The Old Cape Teapot (3 page)

His eyes widened. “It must have been really cool to find all that treasure!”

“Oh yes. No one had ever thought to look in Brewster, where we live, because the
Whydah
had wrecked near Marconi Beach in Wellfleet.”

“Would you like a beer?” Nick asked me as he stood up.

“No thanks, my soft drink is just fine.”

He returned with a cold bottle of Wadadli, an island beer. “Then what happened?”

Leaning back in the chair I let out a big yawn. “An article
appeared in the local paper about how we’d found the cellar, then two guys broke into our house looking for more treasure.”

The effects of travelling and not much sleep were taking their
toll on me. My words began to slur together. “If someone had told me that
I’d become involved with Black Sam Bellamy and the mysterious
Maria Hallett, I would’ve said they were crazy.”

Nick’s face beamed.

I ran my fingers through my hair and massaged my head, trying to get rid of the headache that was starting to surface.

Brian came out of the house and cut Nick’s questions off with, “Mom, are you feeling ok?”

“I’m fine…just talking about my pirate treasure adventures.” I crumpled up a napkin across my half eaten food, hopefully hiding what I didn’t eat. “Are we leaving soon? I’m pretty tired.”

Brian leaned back to stretch his back
out. “Yeah, we should get going.”

Nick stood to leave also. He said his goodbyes and then
informed
us that he was going to stay at another volunteer’s house for a few
nights, to give us some privacy. “Maybe we can talk later?”

“Sure,” I smiled.

The air felt cool in the open Jeep. I closed my eyes for the ride
home
to Brian’s. When my head finally rested on a pillow, sirens sounded and flashing lights circled the dark bedroom. Loud voices were
arguing outside on the road.

“Brian, are we safe?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. The police will take care of it.”

I closed my eyes again and repeated Hail Mary’s over and over until I fell asleep.

***

1722

ANTIGUA

The sun began to set in the west as John Julian, overseer of the Smith Sugar Plantation, walked home from the fields. He could still feel the
heat on his neck. The benefits of his stature on the island of Antigua were many; one of them was enjoying the evening meal with his
lovely wife, Elizabeth.

His wood-sided house with its thatched roof stood apart from the other slave houses on a narrow piece of flat land. The Smith’s
mansion
had a stone edifice that looked down upon the crowded complex of shanties. Julian’s path home took him through the workers’ community and each person cordially greeted the man who controlled them. Julian looked around at the men, women, and
children and appreciated that
the fate of slaves on a Smith’s plantation was far better than most after the British Royal African Company had captured them. He noticed a new boy, who’d recently lost his mother. She had been
raped by one of the soldiers in charge of the new captives. Ashamed, she took her life
by jumping into the crushing depths below Devil’s Bridge. The orphan obediently moved to the side of the overseer’s path. Julian
patted his head and hoped the family that took him in was treating him well.

Thanking the heavens again for his position on the island, Julian
walked on. He was well aware of the British Royal African
Company’s reputation for seizing human goods from tribal villages along the
Gold Coast of Africa. Upon arriving on Antigua or Barbuda, the captives were separated for work by gender, age, and ability regardless of family ties. They were then traded and sold among the British colonies, their destinies decided by white merchants looking
for profit. Some slaves were shipped to the new colonies in America, others forced to labor on the sugar plantations that dominated the Caribbean. These poor
souls had a bleak future or no future at all. Julian took pride in the fact that even though his skin was the same color as theirs, he was a
free man and not indentured to anyone but himself.

Enjoying his casual pace home, he hoped that any day now word
would come concerning the matter of a very important business transaction. Julian hoped that the letter he sent to Thomas Davis
would
have already found its way to Cape Cod and into the hands of his
former cohort. All the recent overseers had been talking of the Smith family
and the possibility that they were selling their fields. Julian began thinking of his future as a landowner and it included Davis’s help.
His plan was a long shot, but his gut instinct told him it was a sure shot.

He opened the door to his home and saw Elizabeth by the table rolling out the flatbreads. “Elizabeth, it’s good to be home.”

She smiled and her honey bronze face glowed in his presence. “How’s your day?”

Taking his seat on a bench by the table, he leaned back against the wall. “As good as expected. Any letters?”

“No, I’m sorry, not today.” She stopped her work, came closer to
him, and sat on his lap. They held each other in silence. She kissed
him lightly on his forehead and then returned to her work at the table. “Something will come soon, I feel it.”

He rose to relieve himself out back and whispered, “My hopes are high.”

Present Day

ANTIGUA

THE NEXT MORNING
I awoke to the gentle whisper of palm trees
rustling in the breeze. Brian was still sleeping. Long mesh netting encircled his bed. The netting around my bed was nicely tied to each side of the bedposts. I looked down on top of my chest to see a
spotted
green lizard staring back at me. “Brian!” I kept my head still, making
eye contact with the creepy lizard. Then a little louder I repeated,
“Brian! Wake up!”

He rolled over and looked at me through half open eyes.
“What’s the matter?”

“This thing’s on top of me.”

“What?” He squinted for a better view.

“Do something!” As I grew more impatient for Brian to rescue
me, I decided that I was going to be my own rescuer. I quickly
flipped
the sheets up and away from my body. The tiny lizard flew into the
air.
I jumped out of bed just in time to see the creepy crawly thing skitter
across the floor and through an opening in the wall. My sleepy son
watched the whole thing from his bed. I got angry and yelled, “You never told me to tuck my netting in!”

He rubbed his face. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“Is there anything else I’m supposed to know?”

He didn’t answer as he adjusted the sheet across his chest and went back to sleep.

