Teetoncey and Ben O'Neal (14 page)

As I'd heard it, they planned to beach the barge after towing it ashore, drop the chests to ground; then they'd go by wagon to whoever got grubby hands on them. It sure wouldn't be Wendy Lynn Appleton.

Coming alongside the stern of the barge and tying up, Filene helped Mama aboard; then I gave Teetoncey a boost, and got up myself. Then the shovelers came aboard. The barge was lodged right up on the bar; the block and tackle hanging down toward the sand. There was still about an inch of water over the shoal.

Mama and Tee stayed near the stern, sitting down next to each other on a fish box, Mama pulling the shawl tighter around her head to ward off the cold air.

I went forward to where most of the men were swinging down, shovels in hand. They began slopping around the shoal and looking at the hulk. Filene said to them, "Another ten minutes an' then let's dig that keel clean. Start right by the mainmast."

I noticed that Hardie Miller went straight to that spot as if he thought he might get an extra share if his shovel tapped a chest first.

Jabez stood beside me, looking down. "We're all gonna feel pretty foolish if there's nothing there."

The water fell rapidly and in another few minutes there were only a half dozen small pools left on Heron Shoal. Filene shouted, "Dig out," and thirty shovels bit into sand.

The keeper called back to Teetoncey. "Miss, I think you should go down an' dig a few shovels jus' for legal purpose."

She came forward slowly.

"You want me to go with you?"

"Please, Ben," she answered.

Filene lowered her down and I jumped down, too. He passed a shovel and Tee began to halfheartedly dig, just tossing small scoops back into the ocean.

Mama had come to the bow and was looking down at all of us. Sand was flying all over the place. She shook her head and returned to the stern.

I would guess that ten tons of sand and slime water was moved on that bar in less than twenty minutes. Men were getting sand on their faces, on their hats, and in the tops of their boots. Nobody was speaking to each other. Just digging. Wild-eyed.

Tee stopped. "I can't," she said. She was standing practically on the spot where she'd been in the cabin with her mama and papa.

As Filene was helping her back aboard the barge, there was a shout from Cletus Gillikin who was more toward the stern of the hulk. "I got somethin', Filene."

A dozen men converged and I ran toward the spot. Sand and water flew. In a few seconds, we saw two chests, tied together. Shouts rose from the bar and they were echoed on the beach.

Filene ordered the barge to be moved. Malachi Gray, along with Mark, ran to pull the two anchors that had her locked to the shoal. Then a dozen men pushed her maybe twenty feet broadside up the bar, opposite the hole.

I joined them.

Teetoncey was standing on the bow and looking down at the chests.

Filene asked, "Those the ones?"

She nodded and then walked aft, as if she didn't care a thing in the world about them.

Two or three men grabbed new line and worked it around the chests while others shoveled frantically to keep the wet slime from covering them.

Filene shouted, "I need three or four men up here to heave in."

Jabez was already on the purchase line, waiting.

The men scrambled aboard and began to heave.

The heavy chests came slowly out of the sand with a sucking noise, and then the shovelers left on the bar helped ease them across until they were directly under the bow of the
Beulah.

There wasn't too much time to spare. Slack water was over and in another ten minutes the shoal would be visited with a fresh tide.

Soon, the two bullion chests dangled from the bow of the
Shallowbag Beulah
and Filene yelled for everyone to get aboard.

I clambered back up, along with all the shovelers. They were talking now, all right. Chittering and chattering; jabbering, speculating just how much this twenty minutes of shoveling would add to their pockets.

I took a good look at the locked chests. They were brass bound as Tee had said; the wood was dark from waterlogging. That wouldn't hurt the silver, of course. It was hard to believe. A hundred thousand dollars hung in the air from the bow of the
Beulah.

Filene yelled, "All right, let's head for the beach."

Cap'n Davis promptly got his crew into the Chicky boat; Filene's crew climbed into the Heron Head boat, and then they drifted off forty or fifty feet to begin the tow to shore in tandem.

Filene shouted again: "Cast off when you're ready."

Several of the men pulled the anchors up and we were free of Heron Head. The two boat crews bent to oars and we started heading seaward. Soon, we'd turn and go south along the shoal and then angle in toward shore, taking advantage of the southing current.

