The Secret of Saturday Cove

by Barbee Oliver Carleton

“Oh, yes. The town history is available to everyone, you know.” They had reached the Historical Society building and Mira Piper paused dreamily in the doorway. “Just think, children. This old house was new at the very same time that the British raided Blake’s Island.” She gave them a bright smile. “Come in again soon and bring the McNeill boy with you. He’s so interested in history, and he seems so lonely.” Then she disappeared inside, hopeful that she had sown the seeds of friendship between the Blake children and Roddie McNeill.

  When they were beyond hearing Sally sputtered, “So lonely! And so interested in the Blake treasure!”

  “We don’t really know Roddie,” said David. “Maybe he just likes history.”

  Sally’s voice was flat. “We know him well enough. We know he likes to show off in boats. And we know he likes to spy on people.”

  David grinned. “If you hadn’t been spying, yourself, we’d never have known that.”

  “Well, that proves he has our chart, or he would never have bothered to spy on us.” Sally brightened. “Why don’t we just ask him for it?”

  David laughed shortly. “Roddie,” he said, pretending a conversation, “if it isn’t too much to ask, would you be so kind as to hand over our chart? Look, Sally, if he found it and kept it in the first place, he wouldn’t give it up now, would he? Especially since he has found out that there really was a treasure.”

  Sally shook her head.

  “Let’s say he does have the chart. He’s boned up on town history as well. His dad has bought a couple of the islands in question. Well, then, he probably figures it’s every man for himself, and the winner take all.”

  “That’s what Mr. McNeill was saying at Uncle Charlie’s antique shop,” Sally remembered. “And he said that a smart operator finds the short cuts or he gets left.”

  Unconsciously, they began to walk faster. They reached the docks just as Perce Dennett drove his bait truck out onto Main Street. David raised his hand in greeting, but the man seemed not to see him.

  “It’s a good thing this is bait day,” David told Sally. “I was just about flat out of redfish.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to haul this afternoon,” Sally complained, not interested in the redfish. “I wish we could row all day.”

  “We’ll do what we have time for.”

  “If only Poke would go out in a boat,” said Sally with a flash of her old resentment. “Then he and I could row out to all the islands while you’re hauling.”

  David agreed with her, but remained silent.

  “If only Mother didn’t mind if I rowed alone.”

  “You have to learn to swim, first,” David reminded her.

  Sally, downcast, said no more.

  They stopped at the gear shed only long enough to get the oars. As they passed the bait barrel, David stopped, surprised. “That’s funny. Perce didn’t leave me any bait.”

  He looked into the barrels grouped by the other shacks. Each was filled to the brim with briney, salted redfish.

  “He must have forgotten you,” said Sally.

  “He never did before.” Frowning, David followed Sally down the ramp.

  Back in the dory again, the motor taking life under his hands, he decided that it didn’t matter if Perce had forgotten him. Willis Greenlaw or Foggy Dennett would lend him enough bait for the day.

  The Lobster Boy swung slowly into the cove. A short way out they caught sight of a figure sculling his skiff slowly in toward Fishermen’s Dock.

  “There’s Willis coming in from hauling,” said David with relief. He cut back the motor and greeted the lobsterman. “Could you let me have a little bait later on?” he called. “I’m flat out and Perce forgot to leave me any.”

  His words hung unanswered on the fog. Without changing expression, Willis Greenlaw continued steadily on his way.

  Silently, they stared after him.

  Sally said in a puzzled voice, “Maybe he didn’t hear you.”

  But David was remembering that Willis had approached Poke in the drugstore a few days before. What was it he had said? “Now it’s a pea-soup fog, your friend, Dave Blake, ought to be out doing a little extra hauling for himself.”

  “But what are they worrying about?” David asked himself. “Even if I did haul in a pea-souper, even if I got lost, it wouldn’t hurt them any.”

  David glanced at Sally’s anxious face and forced a smile. “Maybe it wasn’t Willis, after all. It’s hard to see in this fog.” But it was Willis, all right. David had seen him clearly when the mist had thinned for a moment. A dark worry began to nag at him.

