by Caleb Wygal
Lucas considered this. When Governor Alexander Spotswood commissioned Blackbeard’s death, he didn’t know he was changing world history. Spotswood knew it had to be done. King’s pardon or not. If it weren’t for that event, colonists may have never wrested control of America from the British Empire. A world superpower may have never been born. If that hadn’t happened, would the Wright brothers invented flight? Would Benjamin Franklin discover electricity? Would Bell have invented the telephone? Would we have landed on the moon?
Those thoughts were too deep for Lucas to consider now. He’d had a long day. He was physically and mentally tired.
He had one more thing he wanted to look up before going to sleep. He knew other would-be treasure hunters had traveled to Bath. He wanted to see if they ever found anything.
He ran a Google search for “Blackbeard”, “Bath, NC” and “Treasure hunters” and hit Search.
The first link at the top of the search results was from the Smithsonian. Lucas clicked it, and soon found it only dealt with the finding of the Queen Anne’s Revenge off Morehead City. Another article showed that many have made their way through the marshy surroundings to the property to search for buried treasure, leaving many unfilled holes behind. Another showed the last official dig was about thirty years ago, which, Lucas surmised, was likely after Travis Cole had done his solo gig out there. That dig, the article read, said they’d only found shards of pottery and other relics of civilization that may or may not have been related to Blackbeard.
So, it’d been decades since someone had organized a search. Part of Lucas wondered if that was because, after three hundred years, the trail had gone cold. Was there a trail to begin with? He went back to Blackbeard saying the night before his death that “only himself and the Devil” knew where the treasure lies. Was that a clue in itself?
He shook his head and tried a different search. This time he typed “Hugo Riddick” on a whim.
When the results appeared, Lucas went “hmm” to himself. The top half of the first page was of a “Hugo Riddick” who was a registered sex offender in Virginia Beach. Not too far away from here, Lucas thought. He disregarded that particular group of results. That Hugo Riddick was only twenty-three years old.
Below that was a link to a company website for Salty Pirate Shipping Services. Must be Riddick’s company, Lucas thought. He clicked on the link and it took him to a page with a profile of Riddick and a tasteful portrait. He had his hair tied back, beard groomed, wearing an expensive looking black suit with cornflower blue tie.
The bio was short. It read:
Hugo Riddick is the only son of Salty Pirate Shipping’s founder, Zachary Riddick.
Hugo obtained an Economics degree from North Carolina State University with a minor in Marine Sciences in 1981. After graduation, he stayed close to home and went right to work for his father, helping to streamline ship management protocols and improve cash flow routines.
He took over Salty Pirate Shipping following his father’s passing in 1997 and has led the company into a new era with exponential growth.
In his spare time, you can see him at various coastal festivals, dressed as the pirate Blackbeard.
The most interesting part to Lucas was the fact he graduated from the same school as Travis Cole. He wondered if they knew each other.
That would be quite a coincidence.
• • •
On the other side of the wall, Darwin stared intently at a PDF of one of the journal pages Lisa had sent earlier. They were waiting in his inbox for him after he took a shower of his own where, unlike Lucas who thought of the events of the day, thought about Lisa.
They first met during their sophomore year at North Carolina State in a Geology class. They sat near the back of the large room in a corner beside each other. They both were the types to shun attention and felt comfortable to do their work where others had to turn around to see either of them. They didn’t communicate this to each other. In fact, it was something they didn’t think about themselves. It was just the way they were.
Though they came from different backgrounds—Darwin mired in poverty, Lisa’s parents’ successful entrepreneurs—they had similar personalities. They kept to themselves, shared a love for Harry Potter and board games and couldn’t go anywhere without a book tucked under their arms or noses.
There was never any thought of romance. Since they shared the same major, they worked side-by-side in the classroom and on projects. They both began working at museum at the same time and sat, of course, in the back corner together of the same orientation. Love and companionship were the farthest things from their minds for the four plus years they’d known each other.
Maybe this treasure hunt would benefit him in more than one way.
He focused on the screen in front of him. The syntax and grammar used by Mary Ormond was somewhat archaic and sometimes difficult to decipher. For most of the entries, Darwin could figure out the subject matter and/or the intent. He had the impression that she was a simple young woman.
She caught the eye of Edward Teach at a community gathering. Her father was one of the area’s most successful farmers, and in those days, a man such as he could carry an air of prestige about him and run in more influential circles. Were it not for the farmers of that day, many early colonists would have starved.
Ormond described her courtship with Blackbeard as torrid and quick. She was the only known wife of Blackbeard’s to come from a legal marriage. He also lived with her until the day he died. Although that was only for three months, if his history served as a guide to his behavior, he must have cared for Ormond in a way he had not cared for a woman before—the gang rapes aside.
