Legends of the Ghost Pirates (7 page)

“Hey, Fisher. This is my cousin Josephine.” Then
Sara adds, “And she'll be coming with us.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute. When did all this happen? You
knew we were leaving today.”

“I told you she was coming for a visit this summer.
I just didn't know she was coming this soon. It was supposed to be
a surprise. She's from—”

“I can speak for myself,” Josephine interrupts.
“Y'all act like I'm not even standing here.”

“Sorry,” Sara says looking down at her feet.

“I'm from North Carolina; the Outer Banks. Which is
kinda funny because my name is Jo Banks.” She smiles at me.

“Outer Banks?” I say. “I don't get it.”

“It's a place, you chuckle-head. The Outer Banks.
It's a long strip of beach that sticks out into the Atlantic.”

“Okay,” I say still not really sure what she's
talking about.

“Don't they teach you Yankees anything about
geography?”

“Fisher, I know it's a small boat, but there's
plenty of room,” Sara says as she tosses her duffel bag into the
cockpit. “Besides, with another person it'll be easier to look for
the treasure.”

“So you told her about the treasure? Sara!”

Sara acts like she doesn't hear me, and grabs
Josephine duffel bag and tosses it next to hers. “Yes, I told her.
And she's coming with us, and that's that.” Both of the girls climb
on board.

I put both hands behind my head, turn around and
breathe a deep sigh as I watch the puffy white clouds float
past.

Sara adds, “The longer we sit here and talk about
this, we'll miss the ebbing tide.”

“But she doesn't even know anything about boats,” I
say looking at Josephine, but she gives me a sarcastic grin in
return.

“She knows more about boats than you do, Fisher
Shoemaker. Now let's untie the boat and get going.”

I look at my watch again. Time's running out and
clearly Sara's made up her mind about Josephine coming along. The
one thing I've learned about Sara is once her mind's made that's
it, nothing's going to change it. I don't have to like it,
though.

“Let's get going,” I grumble. Pointing to the
dock-lines tied to the cleat on the dock. “Josephine, can you untie
us? We can put the sails up while we ride the tide out.”

“Aye-aye, captain boy.” And she gives me a mocking
salute.

I snap a look at Sara, but she just shrugs her
shoulders.

Soon we're out in open water, and the boat heels
over nicely in the breeze moving through the water like a horse
galloping across a green field. I look up at the sails, and they
seem to be full and trimmed properly. In this part of the bay I
have to keep my eyes on the water because there are endless lobster
pots that appear right in front of us. It's simple steering out of
the way, but if I wasn't paying attention just for a second, we
might run over one with the rudder then it'd be a huge mess.

Sara's been down below studying the chart making
sure we're on course. She calls up from below, “If I figured
everything correctly, at this rate we should get to Damariscove
Island by late afternoon.”

Josephine, who's been sitting in the cockpit with me
and hasn't said a word since we left, looks at me and says, “So you
think you're going to find buried pirates treasure.” She smirks and
looks back out at the blue water.

“Laugh if you want, but you're not getting any of
it.”

“I'm not worried,” she says. “I'm pretty sure y'all
are not gonna find a dang thing. No one ever does.”

“So you're a boat expert
and
a pirate
expert.” I shake my head not wanting to look at her. What was Sara
thinking bringing her along?

“Yeah. I know a little something about pirates. You
ever hear of Edward Teach?”

I shake my head no.

“Figures. You Yankees only know him by his other
name, Blackbeard.

I sit up straight. “Go on.”

“He used to sail the waters near where we live.
Everyone knows all the stories, but no one's ever found any
treasure. Y'all are just wasting your time. But it's a heck of a
nice day for a sail.”

“Where do you live?” There's a lobster pot just off
our bow, so I steer just to starboard of it.

“Weren't you listening? Outer Banks.” She shakes her
head at me. “We live in a little town on the very end of the Outer
Banks called Hatteras. That's where my dad keeps his charter
boat.”

Sara has now joined us up in the cockpit. “Her dad
runs fishing charters off his boat. In the summer when she's not in
school, Jo usually helps out.”

