by Caleb Wygal
“I don’t know,” Lucas said doubtfully.
“Look,” Darwin said, getting excited, “this is an opportunity to possibly find something that’s been missing for centuries. People have been looking for his treasure since before Blackbeard’s headless body stopped twitching. Haven’t you ever wanted to be a part of something like that? I called you because I knew this stuff interested you and that you might be in a position to help me out.”
Lucas hesitated, “Well . . . the map is vague.”
“So? It’s a start. C’mon man, after what it sounds like you’re going through, you know you need to get away. We could be onto something big.”
Lucas let out a breath and thought about it. He didn’t have much on his plate during the coming week except for trying to forget about Kristen. He’d barely left the house since she left, only to go out on business or get food and to his grandfather’s funeral. He knew he was falling into a deep depression. Perhaps getting away for a few days would be good for him.
Besides, he didn’t think anything would come of Darwin’s find. Many people had tried and failed to uncover Blackbeard’s treasure. What if Darwin had actually stumbled onto something incredible? What if before someone at the museum got around to following up on Blackbeard’s map, they actually found it?
Lucas knew he’d kick himself for the rest of his life if that happened. The next question Lucas asked himself was: why not?
“Ok, let’s do it.”
4
Lucas spent the next day, Monday, arranging his affairs for the upcoming week. Darwin said he would be off for one week, so that is how long Lucas planned on being away.
He communicated with his assistant, Margaret, about what to do. It was almost an unnecessary task. He knew she could run things and anticipate his needs without him. He wasn't concerned.
He packed a suitcase clothes and duffel bag with toiletries and then booked a couple rooms in a motel in a small town named Chocowinity. It was the closest hotel he could find to Bath. It was about twenty minutes from where Travis Cole found the journal.
Lucas threw his things in the back of his late model four-door Jeep. It was of the soft-top variety, and the interior noise could get quite loud when driving on the interstates and highways. The trade-off was when the weather was pleasant outside, he could unsnap the vinyl cover and stow it away, allowing the Jeep to become an open-air vehicle. Lucas loved to cruise around town, in the mountains, and at the beach like that. He didn’t miss the compact, sporty car he traded in for the Jeep at all.
His first stop after leaving Concord was to pick Darwin up in Raleigh, just off the North Carolina State campus. He got on I-85 and drove east through Concord and past Salisbury. Once he got through that area, the traffic eased off and he was able to put the Jeep on cruise control. It gave him time to think as he hurdled towards Greensboro and the Triad of North Carolina.
In between arranging his affairs and packing, Lucas had time to do refresh himself on the infamous Blackbeard and research Bath or “Bath Town” as the settlers called it during the 1700’s.
At that time, Bath Town was the capital of North Carolina. It is located on the shore of the mainland. From there, it was about a two-hour ferry ride out to Ocracoke Island—the place where Blackbeard ultimately died.
Charles Eden was the second governor of North Carolina, and he resided on the outskirts of Bath Town. He was known for his campaigns to end pirating in the area. Blackbeard and another well-known pirate, Stede Bonnet surrendered to Eden. In return, they received a King’s Pardon, exonerating them of their seafaring crimes. Both eventually returned to their old nefarious ways.
Perhaps what Eden is remembered for, however, was the implication of being in collusion with Blackbeard. On Bath Creek, Eden’s estate was near Blackbeard’s home. Rumor had it that a sixty-foot long tunnel led to run to Eden’s home from the creek. Although no one ever proved it, some of the colonists believed Blackbeard would bring his ship up the creek to the tunnel entrance and pass plunder through there to Eden’s basement. The locals thought this happened twice.
In return, Blackbeard received the pardon and a nice estate of his own nearby. When the pirate returned to his old ways, Eden turned a blind eye on his neighbor. Many believed this was another sign of them working together.
Perhaps the biggest clue was that found on Blackbeard following his death. They found a handwritten letter from Eden’s treasurer, Tobias Knight, addressed to Blackbeard, requesting the pirate’s presence as soon as possible. Lucas found a copy of the letter while doing research online on an old website.
Knight’s estate in Bath Town rested between Eden and Blackbeard’s residences. Knight was later put on trial for being an accessory to piratical acts associated with Blackbeard and his crew and was acquitted.
Bath is North Carolina’s oldest town. It is just over one square mile in size and holds a population of fewer than three hundred. From above, it looks like a pointed piece of land, jutting out into the Pamlico Sound, similar to shark’s tooth. Bath is somewhat of a rarity among towns on the Atlantic seaboard in that it remained almost unchanged as the townsfolk kept the blight of commercialism away. Many antebellum homes and buildings still stand and he read that Bath makes for a relaxing tourist destination during the summer months.
This was where their expedition would begin. Many treasure hunters have ventured to Bath, trying to find Blackbeard’s treasure. They dug holes and poked around, although they always came up empty. Darwin and Lucas hoped Blackbeard’s map would point them to the X.
