Legends of the Ghost Pirates (5 page)

Still, I wish there was more information about this
Blarney Bart guy. It seems like a pirate around here should have
more stories about him. While I'm thinking about this, I flip
through more of the book, but come up short.

I look at my watch and see it's now 11:30 a.m.
Sara's shift should be over in about a half hour. There's a tapping
on my shoulder and when I turn around I see Sara's smiling face. I
notice she isn't wearing her work apron. “What's going on?”

“It's kind of slow today, so Mrs. Fennel said I
could punch out early. So here I am.”

I notice she's got another book under her arm.
“What's that,” I say pointing to it.

“Just one more book I found at the library while you
were goofing around in the basement. I didn't have time to look
through it yet, so I thought we could look at it together.”

“I hope there's more in there than the book I was
given. But there's something really strange going on,” I say
pointing to her to sit down.

Shaking her head, she says, “No, not here. If a
crowd shows up, I don't want Mrs. Fennel changing her mind and make
me work again. It's a nice day; how about we go down to the
pier?”

“Sure,” I answer. The pier is just at the edge of
town where many of the working lobster boats offload their catch.
This time of day it's usually quiet because the lobstermen are
still out tending to their traps.

The walk is short, and when we arrive I point to a
green painted bench just off the pier. Later in the afternoons, the
men usually sit around it talking and telling stories, but at the
moment no one's here. We have a seat and don't say anything for a
moment while we look out at the inner harbor. The bright sun is
warm, but it's not too bad because there's a cool sea breeze
starting to push in off the water. The wind blows Sara's long hair
around before she quickly wraps it in a ponytail.

I'm about to show her the poem in the book when a
dark green Ford pickup pulls alongside the pier. On the door of the
pickup in red letters it says, Emery's Lobster Pound. Sitting
behind the wheel is a short older man with white military cropped
hair and a cigar hanging out of his mouth. It's Gus Emery; he never
smokes cigars, only chews them. With a scowl on his face he
scrutinizes over us sitting on the bench. Sara gives him a slight
wave and a weak smile.

“What are you kids doing sitting on that bench?” he
barks at us. “It's for the working men. This is private property.
Now get the hell out of here.”

The look on Sara's face quickly changes to anger as
she stands up and says, “Mr. Emery...”

I grab her hand. “Sara, we can just sit over there
by that tree,” I say quietly while pointing to a large maple up on
shore.

“
Mr. Emery ...what
!” he says challenging her
as he throws the wet cigar stub to the ground.

“Nothing,” Sara says barely above a whisper. “What a
grumpy old man.”

When we're sitting under the maple, Sara opens the
book and starts paging through it. While she's doing that, I watch
a lobster boat pull up alongside the pier, and the man tosses a
dock-line to Mr. Emery. She's still flipping through the pages as
the lobsterman begins to offload his catch into the back of Mr.
Emery's truck. I look down at her book as her finger traces down
the page and stops.

“What'd you find?” I ask.

“Not much. I really wish we could find more about
this Blarney Bart fellow,” she says.

“Yeah, me too. I'd like to know if there really is
treasure buried somewhere because I sure as heck would figure out
how to get it.”

Then an idea hits me. But I wish it hadn't because I
don't like it. “You know who might know something about him?”

Sara shrugs. I point to Gus Emery.

“Why do you think he might know something about
pirates? Just because he acts like one?” Sara asks.

“I don't know. It just seems somebody who’s been
around as long as he has and works on the water with lobstermen and
fishermen might know a little about Blarney Bart.

“Hmm...I don't know, Fisher. He'll bite our heads
off if we try and talk to him.”

“I think it's worth a shot. I tell you what, we'll
wait until he's done then we'll go over to his lobster pound and
talk to him there.”

“Okay,” Sara says as she closes the book. “But this
is your idea, so you do the talking.”

