THE GHOST SHIP

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  Time passed, and she became aware that her mouth was dry. She reached up to touch her gritty face and trudged on until she saw the wooden pier running from the dunes into the sea. Near the pier, wooden steps led up to the road. Her feet felt like lead, her hips ached when she climbed the steps. Across the road, she spotted the grocery store. The Frisco General Store. She visualized the map that had brought her down here – when? Only yesterday? The village of Frisco lay a few miles from the lighthouse. A few more miles to go. The lighthouse, she was sure, would put her back in touch with Lawrence.

  Inside the store, she asked the clerk if he'd spot her a drink of cold water.

  “Nothing more?” he asked, his anxious eyes dwelling on her chapped lips.

  She told him that she'd left The Inn in Hatteras without bringing money. He said, “Help yourself to whatever you want. Your credit's good with me.”

  She pulled a Coke from a chest of ice and selected a chocolate candy bar. When he invited her to choose another item, she assured him she had all she wanted and promised to be back tomorrow to pay. He said the Coke and candy bar were on him.

  Back on the beach, in the shadow of the pier, she spread out her cape. She sat and chugged the Coke and nibbled the candy bar – keeping her mind free of thoughts and memories. She'd gotten good at beating back memories after Boyd died. Her motto had become: Keep it mindless until you want to deliberately think about it.

  When she finished her snack, she reclined on her elbows, stretched her legs and let herself relive the fantastic voyage that had been Lawrence's quest. When the memory ended with her hand in Rod Curator’s as he led her ashore, she sat up straight. Lawrence had said he had two quests, but he never told her what the second one was – only that he hoped she'd know some day.

  A noise came from behind. She jerked around hoping against hope … But it wasn't Lawrence. A truck with an insignia that she couldn't make out pulled alongside the road. A man got out and looked at her over the hood of his truck. He flipped the truck door shut. He was tall and wore a uniform.

  Crap. Am I trespassing, or what?

  He walked deliberately, each step measured as he descended the steps. She noted his hat. Official looking – stiff-brimmed with a band and insignia of some sort. He wore dark green, straight-legged trousers and a steel gray twill shirt with shoulder straps and a dark green silk tie. A gold badge was pinned over the left pocket. Closer now, she saw two Sequoia cones on his sleeve. Cones? Odd for a police force to have that logo when they sit right on the ocean. Dolphins, maybe. Cones, no? Therefore, he wasn't a policeman. But he was definitely official. Go away, Mr. Official, I'm not bothering you.

  As he came across the hard sand, she saw something familiar in him. He was fair-skinned with a reddish tan. His smile was wide and bright. Spence from the bar last night. He'd initiated the small talk that led to her infuriating Rod, who turned out to be Lawrence's great-grandson. Dear Jesus, too much is coming at me.

  Spence came closer. Go away, Spence.

  He touched the brim of his hat. “Miss Gavrion.”

  Shading her eyes, she said, “Spence. But I guess I should call you by your official name since you look very official in your National Park Service uniform.”

  Bright as it was under the sun, a halo of black mist surrounded his head. She blinked away the blind spots floating in her retina.

  He said, “I'm almost not official. 'Bout ten minutes, I'm off duty.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly four o'clock by the sun.”

  “You don't wear a watch?”

  “Sure, but I like to use the sun to tell time. It's a Banker tradition.”

  She had an odd feeling – as if there was something in his mind that she should know. She studied the strap under his chin, reminding her of another who'd worn a chin strap with his sou'wester. For something to say, she asked, “Have you come to make one more arrest before you knock off for the day?”

  “Arrest?”

  “Am I littering the beach?”

  He laughed and squatted on his heels. “I can think of more comfortable places to relax, but no, you are definitely not littering the beach.” He looked at her quizzically. “How long have you been out here?”

  She touched her hair, feeling its brittleness. “Looking pretty bad, am I?”

  “I don't think that's possible.”

  She started to get up, and he jumped to his feet and offered his hand. “Here.”

