The Emerald Quest

by Renee Pawlish

  “So what’s missing? Do you need the other pieces of tubing, and then you’ll be able to see the map?” Noah asked.

  “No, we have all the tubing pieces,” Frank said. “What we’re still missing are the glass end-pieces.”

  “They’ve got to be down there somewhere,” Riley stared out into the water. “But that’s only part of the hunt. Even if we can get the spyglass to project a map, we’ll still have to decipher that map in order to find the emerald.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Anthony grinned.

  “Let’s get back to shore,” Frank said. “I want to examine the spyglass more closely.”

  “And,” Riley turned back to them. “I think it’s time to celebrate!”

  Noah beamed.

  “Celebrate what?” Frank asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

  “Dad,” Noah said, stretching out the word. “My birthday, remember?”

  Frank frowned. “I wished you happy birthday this morning. Isn’t that enough?”

  Anthony laughed and poked Noah. “He’s only kidding. Your mom’s got cake and ice cream at home.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Noah said, pushing Anthony.

  “Okay, okay.” Anthony went aft and soon Noah heard the low groan of the Explorer’s engine. He sat back in a chair and looked around. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the water shimmered like a yellow kaleidoscope, which reminded Noah of the spyglass. It was a perfect day to be out on the waters off Key West. Noah closed his eyes, letting the late afternoon sun warm him. He soon drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  “Time to get up.” His mom’s voice called to him.

  Noah opened his eyes and squinted. The Explorer was docked at the Sunset Marina and Frank and Anthony were securing her to the berth. Noah helped stow the diving gear inside the cabin. Then he followed the others up the pier to a green SUV parked in a lot nearby. After loading up some backpacks and a cooler, Frank drove them home.

  The island of Key West is only two miles wide and four miles long. The Winters lived in Midtown, in a large house just a couple of blocks from the beach. The house was made of concrete cinder blocks and had numerous windows with wood blinds that let in the ocean breezes. Palm trees towered over the house, pool, and gardens where Riley liked to work.

  “Take a quick shower and change for dinner,” Riley instructed Noah as they entered the house from the garage.

  Noah ran upstairs to the bathroom, stripped, and showered quickly. He could hardly wait for his birthday celebration. After he finished, he darted into his bedroom.

  “Hey, Indy,” Noah stopped to pet his cat, a calico named after Noah’s favorite explorer, Indiana Jones. Noah had a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie poster on the wall, next to a map of the world. Pictures of Noah snorkeling and scuba diving sat on shelves hung over a small oak desk. The shelves also displayed some things Noah had found in his years of diving, like part of an old plate and a shark’s tooth. Noah hoped to someday find a Spanish gold doubloon that he could put with his other treasures. The waters around Key West were filled with the doubloons, since many Spanish ships had wrecked there in centuries past.

  “Here’s what we’re looking for,” Noah said to Indy as he picked up a small spyglass from the desk. “Only mine’s much newer.”

  Noah drew the spyglass out to its full length and peered out his window. Through the treetops, he could see the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Noah!” he heard his mom’s voice. “Come down for dinner.”

  “Coming!” Noah tossed the spyglass on the bed, startling Indy. “Sorry, Indy,” he said as he raced out of the room.

  Downstairs, his mom had set up dinner outside on the enclosed brick porch. They were having mangrove snapper that Frank had caught the day before, along with a salad and mashed potatoes. It was one of Noah’s favorite meals.

  “Okay, birthday boy,” Frank smiled at him. “Chow down and then it’s dessert.”

  ***

  “Let’s open some presents and then have cake and ice cream,” Riley said when they’d finished eating.

  Noah grinned with delight as he untied a poster from Anthony. It was a painting of an old ship.

  “The Titanic,” Noah said, referring to the large passenger steamship that sunk in the North Atlantic in 1912, with the loss of 1,517 crew and passengers. Noah was fascinated with Titanic lore, but had never found a poster to put on the wall in his bedroom.

  “Hope you enjoy looking at it every night,” Anthony said.

  “Thanks!” Noah studied the details of the ship. He was so excited he didn’t think about a present from his parents.

  “Hey, you’re forgetting something,” Riley said. She went into the house and returned with a long package wrapped in bright green paper.

  “This is from your dad and me.”

  Noah tore off the paper, exposing a box with a spear gun inside. However, there were no spears with it.

  “Wow!” He pointed it out into the garden. “This is cool.”

  “It’s not a toy,” Frank cautioned him. “We’re going to keep the spears. We’ll train you to use it properly, and you can use it only if your mom or I are with you.”

  “And it’s to hunt fish that we’ll eat,” Riley said. “There’s to be no killing just for sport.”

  “When can I go try it out?” Noah asked.

  Riley leaned back in her chair. “You’ve got school tomorrow.” Noah grimaced. “But if you get all your studies done without any fuss, we can go out in the afternoon.”

  “Thanks Mom!” Noah scooted away from the table. “May I go show this to Bradley?” Bradley, Noah’s best friend, lived right down the street.

  “Sure, but don’t damage it. Clean up your plate and then you can go,” Frank said.

  Noah grabbed his plate and hurried into the kitchen.