Standing in front of Emery's Lobster Pound, both of
us set our bikes against the side of the building. The parking lot
is nothing more than white crushed shells and gravel with a big
dumpster off to the side. There's an awful smell coming out of the
dumpster because whatever's in it, probably old fish guts, is
starting to rot in the warm summer sun. In the back of the building
are old lobster pots, most covered with barnacles, which are in
need of some sort of repair. At the green screen door, I push it
open and let Sara go through.

Scrunching her face and squinting at me, she says,
“Thanks for being a gentleman.”

Her sarcasm doesn't bother me a bit.

Inside the lobster pound is damp and about twenty
degrees cooler. It's because there are many holding tanks, each
stuffed with live lobsters that has cold sea water circulating
through. Also, it's dark and takes a moment for our eyes to adjust.
Sara crosses her arms and shivers a little while we look
around.

“I don't see Mr. Emery,” I say. “But his truck's
parked out back.”

Sara notices the sign first.
Ring bell for
service.
But it's an actual bell with a handle on it; a lot
like the old school bells. I shrug, and grab the bell handle giving
it a good loud shake. A moment later a door in the back opens then
the spring slams it shut as Mr. Emery appears around a stack of
empty holding tanks.

His eyes squint when he sees us. “Oh. It's you two.
What'd ya want?”

I'm not sure what to say to him. He's actually a
little shorter than me, but he looks like he could easily break a
two by four over his knee.

I'm about to turn for the door when Sara says,
“You're a man of the sea. We are hoping we can ask you some
questions about...well...pirates.”

His face turns into a sneering grin. “Pirates! What
the thunder are you talking about? You think this is funny coming
in here asking an old man stupid questions? Get outta here.”

“No, we're very serious, Mr. Emery,” Sara says in a
very business-like tone. “We've looked through all the local
history books on pirates, but there just isn't that much written
about them.”

“So why do you think I'd know anything about them?”
he says as he pulls a cigar out of his shirt pocket and jams it in
his teeth.

Sara continues, “You've worked on the water your
whole life, so we figure maybe there's old stories or something
that's passed down.”

“What. Do you think we sit around all day singing
sea chanteys about pirates? What do I look like to you, some kind
of old fool?”

Now Sara turns to leave, but I grab her hand. “It
was my idea to talk to you,” I say looking him square in the eye.
“I thought maybe you might know something about a pirate who was
called Blarney Bart.”

“Blarney Bart?” Gus Emery repeats in a low gruff
voice. He pulls his unlit cigar from his mouth and for almost a
minute looks at it as if it's telling him something. It's silent
inside the lobster pound except for the gurgling of the sea water
system. Sara and I both watch him closely. Finally he looks up from
his cigar, squints at us and says, “I might know something about
Bartholomew Bonney.”

Chapter 5

A Yarn

Gus
Emery nods at the table in
the corner to for us to sit down. I look over at Sara and she now
has Goosebumps on her crossed arms.

“Can we sit somewhere else, Mr. Emery?” Sara asks.
“I'm freezing in here.”

“Suit yourself. In the back office, then.” He points
to the door he previously came through.

It's not much of an office. There's a desk shoved up
against the window buried in stacks of paper, and two old steel
chairs that are half rusted from the salt air. In the corner
there's an old milk crate with machinery parts. They must be spare
parts to the sea water pump system in the lobster tanks.

“Sit down,” he says. I look around, but I'm not
exactly sure where he thinks we're going to sit. I find a box I can
sit on and Sara remains standing.

“So you know something about this Blarney Bart?”
Sara asks.

Looking at his unlit cigar again, he sets it down on
the corner of his desk. As he stares out the window, slowly he
says, “You could say I've had my encounters with him.”

I snap a glance at Sara and she catches my eye with
an upset look. No one says anything for a moment.

Finally I say, “What do you mean you've had
encounters
with him? He died sometime in the
1700s.
”

Gus Emery chuckles a little and turns around.
“Remember, you asked.”

Gus continues, “It was many years ago. I don't
recall the year. I was a young man and I had my first lobster
boat.” A weak smile grows across his face as he remembers. “Well,
the bank actually owned her. Anyway, I was tending my traps up in
Sheepscot Bay just off The Cuckolds; there's a ledge out there so I
didn't have to sink the traps too deep.”