Darwin knew a few pages into reading her journal that when it was made public, it would provide not only an exclusive and only known account of Blackbeard’s last days, but as a window into the lives of those who lived in the colonies during the early eighteenth century. She wrote of the everyday concerns and tasks that went along with life during that period: having to hand wash clothes out at Bath Creek, being afraid of Indian attacks to her relationship with her husband and family on the farm. Darwin imagined that she was a good wife, and her farm upbringing gave her the knowledge and skill set to be a supporting wife despite her young age.
He did not see her refer to Teach as ‘Blackbeard’ or as a pirate, only as ‘Edward’ or ‘my love.’ After getting accustomed to her writing style and seeing that she wrote mostly of her daily life (which didn’t seem all that noteworthy in itself), and because it was getting late, he decided to scan through for any mentions of the buccaneer.
She described one night during July that Teach came home from the only pub in Bath:
October 2, 1718
He was so sloshed I had to drive to his side and holp him to a chair after he flung open their front door to keep him from falling embarrassingly on his visage. Usually, he has a short temper at that hour. After he partakes of the rum, I grow afeard. Violence is his normal recourse.
Although this time, peradventure he had drank something different. His breath didn’t carry the usual aroma of rum and he had an odd demeanor. I guided him to a chair and rushed outside to retrieve him some water from the cistern.
When I had returned, I gave him the glass and sat at his side, stroking his big arm.
“The fools. The fools,” he had said, almost in a stupor. “All anyone wants to ask me is where the treasure is buried. None of the bastards has't a clue. The only ones who did are dead now. ”
His statement made me frightened. I asked him what he meant.
He laughed. “All of the men who were with me when we raided that ship off of Trench’s Island. I marooned them after I sunk the Annie. They knew where to find my war chest.”
“Did you mean for them to die?”
“I did. I couldn’t bear to kill them myself. They were good men; I just didn’t want anyone left to get to the gold before I could return.”
I was thoroughly confused. The
townsfolk often asked me if I knew where to find his treasure. That surely Edward would confide its location with me. Its location is all anyone wants to know. This was the first time I can recall him speaking of it. I had hoped he would continue before sobering up or passing out.
Unfortunately, I had no such luck.
He stopped speaking, looking off into a distance only he knew how far it stretched. He seemed eternally depress’d for a moment before looking at me. “Then I came here and met you.”
As he always did, he managed to make my heart grow big. I loved this man.
I sat there for a few minutes at his side while he stroked my hair. “Do you think you’ll go back and get it? Your war chest?” I dared to ask.
He stopped in mid-stroke, and I was momentarily frightened that he would strike me. But he did not. Lost in thought he was.
“I would like to,” he said, “but I don’t know the time I will be able to.”
He went silent and the soft petting of my hair ceased. He had fallen asleep.
The entry ended there. Darwin quickly looked over the next several entries to see if she elaborated anymore on that conversation, but could find nothing. He went back and re-read the passage again, this time jotting sloppy notes in a beaten spiral notebook.
After the destruction of the Queen Anne’s Revenge and Adventure at Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard selected about forty of his most trusted men to transfer whatever plunder he had aboard the two flagships to cram whatever they could aboard a long boat. The remainder he on the shore of a small island near Beaufort. Some two-hundred and fifty men.
Most people thought he would have kept the big treasure near him. His war chest. That’s why so many came to the Outer Banks, hoping to find it. Could it be that everyone was looking in the wrong location for almost three hundred years?
The entry came from a month and a half before Blackbeard’s death. Darwin wondered if he found time between this event and his death to go to the area wherever this Trench’s Island was. Careful study of the known events between the second day in October and November 22nd should shed light on that. The problem, however, was that Darwin didn’t have time for careful study now. Perhaps he would ask Riddick while they were on the water tomorrow.
Perhaps the biggest clue, Darwin thought, was the mention of Trench’s Island. Darwin had not heard of it, and if that island was anywhere along the eastern seaboard or in the Caribbean, he thought he would have learned of it during his college studies.
He brought up Google Maps and searched for the island. He gave the screen a funny look when, after hitting ENTER, the screen immediately zoomed in on a place named the Heritage Library. He could see nothing relating this library to anything called Trench’s Island.
He hummed to himself while did the same search, this time on the web. The top result read Trench’s Island Heritage Library Foundation. He clicked. Sat back. Read a few paragraphs. Hummed some more.
Now he understood the connection to Trench’s Island. But that brought a bigger question to Darwin’s mind. How did that place have a substantial treasure during the early eighteenth century?
Back then, there was nothing there.
20
Darwin and Lucas grabbed two cups of coffee to go just as the last drops of the first pot of the morning finished brewing in the lobby. Lucas tasted it first, and thought it was better than the previous morning. They grabbed a couple apples and bananas, stuck them in their pockets, checked out of the motel, threw their bags in the back, and climbed into the Jeep.
As they crossed over the bridge into Washington, the first rays of light started to streak through a cloudless October sky above. The morning breeze felt cool in the open cabin of the Jeep, and they knew that despite the season, they were due for a muggy day.
