Dark water roiled on a dark night. Whitecaps appeared as if ether-born in the howling distance. Miss Dotsy wallowed under two and a half tons of cargo she was never built to carry. She plowed through the waves instead of gliding over them. With just one rogue broadsider, she would ship too much water and join the Nantucket Lance on the bottom.
Ellis had the helm. Ben kept watch on the cargo lest it shift. He also kept an eye out for other boats. None so far.
Ellis said. “Daylight in three hours. You have a plan?”
Ben hesitated to divulge too much to Knocker Ellis. The culler was a closed book. The ultimate unknown quantity. Ben had never asked Ellis to talk about Dick Blackshaw, and Ellis had never volunteered. He was not the type to yarn about the past over a beer. He damn sure wasn’t a gossip. It felt as though Ellis had known the corpse was Dick Blackshaw before Ben told him so. And working that particular oyster rock on that particular day had been Knocker Ellis’s suggestion. Ellis had too many secrets. For now, Ben told Ellis only where they were headed, and no more. “Deep Banks Island.”
Ellis involuntarily wrinkled his nose at the thought of their destination.
Ben smiled weakly. “Yep. The heron rookery there stinks to high heaven. Decades of guano. Nobody but bird watchers go there this time of year. And not in this weather. Not until the Christmas count.”
Ellis set a course to the north. He eyed the cargo. “We have at least three rhinoceri that we’re not talking about sitting in the corner.”
Ben had to yell over the engine and the wind. “Which one first? The full count of the gold? Your split? The bomb? Reckon we can safely call it a bomb.”
Ellis smiled. “How come we’re taking that damn gizmo along with us to Deep Banks Island? I thought you liked Nature, you being the big waterman, the fancy wildlife artiste and whatnot. Way I see it? There won’t be any split besides atoms with that bomb on this boat.”
Already exhausted, Ben spoke through clenched teeth. “Ellis, I’m working on it.”
Deep Banks Island lay north of the Martin Wildlife Refuge, which itself formed the northern landmass of the Smith Island archipelago. Ben navigated through a convoluted snarl of guts and streams into the heart of the island. With Miss Dotsy so weighed down, she could barely penetrate the smaller, shallower waterways as far as Ben wanted. Finally, he saw what looked like a dead sapling jammed in the mud directly off Miss Dotsy’s port beam. With almost all forward motion halted and her wheel churning up mud plumes in the water by the stern, Miss Dotsy was essentially aground. He cut the Atomic Four.
They sat still for a moment with the engine silent. Listening, letting their ears get used to the darkness, and their eyes to the silence. Hunters understood the need to allow all the senses recalibrate after a change in the immediate environment. The engine clicked and pinged as it cooled. Otherwise, they heard nothing but marsh and wind. The scratch of reed stalks against each other. In the distance, the ratching call of a heron waking. The stench of the rookery, pungent with ammonia, made their eyes water.
The tiny stream threading through the reeds off to the left was the on-ramp of a poacher’s highway running through many of the protected islands in the Chesapeake. Though wildlife sanctuaries were off limits to all hunters, Smith Islanders looked askance at banishment from their ancestral stalking grounds. Just below the surface of the water at low tide, a series of planks led into ponds and meadows where geese and ducks rested, perfectly set up for both the silent attack, and the poacher’s quick retreat. Without knowledge of this system of planks, staked-out Natural Resources Police were always mired to a halt, and rarely made an arrest in here.
His strength draining away from the long night, and sensing the early physical signs of Hell Week back in Coronado, Ben stepped over the side. “That tree marks the way in.”
They carried the first box between them, sliding their feet along the slimy planks inches at a time. Ben and Ellis soon disappeared in among the reeds, the skunk cabbage, dying lizard’s tail and joe-pye weed growing on all sides. Under immense stress from their combined weight, the old planks bowed and rocked with each step. They nearly toppled over more than once.
Slowly they emerged from the marshy land into a hollow sheltered by a loose stand of pines. They lowered the box onto sandy soil mixed with guano. The heron rookery stench was overwhelming. They hated to breathe, despite being badly winded. Every molecule of air was weapons-grade, and would have had doughboys reaching for gas-masks in the trenches of Ypres. Above them, more than a hundred herons stirred, squawked, and canted their sleek plumed heads for a view of the visitors.
“Only nineteen to go.” Ellis the optimist. “This’s some kind of stank.”
As if on cue, Lonesome George glided down to a landing on his thin legs.
Ben said, “Supervisor’s here.”
Lonesome George watched them grunt through the labor, probably wondering when his oyster alms would appear.
They blotted kerchiefs at their watering eyes. Back again to Miss Dotsy. Hauling the second box of gold, Ellis’s foot slipped off the hogged top of the sunken board. He did not let go of the box. Its weight pile-drove his leg deep into the mud and pinned him. Ben was almost dragged off the board after him, but held on tight. Ben slowly pulled the box back onto the plank. Planting his feet on the slippery board, he hooked his arms under Ellis’s shoulders, bear-hugging his chest. It took precious minutes of heaving to lever Ellis’s leg out of the ooze. From sheer main strength it came free with a wet sucking sound.
Ellis rasped, “Thanks.”
“Protecting our investment.”
“Mistook you for a Christian.”
“That so?”
“Maybe I mistook you for a friend.”
Ben did not answer. Until he knew more about Ellis’s involvement in all this, there was no room for loftier sentiments.
Gasping and retching from the stench, they slogged the plankway seventeen more times. The distance from the boat to the rookery hollow seemed to grow ever longer. Normal-length sentences between the men were compressed down into quick phrases under the weight of gold.
Ben said, “Rhinoceri.”
“The split. The money.” Ellis led first with this box, but walked backward to keep a better grip on it.
Ben knew this was coming. “What you figure?”
Knocker Ellis gasped one word. “Half.”
Ben said, “The way I figure—”
Ellis put in more. “You figure this, Ben. I’m taking half the risk. Breaking my back here for half of a dead man’s dream.”
Ben took a few more steps, waited to be sure Ellis had finished. Then he nodded. “I was saying, the way I figure—half’s good.”
Ellis eyed his partner. Shook his head. “Should have asked for more.”
“No. Very bad idea.”
“Who knows? Your old man might’ve been bringing the whole lot of it to me.”
Ben asked, “Is that what he told you?”
Ellis said nothing more.
The last box was lighter than the others, but not by much. It contained the bomb. They put it down by the others. Ellis gave Ben a What now? glance.
Ben shrugged. “It’s a pirate’s treasure. What else? We bury it.”