“It was a foggy morning, but it wasn't so thick I
couldn't find my traps. Besides, I'd been out there so many times I
coulda found the stinkin things blindfolded. I was hauling one of
’em when I sees this thing out of the corner of my eye. It startled
me at first. I wasn't expecting anything out there.” He runs a hand
over his short white hair as he recalls what happened, but doesn't
say anything else.

“Please, go on, Mr. Emery,” Sara says bringing him
back from his thoughts.

He's not grinning any more. “It was a schooner. Not
too big, just a two masted. There weren't any coastal schooners
left, not in these parts. And not one like that. But the damn thing
was coming right for me. The strange thing was there was no wind
that morning; it was still. But it was moving like it had a strong
breeze. It had a bone in its teeth, I'll tell ya.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

His eyes squint hard at me like he's going to rip me
in two. “Of course I'm sure, you fool!”

He turns and looks back out the window. “I dropped
the trap I was hauling and pushed the throttle to full. When I
turned around it was still there, the same distance away. I was
pushing almost twelve knots. I shoulda easily out-run it. But there
it was, still coming right for me. Makes no sense.”

He taps two fingers on the desk. “Here's the part
that still keeps me awake at night. It was so close I realized it
had two cannons on her bow. Loaded or not, who the hell knows. I
sure as rigger rats didn't want to find out. I was never certain if
they're aimed at me; a simple lobster boat. I wasn't out-running
them; they had me. I reasoned if I stopped they could take whatever
it was they wanted. I can't imagine what the God's name they'd
wanted with a lobster boat. But they kept coming. Never slowed
down. Got so close I could read the name on the bow; Queen's Rose.
It was about to run me over. Just as I was about to dive into the
water for my life...it...just disappeared.”

“What?” I ask.

“Clean your ears out, you fool!” he barks at me. “I
said it disappeared, vanished, gone.”

I look over at Sara. Her eyes are wide, but she
doesn't dare say anything.

“Makes no kinda sense.” he says. “My boat should
have been turned to splinters.”

I build up the courage and ask, “So what's this got
to do with Blarney Bart?”

“Kid. You gonna let me tell the blasted story?” He
turns back to look out the window. “Just before it shoulda sent me
to the bottom, I see the figurehead. It wasn't like other
schooners; the kind with a half-naked blond mermaid. This one was
different. It was a
cougar's head. A freaking
cougar's head bearing its teeth. And wings on its side.
When
I was a nipper there was a schoolyard song sung about Blarney
Bart
.”

He closes his eyes remembering the past. In his
gravelly voice he begins to say the lines, not quite singing, more
like reading poetry.

“
Taking riches not of their own

Blarney Bart chased as midnight shown

The French feared the cougar’s head

Soon the thieves would be dead”

In a lower voice this time, he
repeats the line. “
Soon the thieves would
be dead.
”

Gus Emery spins around with fire in his eyes. “You
kids get the hell outta here! I shouldn’t of told you any of this.
Scram!”

I grab Sara's arm because she looks like she's going
to ask him another question, but I pull her to the door.

“But, Fisher...” she protests.

“
But,
Fisher,
nothing,” I say. “We heard
enough.” I push her through the door and pull her over to our
parked bikes.

We are walking our bikes back toward Main Street
thinking about the story we just heard. Sara is just staring
straight ahead; she's deep in thought.

“So Blarney Bart is a ghost pirate,” I say, more to
myself thinking out loud.

Sara stops walking and brushes some loose hair out
of her face. “You know what I think?” I shake my head no. “I think
Gus Emery is just a creepy old guy who was trying to scare some
kids.” She turns and keeps walking her bike.

“But, Sara, you don't get it. His schoolyard song's
the same one I found in the book.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It's right here,” I say grabbing
the book. After a few moments of flipping through the book I can't
seem to find the poem. “It
was
right here, I swear.”