Missing Witness (53 page)

He could play it all out, in an instant, in his mind.

And then, as the rolling ocean cascaded over the deck, causing Putrie to hang on for dear life, and as lightning flashed above them, something happened.

Anger, furnace-hot, was boiling over.

Deep inside Will, like a burning incandescence, there was a resolve. The kind that fires the soul, hot as lava, and lights up the mind.

Will would not let this happen. He
would
live to return to see his little family—his beautiful bride and his infant son. He would call upon the God of heaven to intervene.

Will silently petitioned the Ruler of the earth and all the seas, He who commands the waves and the great fish of the deep.

And now Will would act.

As the boat rocked wildly, he leaped forward, grabbing at the treasure chest.

But it was just beyond his grip, and as the boat rose up Will slipped backward to the stern, carried by gravity and the flood of seawater pouring down the deck.

Putrie screamed out a string of profanities and lunged at the box himself, waving the gun in Will's direction and yelling for him to get back.

Up in the wheelhouse Morgan jerked around and glanced back, then steadied the wheel to meet the next crashing wave that engulfed the front third of his boat. The boat rolled to the side and pitched wildly almost straight upward.

Then Morgan whipped around again, just in time to see the black metal chest slide toward Will, and Will make a lurching leap toward it. Now his hands made contact, and he gripped it with all of his strength.

Putrie was sliding across the deck on his back in the flood of water, still trying to point his pistol in Will's direction.

Jonathan jumped toward Putrie, landing on his legs.

Yanking him away from Will's position, Jonathan was now on his belly, skimming across the deck on a torrent of water. He had his arms wrapped around Putrie's legs.

But Putrie twisted so he could point his gun at Jonathan.

“Look out!” Will screamed.

But it was too late.

In the roaring wind and the crash of the sea, no one could hear when Putrie pulled the trigger.

But he had a stunned look on his face.

He pointed the revolver at Jonathan's face and pulled the trigger. And again. And again.

Nothing.

Then it became clear, not only to Jonathan and Will, but to Putrie as well, that he had been betrayed by Blackjack Morgan—with a weapon that was not loaded.

By now Morgan had seen enough. He saw Will leaning against the stern rail, holding onto the black metal chest. Morgan was going to put an end to it all.

He jumped out onto the deck, his bad leg pumping at high speed like an oil rig badly out of kilter.

As he grabbed at the railing for support, he began firing his revolver at Will, narrowly missing him.

Will held the chest on the railing, ready to drop it over into the raging sea.

“You move and this goes into the water!” he yelled out.

Morgan was sliding himself along the side, inching his way closer to Will, half-crawling, half-swimming in the flood smashing down onto the boat.

“No you won't,” Morgan screamed. “You don't have the guts!”

“Watch me!” Will screamed back, and let the chest further down, out of Morgan's sight. “You kill me—I know where I'm going,” he yelled, “but I drop this,” he glanced down at the box he was barely holding onto, “I let this chest go…and your whole world goes with it.”

But in the half-instant Morgan took to decide whether to shoot to negotiate, or lunge toward the dangling chest of treasure, he had forgotten one thing.

He had vacated the wheelhouse. And now, the wheel was whirling on its own, to the left and then to the right, with each wave that smashed against the bow.

The boat suddenly lurched to port side—at a perfect parallel to the oncoming waves.

The next wave crashed over the entire length of the boat, catching Will, the chest, and Morgan with its fury.

The box was carried up and out of Will's grasp, and it slammed down onto the deck. Will was thrown to the far side, and Morgan, who had lost his weapons in the deluge, swam, clawed, and rolled over to the chest.

He grabbed onto it at mid-deck, where the ropes from the drag anchors and the nylon ropes tied to the cement blocks had intertwined into a tangled net that stretched from wheelhouse to railing.

A second wave smashed down, tossing the boat sideways in what was almost a half-barrel roll.

Morgan still clutched the box to his chest, but his legs and torso had become wound up in the tangle of ropes. The only way that he could free himself was to release the treasure chest, reach down, and separate the ropes that bound him.

Blackjack Morgan would not—could not—do that.

He kicked like a wild beast at the lines that wound around his lower half and screamed a flood of curses.

But the ropes became more tangled.

Orville Putrie was scrambling to his feet in a full-blown panic. Staggering to the box that contained the inflatable life rafts, he pulled one out, clutched it to his chest, and pulled the string to inflate the limp rubber raft. He leaped over the side and disappeared into the darkness.

And then Will and Jonathan saw it. A wall of water the height of a small building, plowing over the half-submerged fishing boat, crashing down, and now flipping the boat in a complete roll—one that sent Will and Jonathan flying into the night, and slamming into the cold ocean, underneath the boat. Down into the frigid, watery turbulence.

There was darkness and swimming for the surface, wherever it was. Will pulled himself upward, breaststroking as hard as he could.

He finally broke the surface, gasping for air. He could see the boat upside-down, lying on the water with its hull facing the sky, but only for an instant.

A massive wave caught the boat and rolled it back up—revealing Blackjack Morgan.

Will doubted his eyes at first.

Morgan was still tangled in the web of ropes, held down fast against the deck. But his face was white—as white as limestone. And his eyes were empty and staring.

And he was clutching—still clutching—the treasure chest.

But the box opened, and a frenzy of sparkling diamonds and rubies and emeralds, and gold pieces and gold dust, began pouring out of it.