“So Blackbeard used to sail around there? That's so
cool.”

“No. It's not
cool
,” Josephine says. “Pirates
were nothing but a bunch of drunken cowards who slaughtered
innocent people,
including
children, and stole their money.
So when people walk around going '
Arhh, Scurvy dog,
' I want
to punch ’em in the face. That's like saying the Nazi's we a fun
bunch of guys.”

I glance at Sara and she gives me a look back.
Changing the subject, I ask, “So if you help your dad on the
charter boat in the summer, what are you doing here?”

Sara answers instead, “Jo’s just up here visiting
for a few weeks. Our parents thought it'd be a good idea if we
spent some time together.”

“I can answer for myself,” Josephine says looking
down at her hands. She's silent for a moment while she thinks. “The
truth is, my dad's in a little bit of a money struggle.” Almost in
a whisper she says, “We might lose the boat
and
the house.
Dad and Mom thought it might be easier to work through the problem
if I were here visiting Sara.”

“Oh.” I'm not sure what to say to that.

Sara leans over and gives Josephine a hug. “It'll be
okay. Your dad'll figure something out. He always does.”

“So what happened?” I ask. “How come your dad's
having problems? Is no one fishing anymore?”

“It's not really any of your business,” Josephine
snaps. “But I'll tell you anyway. When those greedy dogs of OAPEC
raised the price of gasoline, the price at the pump sky-rocketed to
$0.88 a gallon. And at the marina where my dad fills up the boat,
it's almost $1.45! Can you believe that? $1.45 just for a gallon of
gas. Our boat usually takes on about 250 gallons of fuel, so he had
to raise his prices for a day of fishing charters just to make a
little money. It's not going well.”

Josephine stands up in the heeling boat as we rock
through the waves. I notice that even as the boat bounces off each
wave, she doesn't seem to have any problem standing. Most people
who don't normally go out in boats would have been thrown to the
deck by now. She looks out at the water, and then climbs down the
ladder into the cabin.

Sara moves over near me with our shoulders touching.
“She's having a tough time with her dad about to lose the boat, so
go easy on her.”

“Go easy?” I steer around another lobster pot. “I
don't know if you've noticed, but she's giving
me
a hard
time.”

Sara wraps her arms around me while I'm trying to
steer the boat, and gives me a little squeeze followed with a kiss
on my cheek. “Just go easy on her, okay?”

Later, we're about halfway to Damariscove Island.
The wind is still steady, but the air is starting to feel more damp
than usual. I know from experience there's a good chance fog will
settle in.

Sara calls down into the cabin, “What are you doing
down there, Jo?”

“Just looking through this logbook of yours.”
Josephine pokes her head up through the opening. “I think I found
something. In these pages—” she holds open the logbook and turns
back to a page she's bookmarked with a scrap of paper. “—says the
name of the schooner was
The Queen’s Rose?”

Sara and I both look at each other, eyes wide.

“No,” I say. “It can't be.”

Sara finishes my sentence, “So Gus Emery wasn't
making any of it up. The name of the schooner he told us about was
The
Queen's Rose
.”

Chapter 8

On Our Way

“
There's
no way his story could
be true,” Sara says. “Gus Emery is just an old man trying to scare
some kids with ghost stories.”

“Ghost stories?” Jo asks. “What're y'all talking
about?”

While I keep steering the sailboat, Sara tells Jo
about our visit with Gus Emery. Jo keeps quiet, which I don't mind,
and lets Sara tell the whole story.

When Sara's done, Jo quietly says, “I have to agree;
it sounds like this ghost pirate might be real.”

Sara rolls her eye. “Not you too?”

“So now you’re on board with me about the ghost
pirates?” Fisher asks. “What gives?”

“From what y'all are telling me, there's too many
things that add up; the name of the schooner, the old man's story,
and that weird poem. Besides, I think I know a thing or two about
ghost ships. There's a lot of tales told on Hatteras Island,” Jo
says, “about ghosts and strange things on the water no one can
explain. A lot of boats have sunk off the cape. They don't call it
the
Graveyard of the Atlantic
for no good reason. And if
there’s one thing graveyards have is a lot of, it's ghosts. Why
couldn't there be ghost ships up here too?”

