True Treasure: Real - Life History Mystery (33 page)

Bennett nodded, “I know. We will have your parents visit and bring Ben. We will all be together by next year.” Bennett pulled back and led Mary by the hand to his horse.

“Do you feel up for ride?”

Mary nodded, too emotional to speak. Bennett mounted his horse and extended a hand down to help Mary, who swung up easily behind him.

“Do the men know yet?” Mary asked.

“No. I wanted you to come to the dock so you would be the first to know. When you did not come, I could not wait, so I secured this horse.”

As they went outside the gate, Mary spoke over Bennett’s shoulder, “Can you please, stop?”

Bennett pulled on the reins, “Yes, my love?”

“Look at the name of your—our home.”

He looked up to the gate, read the name and smiled when he saw,
Graham’s Treasure.

“Yes, you are here.”

“You were never far from my heart, Bennett. You were always my true treasure.”

Bennett swiveled around and kissed Mary, “And you are mine.” He snapped the reins on the horse’s neck urging it on as they went to meet Randall and Elizabeth at the docks.

***

Ray and Della

As Ray headed up the path, more shots rang out with the sound of branches breaking. He looked off to his left and saw two men entangled, fighting. It was Dent and the other gang member. Ray made his way toward them. The fight ended as Dent drew back and landed a hard punch knocking the gangster out.

“Get him down to the boat and then join me. Julian could be hurt. There’s a ravine crossing the path here somewhere and Julian’s in it. Bring some rope.” Roger broke through the brush as Ray was speaking, “I’ll help you look for him.”

Ray asked, “Have either of you seen any sign of Keiko?”

Roger answered as they started up the trail toward the ravine, “No, they were chasing her, from what I heard them say. She should be okay. I’m sure she’s hiding.”

“Then finding Julian is our first priority.”

They arrived at the ravine a narrow split cutting across the path, no more than three feet across at its widest part. Ray yelled, “Julian, all’s secure up here. Are you hurt?”

He waited for a response.

A flock of noisy parrots took off. Roger looked at Ray, “I think I heard something.”

They both walked to the nearest trees first towards the right then towards the left. They hopped across the crevice and did the same on the other side. Roger knelt down next to a roble tree and said, “Well, lookie here. I think he might be okay.” Roger showed Ray the rope hanging into the crevasse camouflaged by the low lying foliage.

Ray looked at the knotted rope wrapped around the base of the roble, “That’s not how I taught Julian to secure a rope. It must be Keiko’s handiwork,” Ray took off his bandana and knotted it around a low lying branch. “So the others can find us in case something goes wrong down there.” He then grabbed the rope and headed into the dark followed by Roger.

***

Ray called out again when they were in the tube and heard an echo back. “They’re here. That was Julian’s voice.”

Julian met his dad further in the tube.

Ray instinctively reached out to give him a hug. “Those grease balls up top said they had killed you. I knew you were too tough to let them take you out.”

Julian smirked, “Yeah, I can see by your relief that you weren’t concerned at all.”

Keiko held out her hands now filled with coins, “Can you believe it? It’s here. Right where the map indicated it would be.”

Roger whistled, “That’s some serious change.”

Ray said, “
Great. Della’s gonna kill me. She only has a week off, but now I think we’re going to get stuck in briefings and paperwork. Not to mention we’re going to have to make arrangements to secure this area with the Costa Rican government.”

“Julian and I have to stay to document it.”

Ray let out a sigh, “No fun in the sun for us. Della and I will approach the Costa Rican government. We’ll leave you guys here with Phil, Roger, Irv, and Dent to keep the location secure.” Ray picked up one of the pieces of coin and flipped it over examining it. “Della and I can put in a call to the White House and get things moving on that end with the government here.” Ray turned to leave.

“Hey Dad.”

“Yeah Son?”

“How’s that paint job on Della’s living room coming along?”

Ray chucked the coin at Julian and grumbled under his breath as he walked away, “Wise guy.”

***

A Month Later

Keiko woke up late. The sound of the rain thrumming on the tent and lack of sun from the cloud cover had kept her sleeping longer than usual. She saw Julian was gone from their tent, most likely on the job site documenting the treasure, or helping to pack it for its trip to the new Costa Rican museum. Most of the religious statues, a solid gold Mary included, were being returned to the country of Spain. Some treasure was being shipped to the United States for a display at the Smithsonian.

The tent flap moved aside as Julian entered. “Here, the mail came.” He waited as she looked at what he held in his hands.

“It’s from the Smithsonian.”

Keiko opened the letter and smiled, then gave Julian a hug.

“They’ve offered me a fulltime professorship at the museum!”

Julian kissed Keiko. “I would be surprised if they hadn’t.”

“Com on out. They removed the top layer of lava rock first thing this morning, and found something I know you’ll want to see. It’s in the artifacts tent. I think they’ll let us keep it for the display at the Smithsonian.”

Julian took Keiko by the hand and walked her through the slight drizzle to the staging area where the treasure was being photographed, cataloged, and assigned a destination. She said “Hola,” to the three grad students busy at their work stations.

She went to her table and saw a brown leather packet. She put her gloves on, took pictures of the front, sides, and back of the package, then carefully unwrapped it. She did the same with the canvass bag inside. She removed an envelope from the canvass, and took pictures of it, then documented the wax seal. With age, the wax had shrunk and hardened just enough that it lifted off the paper without breaking. The wax was a dull red in color, imprinted with Graham’s crest. She took a moment and imagined the wax seal as it had been, a bright shiny red. She carefully removed the letter, opened it, and read.

