Cora Flash and the Treasure of Beggar's Bluff (8 page)

"This must be it!" I yelled.

Gerald slowed the engine down, as we were getting very close to the jagged rocks surrounding the Three Wise Men.

"I don't know how close I can get," he said. "The water is rough and the rocks are very jagged, it's too dangerous."

"Try to get a bit closer," I pleaded.

I could barely see anything around the Three Wise Men that might lead to the treasure, but there had to be something here, the map said so.

"Arr, arr!" yelped Calvin.

He stared at a spot just behind the rocks. A small cave that went into the bluffs directly behind the Three Wise Men. That had to be it!

"Gerald, we have to go in there!" I yelled.

Gerald, who could easily have argued with me, decided it was worth checking out. He expertly steered his fishing boat into the cave that Calvin had spotted. Soon after entering the cave, we realized none of us could see for the darkness.

"We'll have to turn on the light," said Gerald, his words echoing all around us.

He turned on the spotlight affixed to the roof of the wheelhouse on his boat. The light flooded the cave, which was more of a cavern. The water continued into the cave, which must have been one hundred feet high. The rock formations that climbed the walls and hung from the ceilings gave eerie shadows as the light hit them. It was very spooky, and overwhelming.

"Cora," said Gerald, "something's up ahead. Can you tell what it is?"

I made my way to the front of the boat and saw a dark shadow in front of us.

"We're too far from it, I can't tell what it is."

Gerald moved us closer, the light filling more and more of the cavern as we puttered along. Soon, the light lit up the dark mass in front of us. One of the first things I was able to read were the letters, "S.S. Guppy."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

As we moved closer, more and more of the boat became visible. Clearly, this was the final resting place of the S.S. Guppy. It was badly beaten up, the front of the boat was smashed in and resting on a flat rocky stretch of the cavern.

"They must have hit a bad storm," said Gerald, as he focused the light on the wreckage. "And thought this cavern would provide some refuge."

Gerald cut the motor of his boat and anchored us beside a flat rock that would allow us to climb out of the boat to explore where the S.S. Guppy had landed.

"Hold my hand!" I sternly instructed Ethan. He gripped it tightly. He was probably too scared to go anywhere, but I had to make sure he stayed with me.

Calvin ran happily ahead of us, off-leash. There were not many places for him to go, so I figured he would appreciate the freedom of not being tied to me.

"Be careful where you step," said Gerald. "It's slippery here."

Gerald left the boat's searchlight on so we would be able to see where we were going.

"Take this, just in case," he added, handing me a flashlight.

We slowly made our way toward the wreckage. Clearly beyond repair, the boat had either crashed into some rocks outside of the bluffs or made its way here, or else crashed into the rocks inside the cavern as they tried to slow down. Without a light like the one Gerald had, it would have been nearly impossible to safely slow the boat down in time to properly dock.

Calvin had run ahead of us, busily exploring a battered up old blanket. He sniffed it with great excitement and pawed at it, trying to move it.

"What have you found there, buddy?" I asked.

I kneeled down in front of the blanket, which looked like a tarp. It must have been a covering for something on the boat, but covered up whatever Calvin had discovered.

Gerald stood beside me with his flashlight pointed at the object Calvin had discovered, so I was able to put mine down. As I was still holding on to Ethan, I pulled the tarp off with my one free hand.

Gerald and I both gasped.

Under the tarp was a pile of fifty or sixty bars of gold.

"Well, I'll be...," said Gerald. "Will you look at that?"

"Is this all of it?" I asked aloud.

"Probably not," he answered. "These boats can hold much more than this, but maybe this is all the crew could get out safely."

I picked up one of the bars. It was not shiny like I'd expected it to be but, given that we'd found it in a cave after it had been lost for decades, I guessed that was normal. It was extremely heavy, though, and I was shocked at how much it weighed.

"I need to pick one up," said Gerald, bending down to grab a bar from the pile.

He held it in both hands, bouncing it up and down to feel the weight of it. His eyes were wide with excitement, clearly enjoying our discovery!

