by Caleb Wygal
The waitress came, smiled, took their orders, and departed.
“Did you hear back from your detective friend,” Darwin asked.
“No, not yet. I’m sure Greg will get back to me when and if he finds out something. What about your girl? Anything?”
“Nah. She’ll call.”
A few minutes later, the aroma of their food preceded the server by several steps. Lucas didn’t know how famished he was until she set down a platter of fried shrimp and a sirloin steak in front of him. Mashed potatoes with gravy and melty macaroni and cheese were the sides. He thought briefly of what Kristen would say had she seen that he hadn’t ordered a single veggie. He smiled at what would have been an outright rebellion, but knew he’d regret the starchy dinner later.
On his side of the table, Darwin didn’t know where to start. He likewise had a skewer of shrimp—coconut for him—and had a thick slab of ribs sitting atop seasonal veggies and rice.
They thoroughly enjoyed their dinner, paid the bill, and left as a small band trio of Jimmy Buffett lookalikes was setting up on a compact stage in the corner. Lucas considered staying for the live music, but knew they had an early morning coming and had research to do.
When they returned to the hotel, Darwin said he was going to go for a walk in the area around the hotel. Clear his mind from the day’s events, he said. Lucas, for his part, was beat. He was tired and had a full stomach. All he wanted to do was to retire to his room, wash the accumulated grime off, climb in bed, and fire up his laptop.
Once back at the Baymont Inn in Chocowinity, they parted ways and agreed to meet by Lucas’s Jeep sharply at 7 a.m. the next morning.
Lucas went to his room, peeled out of his still slightly damp and odorous clothes and took a long, hot shower. He always found he did some of his best thinking in the shower. He hatched his idea for the bookstore in the shower one morning, if memory served him correctly.
As the steamy, slightly salty water poured over him, he thought about their quest. Was it a quest, or just something to do to take his mind off Kristen? Sure, he was serious about trying to find the treasure. He was relieved that his travels and ordeal on this day kept his mind occupied. The only idle times he had where her betrayal could have crept into his mind was on the boat ride out to Rose Bay, waiting for Riddick to arrive while stranded on the mud flats, and then the return trip on the water to Bath. During all three of those times, he still found his attention taken by conversations with Darwin and Riddick and replaying the events of the bandits who stole their boat and fired shots at them.
Now that he thought about it afterward, the idle times from today really weren’t all that idle. It was a refreshing change of pace from the chaos of the past few months.
So, if the plan for tomorrow was to almost randomly search around some of the bays and inlets that came close to drawing Blackbeard’s drawing on the map, would it be a monumental waste of time if their search came to nothing? At Rose Bay, they realized that much could happen to coastal shores over the course of three hundred years. Erosion, shifting of sands and waters could have changed the environment of where the treasure hid, if it hadn’t washed away.
Everyone assumed Blackbeard had his treasure with him after he sunk the Queen Anne’s Revenge. What if he hid before then? What if he hid it long before then? If that was the case, then the map could represent any place between here and Cuba.
He rinsed out the foamy shampoo, and reached for the travel-sized bottle of conditioner.
As he massaged the white cream into his scalp, he didn’t really think they were in real danger from the man shooting at them today. Lucas figured the man was just trying to keep him and Darwin at bay while they stole the jon boat.
As he rinsed out the conditioner, the thing that stuck out the most from today was Travis Cole. The man who found the journal. His unsolved murder seemed even more mysterious when you take into account that he had just come from Bath that previous weekend.
What reason would someone have to kill a young researcher in cold blood like that?
He grabbed his fluffy, green loofah—he didn’t travel without a loofah—and squirted some body wash on it, and worked it into a lather. As he went through the process of cleaning the sand, dirt, grime and stink off his body it occurred to him that if Riddick were the owner of a large shipping company, there should be some news about him online somewhere.
Changing his stream of thinking, he thought again about the treasure. What would he do if he found it? Would it change his life? Could he keep it? Did it really exist, or was it a myth? With so many people over the centuries coming to Bath to try to find the treasure, including himself, had anyone ever figured out where the treasure could have come from?
He enjoyed the final step of the shower. That was to rinse the suds off his body. He enjoyed this perhaps the most.
Then, thinking about all of the people who came before him in search, he thought of the California Gold Rush in the 1800’s and how it affected those people. They would do anything to find gold, even murder. He figured the treasure hunters in search of Blackbeard’s gold would resort to similar tactics.
He turned the water off with the squeak of the dull, silver knob. As he reached for the white motel towel hanging from a silver painted bar, the thought struck him: what if someone murdered Travis Cole over the journal?
18
The name Chocowinity came from an old Tuscarora Indian word meaning “fish from many waters” stemming from the Pamlico River, Chocowinity Creek and Chocowinity Bay nearby. The town had a population of fewer than a thousand. Its location made it a crossroads for people traveling about the eastern part of North Carolina. In the early 1900’s, the town was a hub for the Norfolk Southern Railway. Conductors sometimes called the town “Marsden” because it was easier to spell on a telegraph than “Chocowinity.”
