Teetoncey and Ben O'Neal (9 page)

With everything ready, we went up to sit on the bank and wait. We talked awhile about the sandbar and raising the chests but even that got boring. Then Frank, who had a mean streak in him at times, asked Teetoncey, "You ever heerd boys cuss?"

She frowned a little. "I've heard our gardener's boy curse several times."

Frank nodded to Kilbie to start it off. Kilbie said, "Tarnation."

I said, "Hell."

Frank said, "Hellfire."

Kilbie said, "Damn."

I said, "Double damn."

Frank said, "Damnation."

We looked at Teetoncey and she seemed to be disgusted, which is exactly what we'd hoped to achieve. She got up and walked a few paces, then turned swiftly and yelled, "Bloody bawstard."

We three almost fell off the bank. We thought we knew what that last word meant but we'd never used it. Then she laughed as if she had chimes in her throat, which made it worse. That girl had a fouler mouth than I'd ever expected and should stay away from the gardener's boy. We didn't have much to do with her until it came time to eat.

Boo Dog went over and sat down beside her since he was never easily offended.

About one o'clock, when we could start to see the outline of the bar under the white froth on top, we got ready to launch. Thinking about what had happened at this very spot in early November, I asked Tee, "You sure you want to come out with us?"

"Yes," she said, though she was beginning to be a little nervous.

I got into the boat, sat down on the center thwart, and dropped the oars between the gunwale tholes. Water lapped at the bow. Then Tee got in; crawled around me to go to the bow. I said to Frank and Kilbie, "Shove on out."

They pushed and we slid into the water and I heaved on the oars, riding up on the first swell. We went nicely, taking the second one without getting much water aboard. Heaving hard, I shot us on past the surf line and we were in deep water, headed for the shoal. I angled north to go around the far end of the bar, then drift down to about opposite our driftwood stake onshore.

Frank said, "See how easy it is."

Always cautious, Kilbie replied, "Don't speak too soon."

I was busy on the oars and Tee remained silent; fearful, I'm sure, of stepping foot on that patch of sand that had doomed the
Empress
and her folks.

In another few minutes, we were about on a line with the driftwood stake and Kilbie said, "Keep her steady, Ben," and then instructed Tee to heave the anchor up on the bar. I thought Frank should do it but Tee tossed it up, hooking the bar like an old salt.

"Pay some line out," I yelled at her.

I glanced back. She was behaving like a sailor.

Soon,
Me and the John O'Neal
rode about forty feet off the shoal, pulled seaward by the ebbing tide.

We began looking closely as the water, with each lap, left a little more of the sand mound exposed to the blue sky. The weather was holding and there wasn't more than three knots of listless breeze.

Tee then startled us by remembering something. "The chests were tied with thick rope to each other, and then to the mast where it went through the cabin."

Kilbie said, "That makes sense. So they wouldn't shift around when the bark rolled or pitched."

That did make sense.

"But I don't see any stubs of masts anywhere," Frank said, straining his eyes to look over the surface of the bar, which had no more than three inches of water on it now.

Kilbie said, "I'm sorry to bust your bubbles but I think those chests are twenty feet down in sand."

I refused to be defeated. I said, "Let's heave in and get up on that bar." They heaved up on the line and in a moment the prow touched the bar.

Looking toward shore, Tee said anxiously, "I hope the boat doesn't get away from us."

I glanced across the eight hundred yards of smooth, low rolling, green-blue ocean and answered, "If it does we got a long, cold swim." I then double-checked the anchor line to make certain it was secure to the bow ring. After that, we all got out with Frank carrying the probe; I carried the glass jug buoys. Then we began to slosh over the bar, which was now covered with no more than an inch of water.

Kilbie looked down and around; then shook his head. "I'm standin on the X and I don't see a thing."

Neither did I. There were some white chips of shells in the water-pooled small sand valleys, ridges and ripples on the bar. Otherwise, it was as clean as our kitchen floor.

Frank drove the probe down an inch from Kilbie's toes and it went in about a foot; then he had to work it back and forth to sink it deeper. Finally, it went down to about three feet. He pulled it out and stuck it in again closer to where I was standing. In five minutes, Frank had probed two more holes without touching so much as a broken conch.