“Did you hear back from your friend?” Darwin asked, meaning Greg.
Lucas took a sip of coffee from a travel thermos bearing the West Virginia University logo on the side. “Nah. Not a peep. All I did was research treasure hunting in this area and saw what I could find on Riddick.”
“Find anything?”
Lucas shrugged. “Well, beyond being rich, as we already knew, I learned that he and Travis Cole both graduated from N.C. State at the same time.”
“Think they knew each other?”
“Dunno. It’s a possibility. They had the same majors.”
“That is interesting. I’m not a strong believer in coincidences.”
“Me neither.” Lucas paused as the Jeep’s tires thumped from the concrete of the bridge to the asphalt of the main drag in Washington. “What about you? You hear back from your girl?”
“I did.” Darwin left him hanging.
Lucas took his eyes from the glow of the headlights pointing their way through the pre-dawn streets and looked at Darwin, smiled, and said, “Come on. What is it?”
Darwin thought how to best frame his answer. “I think we’re searching in the wrong place.”
“What makes you think that?”
Darwin related the passage of Mary Ormond’s from the journal and the mention of Trench’s Island.
Lucas was speechless for a few moments while they navigated out of Washington proper in the direction of Bath. “Holy cow. Do you think he ever went back?”
“I don’t know. The entry was dated about a month and a half before his death. Don’t know if he would’ve had the time to do so. That period of his life is well documented from what I remember. Perhaps more was known of his whereabouts during the last month of his life than the previous thirty-eight years.”
“Hmm. So, where is this Trench’s Island? I’ve never heard of it.”
“I hadn’t until last night, although that’s probably the most interesting part.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the island no longer exists.”
• • •
“What do you mean it no longer exists? Did it get washed away by a hurricane or something?”
“Not exactly.”
Lucas laughed in desperation. “Come on man. Just tell me.”
Darwin smiled. “The island was only known as Trench’s Island for a few years of its existence. You probably better know it as Hilton Head Island.
“In South Carolina?’ That Hilton Head?”
“Yes, they’re one in the same. I looked it up. You see, William Hilton first landed on the island in 1663, some fifty or so years before Blackbeard was in the area. In 1698, King William III—different William—granted several islands in that area to a guy named John Bayley. He in turn had someone named Alexander Trench be the property agent and tax collector of the island. And as the British were wont to do, the person in charge renamed that land area after himself. In this case, Hilton Head became Trench’s Island.”
“Interesting. So when did it go back to being called Hilton Head?”
“Sometime in the early 1720’s. The first settler on the island was in 1717.”
Lucas scratched his chin. “So that was sometime around when Blackbeard was at the peak of his powers and infamy?”
“Yeah. For a while, he used the various inlets and islands around Savannah to hide and attack ships passing by. How far away from Savannah is Hilton Head? Can’t be far.”
“Hold on, I’ll check.” Darwin dug his phone out of his pocket and did a quick search. “Just over twenty miles.”
“So, in theory, this ship Blackbeard got his treasure from a ship that could’ve been passing by the Savannah area, he picked up their trail, and pursued them to Trench’s Island or Hilton Head—whatever you want to call it.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who had time to dig in on this.”
Darwin waved a hand in dismissal. “Yeah, but not that much time.”
Lucas thought about it for a moment as cotton fields under an ever-brightening sky in both directions flew past. Most ships whom pirates raided during those days carried cargoes bound for the Americas containing
staples to help settlers, such as sugar, flour, and livestock and so on. Pirating became glamorous in modern times because the new stories, movies in particular, portrayed every pirate as a treasure-seeking rogue. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies wouldn’t have been near as popular if Captain Jack Sparrow only found grains and the occasional barrel of rum on board captured ships.
Here, Blackbeard had found something when he boarded some ship near Trench’s Island. Perhaps he had hit the mother lode. Since other pirates and townsfolk often asked Blackbeard where he hid his treasure means something may have happened during his time that started those rumors.
“Maybe we need to look at this from a different angle,” Lucas said.
“What’s that?”
Lucas took his left hand off the wheel and extended his index finger. “One, we now might have an idea of where Blackbeard found his treasure.” He added his middle finger. “Two, we know the time period he was in those waters.”
Darwin nodded. “Right.”
Lucas uncurled his naked ring finger where Darwin could still the impression from where a wedding ring once circled it. “And third, if it were a big theft from a rich Spaniard or Englishman, you can bet there was a record of it.”
Darwin blinked twice. “You might be onto something. But,” he paused, “that still might not tell us where the treasure is.”
“I agree, although I think you could say we’re one step closer than anyone has ever been.”
Darwin grinned and started nodding his thick neck. “Awesome.”
• • •
They arrived in Bath and parked near the marina. They practically leaped out of the Jeep and jogged to Riddick’s elegant yacht. They could hear the diesel engines purring underneath the water as they approached the ship. Riddick was waiting on them as they boarded.