  “Be back by dark,” Riley called to him.

  “I will,” Noah yelled as he ran out the front door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MAX SCHEFF

  Noah and Bradley had run through the neighborhood, pretending to hunt fish with his spear gun. Then they played basketball in Bradley’s driveway. They felt perfectly safe because Chief Ben Burton, the Winters’ next-door-neighbor, was also the Chief of Police for Key West.

  Noah took a shortcut from Bradley’s house and came through a gate into his backyard, walking past the pool and gardens. Dusk had fallen as he approached the house. His parents were sitting on the porch, talking in low voices.

  “He shouldn’t be out there,” Riley said. “Not this time.”

  Noah stopped and listened.

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. “He could help us search the debris field. The more people to look, the better chance we have to find the rest of the spyglass before someone else does.”

  They were talking about him! Noah tried not to make a sound. He tiptoed to the edge of the porch and peeked through the French doors. A breeze rustled through the garden and the palm trees swayed. Noah had to strain to hear his parents.

  “It’s not about that,” Riley said. “If Max Scheff or someone else wants that emerald badly enough, Noah won’t be safe.”

  Max Scheff! He was another treasure hunter who had interfered with some of the Winters’ expeditions. On more than one occasion Noah’s parents had raced to locate a valuable artifact before Max Scheff discovered it. He had even stolen a rare diamond from Noah’s parents after they had found it.

  “We’ve trained Noah to protect himself, in the water and on shore. He knows more than a lot of kids his age.” Frank chuckled. “He could give James Bond a run for his money.”

  “He’s still a boy.”

  “Are we overreacting?” Frank said. “We’ve been told to back off before.”

  “Not like this.” There was an edge in Riley’s voice. “That first letter was enough to scare me, but this one,” Noah saw her lift a piece of paper off the table, then toss it toward Frank, “This one is even worse. No one has ever threatened to hurt us.”
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  “That’s true.” Frank sighed. “When Juan Carlo asked us to help him find the emerald, I wondered if it was a bad idea. We’re talking about an awful lot of money, the kind that would take care of our retirement. Maybe we should stop now. But we sure could use the money from this expedition.”

  “I’ll call Juan Carlo tomorrow,” Riley said. “I’ll tell him about the latest letter and see what he says. Maybe he can hire some other divers to help us.”

  “We need to find the emerald quickly and then we can move on. Anthony and I’ll continue the search in the morning. Noah will have school, then you can take him out and show him how to use the spear gun. That’ll keep him occupied so he won’t be asking to help dive the wreck.” Frank stood up and walked toward the French doors. “By the way, where is he?”

  Noah jumped to action. He ran back past the pool and pretended to be just coming home.

  “Hey, Dad,” he said as Frank opened the door.

  “Home in the nick of time,” Frank said as Noah darted past him.

  “Time for bed.” Riley gave him a hug. “Was your thirteenth birthday fun?”

  “Uh-huh,” Noah said. “Bradley thinks the spear gun is cool.”

  “I’m glad you and Bradley like it.” Riley and Frank followed him into the kitchen. “Off to bed. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  Noah climbed the stairs to his bedroom. As he undressed, he thought about the conversation he’d overheard. Was Max trying to frighten his parents into quitting? And why would anyone want to hurt his parents? Noah didn’t know his parents had been threatened before. But when valuables worth millions of dollars were in question, he guessed it made sense.

  Noah crawled under the covers. Indy hopped onto the bed and curled up beside him.

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Noah whispered to Indy before he drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  Wednesday morning, when Noah came downstairs, his dad and Anthony were already gone.

  “Are they diving the wreck?” Noah asked, thinking about his parents’ conversation the previous evening.

  “Yes,” Riley said. She noticed the crestfallen look on his face. “You’ve got schoolwork. But if you get all your exercises done, and you get at least eighty-five percent on your math test, then I’ll teach you how to use the spear gun.”

  “All right!” Noah cheered.

  He sat down at the kitchen table, wolfed down a bowl of cereal, then started on his schoolwork. He worked through some English and Spanish lessons, read some history, then took his math test right after lunch.

  “Ninety percent on the nose,” Riley said as Noah ate a cookie. “Great job.” She showed him the incorrect questions and they worked through the errors.

  “So do we get to go dive now? And learn how to use the spear gun?” Noah fired the questions at Riley.

  Riley laughed. “Slow down. We’ve got a little research to do on the San Isabel, and then we’ll go out.”

  “Can we dive with Dad?”

  Concern flashed across his mom’s face, then disappeared. She shook her head. “He won’t have time to come get us.” Noah wondered about her worry. But before he could ask her anything, she spoke again. “Grab your pad and pencil and let’s go into the living room.”

  Noah drug his feet as he tagged along with his mom.

  “Don’t be so disappointed,” Riley said as she spread out a map on the coffee table. “We’ll dive with your dad some other time.”

  She sat down on the couch and took a book from a stack on the floor next to the table. The Winters’ living room looked like a museum. Bookshelves were filled with rare books and artifacts from their many dives.