Lucas and Darwin decided to start from the last place Blackbeard lived, and if the treasure wasn’t there, they would try to trace it all of the way back to Blackbeard’s known beginning using the newly found map as the first clue. They hoped to find more along the way. They hoped the journal would help to unlock clues as to the treasure’s location. The journey would last at least until Darwin had to be back to work at the museum.
Now past Greensboro in his drive to Raleigh, Lucas thought for the first time since he left Concord about Kristen. He was on a relatively straight stretch of the highway, lined on both sides by rows of tall, verdant loblolly pines with a few interspersed billboards. He kept the radio off. The only noise in the cabin of the Jeep came from the tires rolling across pavement and the throaty growl of large nearby trucks.
After a few months of Kristen being gone, and waking up by himself, Lucas began to understand what life would be like without her. As a teenager, college student, and now an adult, Lucas was never the type to have dozens of friends to call upon. While some people had their groups or cliques of friends, he was always content to have one or two close friends. Most of the time, he'd had a girlfriend of varying degrees of closeness. Of course, the closest of any of these was his now soon-to-be ex-wife.
The difficult thing to get used to was waking up to an empty bed. Kristen was warm natured and kept the thermostat in the house set to about sixty-three degrees year round. It seemed as though there was always a chill to the house, and on nights where the temperature dropped outside, no amount of comforters and blankets could keep Lucas warm.
When that happened, all he had to do was roll over and put his arm around her. Without fail, she felt like a furnace. She'd had tests to see if there was a reason she couldn't keep her body temperature regulated without result. No matter, Lucas enjoyed her warmth on those mornings. It comforted him to know she was there.
After they married and moved in together, every morning when she woke up and looked at him for the first time, she would get a twinkle in her eyes and a smile on her face as though she were seeing a close friend for the first time in years. Looking back on it, Lucas realized that smile faded after a few years.
The smell of her perfume from the pillows and sheets faded over time, as did the memory of her living in their house. Lucas thought several times about selling or moving into one of the other bedrooms of the house.
In Concord, he had a few friends he could tal
k to about his separation. His closest friends weren’t the sort Lucas could seek out for comfort. One, Greg Hanover, was a detective for the Concord P.D. He spent most of his days investigating crimes and murders among the dregs of humanity. The other, Carter Washington, was a retired Navy Seal. Injuries forced him to retire after blowing out the ACL in both knees during separate training exercises. He was still in great shape, and looked as though he could kill anything that moved with his bare hands. He had little empathy for anything or anyone, although he was as loyal of a person as Lucas had ever met.
They were great guys to drink a few beers with and catch a game, but not so great when it came to delving into each other's personal feelings and affairs. He could always talk to his parents, although it felt awkward when he wanted to discuss some of the more intimate details.
So, he did the difficult thing: kept it all to himself. He’d never felt more alone in his life. He hoped this trip to the Outer Banks would help keep his thoughts off the domestic difficulties back home.
He didn’t know it at the time, but by the end of the week, Kristen and his failed marriage would be the farthest thing from his mind.
5
Lucas picked Darwin up at his apartment on the south side of Raleigh. He emerged from his apartment carrying a duffel bag, a portfolio, and a lumpy pillow. He threw everything in the back seat and climbed in Lucas’s Jeep. Darwin’s bulk caused the Jeep to tilt to the passenger’s side.
The GPS showed they had a two-hour drive from Darwin’s apartment to Chocowinity. They used part of the time to catch up with each other. Darwin told Lucas of his experience of going to North Carolina State. Lucas told the much younger Darwin about his bookstore and life after leaving Mahoney’s. He left out the scandalous details of his imminent divorce.
They turned off the interstate near Greenville and drove through East Carolina University before joining state road 33. A two-lane road wound its way through farmland and cotton plantations. Fluffy, white cotton balls perched on small bushes in enormous fields were all they saw for an hour. Lucas wondered if he had any clothes made from the cotton in those fields. After seeing how much cotton grew in this part of the state, he thought there was a good chance of that.
Eventually, the conversation drifted to the reason for their trip: Blackbeard’s lost treasure.
“Did you get a chance to look at any more of the journal?” Lucas asked.
Darwin shook his head. “Yeah, but there wasn’t much of use for what we’re doing. The entries began in 1717. She didn’t meet Blackbeard until the next summer. She wrote a little bit about him, although the journal was mostly about her helping her dad on his farm. Even while she and Blackbeard were married, he spent a good part of his time either in town or out at Ocracoke.”
“But, he had a bunch of wives, right? I think I remember reading that somewhere.”
“I spent all day yesterday researching his life here in North Carolina. In the two years he spent as a pirate, he had something like fourteen wives. He’d go to a port, meet a girl, and marry her on the spot. Sometimes he’d have his ship’s mate do the ceremony.”
“Were they legal?”
“Looks like just his marriage to Ormond. I imagine he married a girl just so he could get her in bed then leave her at port. He didn’t care. With Ormond, Governor Charles Eden performed the ceremony, so there was some legality there, at least. She was the only wife written about after he took the King’s Pardon and he allegedly ended his pirating days.”
“She didn’t write anything about the treasure?”
