by Caleb Wygal
“Yeah, that’s what Hilton Head was called back then.”
“Ah. So why isn’t the treasure closer to here?”
“Because in the passage, he made reference to marooning all of the men who knew about the treasure’s location near where he sunk his ships. He wanted them all dead, but didn’t want to kill them.”
“Dead men tell no tales,” Riddick said, reciting the old pirate saying. “You know, there’s really no proof that Blackbeard killed anybody until the battle that took his life.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. His gained his nasty reputation because of his appearance, meanness, and theatrics. When he approached other vessels to attack, the other captain generally raised his white flag after seeing Blackbeard’s flag. They wanted no part of him.”
“Interesting.”
“Do you know on what date Teach said this to Ormond?”
“Yeah, that was the other thing I wanted to ask you about. He said that to her around the middle of October.”
“Then he died just over a month later.”
“Right. Do you know what he did in the month just before he died?”
Riddick finished off the first Corona and opened the second, took the first sip, and said, “A short time before that, Blackbeard and the men he had remaining with him arrived in Bath, towing a French ship. When asked where the crew of the other ship was, Blackbeard responded that they just found the ship empty like that.”
“Yeah right.”
Riddick eyeballed Darwin. “Exactly. So Eden convened a Vice-Admiralty Court in Bath in late September 1718. Blackbeard and four of his crew testified and signed affidavits to the effect that there had been no piracy. They just found an empty ship.
“Because there was no proof they weren’t being honest, Eden had no choice but to let Blackbeard and his crew go and declared the French ship a derelict vessel. Eden wrote that the verdict was made ‘as any other court must have done, and the cargo disposed of according to law.’”
“What does that mean? Disposed of according to law?”
Riddick held up a finger. “That my friend is what caused the trouble. You see, normally a court awarded the cargo to those who found the ship, the salvors. The Crown took its portion. Then, the North Carolina authorities took theirs in the form of sixty barrels of sugar delivered to Eden’s estate, followed by another twenty to his treasurer, Tobias Knight.”
“Wait. So did Eden and Knight basically get a kickback from this?”
“More or less, yes. Later, Blackbeard took the French ship back out to Ocracoke and burned it, thereby eliminating any evidence. To the north, Governor Spotswood of Virginia caught wind of this. Normally, piracy was to be handled within individual colonies. Nevertheless, Spotswood knew the scourge named Blackbeard needed to be dealt with. He suspected that he and Eden were in cahoots and wanted to put a stop to the piracy before it spread to his Chesapeake Bay.”
“Blackbeard was dealing with all of this during the last month of his life?”
“You could say that. He spent much of his time at his base out at Ocracoke. That’s where the men sent by Spotswood to kill Blackbeard found him November 22nd.”
“You don’t think he had time to run down to South Carolina for a few days and retrieve his treasure?”
Riddick thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “Nah. Not likely. I’d say wherever it was when he said that to Mrs. Ormond is where it still lay, unless someone else stumbled upon it.”
“If that were so, I’d imagine we’d have heard about it by now.”
“That’s probably true,” Riddick said. “There’s a big underground treasure market, although I don’t recall hearing anything about artifacts from his main treasure.”
Something in what Riddick just said sent a chill down Darwin’s spine. “So, have you found anything left behind by Blackbeard?”
“Found? No. Acquired? Yes,” Riddick answered.
“What does that mean?”
Riddick stood and leaned against the railing. The sea breeze caused the hair on his face to flutter back and forth. “It means that, no, I have never found anything myself. I have purchased things believed to come from the estate of Blackbeard’s.”
Darwin’s eyebrows raised. He was impressed. “Like what?”
Riddick held up a finger. “Hold on a second.” He disappeared below decks for a minute before reappearing holding an odd-looking gun. “This,” he said, handing it to Darwin.
He hefted it in his big hand. It was made of iron and wood. It had weight to it. It felt old. Important. “What exactly is it?”
“This,” Riddick said, “is believed to be one of Blackbeard’s flintlock pistols.”
Darwin felt a shiver run through him. “Wow.”
“I found it on EBay, believe it or not.”
“Really? How do you know it’s authentic?”
“There’s no real way to be sure, but the seller was able to trace the chain of custody from 1717 to today. One of Blackbeard’s crew members had it, gave it to his kid, who gave it to his kids and on down.”
“So, it was a family heirloom that someone decided to sell?”
“That it was. The man who sold it to me lives down in Wilmington. I drove down and met him. He gave me the history behind it. I believed he told me the truth. So I bought it. I have a few more items back at the house. I’ll show you sometime.”
“That’d be cool.”
23
Lucas made it to Hilton Head just after noon. He picked up Route 278, which ran the length of the island. It was his first time to the area. If it weren’t for the palm trees and some of the types of businesses operating close to shore, he wouldn’t have known he was close to the ocean. Thick jungle, businesses, and resorts separated the four-lane highway from any views of the beaches or water.
He passed by the Heritage Library on his right. He was hungry and wanted to get lunch first. Beside the library was a diner advertising all day breakfast. Lucas went down the street, made a U-turn, drove back, parked in the library parking lot, and walked over to the restaurant. Now that he was out in the open air, the atmosphere told Lucas he was near the water. He could smell the ocean on the breeze. The humidity clung to his skin like an extra layer of clothes.