From the beach, it must have been quite a picture: the
Beulah,
loaded with people, a fortune in bullion dangling from the bow, being towed by two surfboats manned with oarsmen.

All the men were standing near the chests like two-legged vultures, just yapping happily, and I stood there myself for a while, vulture like the rest. Then I went to the stern, where Mama and Tee were seated on the fish box.

Mama asked, "Ben, how much water we in?" She coughed and drew the oilskins closer around her throat.

I looked down over the side. We were now about seven hundred yards away from the shoal, seaward, and I'd always heard there was ninety to a hundred feet in this spot. "Ninety, hundred feet," I said.

Mama asked Teetoncey a strange question. "You've thought it all over again? Last time, Tee."

Tee said, "Please, Mrs. O'Neal."

I was puzzled when Mama got up and started walking forward. I'd noticed she'd brought a big canvas drawstring bag with her but didn't know why. I thought maybe she'd brought some crochet work out, although Atlantic swells weren't the place to do that.

I followed as Mama walked straight to the bow, threaded through the men, and opened that bag. I saw something flash and realized it was our butcher knife.

There was a loud pop and a kerplop, a big splash, and one hundred thousand dollars in bullion was diving on its way to the bottom. Frayed rope waved in the air. It happened so quick that the men didn't realize it for a second.

Mama was already walking back toward Teetoncey when Hardie Miller gasped, "Gawd-almighty."

I felt somewhat the same myself, staring down as we passed over a crown of saltwater belches.

I
N A MOMENT
, there was shouting from the lifesaving boats and all the surfmen stopped rowing to look at that forlorn, empty line going to and fro in the sea breeze.

Hardie Miller yelled over to Filene in anguish, "Rachel cut it!" I thought he'd either weep or bash Mama.

Filene was now standing in the stern of the Heron Head boat, openmouthed. I thought he would roar. Instead, he squeezed out, "I don't believe it."

In the boats they were all stunned.

Suddenly, people on shore began hollering, observing that the chests were no longer hanging like big tubers beneath the oak jacklegs. I was told later that they thought some fool fisher hadn't tied them off properly.

Worst of all was the barge itself. All the men were yelling at Mama, circling around her like a pack of coon dogs. Some were jumping up and down. Some were pounding their fists. A few were looking down over the stern to spot the chests, a hopeless endeavor in ninety-odd feet of water. We had been passing over a trench.

In a pure daze, and doing my duty as the only male O'Neal on the barge, I finally stood by Mama and Teetoncey, not really convinced that I'd seen her slash that line. Also, I wasn't at all sure I should own the Widow O'Neal at this point. I glanced at Tee. Her face showed fright, understandably. This kind of thing probably did not occur in Belgrave Square.

I remember Mama sat there like a statue, very straight, not really letting her eyes focus on any of them. She was looking everywhere but at those men. The shawl was pulled tight around her head; her muddy garden boots stuck out from her long skirt. She coughed now and then but plainly, nobly ignored them. That butcher knife was across her lap. It had a mean blade. Why, I thought, she's as tough as any of them.

"Woman, you have to be crazy," Hardie Miller frothed, as one sample. There were others. Equally disparaging.

Mama finally spoke to them, matter-of-factly. "That money belonged to this lil' girl, an' not one o' you thought anythin' but miserly. An' the people on shore jus' wanted to git their hands on it. Not for Teetoncey, though."

"But, Rachel, you had no right," shouted the usually calm, kindly Mr. Burrus.

Mama replied evenly, "The sea giveth an' the sea taketh away..."

That did not quite make logic since Rachel O'Neal was not the representative of the sea by any means.

Old-time wrecker blood curdled as we drifted in confusion for another ten minutes.

When the barge was beached, there was great babbling while the people onshore tried to find out exactly what had happened to the bullion. Meanwhile, I was helping Mama and Tee down.

Mama didn't seem disturbed at all. She said to me, "Let's git Fid an' go home. We accomplished what we set out to do, thank the good Lord."

Go home, if we can get there, I thought. Lynching was not unknown in North Carolina.

The British consul ran up. He was livid. Before he could even sputter, Mama fixed him with a "Good day, sir." She was still holding the butcher knife.

