by Caleb Wygal
Teach turned and gave Azerola a contemptuous glare. “You got lucky,” he said, and then turned and shouted to the rest of the cowering mariners in Spanish, “I am currently taking on recruits. If you wish your lives to be spared, you can join me. I will give ten pieces of eight to any who abandon this garbage,” he said gesturing at Azerola. “Head below, grab the first case containing treasure you find and hurry back aboard my ship.”
Most of the sailors held firm, loyal to their flag. A handful of men, however, stepped forward.
Azerola thought about his life back in Spain. He had no wife or kids, a small home and little family remaining. If the pirate let him live, he could spare himself a life of the unknown upon return home. He didn’t know what pirate life was like, but it had to be better than death.
“You have five minutes to get aboard my ship,” the fearsome pirate captain shouted, setting the men off in a rush to the doorway leading below.
To Azerola, Teach said, “What about you, captain? You’re a dead man if you stay either way.”
Azerola knew that to be true. He had seconds to make a life-altering decision.
• • •
Much later, as Azerola drifted off to sleep in a cramped bunk on the Jeronimo did he realize that neither Teach nor the pirates had harmed any of his Spanish crew. The only harm caused to his crew after the canon blasts was the red scar on his own throat.
7:02 P.M.
Gentle waves lapped against a seagull's webbed feet as he stood on the shore. He was hungry, occasionally poking his beak into the sand trying to procure a small morsel.
The small waves came from three rivers coming together just a few hundred yards from where freshwater met saltwater and the open Atlantic Ocean, forming a shallow basin. Offshore, pelicans sat on the surf without a care in the world. Dolphins frolicked nearby along the shore.
Across the basin, the glowing orange ball of the sun passed behind a narrow band of clouds on its way to rest for the night, filling the skies with brilliant hues of red, orange, and yellow. The rainbow of colors reflected off the calm, wide swath of water. A sliver of a moon already appeared in sky twenty degrees out over the ocean. The way the land curved here created a perfect vista during the evenings.
Life was easy for this little seagull. Quiet. He spent his days around this small island, soaring through the salty breeze, floating in the surf and hunting for food with his friends.
This day was different. Pirates landed for the first, although not the last time in the area and were hard at work.
A small tribe of Indians had inhabited the island by themselves for hundreds of years before Europeans came in the early 1600's. The Indians traded some of their land to the white men for some cloth and other trinkets.
One of the Europeans recently settled on the other end of the island along a riverbank after receiving a large land grant from one of the Lord’s Proprietors. He was the first foreigner to call this island home.
The pirates on the opposite shore did not know about the new settler . . . at this time.
The Spanish Navy was searching for this band of pirates; however the pirates and their cunning new captain were a step ahead of the Spaniards. The pirates knew they were outmanned and outgunned. The rest of their pirate fleet were busy antagonizing shipping lanes farther to the south.
With their faster sloop, the pirates sailed north into an area of the Carolinas they thought was unsettled. As the crewmen hurriedly buried the treasure on the shore of this island, the captain noted the location on a scrap of fibrous paper.
As a child, Edward Teach attended some well-regarded schools in Bristol, England. Not only was he literate—a rarity in those days among pirate crews—he was well read. The pirate wanted to unload the treasure in the event the Spanish army based in Savannah caught and boarded them. If he had no treasure aboard, they would have nothing for which to hold him. Before today, the young captain had yet to assail any Spaniards. What he did to the English or French was of little concern to Spain.
When Teach finished with a hastily scrawled map of the area so he would know where to return, he folded it, and tucked into his frock coat near his breast.
Back across the sound, the seagull watched as the strange men dug a hole in one of the many identical sand dunes near a large tree. A shadow fell across the gull as it felt a heavy hoof land in the sand near him. Startled, the seagull flew away in search of food in a safer area.
Atop the horse, a man observed the pirates and their activity across the sound. He was alone and knew it would be dangerous to stay on the beach within eyesight of the pirates. Before he trotted away, he spotted a black flag fluttering off the back of the pirate's ship. The flag depicted a white skeleton spearing a heart with his left hand and holding up a wineglass in the other, as if it were toasting the devil.
The man had not seen this terror-inspiring image before, but it would not be the last time he laid eyes upon it.
The ship had a single word painted near its stern: Revenge.
APRIL 17, 1982
Travis Cole did not believe in God.
The gun pressed to the back of his head caused that belief to waver.
His parents were professors who worked in the geology department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Staunchly atheist, the couple had never seen evidence of a god in their studies and imbued Travis with that belief as a child. It was sometimes tough for Travis as he grew up near Raleigh, North Carolina on the fringes of the Bible Belt. When other classmates celebrated holidays such as Easter and Christmas, he abstained. They thought he was weird and oftentimes shunned their brainy peer. When pressed as to why he did not get presents for Christmas, Travis was often met with glassy-eyed stares when he explained to them he didn’t believe the person described as the son of God in the Bible could make that claim because there was no God.