  Then they were put-putting into the fog. Maybe Willis hadn’t heard him. Or maybe his mind had been on something else. David forced his attention back to the task of guiding the dory out of the cove.

  “We’ll use the motor as far as Blake’s,” David shouted. “Then we’ll start rowing to Little Fox. Then Blueberry. Because if the McNeills don’t own those islands yet, they soon will.”

  Close to the shore of Blake’s, David shut off the motor and checked his watch. “If Little Fox is the right island, we should be there in less than an hour. That would give Jonathan time to hide the things and row back against a head wind.”

  David headed the dory for the bell buoy that would serve as a bearing on Little Fox Island beyond. Neither spoke as he pulled easily, steadily at the oars. But both of them had the same thought, Was this the course that young Jonathan had taken, alone and in danger, that windy night so long ago?

  Soon the dismal clang, clang, of the buoy grew louder. The red marker became visible beside them, rising and falling on the long swells. Then, very gradually, the outline of Little Fox Island took form beyond the buoy.

  Now and then as they rowed on, the muffled sound of a motor came to them and a lobster boat moved into their view and out again. But otherwise this was an unearthly trip. It seemed to David that they were alone in a wet, white world where everyday things did not exist.

  When they turned into the sheltered cove of the island, David looked at his watch. “Forty minutes. Sally, Jonathan could have come to Little Fox. He could have hidden the treasure here.”

  But Sally did not answer. She sat frozen in the bow, staring at something just beyond.

  Not ten yards away lay the Pirate, Roddie McNeill’s boat, her narrow hull gleaming against the gray water.

  Then, through the fog, they heard the sounds of a spade striking into rocky island soil.

  Chapter

  6

  DISCOVERY AND DISASTER

  DAVID felt the hot flood of anger rise within him. By hook and by crook, by keeping their chart and by spying on them, Roddie had taken the short cuts and gotten there first.

  “What shall we do?” Sally whispered.

  David listened. The sounds of the spade stopped. He studied the woods beyond the ledge.

  “It looks as if we won’t have to do anything,” he said shortly.

  For a figure had appeared at the edge of the spruces and now swung down the path toward them. It was Roddie McNeill, and he was carrying a spade. From the height of the ledge he looked them over coolly. “Sorry. This is private property.”

  Indignantly, Sally cried out, “This is Blake land! It always has been.” But her voice sounded all at once unsure, and Roddie smiled.

  “Not any more it isn’t. My father has just passed papers on Little Fox. Also, my friends, on Blueberry Island.”

  David’s knuckles whitened at the handles of the oars, but he forced himself to speak levelly. “McNeill land, maybe. But it’s Blake treasure you’re digging for.”

  “Blake treasure? You don’t say!” Roddie’s smile was insolent. “It just happens that buried treasure belongs to the person who finds it. Ask any good lawyer — if there is such a thing in Saturday Cove,” he added with scorn.

  For a moment there was silence and the Lobster Boy rocked on the little waves that lapped on the beach.

  Then Sally’s voice rose despairingly. “We lost our treasure chart,
and I bet anything you found it. And that’s just plain stealing, no matter what you say!”

  Roddie lifted his brows. “So you lost some chart. What makes you think I have it?”

  “Because anybody else in our town would have given it back,” Sally answered hotly.

  For an instant Roddie hesitated. Then he shrugged. “If you two know so much, why don’t you come ashore and look around? Nothing can happen to you. Except that when I get back to town I’ll have you both arrested for trespassing, that’s all.”

  Sally’s chin quivered with fury. “But what about the treasure?” she wailed. “It’s ours!”

  With an unsteady hand, David reached out to keep the old dory from drifting against the gleaming hull of the Pirate. There was nothing to say.

  Roddie smiled, sure of himself again. “From what I can see of the Blakes, I doubt if they ever had any treasure to hide.” He dipped his spade at them. “See you around, I’m afraid.” And he turned back into the fog.

  Then there was nothing but the empty ledge and the dim path, and the fine mist raining down onto their upturned faces.

