by Paul Lally
‘Affirmative.’
I patted the familiar lump in my right pants pocket, and then thought about her five hundred dollars cash, safe and sound back in the office. No matter what happened, I was ahead of the game.
‘Lead on, Captain Kidd.’
Orlando helped Ziggy navigate through the chest high bushes, but it wasn’t easy and the huffing, puffing little agent complained constantly as he dodged the sharp thorns.
Finally I said, ‘Pretend you’re an actor in Treasure Island.’
‘I’d rather be watching it with popcorn instead.’
After a half-hour’s struggle, we arrived at the palm tree in question and compared both of our compasses to determine south.
Ava took a few steps, turned and said, ‘I wonder how long a stride it was back then.’
I said, ‘I’m tall, Ziggy’s short. We’ll do it together and average the distance.’
With Ava counting the paces, Ziggy and I started shoulder to shoulder and I soon outpaced him. When we both stopped, she picked a spot that averaged where each of us had ended, and with her heel, made a crude ‘X’ in the hard-packed sand.
Her eyes danced with excitement. ‘Curtain up.’
We worked in teams of two: Ziggy and me then Ava and Orlando. Our first hole took about an hour. We managed to get six feet down before we hit water. The second took longer. The third, where Ziggy had stopped, took the longest. We didn’t talk much. What was there to say? Just bend and dig, bend and dig.
Orlando and Ava were at it when sea water began seeping into the hole again.
‘Nothing here either,’ he said.
Ava didn’t answer. She kept studying the map, brows furrowed, mouth pursed in thought. The sun, now moving into late afternoon, ducked behind a rising line of darkening cumulus.
I pointed to the sky. ‘I suggest we set up camp before the storm hits.’
She said, ‘What storm? It’s beautiful out.’
‘In about a half hour it won’t be.’
She stared into the empty hole. ‘I’m not happy about this.’
I studied her map. The drawing, though faint, was straightforward: two palm trees. Direct line, fifteen paces south from the second one. Child’s play.
‘Close, but no cigar.’
Ava said, ‘The only way to know for sure is to dig a five foot trench all the way along that line.’
‘By hand? It’ll take forever.’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘So?’
‘So, I’m a pilot, not a ditch digger.’
‘Fine. Ziggy and I will do it. You and Orlando can sit on your lazy asses and watch us count gold coins and know that you’ll not see a single one of them.’
‘How do you know they’re coins?’
A tiny hesitation. She glanced at the map. ‘I’m assuming they are. Maybe pearls and diamonds, too.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
She threw down the shovel. ‘Listen, captain, if I were kidding you’d be laughing about now, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, are you?’
‘I’m about to laugh at how stupid this is. Four adults digging in the sand like kids, pretending we’re going to find buried treasure.’
She snatched the map back. ‘Your problem is that if you don’t see it you don’t believe it.’
‘So?’
‘When I believe it, that’s when I see it.’
‘Who’s right so far?’
She poked my chest. ‘You are. But we’re not done yet, not by a long shot.’
A distant rumble of thunder cut off my wise guy response. Instead I said, ‘I suggest we continue this discussion after the storm.’
She spun around, picked up her shovel and stomped off.
Florida thunderstorms in August are not what you experience if you live in say, Virginia or Tennessee or Iowa. When they hit down here, it’s the one time I’m transported back to the inner wilds of Brazil, or Venezuela, or any of the South American countries I flew for Pan Am. Rain there is more solid than liquid. Sure, you can walk through it and fly through it, but the sheer force of it slamming into you or your airplane makes you think twice before doing so.
I’ve had engines drown when flying through a heavy thunderstorm cell. I’ve been right side up one second, and upside down the next from the winds packed inside their dark grey hearts. Snow I can handle but rain I respect.
That’s why when we got back to the beach, I realized it was too late to pitch any kind of camp. We had to take shelter inside the plane. Good thing we did, because Orlando and I barely had time to lash the wings to the dead man tie-downs we’d dug in the sand before the storm hit.