"I don't think it's here," he said.

Kilbie pulled his sketch out and paced forty feet north. "Try here."

We moved up there and Frank rammed the long pole with the metal tip back into the sand, working it and pushing it down. By now, the bar was out of water.

"How much longer we got?" Kilbie asked.

I looked over the side of the bar. The tide was still dropping but wouldn't go down more than another inch or two. "Not much longer than it'll take a gull to digest a perch and clean his wings," quoting Jabez accurately, via Mark Jennette.

Kilbie gave me a pained look.

While all this was going on, Luther Gaskins was up in the Heron Head lookout with his long glass. Much to his surprise, he picked up some foolish people standing on the shoal. A small boat was seen to be anchored to the bar. A light-coated dog was seen to be running around the beach, positively identifying us. (That dog was becoming a Jonah.) With the sea calm and the breeze light, Luther decided not to tell the keeper, knowing of my recent troubles.

Meanwhile, we'd made at least ten probes into the
X
spot marked to the north on Kilbie's sketch. Nothing! Not a scrap of keel, rib, or deck planking; not a boom, block, or bumpkin. The
Malta Empress,
if there was anything left of her at all, was not in this spot.

About twenty minutes had now passed and I looked over the edge of the bar. Slack water was done and the tide was creeping back up again. I said uneasily, "We got ten minutes at best."

"Let's move south," said Kilbie and we ran that way, Kilbie pacing off forty feet from the spot where we'd first probed.

Frank stuck the depronged boat hook in again and still another time. On his third try, he shouted, "Hot damn! I hit metal." He rapped it down several times. Then I tried it. Kilbie, too. It was metal, all right.

Kilbie and I dropped down to our knees and began to claw sand near the probe hole. Frank joined us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tee just standing there and looking like a ghost was at her throat. I yelled, "Dig," and she got down with us but wasn't happy about it.

Anybody who has ever dug in wet sand on a shoal or along the beach knows that water and sand slime come in about as fast as you can get the hard sand out, but we managed to go down about two feet. Then my hand touched something.

"Dig," I yelled. We had it! With my blind faith, I was sure we were close to silver.

But in a few seconds, we exposed what seemed to be an iron ring about a foot in diameter. It was stuffed with sand and seemed to go straight down. We scraped away another two or three inches and Kilbie, disheartened, said, "This is just an iron pipe, probably off another ship."

I got mad. "Dig, anyway."

Just about that time, I felt water lapping at my toes. Over my shoulder, I could see that the tide was beginning to creep back across Heron Head Shoal. As I began to claw more sand I felt something on the top of my skull. It was burrowing into the marrow. I looked over toward the beach and, unmistakably, Mama stood on the shore. Her falcon eyes had carried eight hundred yards.

That woman had not been to the beach for ten years, ever since my papa capsized. She hated the ocean passionately. Going to Heron Head Station, she'd always look up island or down island or inland; never out at the sea. But now she was on the beach and I could think of nothing more forbidding.

I sat back on my haunches, sighed, and said, "Wouldn't you know it?"

"Who is it?" Kilbie asked. He had short vision.

"Mama."

He groaned. "I thought she took naps on winter afternoons."

"Not since Teetoncey got here."

Tee said sharply, "It's not my fault."

Ignoring her, I said, "Quick, let's put a buoy on that pipe."

Frank ran to get one and I located a rivet hole and jerked the line through, then tied it off with about thirty feet of slack. We could spot that glass jug easy next time.

I glanced back toward the beach. Mama was just waiting. Not yelling. That made it worse.

"Let's go," I said, trying to think of some worthy explanation to make when we reached shore.

Frank pulled the boat up to the bar and jerked the anchor loose while I manned the oars. Tee and Kilbie got in; then Frank shoved off and jumped in. By now, the bar was awash again.

As I began to row south, Kilbie asked the inevitable question. "What are we gonna tell her, Ben?"

"Tell her we just went out to see the shoal."

"Do you think she'll believe that?"