Off in the distance, straight off our bow, I can
start to see a strip of land by itself; it must be Damariscove
Island. But I can also see, something thin and white creeping
across off to the north tip of the island; fog. Pain-in-the-butt
fog. There's nothing worse than being in a sailboat when fog rolls
in. Noises become more intense the less you can see. It's like
being a blind person trying to cross a road never knowing if a car
is going to approach.

“Sara, do you see what I see,” I say pointing to the
north end of the island.

“We should be okay,” she says. “We're headed to the
south end of the island that looks like a lobster claw. There's a
deep cove that runs right up the middle quite a ways into the
island where we can anchor. It'll be a good place for our
boat.”

“Why's that?” Jo asks.

“Because,” Fisher says, “the chart shows there are
permanent mooring balls for people to tie their boats to.
Damariscove Island must be where boaters like to go for day trips
or tie up for the night. I guess we'll find out.”

Jo is now standing near the mast with binoculars up
to her eyes. “The island's still a long ways off, but from here it
doesn't look like much of an island; not even a tree.”

I'm keeping my eye on the fog to the north. It seems
to be devouring the island a little faster than I'd hoped. It'd be
nice to be at anchor before the fog engulfs the whole island.

I ask Sara, “Can you take a compass bearing where we
should enter the cove. I want to have some idea where to go in case
we don't make it there before the fog hits.” With the hand-held
compass aimed at the south end of Damariscove Island, Sara takes a
reading. After she's got a compass number, she goes below to write
it out on the paper chart so we don't forget. It's one thing that's
great about Sara, she's really good about details.

Fog can be sneaky especially if you're not paying
attention to it. One minute it's clear blue, and the next without
even realizing it, it can swallow you whole like some huge beast. I
had a little problem the last time I was sailing this same boat
offshore, I almost got run over. The scary part was, I could only
hear it, and not once did I ever see it because the fog was so
thick. I know it was a close call because the wake was huge and
knocked the sailboat around pretty good, so I know it must have
been a big vessel.

From below in the cabin, Sara calls up, “If I
plotted our position correctly, I would say we are just a little
past The Cuckolds.

“Got it. Thanks, Sara,” I call back to her. At least
we know right where we are and where we need to go if the fog gets
any thicker. One thing I'm becoming certain of; at the rate the fog
is creeping south we're going to sail into it for sure.

Jo's still standing up near the mast scanning the
sea with the binoculars to her eyes. I'm watching her while I keep
an eye out for lobster pots. With more urgency, she removes them,
looking only with her eyes, then puts them back up. She does this
two more times.

After one more look, being careful not to get bucked
off the deck of the bouncing sailboat, she moves back into the
cockpit and sits next to me.

“I think I see something off to the north. Here,
take a look,” she says handing me the binoculars.

“Do you know how to steer a sailboat?” I ask,
handing her the tiller so I can have a look.

“Of course. Just ’cause I'm a girl doesn't mean I
don't know how to steer a boat. Give me that dang thing!” Jo says
grabbing the tiller from me. Before I realize what's happening, she
jams the tiller to starboard then just as quickly the other way
sending me tumbling to the cockpit floor.

“Oops,” she says smirking at me lying on the floor
with her hand to her mouth pretending to do a
tee-hee
.

“Hey!” Sara shouts from the cabin. “What's going on
up there?”

“I'm just messin’ with your boyfriend. He thinks I
don't know diddly about steering a boat ’cause I'm a girl.”

“Well stop it,” Sara says. “You're making a mess
down here.”

Once I'm back on my feet I take a quick glance at Jo
to make sure she's not going to do any more stunts like that again.
“I never said I didn't think you could steer a sailboat because
you're a girl. I meant because it's a little different than
steering a powerboat.”

“Sure ya did.” I can't tell if she believes me or
not.

With the binoculars to my eyes I scan the water in
the same direction Jo was looking. “I'm not seeing anything but
fog.”

“Keep looking, you'll see it,” she says.