All of Edward Teach's loot captured from along the Spanish Main, around the capes, down to Cuba—gathered from his career of piracy and murder and mayhem—all of it, cascading out of the box in a twinkling,
glittering shower, like a million fireflies. Out of the box still clasped to Blackjack Morgan's chest—within his cold, lifeless grip.

The boat did one more powerful, groaning roll, and then began to quickly go under.

Will found a flotation cushion and held it fast, trying to keep his head above water through the massive waves.

The last thing he saw was the insignia on the side of the boat as it upended and began sinking straight down to the bottom. He witnessed the ace of spades and the king of clubs slipping below the waves.

And then the boat was gone.

That was when Will also saw Jonathan, about two hundred feet away, holding onto a round life preserver.

But just behind Will, where at first he did not see it, there was a ship, churning its way slowly through the wild sea. It was large, notably seaworthy.

August Longfellow had alerted the Coast Guard to keep an eye out for Will and Jonathan as soon as he saw on TV that the nor'easter had blown back in with redoubled power.

The Coast Guard, in turn, radioed a rescue bulletin to all ships in the vicinity.

Only one ship was near the coordinates of the quadrant in which Stony Island lay.

It was Dr. Steve Rosetti's research vessel. And it had come to find, and to save, two souls, and to pluck them safely out of the bone-chilling waves of the sea.

77

Nine Months Later

T
HEY WERE PREPARED TO TAKE THEIR DEFEAT
with honor. The group lined up, in order, to shake hands with their victors.

The team of boys had lost—but not badly. The Methodists had beaten them by a hair's-breadth—nine to eight. And the Methodists were looking strong that year, having beaten even the Baptists, the week before. So there was still hope for Jonathan Joppa's fledgling team. After all, the season had only just begun.

“This is so cool,” the Methodists' pitcher said to Ryan, Joppa's starting right fielder, as the two headed over to the table of food that had been spread out for the post-game festivities. “Having a baseball field on an island like this, and with lights for night games, and a real dugout, and full bleachers, and an electronic scoreboard, and an electronic message board…just like the majors!”

Ryan was trying to play it cool, so he merely smiled back and slapped the opposing pitcher on the back. “Yeah, this island is really okay…”

Up in the bleachers, Fiona was cuddling little Andrew. She did secretly wonder if she would ever be able to convince her husband to steer clear of perilous lawsuits in the future. Admittedly, she had encouraged his involvement in this last one. Yet she still did occasionally yearn to join the ranks of other lawyer's wives—ones who could talk mundanely about whether their husbands won, or lost, this or that case…rather than wondering if they would ever make it home alive by the time it was all over.

But then again, she mused, that would not be like Will. Nor would it really be like her—to want to settle for that.

She smiled as she nuzzled Andrew's face and watched her husband stride over to Jonathan Joppa, who was shaking hands with the opposing coach.

She was glad they had come down that day from Monroeville, Virginia, to join in the celebration of the “rebirth” of Stony Island. Although the island could not support the hoped-for condominium development, it was now, they all agreed, being put to an even better use. It had already become affectionately known as “Baseball Island.” Jonathan Joppa's termination as pastor of Safe Harbor Community Church had given him the opportunity for a work that now consumed his imagination and fired his soul—a spring and summer baseball camp for boys, especially those who were troubled, and who had drug problems or juvenile court backgrounds.

The boys had wanted to name their team the
Pirates.
But Jonathan had a strong aversion to that. So they settled on the
Islanders
instead.

During the morning they would receive baseball training. In the afternoon, on the days they didn't have games, they would get instruction from what coach Jonathan Joppa called “The Ultimate Handbook for the World Series of Life”—the Bible.

“Hey, Coach.”

One of the Islanders pitchers was calling Jonathan's son, Bobby, who was picking up balls and bats. Bobby smiled back. Even though he was officially only an
assistant
coach, he like the sound of that title,
Coach
.

“Can you work with me tomorrow? I walked four guys today. I got to work on controlling my fastball.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said with a smile, “but just remember—you had ten strikeouts today. Not bad. Not bad at all…”

Will shook hands with Jonathan and told him his new ball team looked really good. And as the two walked over to the food tables, they reflected on the events that had occurred after the night they survived their final confrontation with Blackjack Morgan, and the sinking of his boat.

Dr. Rosetti had offered to contact a reputable commercial salvage operation out of Florida, and that outfit ended up paying a large fee to Jonathan for all of his rights to Blackbeard's treasure that had spilled into the waters of the Atlantic.

That was more than all right as far as Jonathan was concerned. He figured that Rosetti's calculation was right—that the salvage company would spend the next three years, if they were very lucky, recovering just a portion of the loot—and would then spend the next ten years in court, litigating against the competing claims of the State of North Carolina, the distant heirs and relatives of Ebenezer Youngblood, and the nation of
Spain—which was now claiming that most, if not all, of the booty had been stolen from its ships.

So, that money was a great financial boost to Jonathan—though it didn't begin to cover all the expenses of constructing a baseball stadium on the island. That money came from another source. A very unexpected one at that.

To some folks along the Outer Banks, it was an inexplicable mystery why Frances Willowby had become such a rabid baseball fan. But to Will, Fiona, and Jonathan, it was understandable. It wasn't really about baseball. It was really about her feelings for the island where, she would often remark, her late husband Randolph had spent so many happy days when he was a boy. And it also had to do with her perspective on life, as she was finally becoming able to pick up the pieces following his death. She was writing to Fiona regularly now. And she mentioned her new “spiritual pilgrimage,” and how she longed for the day when she and Randolph would again meet—and then, without pain, or illness, or goodbyes.