  Again, it was as if he conveyed a thought that had flown past so fast she couldn't grasp it. She ignored his hand and rose, picked up the cape and shook sand from it.

  “You look beat,” he said. “Have you been on the beach all day?”

  By his inflection, she knew he knew she had been. “Yes.”

  “You look like you've been wet.”

  “I got wet.”

  A kind of frisson emanated from him. He said, “A word of warning - riptides are dangerous this time of year, especially after the squalls we've been having, and the hurricane last week.”

  The moment turned awkward as if he, too, remembered her weather remark last night when Rod turned surly. She rushed into speech. “Oh, I don't fear riptides. It's fighting those ten-foot breakers that's exhausting.”

  He was silent for a moment. “You fought a ten-foot breaker today?”

  Shading her eyes, she looked out to sea. “I don't know when it was.”

  When she looked back at him, his smile was uncertain, and she walked away, southward. He fell in step with her. “Where are you headed?”

  “Back the way I came.”

  “You've got three miles to Hatteras.”

  “I got many miles to go before I – rest – or however the quote goes.”

  Her mood seemed to make him uneasy. After several steps, he asked, “Do you mind if I ask why you've come here this time of year?”

  “No, I don't mind. I answered that question last night.”

  “I thought maybe you wanted to – well – forget something – or maybe someone.”

  She turned to look at him thinking that perhaps that was why she had perceived something running through his mind. He’d been trying to read hers.

  He went on, “I mean, people come here for that reason. It's a haunting place.”

  He didn't know the half of it. “Yes, it is.”

  “Is that why you came?”

  “You don't give up, do you?”

  “Just curious, that's all.”

  “I had vacation time, I had no place in mind, my parents' home was out, and I didn't like the places my friends suggested.”

  “What were those places?”

  “My friend Missi is a newspaper columnist. She suggested I go to Las Vegas. Missi said, 'Sugah, Vegas is fantasyland where the men are flush with cash and ready to spend plenty on any li'l ol' gal that takes their fancy.'“

  She'd exaggerated Missi's heavy Southern accent, and Spence laughed.

  She went on, “Then my assistant had just gotten back from a singles' cruise. She told me that I should go on one because it's a boatload full of fun and food and men.”

  “What don't you like? Fun, food or men?”

  “I didn't think I'd like being on a ship,” she said, and then looked over the water. “Little did I know.”

  “What?”

  Her head snapped back at him. “There's cruises, then there's the real thing.”

  He twisted his mouth in a way that she'd come to recognize as opportunistic. He said, “Look, why don't I drive you back to Hatteras. I'm going that way.”

  “Do you live in Hatteras?”

  “No, Rodanthe. But I hang out with friends where you met us last night.”

  “One of your friends has taken a dislike to me.” She saw the recent past in her mind. Rod Curator telling Spence about the crazy woman at the shipwreck.

  Spence seemed reluctant to speak, and suddenly she knew that he had witnessed her encounter with Rod that morning after – after what? – washing ash
ore with his great-grandfather, who disappeared, leaving her standing alongside his great-grandson? How stupid it all sounded. How resoundingly incredible.

  Spence broke into her confusion. “You mustn't mind Roddy. He's hurting.”

  “Obviously, I touched that hurting place.”

  “It just happened this summer.”

  “What?”

  “His wife was – died.”

  “I just got here yesterday evening. I couldn't know that. What did I say that caused him to look like thunder last night?”

  “Being on the water with a storm coming.”

  “Let me guess. His wife went to sea with a storm coming.”

  “Not the sea, the sound. Pamlico Sound.”

  “What happened?”

  “The boat flipped over. She struck her head and went under.” He stopped and looked over the waves rolling toward the shore. “No one saw it happen. It was in a sheltered place near their boathouse.”

  A wooden boathouse into her thoughts. “I'm sorry, of course. But I hope your friend soon heals so that when someone else says something to remind him, he doesn't blast them with his eyeballs.”

  His studied her face, making her feel like a specimen. “I think you remind him of her – Carmen.”

