betty again joked. Paul made a face to show his lack of interest in the creamy cornmeal Southern delicacy. The expression he made caused Betty to laugh at her suggestion regarding the grits. “If ya are going to become a regular here, ya also need to be sitting on the other side of the diner, that’s where those old fools who have lived here for years sit. All they do is complain about you Yankees moving here, complain about not catching enough fish, and generally lie to each another about how much sex they are having. The way they describe it, their women are always pissed off about something, so I know for a fact they aren’t getting any. Besides being a bunch of complainers, they’re all lousy tippers too!” Betty had just told him far more than he cared to know. She soon left the booth where he was sitting and walked back behind the diner’s lunch counter, carrying a tray of dirty dishes she had cleared from the booth next to his.

Outside of her rough language, Betty reminded him of many of the waitresses he had known in diners back home. They were often cheerful hard working single moms who were trying to earn a living by being nice to their customers. From the friendly banter they had with their customers, they hoped to be rewarded with enough tip money to help them pay their bills and to care for their kids. For some of them, they also held out hope they might even find someone decent enough to care for them. Betty was only different than the other waitresses he had known back home because she was a bit older and because she talked with the Southern drawl he loved to hear these days.

Starting to eat his breakfast, Paul glanced over towards the section of the diner where Betty had told him the diner’s regular morning customers tended to sit. As he did, he saw Chubby sitting in one of the booths with a couple of other guys. Next to their booth sat four other guys who he could tell were part of Chubby’s group of friends. Seeing them sitting there, Paul thought the guys with Chubby fit his description of Southern rednecks. They all wore baseball hats, all had work pants on, and some of them were wearing shirts that were either ripped or torn. Most of them had not shaved for a few days. As he continued to look at them between bites of his breakfast, he could not figure out why, but those were the people in life he always had an appreciation for. Southern rednecks or Northern rednecks, it did not matter, they were the hard working guys in life who spent their down time just enjoying the simple pleasures that life offered, pleasures like hunting and fishing. Chubby’s friends all appeared to be going fishing later as they seemed dressed for it. From where he sat in the diner, he could also see several different types of fishing boats on trailers in the parking lot. The trailers were hitched up behind several types of Ford and Chevy pickup trucks. The rear windows of two of the trucks had a variety of
NASCAR
,
Ducks
Unlimited
, and
America
—
Love
it
or
Leave
it!
stickers displayed on them; a third truck had red and white window tinting in the form of a Confederate flag filling up most of its rear window.

As he sat finishing his breakfast, Paul heard Chubby’s voice yell out to him as he was walking to the door. “Hey, partner, y’all coming by for the boat this morning?” Nodding his head, he gave Chubby a thumbs up to indicate he would be there. His mouth was too full of the last bites of his scrambled eggs to answer him. “Alright then, we will be ready for y’all when ya get there,” Chubby replied as he gave a wave at the same time. Looking up from his plate, he could not help but notice that one of the guys Chubby had been sitting with now stood in the diner’s doorway for several moments staring at him, really almost glaring at him, before walking out to the parking lot to get into Chubby’s truck. Paul wondered what the glare had been about, but soon returned to finishing his breakfast. As he cleaned his plate with his last piece of buttered rye toast, he watched Chubby and his friends as they drove off in the direction of the marina. As he watched them, Betty stopped to refresh his coffee. She saw him staring out the window.

“Who was the guy sitting next to Chubby, do you know? He kind of stared at me for a few moments, almost like he was mad at me, and I don’t even know the guy.”

“Oh, that fat son of a bitch is known as Swamp. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know his real name. He’s a local and a real pain in the ass. He spends most of his days fishing in the Inlet and in some other areas over on the river. He likes to drink and fight with his friends, but I don’t know much more about him. He’s got a big mouth to go with his big belly, but I think he is more talk than anything else. What I do know is when he comes in here, I’m not going to get much of a tip from him cuz he is also a cheap son of a gun as well,” Betty sarcastically sighed.

As Paul finished his coffee, he made sure he left a fair tip for Betty as he did not want to earn a reputation as a cheap tipper with her. Then he went out to his truck and drove off to get his new toy, the pontoon boat he had dreamed of owning for years.

******

Pulling into the marina, Paul was pleased to see Chubby had pulled the boat out of the water and now had it secured on the trailer in the parking lot. His first impression in seeing the boat was that it did not look like Chubby had put much of an effort into cleaning it as he said he would, but it wasn’t enough to get upset over. “Doesn’t really matter, I’m going to clean it my way anyhow.” He was even more pleased when he saw Steve was there talking to Chubby as they walked around the boat, apparently giving it a final inspection before selling it to him. Getting out of his truck, he could see the two small signs had already been removed from the sides of the boat.

“Steve, good morning! I wasn’t expecting to see you here this morning,” Paul yelled as he walked to where the boat sat on the trailer.

“Well, Chubby told me you were fetching the boat, and I have business here in an hour with a boat dealer, so I thought I’d stop to make sure you like what you are buying. I’m glad you decided to buy it. We’ve had great luck with it and I hope the luck continues for you.”

Paul again thanked Steve for the deal he had offered him on the boat and trailer. Then he told him about the good deal he had gotten on his truck. It was a truck he had recently seen parked on Highway 707 with a red and white plastic ‘
For
Sale’
sign taped to the front windshield.

“I’m glad to hear about that. It seems like you are doing OK for yourself as I hear you are also meeting with Willie Tegeler later today to take that part-time job I offered you.”

“I am,” Paul replied, “I’m seeing him around five this afternoon. I might even play nine holes afterwards just to see part of the golf course. You know, between what you have done for me, and me finding this truck, along with my recent move down here, my dreams are all coming true. Good luck seems to have found me since I moved here. Perhaps I should stop at one of the Kangaroo Express gas stations I see so many of around here and buy a lottery ticket or two.” Steve laughed at his joke, but Chubby nodded his head several times, seriously thinking Paul had a great idea on how to continue his streak of good luck.

“Steve had me buy a new cooler to replace the one which stunk so badly. I have it in the office for you before you go. Oh, and I also told him when we pulled the boat out of the water yesterday we found a chip in one of the propeller blades, so we replaced that as well. One of the idiots who work for us likely did it when he backed the boat up by the boat ramp one day. No matter, it’s fixed. We even filled the gas tank for you, so you should be good to go.”

“Steve, you have been too good to me, and I appreciate what Chubby has done as well, at least let me pay you for the propeller and the gas.”

Shrugging him off, Steve joked that he could not afford the labor rate they charged their customers to replace broken propellers. As they continued to talk, Chubby took the keys to Paul’s truck and backed it up so he could hitch the trailer to the truck. After doing so, Chubby secured the trailer’s safety chains to the truck’s hitch and then plugged in the lights so the trailer’s brake lights could be tested before Paul left. They worked fine. Then Chubby went and fetched the new cooler he had picked up at Costco.

As they talked some more in the parking lot, Steve recommended to Paul that he should consider buying a marine radio and a compass; both of which he suggested could easily be mounted on the boat’s dashboard. “Storms sometimes come up quick out on the river. Not knowing the river too well, you will be glad you have them if you get in a jam. With all of the bends and turns in the river it is easy to get lost, especially when the weather is lousy.” Steve’s recommendations were well taken and Paul thanked him for his good ideas. “We also called the Department of Natural Resources about the sale of the boat and gave them all of your information. They will mail you your new registration when they send you your two tax bills, one each for the boat and for the motor. You should have them in the next couple of weeks.