We tumbled inside just as the cold spatters began multiplying like angry hornets until they became a steady, drumming roar on the cabin roof. The stuffy, humid heat of the day surrendered to cold gusts of wind dumping down on us from tens of thousands of feet in the air.
Ziggy shivered. ‘I can’t remember when I’ve had a more wonderful time.’
‘Did anyone ever tell you, you talk too much?’ Ava said.
‘My mother and you.’
The four of us huddled in the cabin, me perched on a food crate, Orlando on the floor, Ava and Ziggy in the two wicker passenger seats. The drumming sound of the rain on the roof made conversation impossible. Maybe that was providential. Each of us had plenty to think about. As for me, I spent time on what I call ‘connecting the dots.’ It’s a mental exercise I do that helps me find order in the midst of a problem that seems to be happening because of random occurrences, but in fact is not.
It saved my life more than once in a plane when, in the midst of some heart stopping crisis I was able to solve things smoothly and efficiently, because I could quickly connect the dots between whatever the emergency was at the moment, straight back to its originating source and take action.
For example, a failing engine could be traced to a lack of oil. Cut power, feather the prop, and re-trim the aircraft. Problem solved. A tail-heavy plane that won’t climb is traced to a screwed-up loading. Apply power, maintain altitude, and if impossible, start looking for a place to land. And make it FAST.
In this manner I connected the dots between leaving Providence, Rhode Island in a beat-up seaplane, getting forced down in Washington and spending the night in a Nazi jail. Then I continued skipping from one dot to the next until I arrived here, staring at Ava James’ neatly arranged tennis shoes she’d taken off to dry.
Everything looked normal, but I could feel trouble brewing. Something in the way she sat there, shoulders back, hands in her lap, made me think she was waiting for something I couldn’t see, but I sure could feel it. Time to connect some more dots.
‘So how’d that gold get here in the first place?’ I said.
She glanced at me, and then looked away. ‘They buried it.’
‘I mean the story behind it.’
She shook her head. ‘When you see it, you’ll believe it, remember?’
‘Be nice. I’m trying your way for a change.’
She gave me sharp look, took a deep breath and said, ‘Let me just say this; when we find it, it’s going to change a lot more lives than mine.’
‘How?’
She examined her fingernails instead of saying anything more.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ I finally said.
‘No, it’s just that I’ve got orders to do this the way it’s been planned. I can’t change it.’
‘Orders? What are you talking about? What plan?’
Ziggy interrupted. ‘Your honor, what my client is trying to tell the court is that she can’t spill the beans until certain conditions are met. Like finding the gold, for instance, right, darling?’
She nodded.
‘And if we don’t?’ I said.
Ava said, ‘Then you fly us back to Key West, and you and everybody else in America lives happily ever after underneath Nazi hobnail boots.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here, soaking wet, looking for that god-damned gold.’
‘This has got something to do with the war?’
She turned into a sphinx.
I said, ‘We’re going to find that gold. I know it.’
She leaned forward and gave me the once over. ‘Change your mind?’
‘No, but I’m acting like it.’
After the storm passed we pitched camp near the plane. Tents for Ava and Ziggy, Mosquito netting over the wing for Orlando and me. And while Ziggy was all thumbs trying to pitch tents, he made up for it by being a great firewood scrounger, arriving with generous armload of twigs and thick roots.
Within minutes he had coaxed the wood into flame, and soon had it hot enough to make a bed of coals. Meanwhile Orlando and I went off to catch some fish. Not two minutes after casting our lines baited with shrimp, he got a strike.
‘Hallelujah,’ he said softly.
The reel screeched as the fish took hold and started fighting. But it didn’t last long. Never met a fish that could beat Orlando. I waded out into the shallow water to net it.
‘Let it go, brother,’ he said. ‘Bonefish.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘By feel.’
‘No way.’
‘Want to bet?’