March 28, 1818

To whom it may concern,

I, Captain Bennett Graham, in command of the Royal Navy ship HMS Devonshire, came upon the remains of a pirated vessel belonging to the King of Spain. We have secured the treasure here on the island whilst we finish our commission of surveying the King’s coastal territories of Costa Rica, its tributaries, and islands.

If you fear God and stumble upon the treasure, please return it to the King of England to decide its ownership.

Respectfully,

Captain Graham

“So he wasn’t a pirate after all.”

“It appears not,” Julian said as he read the letter over Keiko’s shoulder.

“I did do some more research on the legend,” Keiko added.

“What did you find out?” Julian asked as he looked at the letter then back to Keiko.

“In 1857 Mary Welch agreed to lead a party to find the treasure. When they arrived on the island, the landmarks were so changed, it was never found. I believe she knew where it was, and misled them. After all, they never restored her husband’s honor. There are two predominant stories. In one, she resurfaced in England, and in another she appeared in San Francisco. The family that donated the scrapbook confirmed that Elaine was Mary Welch’s granddaughter, and that Mary was known to reside in San Francisco, with her husband, Benidito for a while, before they moved to the east coast.”

Julian paused, “Wait— you said, ‘Benidito’...isn’t that a name we ran into while researching pirates?”

“Yes, some folklore accounts list Mary as saying she was Benidito’s lover, and
one
account I ran across said Benidito and Bloody Graham
were the same person.
”

“Benidito could be the Spanish form of the name Bennett.”

“Yes! Just think Julian, what if the record is wrong? What if Bennett
didn’t
die? What if he somehow managed to live, and they had a wonderful life together?”

Julian slid his hands along Keiko’s waist and pulled her in for a kiss. He whispered just before their lips met, “I hope you’re right. I hope they found the kind of happiness I have with you.”

THE END

***

*****

***

A word from Lisa Grace

Thank you
to my cover artist
Samantha Fury. Front cover design by Samantha Fury at
http://www.samanthafury.com/covers-ive-made.html

Photo licensed from: RomanceNovelCovers.com Jimmy Thomas, owner and cover model, is on more than 6,000 novel covers. He is on more covers than Fabio.
I used many reference books and archives to research the time period, and get all the little details of the story correct. I can’t include them all in the back of the ebook as the various publishing sites are not happy having all the extra links.
Some interesting facts:

My husband (on his mother’s side) and daughter are related to the pirate Bloody Graham which is one reason I wanted to explore the story. The contemporary story of Bennett Graham is pulled from my imagination to match the various rumors.
Captain Bennett Graham was given command of the HMS Devonshire to do a survey of the Costa Rican coastline.
He reportedly turned pirate, and as a skilled cartographer is credited with having made the very first pirate map.

There have been eight Royal Navy ships named the HMS Devonshire.
The Devonshire Treasure, estimated to be three hundred and fifty tons, is rumored to be buried on the Cocos Island and has not yet been found.
Van Diemen’s Land is modern day Tasmania.
A Mary Welch (a very common name) was on the prisoner manifest for the ship Eliza, which transported them from the gaol (jail) at Middlesex to Van Diemen’s Land.

Where I could, I tried to remain true to the facts. With so little to work with, I tied the rumors in with the facts as best I could. I hope you enjoy my vision of what could have occurred.
Here is a link to
The 15th Star By Lisa Grace
A Real - Life History Mystery.

If you enjoyed
True Treasure
, please leave a review on Amazon. If you would like to contact me, I can be reached at:
[email protected]

If you would like to be notified of new releases please email me so I have copy of your email address You can put “Notify of New Releases” in the title line. Thank you for choosing to read
True Treasure
. I’m forever grateful that you spent some of your precious time with me.

Thanks again,

Lisa

References and Research:
Please know I just don’t sit down and start writing historicals. I put a great deal of time researching down to the word level. For this book I had to spend time on chronometers, Captain Cook’s Diary, Greenwich Time, Navigational charts and usage by the Royal Navy, Navy ships, Spanish ships, the political systems and commerce of Costa Rica, Spain, Portugal, England, Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land); land grants, goals (jails), Modern GPS systems and how they relate to navigation, weapons (modern and old), pirates (modern and old) the aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land, weather from volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and how it all pertained to the 1812 to 1857 time period.

Fun Fact: September 15, 1821 Costa Rica declared its independence from Spain, becoming part of the Central American Federation.

These are just
some
of the subjects I delved into just off the top of my head. I have a list of at least thirty sources. Here is a short selection:

Lavery, Brian (2003)
The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850.
Conway Maritime Press.
ISBN 0-85177-252-8
.

Map_of_Cocos_from_Pacific_Islands%2C_vol._2_%28Geographical_Handbook_Series%2C_1943%29.jpg

Map Collection of the Perry-Castañeda Library
,
University of Texas
. Originally from (1943)
Pacific Islands: 2, Eastern Pacific, Nov. 1943 [Geographical handbook series; B.R. 519a]
,

London
:
Naval Intelligence Division
OCLC
:
310446759
.
[1]
Author
Naval Intelligence Division
,
Admiralty
(UK).

Dedication