"Probably not," I answered, but I couldn't figure out anything else. Whatever I said, Mama would raise a ruckus—us taking Teetoncey out on the open ocean. For the moment, we'd forgotten all about the iron pipe.

Then Kilbie brought it up. "What do you think that was, Ben?"

"Just a piece of pipe," I said, thoroughly upset at finding nothing and having the tide catch us; having Mama waiting in dubious welcome.

Tee spoke up. "Could it have been off the boiler for the donkey steam engine?"

I almost dropped the oars, swiveling my head around to look at her. I'd forgotten all about that steam engine that was used to run the pumps on the
Empress;
the boiler that was flooded when a heavy sea boarded.

Kilbie asked, "What donkey engine?"

"It was used for the pumps and the boiler had a stack on it, I remember," Tee said, displaying far more knowledge than I ever expected from one who didn't go to sea.

Kilbie and Frank were perched directly in front of me on the stern seat. I said in a hushed voice, "Boys, we were standing on the
Malta Empress.
That was the broke-off boiler stack."

Kilbie was almost reverent. "I do think we were on top her."

"Not a word to anybody," I ordered and glanced around at Tee. She nodded.

Kilbie then spoke to her. "If you can show me where the boiler was located, then we can git right to the silver. I'll work out the distances."

"Tomorrow," I said, having lost thoughts of the Widow O'Neal standing on the shore with her arms folded.

A few minutes later, I pointed the bow of the
Me and the John O'Neal
direct west and heaved away on the oars. "What's Mama doing?" I asked. My back was to the beach, of course.

Frank answered. "She's walking down to about where we'll land." The current was setting south.

Oh, my. There was only one thing to do—get our ears burned and lug the boat back across the strip. But at least I wanted to show Mama I knew how to handle a boat. I wasn't John O'Neal's son for nothing.

We were almost to the surf line and I saw the first swell grow on the stern. They'd gotten a little bigger since we'd shoved off for the sandbar.

"How am I doing?" I asked Kilbie.

"Just keep her bow headed in."

We lifted and skidded down as the first swell passed under us; then I saw the second one boiling in on us. To this day, I do not know how I got catawampus on that second swell but suddenly we were quartering; then I was sideways in a third one, and we dumped about ten feet from shore.

As I got a face full of cold sea, I saw legs and arms flying, then went under and tumbled away from the boat, gasping at the icy water. When I came up, I saw Mama floundering around in the surf to get Teetoncey. Kilbie was already staggering out and Frank was on his hands and knees, crawling out.

Meanwhile, Boo Dog was running around barking at everyone as if this was a big joke. I yelled at him to shut up and went back into the water to get my boat.

I
WAS DRY-DOCKED
for two weeks.

(1) I was not to go near enough that boat to spit on it. (2) I was not to go near the Atlantic Ocean. (3) I was to do my chores at the Burrus store and come straight home. (4) I was not so much as to get Teetoncey's socks damp or the Widow O'Neal would have Filene strop me. He had not stropped me since the age of nine but I well remembered that cow leather hitting my bare mooney.

Despite all this, the four of us made a solemn pact not to tell anyone about the bullion and try again on the next full moon, maybe at night so that no one would snoop around. However, the whole experience had left me with grave doubts about the salvaging of that silver. It was deep in the sand, probably lost forever to mankind in general.

During these two weeks of being up on chocks, restricted so to speak, I almost got to know Teetoncey. I discovered she had some definite things in mind about her future. Tee and I didn't really do too much during the fortnight except talk. How could we, jailed in the yard area with the Widow O'Neal plying her chores not more than fifty feet away?

I took it for granted that Tee would have to go within a few months, no matter the British consul's distaste for ever coming back to Heron Head. He could make arrangements via the Lifesaving Service. I also took it for granted that Uncle Salisbury, who did sound hateful and greedy, from all that Tee had said, would be trying to get his hands on the Appleton estate.

"My father has some barrister friends and I shall go to them for advice," she said.

"You going to live in that big four-storied house all by yourself?" I asked.

"I'd like to. I'm very good friends with our household servants. I think I could manage very well."

"Those servants stay right in the house?"

She nodded. "Oh, yes. In the basement and attic."