He shook his head. “She mentioned him surprising her with a necklace before he left for the last time. Didn’t say anything about it coming from a cache somewhere. He may have given her the map and told her to hold on to it for him but not explain exactly what it was for.”
“Didn’t he say the night before he was killed that ‘nobody but myself and the Devil’ knew where the treasure was?”
“And the longest liver should take all,” Darwin finished the famous phrase and then chuckled. “Don’t you think his wife could have been ‘the Devil’?”
Kristen’s face flashed through Lucas’s mind. “I see what you mean.”
Darwin explained that he couldn’t actually bring the journal or the map. He was able take a couple clear pictures of the map using his phone and printed them off from home. They were in his leather portfolio with some other notes. He had to leave the journal behind.
“What did the people at the museum say when you told them about the map and journal? Did you find the guy responsible for the dig?”
A funny look crossed Darwin’s face. “Well, nothing really. Most of the artifacts I set aside for a closer examination go and sit in a storage closet in the new wing of the museum. I felt the journal and map were important enough to escalate the process and took it to show the museum director.”
“What happened?”
“He wasn’t there. I told his assistant I needed to show him something important, and she explained he had to step away for a few days to take care of his sick mother. She told me to place what I had back in storage and she’d tell him when about it when he got back.”
“So no one knows what you found?”
“Not really. I told the assistant what it was, and she thought it was interesting, although there’s really nothing for her to do about it until he gets back.”
“That’s good. It means we’ll have a few days head start.”
“Probably more than that,” Darwin said. “It’ll take them weeks to figure out what to do next.”
“What about the guy who found the artifacts?”
“Travis Cole. Couldn’t find him. Like I said, I hadn’t heard of him in the time I’ve worked there, and couldn’t find him on the staff directory.”
Lucas stroked his chin in thought. “We could just Google him when we get time.”
“Good idea,” Darwin said and shifted gears. “I looked into past digs out there at Plum Point.”
“Find anything?”
“Not much. There were some in the 70’s. All they found were some pottery shards and a couple forks.”
“So, what? Did this Cole guy go back after figuring something new out?”
Darwin shrugged. “Dunno.” He went silent for a moment. “So, what are we going to do about it? The map, that is?”
Lucas didn’t really have a great answer handy. This trip was almost more about having a reason to get away from Concord for a few days than it was about a wild goose chase to find three-hundred-year-old treasure. He still had not seen the map.
“I want to go out and talk to some of the locals in Bath and, if we can, make our way out to Plum Point where the journal was found to poke around. Then, if we can’t find anything there, head out to Ocracoke.”
“What do you think of trying to find some local nautical charts to try to find a match for Blackbeard’s map?”
“Absolutely,” Lucas said. “Anything we can think of. I’m no expert when it comes to this. You tell me what we need to do. You’re the archaeology graduate. Here’s your chance to lead your first expedition.”
Darwin smiled at that. “Sounds good. I spent so much time over the last forty-eight hours thinking about the map and Blackbeard that I failed to come up with a plan.”
Lucas looked at the GPS. “We should be in Chocowinity in about twenty minutes and then checked into our motel soon after. Why don’t you start writing down what we should do once we’re there?”
“No problem,” Darwin said. He reached into the seat behind him and grabbed his portfolio. Then he had to maneuver himself in the confines of his seat to pull a Tweety Bird pen from his pocket.
He scribbled notes the rest of the way to the motel as the sun went down.
6
As they neared their destination, the sun had gone down behind the thick blanket of clouds. There were few lights lit in the town, making it very dark. Chocowinity wasn’t much of a town, Lucas thought. Rather small.
They had a slight problem, however. After going about a mile on 17B, there was a temporary barrier from the Department of Highways blocking the road with a yellow and orange sign indicating a closed road ahead. Lucas turned around in the parking lot of a closed laundromat before detouring around to Walhurst Ave. That road bent back on itself; connecting Route 33 to 17B forming what looked like a giant square if seen from above.
The town looked a little worse for wear than some of its neighbors. Most of the boxy buildings were made of white painted cinderblock. Small businesses occupied the buildings that weren't abandoned. There was one stoplight in the town. There were few vehicles on the road. What vehicles they saw were typically beat up work trucks.
They made a left at the light. Then, tucked behind a closed restaurant was the brightly lit Baymont Inn. They pulled into the porte cochere, exited the Jeep, and went into the lobby.
A well-groomed young man greeted them at the desk. Lucas looked around the room and satisfied by what he saw. The building looked nice in stark contrast to the rest of the town. It felt out of place.
The desk attendant explained the recent rains had washed out part of Route 17A, and that was the reason for the detour. Lucas and Darwin checked into separate rooms and agreed to meet in the lobby as soon as they had their gear stowed.
Twenty minutes later, Lucas returned to the lobby with an Android Tablet tucked under his arm. The desk clerk had put on a fresh pot of coffee, of which Lucas was grateful. He saw a logo for S&D Coffee on the side of the coffee pot and knew he would be drinking a good cup of coffee as opposed to the swill some hotels offered.