The small chest seemed to be filled with just wet sand and shell fragments. Scooping out some the sand and the remains of some poor sea creature, his fingers brushed against some hard, smooth objects. Clearing out more of the sand, he picked up one of the rounded pieces, holding it up to the sunlight for inspection. His eyes widened in surprise.
“Holy Moly.”
Quickly glancing around to see where the driver was, he spotted Jeremy halfway down the beach still yelling for the dog. Walt hurriedly cleared the rest of the sand out of the chest.
When Jeremy finally came back to the ruined treehouse, the dog bounding happily at his feet, he found Mister Walt carrying a couple pieces from the set back to the truck. “Can I help you wid dat, Mister?”
Walt had found a wooden box in which he had placed the old chest and then piled some miscellaneous objects over the top of it. “Yes, Jeremy. Help me get these props into the truck.” With Jeremy’s help, the box was set on Walt’s side of the cab.
“Are dees props broken too? Can I help you fix?” Jeremy cast a curious eye at the box as he got behind the wheel.
The dog bounded up over Walt’s lap, leaving sandy paw prints on his wet trousers. “No, no, Jeremy. I need to take these back to the hotel to be fixed.”
“Right away, Mister. You wanting me to put little mutt in da back?”
In a very good mood, Walt rubbed the dog between the ears. “No, he’s fine. Aren’t ya, boy?”
Two days later Jeremy loaded a small, newly-made wooden crate marked “Props” onto Walt’s private plane. Giving the dog a fond, final pat good-bye, Walt turned to Jeremy. Shaking hands with him, Walt thanked him for his excellent driving and pressed something into his hand. As the engines of the plane roared to life, Walt told Jeremy to look him up if he ever got to California. With a final wave, Walt disappeared into the plane, already thinking about his next move.
2002
As the threesome walked slowly and silently back to the hotel, each thought about the carving on the headstone. It had to be the clue. It just had to, didn’t it?
A light rain started to fall as they entered the lobby. A few couples were out in the pool overlooking the ocean. A group that had been playing croquet came running, laughing, into the lobby from the open French doors. Someone was complaining at the front desk.
Going to their suite for privacy, Adam and Beth sat close together on the sofa. Lance pulled up a chair and looked somewhat pensive. “What do you think about the clue?”
Adam slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. Why would his friends spell it that way? It should be ‘X marks the spot,’ not m a r c,” he spelled.
“Maybe it refers to the coin.” Beth gave a slight shrug. “Now that we have both sides we know the design in the middle is an X made out of crossed bones.”
“Mooma indicated they didn’t understand it either. She said it was what he tried to tell them.”
“I still don’t get it.” Deep in thought, Adam frowned as he took up Beth’s hand without even realizing it, his thumb rubbing the back of her fingers.
Lance stared at their caressed hands, then abruptly went to the window to look unseeing out over the ocean. “Rain stopped,” he finally muttered. “Should we try talking to Mooma again? See if there’s anything else she can tell us?”
In agreement, they walked back to the lobby to wait for the taxi. “Sun’s out!” Eyes closed, Beth tilted her face up to the warming rays.
“Yes, thank you, Captain, we hadn’t noticed,” Adam kidded her.
Lance said nothing.
“You be back.” Mooma was even more colorful as she warmly smiled at them. A lime green scarf wound around her head and she wore a golden yellow billowy blouse and a full, royal blue skirt. “What you t’ink of my Jemybie’s grave?”
“You were right.” Next to Mooma, Beth felt plain in her white cotton tank top and tan shorts. “It’s a wonderful spot. Thank you for sharing it with us. It…it meant a lot to me.” She started to tear up again.
Lance got right to the point. “We were wondering about the inscription—why it was spelled that way. It’s very unusual.”
“You like cool drink? No? Okay den.” She settled back in her chair. “Yea, we t’ink so, too. But after he be wavin’ dat paper ‘round our faces so long…,” she trailed off with a shrug.