After showering, I got dressed and tried to dry my hair. Within
minutes, I’d blown all the fuses in the house with my hair dryer. My annoyance with Brian concerning the lizard episode quickly
subsided. I felt bad and should’ve asked about the power capabilities. Of course, he should’ve told me about the netting. I figured we were even now.

While Brian got the house running again, I went for a walk on the beach. In a few minutes, he was at my side, helping me collect conch shells for the kids. “Sorry about overloading the electrical system.”

“No problem. It happens.” He picked up a beautiful
multicolored conch. “Molly and Casey are really going to like these shells.”

It didn’t take long before we were on our way into town. As I tied the straps to a new straw hat under my chin, I found it
extremely
practical as we began our sunny and windy trip for nine miles into St. John’s. Brian’s use of a funky hat back at the airport became
perfectly clear to me.

Huge ditches flanked us on either side of the road. I glanced
over to
Brian and noticed a large cut with black and blue marks on his
exposed thigh, just under the hem of his shorts.

“What happened to your leg?”

“I was riding my bike to work last week and someone ran me off the road. It’s no big deal.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. Some people here don’t like us, it’s typical…and I’m also a white American.”

“It’s like prejudice in reverse.” I felt a twinge of fear for my son.

“I’m careful and always watching my back,” he said, trying to reassure me of his safety.

It didn’t work.

He added, “…and Mom, my landlady has arranged dinner for us tonight at her outdoor café. It’s at the end of the sandy road near our house. Right on the beach.”

“That’s nice,” I said, slightly apprehensive for another
neighborly dinner of my least favorite: spicy food.

Brian sped up a little. “I want to show you Indian Town Point before we get into St. John’s.”

We drove past a vacation complex where Brian had crewed on a sailboat last month, and then we came upon a remote section of
coastline. It was flat, empty, and barren, ending in a sheer cliff straight down to water. “This is called Devil’s Bridge,” he said.

The bridge arched over the water to another mass of stony
terrain,
which shot upwards out of the sea, creating a rocky precipice. Its
natural
arch overlooked not a sandy coastline but a swirling mass of wave and foam that crashed against the sharp limestone ledges. We got
out of the
jeep and stood near the edge, choosing not to walk closer onto the bridge for fear that a trip of the shoe or loss of balance on the stones
would throw us into the frothing mass of powerful waves.

“Why do they call it Devil’s Bridge?”

“Legend has it that the devil lives here among the rocks. They also say the African people who were brought here, centuries ago,
would hurl themselves off the bridge rather than live a life of torture and torment as slaves.”

“How terrible.” I shook my head in disbelief.

 Brian leaned closer to one of the edges. “People still come here to commit suicide. Some young guy died here last week; it was in the paper. They think he was from the States.”

I stepped back from the violent scene.

Brian whispered, “They couldn’t identify the body. All they
found were some limbs and a pile of shredded clothes.”

“It’s so sad and frightening. Let’s go.” We walked back to the
Jeep arm in arm.

***

After we drove across town, we parked at the Peace Corps office and then took a short stroll for a quick tour of the city.

As we walked, Brian looked over to me. “Mom, do you have to wear that necklace?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m uneasy with you wearing it around here. It looks really expensive. I don’t want to give anyone any ideas…we have to be careful.”

“You think I should take it off?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay. I trust your opinion.” I unhooked it and placed it inside my purse.

Vendors lined the edges of streets and stood under the stone archways
that connected sections of buildings together. Bought souvenirs weren’t
for me; I would rather take home the big conch shells that covered the
coastline for remembrances. Some people from behind the tables
spoke to us as we passed by; I smiled even though I couldn’t
understand the local dialect.

Brian cautioned me. “Just look straight ahead and ignore
whatever the vendors say to you. Don’t acknowledge them.”

“Why?” I asked trying to keep pace with Brian’s long strides.

“They’re actually cursing at you because you didn’t buy
anything from them.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, do you want to know what that guy just said to you?”

“Not really.”

The wide toothy smile of an elderly man hawking everything from deodorant to socks to postcards followed us as we passed him. I looked straight ahead and was grateful that Brian told me to keep the necklace out of sight.

As we rounded the corner of a large stucco building, a small
freestanding lime-green eatery atop a cement block foundation came into view. It looked bold among the white and pastel painted houses
on the small street. A sign was scrawled with scripted letters:
Julian’s.
It
was decorated with painted pineapples, bananas, palm trees, and huge
white waves that encircled its rectangular opening. The wooden
building had grass on both sides and a high, open counter facing the street from which customers could order sandwiches and drinks. A small basket of napkins rested on the counter. From behind it, the
tall, middle-aged proprietor was smiling and greeted us with, “Hello, Brian!”

“Hi, John. How are you?”

“Fine. Who is this lovely young lady with you today?”

“My mom.”

His black face lit up with a broad smile. “Well, I can see where Brian gets his good looks.” After a quick swipe of the counter with a
cloth, he asked, “What might be your pleasure today?”

The cheerful proprietor’s name and the sign above his head made me stop dead in my tracks. I couldn’t believe my eyes as the
legend of
Sam Bellamy and the Antiguan, John Julian, flooded my thoughts.
Julian was one of only two survivors of the
Whydah
pirate ship.
Legend has him possibly returning to Antigua.

“I’ll have the turkey on rye with a coke,” Brian ordered,
oblivious to my stunned stare.

I couldn’t think about what to order; something far more
exciting than turkey was on my mind. I elbowed Brian. Out of the corner of my mouth, I quietly asked, “Did he say his name was John? What’s his last name?”