He ordered a short stack, bacon, and coffee from the cute waitress with red hair who gave him a suggestive smile. He looked around and saw two elderly couples sharing a late lunch and four uniformed cops. Three men and one woman. They were having coffee. That made Lucas happy. If this was a place where members of the local police force gathered for a cup of coffee, then it must be good.
The waitress returned less than five minutes later with a steaming mug of coffee and a plate of food. He drenched the pancakes in thick syrup he suspected was ninety-five percent sugar. He cut into the pancakes and thought for a few minutes about the smile from the pretty waitress. He wasn’t used to having that happen to him. Perhaps he just hadn’t noticed during the past five years of marriage. Perhaps she smiled that way to everyone.
Twenty minutes later, he finished, paid the check and left a bigger than normal tip. She deserved it, he thought.
The library sat behind two Carolina pines separated by a few clumps of bushes and a marble sign with the library’s name sandblasted into it. The library was in a white, concrete two-story building with a crow’s nest peeking above the middle of a brown tin roof. Not exactly a visually appealing structure, Lucas thought.
The interior’s features matched the outside. It reminded Lucas of every other public library. There was maybe ten people in the building altogether. Workers and readers. A desk sat at the front for patrons to check out books. Rows of shelves packed full of books ran down the left and right sides of the room. The center of the room had tables and chairs where patrons sat, doing school research or flipping through a magazine or book. A full complement of computer kiosks sat in the back left corner.
Another desk spanned the back wall mirroring the one at the entra
nce. Lucas walked back to it. Two women and three men sat behind the desk, their eyes focused on computers. All wore lanyards around their necks, which had their names in bold print along with thumbnail pictures that looked driver’s license photos.
None looked up when Lucas approached the desk. He stepped to a straggly haired man in the middle of the desk.
“Help you?” the man asked, not taking his eyes away from the computer.
Lucas saw the man’s name on the lanyard. “Hey Kyle, I’m looking for Ezra.”
The man had the Pavlovian response to hearing someone say his first name and looked up. “Old man Ezra?”
Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. I was told to ask for him.”
By this time, the other four people behind the desk stopped their work to listen to the conversation. Lucas saw a few of them smiling.
The man pushed back from his desk, stood up and said, “Follow me.”
He led Lucas behind the desk to an elevator that took them to the third level crow’s nest. The elevator opened revealing a small naturally lit room with stacks of ancient books piled on two wooden tables in the center and on waist high bookshelves around the perimeter of the room.
A diminutive old man with thick glasses and a few wisps of long gray hair falling from his scalp sat in a chair with his back to them at one of the tables. His face was inches away from the yellowed parchment of a dusty book. He held a magnifying glass in the small gap between his glasses lenses and the letters on the page.
He did not seem to notice the two men’s entry into the room.
Kyle cleared his throat. “Mr. Hefner?”
The man set the magnifying glass aside. Looked left. Looked right. Did not turn around. Shook his head. Picked the magnifying glass up. Went back to reading.
“Ezra,” Kyle said, louder this time and tapped the man on the shoulder.
This time, the man turned around in surprise. “Oh, Kyle,” he said with a voice that seemed to struggle to get the words out, although drenched in a thick Southern twang. “Didn’t hear you come in.” He looked at Lucas. “Who’s this?”
“He asked to see you,” Kyle answered.
The man regarded Lucas and dismissed Kyle.
After the elevator door closed on the library assistant, Ezra said, “I don’t get many visitors here.” He gestured for Lucas to pull a chair out from the other table and sit. “What can I do for you?”
Lucas explained to him the events that brought him to Hilton Head. As he spoke, he noticed that while the man appeared to be two steps from the grave, his eyes followed everything Lucas said. If the rest of his senses were leaving him, Lucas hoped his mind was still intact. He figured the man opposite him must be in his nineties. Maybe pushing one hundred.
Lucas couldn’t imagine still coming to work at that age.
“You’re looking for something that could point to where Blackbeard may have acquired a treasure when Hilton Head was known as Trench’s Island?” Ezra said.
“Yes. Any help you could give to me and my friend would be much appreciated.”
The man stretched his neck to look over both of Lucas’ shoulders. “What friend? I can’t see him. Sorry, my eyesight isn’t what it once was.”
Lucas stifled a laugh. “No, he’s coming separately.”
“Oh,” Ezra said, running a hand across his forehead. “That’s a relief. Thought I was going crazy.”
“No worries,” Lucas said. “Does that ring a bell? Blackbeard?”
The man stroked his chin. “I don’t recall any mention of him in the records,” he gestured to all of the books in the room.
“What about pirates in general?”
Ezra pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, making the million wrinkles in his face more defined. “No, not really.”
Lucas was heartbroken. End of the trail.
He began to think about his next step when Ezra held up a small crooked finger and said, “Hold on. Maybe. Give me a minute.”