‘No.’
Moments later the silvery bonefish lay twisting in the net. One of the best fighters around, but terrible eating. Orlando grabbed it by the gills while I removed the hook. The fish flashed away into the shallow blue waters.
‘Wished they tasted as good as they looked,’ Orlando said.
I examined the low-lying brush and palm trees that dotted the beach line. ‘What’s with this place? I’ve never seen it on a map.’
‘Keys come and keys go.’
‘Look at the size of it. Something this big belongs on a map.’
‘Not on any I’ve ever seen.’
‘Except Ava’s.’
‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’
I cast my line into the water. ‘Let’s hope he gives us a real Treasure Island.’
Orlando didn’t say anything. Instead he busied himself opening a can of sardines.
‘That trick never works,’ I said.
‘Never works for you, you mean.’
He took two sardines, broke them in two, rubbed them in the palm of his hands and then swished his hands in the water.
He crooned, ‘Come and get it, little friends.’
Then he baited his hook with a whole sardine and smoothly cast it nearly on top of mine.
‘Find your own place,’ I grumped.
‘Don’t worry, won’t be here but a minute.’
Five minutes later, a pile of plump mangrove snappers lay flopping and twisting on the beach, their coppery-red skin the color of the sunset now blazing in the western sky. Unable to resist the sardine oil, they had struck Orlando’s line almost immediately. So fierce was the feeding frenzy that even I managed to land a few.
The trick to catching snapper is to not set the hook when the fish first bites. If you do you’ll be looking at an empty hook. Instead, slowly lift the line, tempting the fish to attack it even harder. And if you’re lucky, it will.
We cleaned and dressed the fish in the seawater.
I said, ‘Know any scripture for helping us find buried gold?’
Orlando thought for a moment. ‘How about ‘Thou shalt not steal?’’
‘This isn’t stealing, it’s finding.’
‘That gold belongs to its rightful owner, not us.’
I grabbed a clutch of fish and stomped away, saying over my shoulder, ‘Don’t you ever stop preaching?’
He just smiled and kept working.
To my surprise, Ziggy was as good a cook as he was making a fire. I was going to rustle up a simple camp supper, but when he caught sight of our fish, he clapped his hands with glee and took charge. Before we knew it, we were eating herb-crusted, baked fish, spring potatoes, and fresh corn. And just before we started he scampered off to a shady spot and dug up two bottles of white wine he’d had cooling there. He even brought wine glasses and poured like a sommelier.
‘Compliments of the house,’ Ziggy said.
Ava lifted her glass. ‘To buried treasure.’
We drank.
Ava lifted her glass again, her face suddenly somber in the flickering firelight. ‘To the United States of America. May she triumph and prosper over all adversity.’
‘Amen and alleluia,’ Orlando said.
The hard and hopeless work of the day soon gave way to the pleasure of Ziggy’s perfectly cooked meal and crisp white wine. We ate in happy silence; the best compliment you can give a chef. While we finished off the second bottle of wine, the clear night sky filled with stars.
I broke the silence. ‘Storm brought some good weather behind it.’
‘Billions of stars,’ Ava said.
I pointed out the ones used for navigation: blue-white Sirius, bright yellow Capella, Cassiopeia, and the North Star.
‘How do you keep track of them all?’ she said.
‘Same way you remember your dialogue. Practice.’
‘Running lines is a lot easier than taking a star sighting in the middle of the Pacific,’ she said.
‘I’ve done it many a time.’
‘Ever get lost?’
‘Sure.’
‘What’d you do?’
‘Figured it out. Otherwise we’d end up in the drink.’
‘We’re flying blind now.’
‘Not finding it, you mean?’
She nodded.
By now Orlando and Ziggy were rigging the tents for sleep. I took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘Does finding this have to do with that toast you made about the United States?’
To her credit, only her eyes gave her away. ‘You’re getting warmer.’
‘Spill the beans.’