“What paper?” Lance leaned forward on her counter. He seemed intent on getting the whole story, more focused than his usual laid-back attitude.
“You not turnin’ quenk, are you.” After giving him a sly grin, she chuckled at the blank look on his face. “Oh, I sorry, you not know our talk. I mean bol’face, yes?”
Still not sure what she meant, not knowing she just called him rude and pushy, Lance felt he had better apologize. He tried his charming smile, but Mooma still just grinned at him. “Could you please tell us about the paper and the markings?”
“That better! That show you broughtupsy! You too pretty not to ha’ manners.”
Adam got a big kick out of Mooma putting Lance in his place. He thought Lance was acting strangely, too, but broughtupsy was a descriptive word he would have to remember.
“Is there anything else you could tell us?” Adam’s tone was much more pleasant than Lance’s had been.
Mooma thought back. They could see the memories still bothered her. Would anyone care so deeply about me forty years from now, Adam wondered to himself.
“I t’ink it was dat awful day we find Jemybie. It seem proper ‘n all it take place on dat beach. Too much happen to him der. Dat paper? I never seen what written on it. It was clutch tight in his hand, no good no more ‘cause of da ocean water. It was what he did to beach dat scare us.”
“The beach? What did he do?” Caught up in the story again, Beth clasped her hands in front of her.
“You know all dem rocks ‘round his grave? We no dig dem up. We found dem all on de beach. My friend had put dem der. Musta taken him long time. We figure it be important to Jemybie. Musta be’n or he not do it like dat. We copy it just so for his grave.”
Adam’s mouth dropped open. “You mean he spelled out ‘X. Marc the spot’ in rocks on the beach? That was his message?”
Mooma nodded sadly. “It musta been from The Mister somehow. Dat was all he talk ‘bout. Musta been on dat paper. De fancy hotel, they get all upset. Can’t be havin’ da guests see my poor friend on der pretty beach. Dey woulda wrecked it for sure. So we took de rocks and made it pretty ‘round his grave. Nobody spoil it now.”
That was the end of the story for Mooma. She had nothing left to tell him about Jeremy B. or the mysterious paper that could have been torn out of the diary. It was gone. The other half of the medallion had been buried with Jeremy. It was now beyond their reach as well.
Before they left Mooma’s shop, Beth bought a book about Tobago and its history and asked Mooma to sign it for her. Mooma just chuckled at the silly things some people ask for as she signed it with a flourish.
When they were at the door, Mooma had one more thing to say to them: “Remember not put fowl to watch de corn.” The cryptic words were directed at Lance causing him to stop at the door with a confused look on his face. “You will figure it out.” Mooma nodded as Lance turned and exited her shop. She watched the three through the front window as they crossed the street to hail a cab. “Only hope it not too late when you do,” she muttered as they disappeared from her view.
On Saturday, the friends met at Adam’s apartment. They had agreed to some alone time to think over their trip and sort it out in their minds.
When she arrived, Beth walked slowly through Adam’s apartment complex, looking at the white birch trees and the purple-blossomed agapanthus. They were poor substitutes for the beauty in which they had been immersed while on Tobago. Even back in her own condo, she found herself going to her living room window to gaze out over the brilliant blue-green ocean. Only it wasn’t there. The carefully mowed grass that met her eyes was a big disappointment.
Adam op
ened his door to find her sighing. “What’s wrong?”
“I miss paradise.”
Seated at Adam’s computer, Lance was busy researching the coin now that they knew what it looked like. At her greeting of, “Hey, Heartthrob,” he just gave a distracted smile. His playful retorts and spontaneous hugs seemed to be a thing of the past. She silently wondered if it had to do with Adam or with Lance’s visit to his family in Boston. She missed the old Lance.