Lucas watched as he struggled to his feet. The man had a pronounced limp and reminded Lucas of a hobbit, as Ezra went straight for a bookshelf a third of the way back on the right side of the room. He kneeled down, plucked a thin green book, and returned to where Lucas sat.
He handed the book to Lucas and said, “Turn it to page thirty-seven. Read the description beginning in the third paragraph down.”
As soon as the man set the book in Lucas’s hands, he knew it was the oldest book he’d ever held. It was thin, no more than fifty pages in length, and had a distressed leather cover. It had a faded inscription on the front that Lucas couldn’t make out. It also had an embossed design of a galley with three tall masts in faded silver on the right side of the cover. Lucas could see old smudges where dirt and dust had collected.
Lucas opened the book. The spine made cracking noises from decades of disuse. The interior emanated the strong, musty odor Lucas associated with old books. The paper had faded to a dingy brown over the centuries. The letters Mrs. E. R. Barnes were written in faded pencil inside the front cover in stilted lettering.
He flipped the page. It read:
MY INCREDIBLE JOURNEY TO THE NEW WORLD
By
IGNATIO AZEROLA
--
LONDON
John B. Alden, Publisher
1792
Lucas closed the book and traced a finger along the faded inscription on the front. Those were the faded words, he thought.
He looked up at the small man still standing before him. The man was studying Lucas’ expression closely.
He wrinkled a brow. “Who is this?”
With infinite patience, the old man wheezed again, “Page thirty-seven. Third paragraph. Read it aloud if you will.”
Lucas did as instructed with the utmost care not to damage the fragile pages. The spine was trying to come apart from the stack of thin paper. Although the paper had faded, the lettering still stood out.
He found the suggested paragraph, cleared his throat, and began reading aloud:
“A fierce storm separat'd us from the Jeronimo. At about four in the afternoon, a fearsome pirate vessel accosted our ship.
“They came with a fighting posture, hoisting a foul pirate flag before anchoring within musket-shot of our ship. Their cannons fired, disabling our ship.
“The group of pirates gathered on deck and shouted many curses at my men, waiving pistols and cutlasses in the air. Their captain appeared, sending all my men into a cower.
“He had a fierce countenance. His visage was obscured by a cloud of dark smoke and that he had a long, black beard with bundles of hair bound together with ribbons. He demanded all treasure in the holds. I feared for mine life if 't be true I disobeyed. I feared for mine life if 't be true I returned to Spain. In the end, I allowed the pirate to take what he wanted.”
When Lucas finished the passage, Ezra rasped, “Mr. . . ?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself when I came in. Caine. Lucas Caine.”
The wrinkles in his face deepened as he smiled. “Mr. Caine, I have been the proprietor of the Trench’s Island Commemorative Library since its inception over sixty years ago,” he waved a hand around the room, “and hand collected almost every volume here.”
“Wow.”
“It started as a single shelf in the little Hilton Head library that stood a few miles from here,” he drawled.
“The book you hold in your hands is one of the first, and oldest, in this collection. It is also one of only about fifty ever made and probably one of the last that hasn’t been lost or destroyed.”
Lucas looked down at the pages in his hand. “Incredible.”
The man sat back in his chair and made himself comfortable. Lucas thought it was story time.
“Ignacio Azerola is a forgotten footnote in Spanish history.” His voice was no longer a wheeze as he told his story.
Lucas imagined the man had become a skilled storyteller during his half-century or more of working in the lib
rary.
“He was a wanted man in Spain, this Azerola,” Ezra said. “Persona non grata, if you will. The passage you read refers to a pirate attack on a ship named the Nuestra Senora de Atocha.” He paused. “Are you familiar with the sinking of the Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Florida in 1715?”
“Vaguely,” Lucas said. “That was when a hurricane hit a bunch of ships carrying gold and other treasure, right? They all sunk?”
“More or less,” Ezra said, and then eased into a story. “The fleet was supposed to have carried the king’s share of New World production in the form of taxes. Which, back then, was a fifth of everything. These fleets had been in service since 1526 if I recall correctly. By 1715, Spain had laid claim most of western South America all the way up to Mexico. They controlled all of the gold, silver, and jewels both above and below ground.”
“A substantial amount,” Lucas said.
“Yes, a very substantial amount.” Ezra wheezed, caught his breath, and continued, “Not only did the fleet carry what was intended for the Spanish crown, other people who made their wealth in the New World had private cargoes aboard. They were trying to send it home to their families.”
“Wow.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Yes, wow. Anyway, the fleet was hit by what must have been a massive hurricane as they sailed up the Florida Straits. All ships, save one, sunk. Almost all of that treasure came to rest in shallow waters. The Spanish sent out rescue parties. They actually saved about fifteen hundred sailors.”
“That’s good.”
“They found some on a nearby beach. Others made it up to St. Augustine,” Ezra said. “Almost immediately, Governor Corioles in Havana organized salvage expeditions to recover what they could of the treasure. They recovered a substantial amount, but everyone in the Caribbean, America, and Europe knew about it. They all wanted a piece. This is what kicked off the Golden Age of Piracy.
“Shortly thereafter, the waters along the East Coast and the Caribbean were thick with pirates. No doubt, your Blackbeard found his way there for that very reason.”