‘Rules are rules, captain.’ She stood up and brushed sand off her beautiful bottom. I confess I didn’t look away.
‘We start again at first light,’ she said.
She thrust her shoulders back, rolled her neck and then, like a panther stretching after a meal, she bent over in a smooth motion of touching her toes and groaned.
‘I am so out of shape it’s a crime.’
‘You don’t look it.’
She punched my arm lightly. ‘You don’t look it either.’
‘Trust me, there’s not a joint that’s not aching.’
Sleep came fast. One moment I was staring at the night sky through the mosquito net, the next, oblivion. What woke me up I’ll never know. All I remember is that the stars re-appeared, only this time the familiar ones had moved slightly because of the earth’s rotation. I raised up on an elbow. My motion awakened Orlando instantly, who slept as lightly as a cat.
‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered.
‘Heard something. I’ll be back.’
I slipped out of the netting we’d rigged beneath the plane’s wing and made my way up the beach to Ava and Ziggy’s tents pitched near the brush line. Both were closed and dark. The fire was long dead and all I could hear was the soft lapping of water on the beach. Then I heard the other sound again. I followed it into the underbrush and came upon the path that led to where we’d been working during the day. The sound grew louder as I grew closer, and within minutes I spotted Ava digging furiously, some distance away from where we had failed.
‘What’s going on?’ I said.
She kept digging and said, ‘I’m kicking myself for not figuring it out.’
‘Figuring what out?’
‘The map was reversed. On purpose. To trick us. And it sure as hell did. This is where they buried it all along. I just know it.’
A loud thump instead of the scratchy sand sounds.
‘My God!’
The hole was about three feet deep. I grabbed a shovel and joined her in clearing away the remaining dirt. The faster we worked the
faster she talked.
‘I was looking at the map in front of the fire after Ziggy turned in. I put it down to do something, and then picked it up again and got confused. The handwriting didn’t make sense, and then realized I was looking at it from the other side. Look. Like this.’
She pulled out the map. Her small penlight wavered and wobbled as she shined it from behind. ‘I didn’t think anything of it. Went to sleep, but then woke up suddenly and it came to me. The words are reversed.’
‘So?’
‘Look at the very bottom. On this side it looks like waves around the island, right? Like squiggles. But what does it look like on your side?
The shadow of Ava’s finger traced the spot in question. I looked closer. ‘It says ‘TURN OVER MAP’.’
She laughed. ‘And I did, and they buried it here. The treasure’s here!’
I played her penlight over the surface of the dirt-covered chest. Three feet wide by four feet long. How deep, I didn’t know yet.
‘We need help,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back.’
I returned with Orlando, some rope and sleepy, complaining Ziggy. ‘This couldn’t wait until morning?’
Ava had already widened the hole considerably. She stared into it, her arms folded, head bowed.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
She didn’t say anything. Just handed me her penlight and pointed. I played the beam over sand and rocks at first, and then a skeletal hand and a scrap of cloth poking out from the side of the hole.
Ziggy said, ‘Tell me this is a bad dream.’
I said, ‘They must have killed one of their own.’
Ava said softly. ‘Dead men tell no tales.’
I carefully covered the hand with a shovelful of sand. ‘Rest in peace, old fellow.’
Working in somber silence, we widened the hole around the chest, being careful not to disturb the dead man’s resting place. Then we dug down three more feet before we reached the bottom of the chest. If filled with gold coins it would weigh a ton. Fortunately we had brought along a crane for just such a contingency: Orlando Diaz.
We dug two tunnels beneath the chest, snaked lines through, and back up to the top. Then, with each of us holding an end, we gave a heave and it rocked slightly, but that was it. Orlando tied off my end to a nearby palm tree. Then he took his end in one hand, looped it over his shoulders and grabbed it with his other hand. He squatted like a weightlifter, took a deep breath and dead lifted. The chest came free with a crunching, sucking sound. The four of us managed to wrestle it up and out of the hole.