Glancing around the room, Beth was glad to see Adam had gotten rid of his disgusting model of Fantasyland. Most of the clutter had been cleared away as well. The notes that pertained to Walt and his life had been filed and replaced by books on pirates, legends, lost treasures, and sunken ships. She picked up an E-Ticket Magazine that featured Walt’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride. “You find any connections with the coin?”
Adam blew out a frustrated breath. “Well, the skull and crossbones design is so widely used in regards to pirates its hard to separate fact from fiction. Lance found some similar coins, but they don’t match exactly. Plus, they were found in a different part of the world. Look at this one, for example.” He picked up a thick library book and opening to a marked page. “See the X? Similar when turned sideways, but looking at it full on, it’s a cross, not bones. Same here and here.” He flipped a few more pages. “And this has a skull but not the bones beneath it.”
“So what we have could be pretty rare,” Beth concluded.
“But half a coin isn’t as valuable as a whole one.” Lance didn’t even look up as he made his point. “Did Walt give Jeremy B. half of the only one he found somewhere or did Walt already have it with him? Where did he find it? And, most importantly, was there more? We need to find it.”
Adam studied his friend. Lance seemed a lot more determined than he had been at any other time since their quest began. Determined…or desperate? He didn’t want to ask in front of Beth—even though she could probably get more out of Lance than he could.
“Then,” Lance continued, unmindful of the scrutiny, “We also have the clue X. Marc the Spot, also widely used in pirate lore. Fact or fiction?”
“Well, not spelled that way, but certainly very similar.” Beth had a question that had been bothering her. “Do you think Jeremy B. was too out of his head at the end? Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing.”
Lance disagreed. “It was too deliberate. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Think about it. He had three or four years of people not believing him. One last try? I think he would have gotten it right.”
Beth gave a non-committal, “Hmmm,” her attention on the 1999 fall issue of the E-Ticket Magazine. “This is fascinating. How come I never saw these magazines before?” Not really expecting an answer, she found the ‘Wings over Disneyland’ page in the middle of the magazine. It was an aerial shot of the entire Park as it looked in 1964. Not being able to resist, she tried to tease Lance. “Hey, Lance! Look at this. It’s a big Pirate Ship in Fantasyland next to Storybook Land,” as she held the pages up for him to see.
“Yeah, it sure is. Hey, isn’t that a Keel Boat on the River there?”
Well, that didn’t work out the way she had wanted it. With an unlady-like sniff, she dropped the open magazine onto her lap. As she continued to study the picture, she noticed something. “Adam, this shows they had already dug out the foundation for the Pirate’s ride and were building in there.”
He sat beside her and examined the orange-tinted photo. It was very different from the sharp digital images they were used to. “Wow, look, it shows Nature’s Wonderland and Ol’ Unfaithful geyser. Look at all the empty land outside the Park. You could see the Monorail barn from the freeway.”
“Never got to see the inside of that.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Adam could recognize the disappointment in her voice.
“Is there anything actually helpful to us?” Lance broke in. “I’m coming up empty here.”
Beth quickly flipped through the rest of the magazine. “It’s mostly about Marc Davis and his sketches for the Pirate ride. In 1961 or 1962 Walt mentioned he wanted to do a Pirate ride. He first wanted to do it as a walk-through but they decided people would stay in one place too long and stop the flow of traffic. Hey, look at this picture of the Auctioneer with Marc and Alice Davis. Look at the nose and cheekbones. The Auctioneer looks like Marc. That’s funny. Back here, the magazine shows the Wicked Wench ship in the fight scene. Here’s your cross, Adam, from those coins you showed me.” Beth held the magazine up for Adam to see. “Right there on the sails.”
“Look at the Captain’s Quarters in this picture. I read somewhere that map the skeleton is holding was the same one used in the movie Treasure Island. Wasn’t that 1950? That’s why it looks so old,” Adam pointed out, “because the prop is old!”