  Sally’s mouth quivered and a tear moved down one cheek.

  “Let’s get out of here,” David muttered. “Roddie’s won the first round. But that doesn’t mean he’ll win the second.” Grimly, he started up the motor and they began the return trip in silence.

  “David? What about Blueberry Island?” Sally asked finally.

  “I guess Blueberry and Little Fox are about the same distance from Blake’s. So Jonathan could have rowed to one as well as the other. But since we can’t go ashore on either of them, we’re no better off now than we were before.” David’s voice trailed away. “Maybe we’d just better forget the treasure, Sally. I’ll be pretty busy with the new traps, anyway.”

  But Sally clung to the subject. “What about Big Fox, then?”

  David glanced at the clearing shape of the island that lay farthest from Blake’s. From its seaward point still came the slow blast of the foghorn. He shook his head. “We can save ourselves the row, Sally. Big Fox is too far. If Jonathan had gone out there, it would have taken him longer than two hours out and back, especially with a wind coming up.” David looked away, as if he were through with the subject.

  But Sally searched the cove with speculative eyes. Where would a boy row if he wanted to hide something? She gazed at The Graves, scattered bare ledges rising out of the sea, and beyond those at The Cobbles, half hidden in the fog. There were so many of them — mountain tops with all except their granite skulls drowned in the sea. Were they ledge or island, Sally wondered.

  Curiously, David followed her gaze. “I don’t think Jonathan would have headed out there. I’ve been ashore on most of them and they’re solid ledge. Besides, they’re too exposed. He could have been seen too easily.”

  But although Sally’s shoulders still drooped, her heart lifted. David was no longer ready to forget about the treasure. He was thinking again.

  They had left the bell buoy tossing in their wake. David was squinting toward Blake’s Island and little Tub. Perhaps, he mused, it would be a good idea to set the last of the new traps between the two islands. Then a thought came to him that sent shivers along his arms. Surprised, he stared at Sally. “Tub Island!” he cried. “We never once thought of little Tub Island. We’re so used to walking to it over the bar from Blake’s, we forgot that at high tide it’s a separate island. Sally, there’s a fifty-fifty chance the tide was full that night, and it was Tub that Jonathan rowed to!”

  Excited, Sally leaned forward. “How can we find out? From some ship’s log, maybe?”

  David’s spirits like Sally’s had risen high. But now they sank again and David shook his head. “They didn’t generally log the tides, just wind direction and weather. I don’t see how we can ever find out about a tide that long ago.”

  The Lobster Boy pulsed slowly through the gray-bright morning, and Sally began to wonder. If only she could reason how the tide was running the night the British came, then she might make up to David for losing the old chart. . . .

  Suddenly she remembered something. “David! The letter!”

  Her brother looked at her blankly.

  “John Blake’s letter! He wrote about the raiders coming ashore off a frigid.”

  David laughed. “A frigate.”

  “A frigate, then,” Sally said impatiently, “that came in with the tide before sunset! And the British must have gone straight ashore at Blake’s because they stole the roast that Sally was cooking for supper, remember?”

  “I’ll say I do!” David’s voice grew strong. “Then the tide was coming in! When Jonathan left with the valuables, it must have been close to flood tide. So it could have been Tub that he rowed to that night.”

  Sally said nothing, but she felt warmed and happy.

  “And Sally! An enemy ship would lie off Blueberry Island, out where she would be hidden from the village, wouldn’t she? Now, if you were Jonathan and didn’t want the British to see you, where would you not head?”

  Sally thought. “I wouldn’t head out toward either of the Fox Islands, or Blueberry, or any of the ledges,” she said slowly, “and I wouldn’t head in toward town. Because either way I might be seen by the frigid.”

  “Frigate,” said David automatically. “So?”

  “So I’d sneak off the back shore of Blake’s and keep in close to the ledges. I’d stay behind Blake’s wherever I could, and then they wouldn’t see me, either the men on the frigate or those who came ashore at the front cove. Then I’d head . . . .” Sally stopped and stared at David, her eyes widening.