As we stared at the gold, I could hear Calving batting something around behind the pile. Then I heard a clinking sound, like the sound of ice cubes in a glass.

Calvin appeared from behind the pile of gold with a bottle in his mouth! The sound I'd heard was his teeth closing around the stem of the bottle.

"What is that?" I asked, taking it from his mouth.

A small cork plugged up the top of the bottle, which contained a rolled-up piece of paper.

"Maybe it's a letter," I said, removing the cork.

The paper was jammed in the bottle; I couldn't get it out. I was about to smash the bottle on the rocks when I had a better idea.

"Ethan," I said. "Get it out!"

I knew Ethan's tiny baby fingers would be able to reach into the top of the bottle a little easier than mine. I was right, Ethan removed the letter from the bottle easily. He handed me the paper, but kept the bottle.

Unrolling the letter, I could see it was a handwritten note of some kind. I read the note out so Gerald could hear.

"Dear Maggie,"
I began. The letter must have been written by Lyle!
"No doubt you have heard by now of our ship being lost at sea. We hit a terrible storm just after we passed town and have been here in this cavern for five days since our boat crashed. We took refuge in this cavern, hoping we would be able to sail back out and continue on our journey, but the waves were too rough and we smashed the hull of the boat as we came into the bluffs. We have no radio and no search party has come close enough for us to try and signal. A few of the crew, myself included, are going to try and sail out on a makeshift boat tomorrow morning, but I do not know what fate has in store, but if you should not hear from me, please remember I will always love you. XO, Lyle."

It was such a sad letter to read. Lyle and the other crew members must have known they were heading into such terrible danger as they tried to escape the cavern. He'd left this note for someone to discover in case he did not make it back to town.

"They must have been lost at sea," said Gerald. "Their boat never made it back."

This made me very sad, but I was happy that Maggie would be able to rest knowing her husband was not part of a band of gold thieves.

"One of the other crew members must have made the map," I said. "They probably threw that one in the water and it made its way back to civilization."

"Right you are!" said a voice from behind us.

Gerald, Ethan, Calvin and I all turned around, startled.

There stood Mr. Burton, the Librarian and house burglar, pointing a gun right at us.

"You're not the only one with a boat!" he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"What in blazes are you doing, Frank?" said Gerald. "Put that thing away."

"Mind your business, Gerald. This is between me and the girl," he replied.

Mr. Burton had made his way to the Bluffs in a small yellow dinghy that was now tied to a rock just behind the fishing boat we'd come in on. It had a small motor on it, which he must have turned very low when he made his way into the cavern. Either that, or he'd paddled his way in.

"I know you broke into my house and destroyed my bedroom," I said. "I found your library card. You were looking for the other half of the map, weren't you?"

"You're smarter than I thought. I had the other half of that map for almost twenty years. I bought it from someone who found it in a bottle on the beach, but he said the other half was hidden in the library. I worked at that library every day trying to find that map, and you come in and find it without even trying!"

"Do you even like books?" I asked.

"Who cares about books?" Mr. Burton yelled. "I care about GOLD! I never wanted to work in that stupid library. I just wanted to be there every day so I could find the other half of the map before someone else did."

"And Cora found it," said Gerald, laughing at Mr. Burton.

"Well it doesn't matter much now, does it, because here we have the gold. This can't be all of it, but it's certainly enough for me to get far away from this ugly little town and start living the life I deserve!"

"Then take it," I said. "Take all of it and get out of here. We have no interest in the gold."

"We don't?" asked Gerald.

"It's not ours," I said. "We can't keep it."

Gerald looked terribly disappointed. "Oh," he said. "But maybe there is a reward."

"You can't get a reward for something you don't have," said Mr. Burton. "Since I am going to take the gold and skedaddle, you have nothing to claim. And just to make sure you don't try something foolish, like chase after me, I borrowed this from your boat."

He held up a large pile of rope that Gerald used to tie down cargo on his boat.

"Tie up the girl," he said, throwing the rope to Gerald.