  Funny the way he'd said that. “I look like her?”

  “No, just the opposite. She was dark-haired, with big brown eyes.” He looked pensive, as if seeing the woman – Carmen – alive. He didn’t say anything for the moment, and strolling alongside him, Ann looked at his oxford shoes lacing with sand. Then he continued, “Carmen was a fireball. I've no doubt you have a temper somewhere in that cool body of yours, but I don't believe you've ever been called a fireball.”

  “Takes too much energy,” she said, and thought the time had come to change the subject. “What does two cones on your sleeve mean?”

  Holding out an arm, he said, “That I'm an assistant chief ranger.”

  “What do the three stars mean? Am I being too personal?”

  He beamed. “Too personal? No. In fact …” He apparently rethought what he wanted to say. “The stars tell you I've been in the service for fifteen years.”

  “Steady Spence.”

  He raised his chin. “I guess you could say that. I always wanted to be in the service. My daddy was. His daddy was in the Coast Guard here. We're Bankers through and through.”

  She turned around and couldn't see his truck. “You've gotten a long way from your ride.”

  When she looked at him again, his hazel green eyes were hopeful. “Let me take you to Hatteras. You're tired. I'll buy you a drink, how's that?”

  He was coming on, but trying not to show it. She knew the look, the gesture, the tone of voice, because when men came on to her, it was always the same. They seemed to know that a, “Hey baby, let's go get us a drink, whatcha say?” would gain them nothing but a frosty, “Let's not.”

  She said, “Thanks, but I'll walk on back.”

  “More soul-searching?”

  He seemed to want to pull her thoughts out of her head. “Something like that.”

  He put two fingers to his hat brim. “Well, Miss Gavrion…”

  She knew what he wanted her to say. “Call me Ann.”

  “Well, Ann, I hope to see you around.”

  Even if she didn't run into him again, he would see her around because he would follow her as he'd done today.

  He trudged up the beach toward the sea oats swaying in the wind. Twice he turned while she watched his back. There was an amorphous déjà vu in the sea air that stirred confusing feelings. Something was going on; something she needed to be back in Hatteras for. She should have taken Spence’s offer of a ride, but too late. She turned to hurry back to the shipwreck where she'd met Lawrence.

  --

  By the time Ann neared the shipwreck, the ocean was spitting on the skeleton, and she thought it would be a good thing for her to learn about tides. To the west, across Pamlico Sound, the sun was glistening low and red in the sky. Red sky at night. Lawrence, where are you tonight?

  Her legs ached and her back felt like it had been tromped on. Her clothes – not the wonderful period garments, but the twenty-first century outfit – stunk. She knocked crust from her shoes. Soon the sun would set, and she would have to leave this magical place. Leave Lawrence. Speak to me, Lawrence, before I go in.

  She drew within earshot of a man and two women who stood next to the shipwreck, talking over the black bones. The man said, “We need to get this ship back from here, and soon. It is the most complete bow and keel of a coastal schooner we've seen yet.” He sounded Hispanic. From the back, he had the build of a Spanish dancer with his black hair pulled back in a short, thick pony tail.

  “Mr. Lockridge will be thrilled,” an Asian woman said.

  “I've already e-mailed the director about the wreck,” the second woman, a blonde, said.

  “Any instructions from him?” the man asked.

  “Well, the usual. The Park Service will want to take charge. We cooperate in their decision.”

  The man was aggravated. “The bow will be under the sand in two weeks.”

  “She'll be expensive to move,” the blonde woman said. “They may want to bulldoze her up the dune and leave her there as a tourist attraction. You never know with the Park Service.”

  Ann hadn't realized that she'd whimpered. The man turned to her. His brow beetled. “What is it, Miss?”

  She motioned toward the shipwreck. “She went down. That's her grave.”

  He looked at his two companions. His lips upturned. “I guess you could say that ships die, too.”

  “Then why not let this be but a brief return to earth before the sea buries her again,” Ann said.