The sidewalk alongside the motel ran along Business 17. The “business” part of it consisted of two fast food restaurants, a shady drug store, an even shadier service station, and one halfway decent truck stop.
He crested a small hill walking north and saw nothing worth investigating in that direction. As he turned about and started walking back towards the motel, his cell phone rung in his pocket. He pulled it out, checked the screen, and saw it was Lisa Kramer.
He smiled and answered. “Hey Lisa. What’s up?”
“Hey, they’re making me go home,” she said.
Darwin checked his watch. It was just after seven. She had already been there two hours past when her shift was supposed to have ended. The sun was on it’s descent to the horizon. Splotches of pinks, reds, and yellows glowed through the sparse cloud cover. He said, “Oh, well, thanks for staying.”
“Absolutely my pleasure. I have to tell you, this thing is incredible, Darwin.”
“What? Did you find the journal?”
“Yes!” she shouted. Darwin had to pull the phone away from his ear to keep the drum from bursting. She continued, sounding out of breath, “This is incredible. Mary Ormond was what, sixteen when she married Edward Teach, er, Blackbeard?”
“Something like that.”
“She was a farmer’s daughter, and it’s astounding that she was so well written.”
“I thought the same thing in reading over what little bit of the journal I could before I had to leave.”
“I don’t know where she got her education, but I’m amazed by the level of writing. This is great.”
“Have you found anything out?”
She cleared her throat. “About the treasure or just in general?”
“Well, both. Any clues on treasure are what I’m looking for in particular.”
“I haven’t read anything about treasure as of yet, but man, she had a weird life.”
“I’m sure. How so?”
She cleared her throat again. Darwin had noticed she did that a lot. He wondered if she had allergies around some of the musty old artifacts from the museum.
“First, she really, wholeh
eartedly loved him. She rarely referred to him by name because when she did, she called him ‘my love.’”
“Aww. How sweet,” Darwin said.
“Not really,” Lisa replied. “As I said, I haven’t a chance to dig too deep, but she’s graphic and frank in her description of life with him.”
“How so?”
“First, let me backtrack. I don’t know if “loved” was the right word to say. I’d say more like she was “infatuated” with him. By the time he landed in Bath, he was known the whole world over.”
“His reputation preceded him,” Darwin said.
“Exactly. Everyone knew who he was, and his reputation, aside from being a bloodthirsty pirate, was as a ladies man.”
“Right, he’d married several other women around the islands before Mary Ormond for no other reason than to sleep with them. It’s like the bad boy in the corner of the bar with all the girls hanging off him. Some women are attracted to rogues and scoundrels. That’s why you see women who move around from abusive relationship to abusive relationship, because that’s just the type of guy they’re attracted to.”
“True,” Lisa said. “I don’t know if at sixteen years of age how many, if any, relationships Mary had been in before meeting Blackbeard, but from some of the accounts in here, the man was extremely abusive—both physically and sexually. But in some of the entries from days when he was at sea, she described how much she missed him and how she hoped he would return safely.
“There are several accounts of the times he did return with presents. I’ve counted three occasions where Blackbeard brought several men with him and allow the other men to have their way with her.” Darwin grimaced at the thought. Lisa continued, “She wrote of being struck and even knocked unconscious by him in drunken fits of rage.”
Darwin shook his head. “She was a bright young woman, apparently. I wonder why she put up with the abuse.”
“He was her Sugar Daddy. Just the realities of life back then. He brought her jewelry and other valuable baubles when he returned home.”
“I’d read one passage saying that.”
“So, here comes this larger than life figure into her life, known to be extremely charismatic and may have had a hidden romantic side. He may have seen her at a gathering and been taken with her and she with him. As you said, his reputation preceded him. She knew what she was getting into.” She paused. “As I said, this journal is fascinating in every way. I can’t believe it is in such good shape. I can’t believe Cole found it and it’s been sitting in the basement here for over thirty years.”
“Me neither,” Darwin said. “So, no mention of treasure?”
She was silent for a moment while thinking. “Not that I’ve seen.”
Darwin found himself disappointed, until Lisa said, “Wait a minute. She said he mentioned a war chest. You don’t think that’d be the treasure would you?”
The statement gave Darwin goose bumps. “Quite possibly. In what context did he or she mention war chest?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Remember what he had done a few months previous. He crashed the Queen Anne’s Revenge and Adventure, and sailed up the Pamlico Sound and to Bath to essentially swear off his pirating ways to Governor Eden and be granted a King’s pardon for his sins.”
“I think that was only a formality,” Darwin said. “I think they had to go through the process of having Teach sign that form so he would no longer be wanted by the English crown. I think Blackbeard kept a low profile for a couple months, setting up house in Bath and staying out of trouble so the British authorities would think he had retired to civilian life. Then, when he resumed attacking ships a few months later, he gave Eden a cut of the profits.”
“A neat arrangement if you can get it.”
“Right. There are tunnels that were supposed to be under Eden’s estate, across the water from Blackbeard’s estate, for him to take the plunder.”
“Tunnels?”
“Yeah, from what I read, there was a tunnel cut from the river to the governor’s house to smuggle goods.”
