8

EVERLY

Present day

Maddox Wagner made me think of a modern-day pirate. He walked with a swagger. His legs were so long that each measured, deliberate step drew the eye. Had arrogance or years spent riding the rise and fall of the sea produced that distinctive gait? Or was it his rimless glasses, unruly white hair, and full beard flecked with tints of red that made me imagine a benign Bluebeard? His broad smile exuded boundless excitement.

“Well, hey there,” he said, approaching me with an outstretched hand.

“Hello.” I couldn’t match his eagerness but shook his hand as if I could. We stood outside in the museum garden, afternoon rain threatening with far-off rumbles and the breeze damp. A yellow-billed cuckoo warbled in the tree above us, a song of Savannah. Swanlike blooms covered the gardenia bushes.

Maddox leaned over and sniffed a white flower. “My God, that’s ambrosia.” He grinned at me. “Isn’t Mother Nature amazing?”

“Sure.” I adjusted my sunglasses, which were slipping down my nose. “You must be Maddox Wagner.”

“I am indeed. And you, I know, are Everly Winthrop. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

I grinned. “Is it 1838 again and I don’t know it?”

As he bellowed with laughter, I thought that everything about him seemed too much: his size, his laugh, the huge canvas bag he carried. “That would be fantastic. Then we could see what really happened. As it is, we must guess and use conjecture. We’re piecing it together.”

He stepped too close and I backed up. “But piecing it together is the greatest challenge and the best fun.” I paused. “Don’t you think?”

“Oh, it is. Why else would I sacrifice my health and my money to scrape and ply the bottom of the sea?”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” I took a few steps toward the museum, motioning for him to follow. “Let’s go inside and talk.”

“Or here?” He patted the concrete bench and sat down; a man who was accustomed to being in charge. “I have everything I need with me. Do you need anything inside?”

“No.” I stared at this man who had invested all his money and spare time into treasure hunting. Or, as some called it, salvaging. Not so different from my sister, who scoured every flea market, empty house and abandoned building for treasure to put in her fancy house. But Maddox was looking below, where no one else could see.

I wasn’t good at guessing ages, but sixties seemed about right. His face was set with the wrinkles and deep lines of a life spent in the sun. This man hadn’t been pampered.

He dropped his bag on the bench between us. “I have so much to tell you.”

“That’s good because I have so much to ask you. I doubt this can be done in a quick sit in the sun.”

“It’s a good place to start.”

“Yes.” I pulled a small recording device from my purse. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Tell me first—do we know for sure this is the Pulaski?”

Maddox’s smile was so big it almost looked forced. “Yes, yes, yes. I knew all along but we needed proof. Everyone always wants proof.” He leaned closer to me. “You do know that all the best things in life can’t be proven, but damn if they don’t always want it.” He dug around in his bag, pulling out stacks of paper and putting them back until he lifted out a single photo. “Proof!”

He held one of the photos that Oliver had shown me, this one a blown-up version showing the iron rust like grains of sand. “This is a luggage tag with Pulaski carved into the iron. I wish you could hold it. Photos never do justice to what we find below.”

“What you find below,” I repeated and he stared at me for a moment before removing my sunglasses. “What are you doing?” I snatched for them, but he held the glasses out of reach. “Give those to me.”

“How am I to know your reaction when I can’t see your eyes? You sounded sad when you said that, but looking at you, I can see you aren’t.” He handed my glasses back to me.

“It doesn’t matter what I feel or don’t feel. What matters are the facts. Please go on.” My voice felt as humid as the air.

“Of course more than facts matter. But that’s a conversation for another time.”

“If I’m going to curate this project, I have to know the details down to the last jot. Get it right.”

“If you’re going to curate this project, you also need to feel. This tag.” He handed the photo to me. “Look closely. One summer afternoon a woman, or a man, or a child boarded the luxurious steamship Pulaski. They’d spent the previous days packing their trunks and valises. They rode in a carriage up to the docks right here in Savannah, the galloping horses becoming filthy with the grime of the sandy roads. They said good-bye to family and friends, waving and calling good wishes. Then a porter came and clipped this tag onto a bag.” He pressed his forefinger onto the photo as if the luggage tag were something he could feel. I saw the dirt under his fingernails, the cracked lines of hard work and salt water. “Then the bag with this tag was taken to their cabin or the bowels of the ship. It could have been a trunk filled with gold coins or family silver, or just hand-sewn gowns. The passengers expected, each and every one of them, to see it in two days’ time on the Baltimore docks. Instead, that bag and that tag have been lying on the bottom of the ocean for one hundred and eighty years. If that doesn’t make you feel something, then, ma’am, you might be the curator with the best reputation but you aren’t the curator for this wreck.”

I slipped my sunglasses back onto my face and made a noise that almost sounded like disgust, although I didn’t mean for it to be so.

“Ms. Winthrop, I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “My enthusiasm sometimes gets the best of me and I can be insensitive.”

“No need for apology. But don’t assume you know me.”

“Of course I don’t. But I did choose you.”

“You did?”

“Yes.” He sat as still as a hunting dog pointing at a bird in the field.

“Why?”

“Because Oliver told me you have one of the finest reputations in the city. What I’m looking for is an exhibit that will bring to life a wreck that has long been ignored, one that changed the history of Savannah, Georgia, when it claimed some of its finest families, when it took both treasure and fortune down with it. A wreck that completely changed maritime law. A calamity. The Southern Titanic. What I’m looking for is someone who understands that what we bring up from below changes things above. I’m looking for someone who can help me show that the past and its stories are important even now.” He stopped abruptly.

I felt the edges of my mouth move up. “That’s all you’re looking for?”

“A tall order, ain’t it?” He leaned forward and I smelled soap, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. “And that’s just the beginning.” Then he settled back on the seat as warm, fat drops of rain began to fall. He didn’t seem to notice as he reached into his pocket. “I have something I wasn’t sure I’d show you. But now I see that I must.”

The rain kissed my neck and shoulders.

Maddox withdrew a tight fist from his pocket. I stared at his hand as he slowly opened it. Resting in his palm there appeared to be a crusty circle encased in barnacles and rust: an artifact that brought Papa to mind: a pocket watch.

I touched its edges. “This belonged to someone who boarded that ship.” I looked up at Maddox.

“Yes, it did,” he confirmed. “And in many ways, it still does.”

I paused with the gravity of it, the past alive in this one artifact. “I wonder if they survived the explosion, the person who owned this watch.” The raindrops fell onto the watch face in his hand.

Maddox closed his fist around the antique as if to protect it, and the quick spurt of storm passed, leaving electric energy: the watch, the conversation, the very rain felt unreal.

Maddox glanced up at the sky. “That was just the first burst. We should get inside.”

We stood and I felt movement under my feet as if I were on the deck of a ship myself. But I wasn’t; it was my life in motion. “I promised my mom I’d meet her for lunch, so I need to go. Can we catch up later?”

“This evening?” he asked. “There’s more to show you.”

“Yes. I’ll meet you at four thirty at the office.” I nodded to the building behind us.

“No. Let’s meet somewhere with food.” He grinned. “The riverfront, exactly where the Pulaski was docked, where our passengers boarded with their watches and their luggage and their hopes and dreams.” He stood and slipped the watch into his pocket. “See you soon.”

A photo remained on the bench, dimpled with rain, and I picked it up to hand to him: the grainy image of a silver candlestick crusted with algae. What luxury had been on board; what beauty had sunk with a single explosion.

He tucked it into his bag and then left me in the museum garden, my hair and clothes damp, my heart hammering, and a sense of expectation rising like heat I hadn’t felt in a long while.