Now, Cole hoped he was wrong. He was raised to believe that once a person died, that was it. There was no ascension to heaven. No meeting at the pearly gates with an angel who judged if he were good or bad. Cole knew one of two things would happen upon his death: cremation or burial. He was only twenty-four years old and the thought of leaving a will with instructions of what to do with his body in the event of his death had never occurred to him.
What started as a side project in his spare time had somehow spiraled out of control and led to this. He'd screwed up and now it was going to cost him his life. He made a promise he couldn’t keep.
Now, he was on his knees. He could feel the cold steel of a strange pistol pressed against the back of his head. Sweat poured down his forehead and dripped onto a puddle around his knees. His jeans were soaked with urine and blood.
He couldn't help it. The fear was overwhelming. He didn't want to die. He was too young to die.
But it was going to happen.
The man pressing the gun to his head had killed before. Several times, in fact. Cole did not know this. Cole had asked for the man’s help in gaining access to the ruins of what was believed to be the last known home of Blackbeard the pirate.
ONE DAY EARLIER . . .
As Cole tramped through the underbrush, he looked up to see a snake coiled around a branch in one of the many trees ahead of him. He thought the snake was looking at him, and hesitated for a moment. This was the third snake he had encountered since leaving his car at a guardrail blocking the end of an unnamed road and disappearing into the forest.
His friend warned him of snakes lurking in the marshland. Mosquitoes too. He hoped a liberal spraying of bug repellent would keep that particular pest away. To this point, he didn’t think he’d been bitten. He might not learn that until he went back to his motel room and stripped off his already wet clothes. He imagined this decrepit piece of land must have been much more alluring—and habitable—three hundred years ago when it was last tenanted.
He thought his surroundings resembled more of a jungle than an area near the shoreline of the Pamlico Sound. A thick canopy of longleaf pin
es and oak trees shrouded the otherwise sunny sky above. When he stepped out of his car and grabbed his gear from the trunk, he thought he couldn’t have asked for more a more pleasant day to go exploring. Once he stepped into the tree line, it felt like the humidity tripled. His long-sleeved cotton shirt clung to his body, soaked in sweat.
Cole followed in his parent’s footsteps and wanted to be a geologist and dabble in paleontology. After graduating from college, Cole went to work for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh. He was a low-level research assistant working under the Director of Collections for Geology and Paleontology. It was the first step on what Cole hoped would be a long and winding career. He wanted to become a prominent maritime historian and archaeologist.
In the year he had worked for the museum, he had been on several historical digs around the state. The subjects ranged from the geology of the Appalachian Mountains on the western side of North Carolina to suspected Native American sites in the central Piedmont region to a dig of a giant sloth from the Ice Age. He hoped to take his experience on a long weekend off and dig into a subject that interested him.
Like many who grew up near the Outer Banks, Cole grew up with an interest in pirates. Blackbeard in particular. Cole’s parents urged him to read and learn as much about that chapter of history as he could as a child. They took him to Bath and Beaufort when they held pirate festivals as he grew up.
Many treasure hunters had combed the area over the centuries looking for evidence of Blackbeard’s treasure. Cole had no new information when setting out on this side project.
While the student interns from North Carolina State at the museum were on Spring Break, his bosses gave Cole the week off. He took this time to go to the Outer Banks and see what he could find.
The Plum Point area just outside of tiny Bath, North Carolina is the site where the ruins of Blackbeard’s home rested. This particular slice of land was a snake and mosquito infested marshland. Over the centuries, people came and fought their way through there, although no one had done any serious digging since some people from East Carolina University came through in the 1970’s.
Cole and the man who granted him access to this area had shared a history class at North Carolina State University a few years before. The man was interesting in more ways than one. He was the star of many school plays, his father was a famous entrepreneur, and he had no visible hair—no hair on top of his head, no eyebrows, no facial hair, and no hair on his arms or legs. None. While many of his classmate’s made fun of him, Cole took the time to get to know him. When Cole asked him why he didn’t have any hair, he said he suffered from a rare case of alopecia but was hopeful that he would regrow that over time and with treatments.
They shared an interest in pirates, and Cole came to find out the source of the young man’s interest was that his family owned the land the dreaded pirate Blackbeard once inhabited. The man said he hadn’t gone into the area often, and agreed to grant Cole access to the area on one condition: if he found something, the man wanted to see it.
Now Cole understood why the man—or for that matter, hardly anyone—came out this way. The area wasn’t the most hospitable place to trek along the Carolina coast.
He pushed his way through a thick row of bushes and came to the edge of a thick, green stream. He consulted his map, and hoped the murky water in front of him was the appropriately titled Teaches Gut. He looked along the bank of the stream for a good spot to cross. He knew he was going to have to get wet to cross over. If he didn’t have a twenty-pound backpack strapped to his back, he probably could have jumped across without any problem. He didn’t want to throw the pack across because there were some sensitive and expensive tools in it. That and he didn’t see anywhere to be able to get a few steps of steam going before leaping.
He shook his head, swatted aside an insect hovering near his right ear, and picked a spot to cross a few steps upstream. He had on a pair of waterproof Merrill hiking shoes and a pair of water resistant pants, so he was prepared to get wet. He waded in and quickly sunk into water up to his waist. The stream was deeper than it looked from the bank. The water was cool, not cold; he felt a soft current against his right side, although it wasn’t going to be enough to stifle his crossing.