“Very interesting.”
“I mean, it’s a legend. Apparently no one has ever found them, but during the late 1600’s and early 1700’s, people who lived near rivers carved out tunnels to escape any possible hostile Indians. There’s also no real evidence that Eden and Blackbeard were in cahoots. Although, after Blackbeard’s death, they found part of his loot behind Knight’s house in a barn.”
“That’s fascinating,” she said, paused a moment, and continued her train of thought, “So, here he was, looking at the backside of his career as a pirate. He knew that although he’d sworn off piracy, there were others out there who still wanted him dead. He probably tired quickly of having to give Eden a cut of his work.”
“So . . . ,” Darwin said, “What did she say about a ‘war chest?’”
“Oh, right,” she said, “Sorry. Got off track. Anyway, she said he was drunk most of the time he was home and was always mumbling something to himself.”
“Interesting.”
“Right. So, he still had the pirating fever. He wanted that booty, so to speak.”
“Old habits die hard.”
“So, he had this grand plan to sink his flagship, take whatever he could that was on board, make an arrangement with Eden, and try to live a quiet life.”
“Except it wasn’t so quiet.”
“Apparently. Perhaps, Blackbeard had to go out, attack and rob other vessels and give a portion of it to Eden as part of the arrangement. He’s basically stuck paying taxes.”
“Could be,” Darwin said. “So, what about the war chest?”
“Hold on, I’m getting to it. So, Blackbeard might have retired only to finding himself working for the man. He had already decided he wanted to retire to civilian life, but the circumstances of that retirement kept him from doing what he wanted to do.” She cleared her throat and continued. “So, Mary wrote that he would get drunk and depressed and talk about how if he only had his war chest that he and she could find an tropical island somewhere and set up a new life away from the dangers of the British and Spanish governments. He said he just had to get away from everyone, including his crew, for a few days to go get it.”
“That’s interesting. Did he happen to mention where it was?”
“Not that I’ve read yet.”
“Dang.”
“Look, don’t tell anyone this,” she said. Darwin’s pulse quickened. He liked secrets. “I photocopied as much of the journal as I could before I left. I was going to continue reading it when I got home. After I stop to get something to eat first. I’m famished.”
Being hungry was something Darwin couldn’t fathom at present, after just having had one of the most delicious meals of his life. “Oh, that’d be great,” he said. “Hey, do you have a scanner at home?”
“I do.”
Darwin smiled. Jackpot. “Would there be any way you could scan those pages and send them to me as a PDF? I need some reading material tonight. How much of it were you able to get?”
“A good chunk. I can do that for you.”
Darwin was relieved. “Thanks. I’ll buy you dinner sometime.”
The words were out of his mouth before he realized he said them. He’d never asked another woman out on a date before.
Without hesitation, she said, “Sounds like a plan.”
Darwin stood beside the road after the connection broke, looking down the long hill at miles of spreading cotton fields and the sun going down beyond them.
He let out a heavy breath. An eventful day, indeed.
19
After getting out of the shower, Lucas lay in his bed with his laptop open. He had the television tuned to a college football game on ESPN with the sound turned most of the way down. When the network showed a game on a Tuesday night, it typically pitted two decent teams from small schools together. You never saw a big school such as Texas or Ohio State on during the week. Teams of their ilk played on Saturdays
where they were going to get network coverage and huge crowds.
For these two teams who came from schools with small budgets, the payout from this game could pay for their athletic department budget for the entire year. The stands might be empty, but at least the checks would be fat. Lucas could applaud that. Sometimes, these small school teams ended up playing an entertaining game.
This game may have been enjoyable, but Lucas wouldn’t have noticed. He was absorbed in his research, trying to learn everything he could about Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard and his influence on the shaping of the New World.
For years, piracy was considered a spreading cancer, slowing and even eliminating economies of Britain’s American colonies in North Carolina and the Caribbean. Importers were afraid to send supplies, materials, and people to America for fear of capture by pirates. In the early 1700’s, the growth of the colonies stalled while pirates roamed the waters along the coast from Philadelphia to Charleston—the main route ships traveled when sailing from England.
After Blackbeard’s death, the authorities captured and executed other well-known pirates such as Charles Vane, Stede Bonnet, and Jack Rackham. These events and increasing anti-piracy patrols in American waters helped stem the pirate scourge.
Just before his death, Blackbeard had been in talks with Vane and presumably others about joining forces. They would have had nearly fifteen hundred men at their disposal and a fleet that could rival anything the British Navy could throw against them.
Blackbeard would have been the influential leader of this group. With the number of men and the type of firepower they would have had, not only could have Blackbeard have repeated his blockade of Charleston, he could have done that anywhere along the North American coast. Landing, attacking and taking a major settlement such as Baltimore, Williamsburg, or New York was a possibility. He could have sailed to the Caribbean and drove out the governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers. Blackbeard and his merry men could have controlled the waters from Florida to South America.
This is what scared everyone from potential settlers, traders, and governments. It wasn’t his piratical attacks; it was the potential of what he could do.