  “You’d head for Tub Island, Sally,” David’s voice rose with excitement, “because there’s no better place to go.”

  Sally nodded, then fiercely she hugged her knees. “Just let Roddie McNeill dig! Let him keep his old islands! Oh, David, let’s go to Tub and hunt for the treasure this very minute!”

  David shook his head. “We can plan on plenty of digging before we turn up that treasure. Besides, I want to hear what Poke has to say about this. Maybe . . . .”

  “Maybe he’ll even come, too.” Sally finished his thought. “Oh, David, now that we’re getting warm, maybe Poke will even come out in the dory with us.”

  David nodded slowly. “Maybe.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s go home to lunch. Then, if I get through hauling in time, we might even start digging on Tub today. It’ll take a while, you know, even if Poke does come and help.” He cut back his speed and guided the dory down the long thoroughfare of the inner harbor.

  “I don’t care,” Sally said carelessly. “I don’t care if it takes a week. I have a feeling something big is going to happen.”

  Poke was washing windows at the Harbor Supply. Gravely, he tossed them each a cleaning cloth. “Don’t tell me,” he said as he scanned their faces. “I can guess. You have discovered the island where Jonathan hid the valuables.”

  David grinned at his friend and set to work beside him. “See what you think.” Then, with frequent additions from Sally, he told Poke about the quarrel with Roddie on Little Fox Island, and about Sally’s remembering that the tide was coming in on the night of the island raid on Blake’s. “And besides,” David finished, “Tub is the only island Jonathan could be sure of reaching without being spotted by the British. Blake’s would have hidden him all the way.”

  Poke shook his head in generous admiration. “Why didn’t I figure that out before?”

  “Why didn’t I? I’ve wondered about all this longer than you have.”

  “From now on,” Poke announced, “Sally can be chief adviser of all our treasure hunts.”

  Sally squirmed with pleasure and gave her window an extra hard polish. There beyond Grindstone Point lay Tub Island, a small circle separated from Blake’s by the full tide.

  “It looks like a pie with a bite taken out of it,” she mused.

  “That ‘bite,’ ” Poke rumbled in his lecture voice, “is probably due to the wind
and wave erosion of a mass of soft limestone like I read to you about from the lithograph book. Why, do you realize that the granite around here is tunneled through and through?”

  “Sure, Poke,” David interrupted cheerfully. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get going. What we really came in for was, well, to ask you to come out to Tub Island with us later on . . . .” His voice trailed away at the strange expression in the older boy’s dark eyes.

  “This looks like trouble coming,” said Poke quietly, looking out the window.

  Across the wharf toward the Supply came several of the lobstermen, walking heavily, their faces somber.

  Unexpectedly, the dark thought shot again like a quick pain into David’s mind. This time he faced it. Something was terribly wrong between him and the men.

  He was aware of his heart pounding in his ears like a warning drum. Quick pictures flashed before his mind — Willis Greenlaw saying, “Now it’s a pea-soup fog, your friend ought to be out doing a little extra hauling . . . .” And Perce Dennett, turning away from David as he drove the truck up from the docks. The bait barrel standing empty beside the shed. Willis sculling across the cove, pretending not to see him.

  Now he would at least learn what the trouble was. The boy thrust his fists tightly into his pockets and faced them, waiting.

  Slowly, they filed into the store, Willis Greenlaw first and behind him Foggy Dennett, then his brother, Perce, and the others. Mostly they avoided David’s eyes and remained silent. But Willis cleared his throat, and with his gaze steady on David he spoke to the older boy. “Poke, my boat’s down to the float. Fill her up, will you?”

  Reluctantly, Poke went outside to the gas pumps.

  “Well, Dave. You want Sally to hear this?” Willis began, not unkindly.

  The sick uneasiness grew inside David, but he replied steadily enough, “Sally can hear anything you want to say, Willis.”

  Willis drew a heavy breath. “Someone’s hauling our traps, Dave. Every single one of us here and a couple that aren’t back in yet, we’re all being hauled. Have been for a couple weeks now.”