After slipping on a rock halfway across—and getting wetter in the process—he climbed up on the bank and took a sip from a water bottle. He gathered his bearings and consulted a map of the area. Getting close, he thought. Just needed to push through about three hundred more yards of dense undergrowth off to his general left to arrive at his destination. He hoped.
The foliage on this side was thinner than what he had pushed through so far. He figured it was because he was nearing the ruins of Blackbeard’s home.
Cole stopped for a moment when he heard a plane flying by overhead. With the sparser trees now, he was able to see the blue sky and the white contrails from the plane zoom by. He was getting close. He could feel it.
He crunched through more undergrowth, becoming more grassy than brushy the closer he got to his target. A snake slithered across his path, causing Cole to jump back and shout. The long black snake paid him no mind and soon disappeared into the bushes. Cole let out a breath.
“I hope that’s the last one,” he thought to himself of the snake but knew it wasn’t likely. He hated snakes—and the umpteenth mosquito he just swatted off the side of his neck. He took a moment to reapply bug spray before continuing.
A few minutes later, he stepped into a clearing overlooking the Pamlico Sound. He saw why Blackbeard chose this site to build his home. The area was slightly elevated, offering views of the water all around. You could see every ship—whether enemy or friendly—coming into and leaving Bath from this vantage point. There was no shore. No sandy beach. A rocky wall fortified Plum Point, causing would-be intruders to think twice before trying to invade. Cole imagined a dock protruding from the edge of land that allowed Blackbeard to come and go as he pleased, conducting any type of business he pleased. Cole knew then-governor Charles Eden’s home was also nearby.
It took Cole a good hour to find his way here, through a thick forest and over two creeks. As isolated as this area was now from civilization, he could imagine it was even more remote three hundred years ago before the encroachment of homes along the water’s edge on both sides of Plum Point. Perfect for someone who valued privacy above all.
Sea grass covered every part of land here except where a few trees and shrubs dotted the clearing. An area filled with oddly shaped humps of grass and about a hundred feet in diameter was near the back of the clearing, farthest away from the water. Cole trudged off in that direction, hoping these clumps hid the ruins of Blackbeard’s home.
He reached into his backpack and withdrew a compact pickaxe with a telescoping handle. He would use this to clear away any brush and chip at any rocks or wood. If this were a museum-sanctioned project, he would have to mark off the areas he wanted to excavate and take numerous notes, explaining step-by-step every action taken. He came out here of his own volition and had limited time to explore. He would do this his way.
Besides, he thought, he wanted to get away from the mosquitoes and snakes and get back to his air-conditioned, pest-free motel room as soon as possible. He knew he would have to repeat the same daunting trek through the forest to get back to his car.
He made his way to the area where he assumed Blackbeard’s home once stood. He turned and looked down the bluff at the water and thought the eyewitness accounts of Blackbeard were probably true—that he was an intelligent man. Cole could see across the water for miles around, and spied several ships crossing the choppy waters. The welcoming smell of salt water permeated the area. Coupled with the thick and forbidding forest he had just traversed, this was an area few invaders would attempt to conquer. Not now nor three hundred years ago.
He approached the nearest clump of grass and looked down its length. It was about two feet tall in some spots and extended about thirty feet from end to end
. Cole stood roughly in the middle and prodded at the bulge with the pickaxe. About twelve inches into the thick, dry grass, the metal of the edge of the axe clattered against something hard.
“Hmm,” Cole grunted, and attempted to clear away some of the grass. While the top layer of grass was faded and dry, the inner couple of inches were wet and brown and in the long process of decomposing. He pulled back what he could, revealing gray, rotted wood.
This must have been a wall to the house, he thought.
He stepped over the wall and into the interior of the lumpy area. Any furniture or other trappings of life from the early eighteenth century disappeared from this site long before the walls crumbled and rotted away. He did not know what he was hoping to find, he just hoped to find something. The thrill of discovery sent his pulse racing.
He poked, prodded, and kicked at different areas in around where he thought the perimeter of the house used to be. He found a chipped, clay plate and some rusty, bent metallic eating utensils. Nothing he could say definitively belonged to Blackbeard or to his sixteen-year-old bride. He placed his findings into a large Ziploc freezer bag, and wrote the day’s date and location on it using a black magic marker. He placed the packet in his backpack. The odor from the marker gave him a bit of a buzz.
After an hour of combing through the clumps, he stepped over one of the deteriorated outer walls. He walked around the perimeter of the ruins searching for artifacts. A few billowy trees separated by about ten feet lay between the eastern wall and the edge of the bluff. Cole pictured Blackbeard disembarking from his vessel at the imagined dock and walking in between those trees, returning home to his bride. He had read where the pirate often brought friends with him on those return trips, so they could all have their way with his teenage wife.
Times were different back then, Cole thought, shaking his head. What we consider savage, they oftentimes thought of as commonplace.