Then Filene, having disembarked, tromped up. With wonderment, he said, "Rachel, you did not do that on purpose?"

"I sartainly did," said Mama, very unflinching.

Before Filene could speak again, the U.S.A. Treasury man charged in. They were coming from all directions. "I'm going to have you arrested," he said, as frothing as Hardie Miller.

The keeper blinked. Immediately putting his hands on his hips, Filene said, "Say again!" That blockhead went forward like a pecking rooster.

The U.S.A. man repeated, though not as forceful, "I'm going to put this woman in jail for destruction of federal property."

Suddenly, it got so quiet on that beach that you could have heard two feathers colliding. All the Bankers started coming up, even Hardie, moving in close to Filene and Mama. In a few seconds, that fancy-dressed government man found himself completely surrounded by surfmen and fishers, most of them six feet tall and not a twinkle in any eye.

I do not think that mainlanders really understand us. That poor U.S.A. man just didn't know how to figure this situation. He'd heard everybody else raging at Mama.

Filene said quietly, "This is John O'Neal's widow."

Enough of that subject.

Mama smiled knowingly at Teetoncey and myself. "Ben, Teetoncey, come go home with me."

She gathered her skirts and off we went.

A while later, Cousin Filene and Jabez came up to the house. They were both laughing. Filene said, "Rachel, now that I've had time to sort it all out, I was never prouder o' you than this afternoon."

I felt the same myself. I was just as proud of that woman as I'd ever been of John O'Neal.

Many people came by during the late afternoon and early evening to talk and laugh. We come to find out that Mama and Tee had put their heads together the previous day and decided to send that silver to the bottom for many reasons. The women couldn't get over Mama sitting on that fish box with a butcher knife instead of a Bible on her knees. They were tickled about that.

Everybody also enjoyed the part about Filene and the U.S.A. Treasury man, when Filene said, in a muted foghorn voice, "This is John O'Neal's widow." That man wilted in his pants.

It was told and retold.

What it really was—Mama had prevented us Bankers from making fools out of ourselves over a lot of silver.

What a time.

B
UT THAT PROUD
, raw, and interesting day on the
Shallowbag Beulah
took its toll. Mama's cold got worse and her cough deepened. She had chills and fever, and Sunday morning, four days later, she said, "Ben, I got to stay in bed. You fix the food."

Tee got some cold water in the sink bucket and began to change rags on her forehead every hour, but by noon, her breathing was very harsh.

I rode over to Heron Head and asked Filene to call Doc Meekins and then come over himself. He called right away, but Meekins was up in Elizabeth City for the weekend, probably gambling, and wouldn't be back until Monday. With his own doctor bag and medicine book, Filene returned with me.

He talked briefly to Mama, and then used his stethoscope to listen to her lungs. In the front room he said, "Ben, she's not good. Go tell Jabez to call Hatteras Station. Have Mis' Mehaly ride up with whatever she's got for pneumonia."

Pneumonia.

"She took a penetrate this morning, Cap'n," I said.

Filene nodded. "I'm gonna give her somethin now, too. But Mis' Mehaly may have somethin else. It's hard pneumonia, Ben, and that means we got to fight."

I rode over to Heron Head, and then came back, going in to see Mama. Her breathing was harsher than before. Her eyes were dull from fever.

She studied me a moment and then tried to smile. She said, "I tol' you 'bout that ocean." She'd never give up hating it. Never.

Mis' Mehaly arrived at dusk and took over, going straight to the kitchen to get a pot boiling. She had several jars of liquid and some powder in a square of newspaper.

I said to Tee, "I'd just as soon have her over Doc Meekins. She'll put Mama on her feet by midweek."

Mis' Mehaly fussed around in the bedroom awhile, back and forth to the kitchen; then she came into the front room and said to us, "She'll sleep comfortable awhile. But I got to bring that fever down. She's got lobar pneumonia, I think."

Filene said, "I'll try to git a call through to Elizabeth City. Mebbe Doc'll have a suggestion."

Filene left about the time Mis' Scarborough came in with some hot food. She served it up to Mis' Mehaly, Tee, and myself; then sat down in our rocker chair. "I'll jus' sit awhile," she said, and began to rock.