  The man toed the bow. “I see your point, but these old wrecks have historical significance.”

  “Are you with the museum?”

  “Yes.” He extended his hand. “My name is Poblo Quitano.”

  She clasped his hand, and he tickled her palm with a single finger. Each man has his own come-on signal. “I'm Ann Gavrion.”

  The blonde woman, a weathered thirty-something, seemed tense when she introduced herself. “I'm Doris Finch.”

  The other woman, a pretty young Asian, said, “I'm Young Park.”

  Ann asked, “Who is the museum's curator?”

  Poblo Quitano's black eyes teased. “We don't have a curator, per se. We are very small. We collect our artifacts from the community and the Park Service. Our area of expertise is this part of the Atlantic. But if we were to have a curator, it would be me.”

  Ann thought she heard a grunt from Young Park. She looked from one curious face to another and decided to take the plunge. “I met a man – his name was Lawrence Curator.”

  Doris Finch brightened. “You mean Rod Curator.”

  “I met him, too.”

  Doris said, “He's on our board. He represents NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. He's a biologist and his title has something to do with preserving the marine life. He's dedicated to preserving our culture, past and into the future.” Doris was quite enthusiastic about Lawrence's great-grandson.

  “But you know of no Lawrence Curator?”

  Poblo piped up, “I myself have never heard of one.”

  Doris turned to Poblo, “You're new here. Rod's daddy was called Lawrence. He died when Rod was little.”

  Poblo raised his shoulders in an exaggerated Spanish gesture. “It will be only a short time before I know who belongs to whom around here.” He looked at Ann and winked. “And who wants to belong to whom around here.”

  “Who's in charge of the museum?” Ann asked.

  “Our director is mostly never here,” he answered with a sniff. “He is in England now. He is interim director. He is one of those other-worldly scientists.”

  “What's his name?”

  “Henry Lockridge. The director before him was such a go-getter at raising funds.” Poblo lifted his shoulders dramaticall
y. “Now our funds are drying up.”

  “Dr. Lockridge is a wonderful man,” Young Park said.

  “He is learned,” Poblo conceded. “When the children come for school projects, we explore the motion, force and energy of the mechanics of seafaring.”

  Doris looked at Ann. “Dr. Lockridge retired from the Smithsonian and agreed to take the director's post here until we hire someone who…”

  Poblo finished her thought. “Who will work for peanuts.”

  Ann looked down at the shipwreck. “Do you have shipwrecks on display in your museum?”

  Poblo's teeth gleamed in his dark olive skin. “Yes, we do. We have pieces of their timbers, and masts, and spars, and windlasses, and we also have models of the great ones.”

  “Do you have the Carroll A. Deering?”

  “The Deering? Ah, that beautiful one. Alas, some timbers and a chain is all we have of her, I am sorry to say.”

  “Did she ever wash ashore?”

  “Her bow washed up on Ocracoke in the nineteen-fifties.”

  Ocracoke? “Is her bow still on Ocracoke?”

  “No, it broke loose in Hurricane Ione in the nineteen-fifties and what was left came ashore here.” He'd apparently caught the look of optimism in her eyes, because he said, “This is not her bow. This is a little two-master. The Deering was a monster ship.” He threw his arms wide.

  “Yes, I know.”

  The three strangers exchanged glances. Poblo leaned toward her, and asked, “You have done internet research?”

  “Some, but I …” She caught herself. Too soon to tell these strangers of her voyage, particularly Poblo, who could scoff one second, and look as if he could swallow her whole the next. She took the scrimshaw from her pocket and held it out. “Where can I get this authenticated?”

  Poblo's eyes sparked like black diamonds. He took it from her. “Where did you get this? Here on the beach?”

  “No,” she answered. “It was given to me – a long time ago by a sailor – in Barbados.”

  He grinned, evidently imagining a tête-à-tête that didn't happen. He ran his long, elegant fingers over the carving. “So – so lovely. It feels like hard silk.”

  “Where can I get it examined?”