Gerald looked at me and then at the rope in his hands. "I'm sorry, Cora," he said, "but he has a gun...."

"I understand."

I sat down on the ground with my back to a large rock and let Gerald tie me to it.

"When you're done with her," he said, "then I will tie you up."

Gerald tied the knots behind me tight enough that I would not be able to escape, but not so tight I was uncomfortable.

"That should do it," he said. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," I said.

Gerald then sat down beside me so Mr. Burton could proceed to tie him up. The entire time, Ethan stood watching everything, not sure what to make of this funny game. Calvin, surprisingly, had disappeared.

"You're not going to tie up a two-year-old, are you?" I asked Mr. Burton.

"No," he replied, "I'm going to take him with me!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"What?" I exclaimed. "You can't!"

"He's my insurance policy," he said. "I know you won't try anything stupid if I have him with me, and when I know I am out of danger, I will drop him off with a note to tell everyone where to find you two."

My worst nightmare. Mom had just started to trust me with Ethan alone and I was about to lose him to a gold-thieving librarian who hated books.

Mr. Burton pulled out a duffel bag and started to transfer as many of the gold bars as he could fit into it. After he had moved about ten of the bars, he dragged it down to where the boats were tied up, temporarily remaining out of site.

"Each one of those weighs close to thirty pounds," said Gerald. "He's not going to be able to carry very many of them in that little boat of his. It will sink."

"Sink?" I cried. "But he has Ethan with him."

This was shaping up to be a much more dangerous situation than I'd bargained for.

Mr. Burton returned with another bag and began to fill that one, too. When he'd put in another six or seven bars of gold, he zipped it up and started to drag it behind him.

"Come along now," said Mr. Burton in his librarian voice.

He took Ethan by the hand and started to lead him away from us. Ethan knew Mr. Burton well; he had often come with us to the library, so he didn't hesitate.

"Oh," said Mr. Burton, turning around. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take your boat. It's a bit faster."

Mr. Burton lifted the two duffel bags into the boat before climbing aboard with Ethan. We could only watch, helplessly tied to the rocks.

The engine of Gerald's boat roared to life and the boat slowly began to back out of the cavern. As Mr. Burton pulled away, the light the spotlight had provided also dimmed. I could see Ethan on the front of the boat, waving goodbye to us, enjoying this game of hide-and-seek.

"Oh, Cora, what are we going to do?" asked Gerald. "We're both tied up, how can we get out of here?"

Neither of us could do anything, as we were both tied to the rock, but one of us was not tied to anything.

"Calvin!" I called. "Come here, buddy."

Calvin appeared from behind a small rock.

"Arr," he said, by way of greeting.

"Come here boy. Look," I said, trying to move my hands in a way that caught his attention. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me. I could tell he did not understand what I was trying to say.

"Look, look!" I said moving my hands faster. "Go get it!"

Calvin seemed to catch on at that moment and ran behind the rock to where my hands were tied. He started to chew on the rope like a new dog toy. He chewed through it enough to fray the rope to the point where I could slip out one hand and then the other.

"Good boy. I'm free," I said to Gerald. "I'll untie you."

"Reach into my pocket," he said. "There's a small pen-knife. You can use it to cut the rope."

I did as he suggested and found a small knife that made quick work of the rope. In just a few minutes, Gerald was free.

The three of us, including Calvin, ran down to where the small rubber dinghy was tied up.

"How fast do you think it can go?" I asked.

"Not very," he said. "Certainly not as fast as my boat."

We looked out at the water and could see Gerald's boat, now captained by Mr. Burton, quickly disappearing on the horizon.

"Let's not waste time," I said.

We climbed into the boat and proceeded to start the engine. After a few false starts, the small motor roared to life and we carefully navigated our way out of the cavern.

"I'm coming, Ethan," I said. "I'm coming to rescue you!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Our small boat was indeed not much of a match for the larger fishing boat that Mr. Burton had stolen. We turned the speed up as far as it would go, but our small dinghy lagged farther and farther behind.