  “Now,” Riley said as she opened the book. “One of the problems with finding the De La Rosa emerald is that Juan Carlo only knows what his grandfather told him. Supposedly, Alfonso carried the etched-glass pieces of the spyglass in a leather pouch in his pocket at all times. We know that Alfonso died while diving the wreck site. If the pouch was with him when he died, it’s probably still somewhere in the debris field around the ship.”

  Noah knew that the debris field is the area around a shipwreck that contains the remains from the vessel. It could contain pieces of the ship itself, as well as items that people carried or the cargo the ship carried. Depending on the depth in which a ship sank, debris might be found miles from the wreckage itself.

  “If we can figure out where Alfonso was last diving, that will at least give us a starting point to look for the glass end-pieces or the leather pouch, although I doubt the pouch survived in the salt water.”

  “How could we figure that out?”

  “By looking through survivor accounts from the shipwreck,” Riley said. “That might tell us if anyone was seen with the spyglass. I’ve also found some old articles about the sinking of the San Isabel, and some information about Alfonso, but I haven’t had time to read them all. You can help with that while I read about the sinking of the ship.”

  “Sounds like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

  “Unfortunately that’s true.”

  Riley stopped and cocked her head.

  “What?” Noah asked.

  “Sh.” She held up a hand to silence him. They sat quietly for a moment. “Did you hear that?” Riley whispered.

  Noah shook his head. Riley pushed herself gingerly off the couch and crept to the window. She peeked outside for a moment, her eyes scanning the backyard.

  “I guess it was nothing,” she said, coming back to the couch.

  Noah eyed her carefully. Her hand shook slightly as she turned the pages of the book.

  “Mom, what’s wrong? Is someone after you?”

  Riley stared at him. “Don’t be silly, honey. It’s nothing, just a little problem I’ll be talking with Juan Carlo about tonight. Here.” She handed him some papers. “Read through these and look for anything about Alfonso De La Rosa.”

  Noah finished in fifteen minutes. He flipped through the papers impatiently. He sighed loudly and kicked at the coffee table.

  Riley, engrossed in her reading, didn’t notice at first. Then she put a hand over his.

  “How about this,” she said, handing him another book. “This one should interest you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a new book about pirates.” Riley pointed to the title. Pirates and Treasure in Florida. “This should interest you.”

  Noah reluctantly took the book from her. He started reading and was soon absorbed in the book. Reading about all the pirates who roamed southern Florida fascinated him. There were even pictures of their old spyglasses, which made Noah think about the De La Rosa spyglass.

  After a while, Riley looked up. “Find out anything?”

  Noah shook his head.

  “I think it’s time for a break. Go change and get your spear gun,” she announced.

  “All right!” Noah ran upstairs and changed into his swim trunks. He snatched the spear gun from the closet where he’d stored it the night before. “I get to use the gun!” he told Indy. The cat was sprawled out on the floor, in a square of sunlight streaming through the window. He opened one eye and stared at Noah, yawned, and went back to sleep. But Noah was already out the door.

  ***

  “Here’s how you load the gun.” Riley took Noah’s spear gun, placed the butt against her hip, and slid the blunt end of the spear shaft into the barrel of the gun. “You’ll feel some resistance as you do this. Here, you try.” Riley disengaged the safety, stuck the gun under the water and shot the spear into the sand. She grabbed the shot cord, which was attached to the spear and pulled the spear back to them.

  They had driven east for a half hour on the Overseas Highway, the 127-mile, two-lane highway that ran the length of the Florida Keys, stopping at Ramrod Key. After parking, they’d grabbed their fins and snorkeling masks, and walked out to the beach. They waded out from shore and stood in a few feet of water. But Riley seemed distracted. She kept glancing over her shoulder and scannin
g the beach.

  Noah took the gun from his mom, reengaged the safety and loaded the spear. Then he shot it into the water and felt the jolt from the gun. “That’s cool.”

  “Remember, it’s not a toy. Never point the gun at people, even as a joke. Only spear fish you intend to eat. Now, the key to spearing a fish is to stalk the fish without spooking it,” Riley said. “If you’re diving, this can be difficult, but you’re a good swimmer, so getting close without startling a fish shouldn’t be a problem for you. You want to get within a few spear’s lengths from the fish so the spear goes all the way through it. And always make sure there aren’t any people where you’re aiming.”

  “But we didn’t bring any dive gear,” Noah said. “Just our snorkeling masks and fins.”

  “We’re just going to wade in the water today, so keep your net handy in case we spear something. I want you to get a feel for the gun. If you hit a fish, I’ll help you kill it. Are you ready?”

  Noah nodded his head eagerly. He loaded the gun again. They put on their fins and masks, then dove out into the warm water. Noah floated on the surface, paddling with his feet. He breathed through the snorkel and stared at the fish darting nearby. Riley swam beside him. After a few moments, Riley gestured at a large snapper. She made a motion for Noah to shoot the fish. Noah looked around. No one was in the water except them. He swam along with the fish, took deep breaths through his snorkel, and aimed the gun.

  Swoosh! The spear zipped through the water, right past the fish. Noah looked at his mom. She was smiling as she snatched the cord and retrieved the spear. She came up to the surface by Noah.

  “Not as easy as you would think, huh?” She handed him the spear.