“Does it have an X on it? Ooh, look at the Treasure Cave. See any of your coins in there, Lance?” She chuckled and finished looking through pages of pictures from the familiar ride. “I never get tired of this ride. I was going to work there after the Keel Boats ended.” At Adam’s pat on her hand, she quickly added, “No, I’m okay now. Things happen to all of us that aren’t what we expect. We just have to go on whether we like it or not.” She looked over at Lance to see if he got her point, but he was either engrossed in what he was doing or simply ignoring her. She figured it was probably the latter.
She was surprised when Lance challenged her. “Do you really believe that?”
Thinking about her reaction to her job loss and her blow-up at Adam, she answered truthfully, “No. But I should.”
Still not looking up from what he was doing, Lance’s voice was terse and to the point. “Then finish your sermon when you actually believe it.”
Adam was staring at the two pieces of the coin—the real half-piece from Walt and the cheap piece from Tobago—looking at the structure of the skull. It was more detailed than most of the comic skulls used on pirate costumes. The captain’s hat on the Auctioneer, for example, had the skull and crossbones, but the skull was flat with empty eye sockets and a vague outline of teeth. The same design was repeated in other sketches from the famous animator. The coin, on the other hand, had depth to it, as though it was grinning at them, ready to talk. “Ye come seeking adventure and salty old pirates, eh?” Adam began reciting the spiel from the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
“Adam? You all right? You look a million miles away.” Beth was staring intently at him.
“Huh? No, just thinking. Not a million miles. More like ten actually.”
“Do you think we should go back to Disneyland?”
Lance was watching them now. “What are you thinking, Adam?” he demanded.
Adam was frowning, lost in thought. “I don’t know. A hunch? I don’t know. It…” He started to speak and then paused before directing a question to them. “Do you agree Walt was really interested in Pirates when all of this,” indicating the coin and the research material, “was taking place?”
“Yes, it was well known he was.” Lance was short with him. “What’s your point? There were a lot of things going on at the same time, but Pirates was really big. He was involved in every aspect of it, like everything else. He didn’t live to see the opening of the ride, but he was sure working on it as if he could see it finished, at least in his mind.”
Not liking Lance’s attitude, but agreeing with what he said, Beth nodded, waiting to see where Adam was headed.
“Then there might be something in the ride we’re missing. Some link to the next clue. It has to be the coin or the X.”
“The coin led us to Jeremy B. I don’t think that has any bearing anymore.” Lance waved at the computer screen, dismissing it. “In all my research, I couldn’t find another coin like it. I think we need to go forward with the written clue. Walt never did the same thing twice. He always went forward, not backward.”
That was the most they had gotten out of Lance in days. Beth looked to Adam for direction. He shrugged. “Well, let’s t
ry both the X and the skull and crossbones. Let’s see where they’re located in the ride and go from there. Agreed?”
They piled into Adam’s Silverado and headed to Disneyland once more.
They first studied the cartoon-style paintings of famous pirates just inside the entrance of Pirates of the Caribbean, but nothing stood out. The first sighting of the skull and crossbones within the ride was the talking skull above the first waterfall. The skull told them “it be too late to alter course, mateys” and to “keep a weather eye out.” The rest was lost as they plunged down the fifty-two-foot drop, leveling out for a few moments within dark caverns. In another moment, their boat was splashing down the smaller thirty-seven-foot drop. The first two skeletons had nothing on their hats, except for a curious seagull on one of them. In the next scene, the redheaded pirate girl in the painting that hung in the remains of a bar had a vague skull and crossbones painted onto her plumed hat. In the Captain’s Quarters, the skeletal remains of the occupant in the opulent bed was only wearing a bandana, but the gold-trimmed, red velvet headboard had a large detailed skull and bones. No skull and bones were seen in the fight scene or dunking the mayor scene. The auctioneer and the pooped pirate by the barrel had the white flat version of the design on their hats. And they found it also on the drunken pirate on the bridge and in the final shoot-out before riding up the last waterfall and disembarking at Lafitte’s Landing.
Sometimes Dead Men DO Tell Tales! Page 32