Chapter Fourteen

~

Three days after they arrived, Chris called Sarah and invited her to come with him. It would be his first visit to Barney’s in weeks. There were three things he wanted to see. The first two had arrived by boat. Chris would’ve given anything to have been there the day they were harnessed and then lifted three stories above the clay bluffs to be placed gently on the rolling lawn above. Fortunately, a photographer for the newspaper had been there, and Chris had cut out the photos of the giant beasts looking somewhat annoyed, but ultimately bemused by their new surroundings.

“They’re beautiful,” Sarah conceded as the two stood outside the now completed enclosure, watching the two giraffes browse the acacia planted in abundance in their vicinity.

“They are,” Chris agreed. “They truly are.”

The animals occasionally nuzzled each other’s necks, but mostly kept to themselves on opposite sides of their pen.

“How tall are they?” Sarah asked.

“The shorter one’s the cow,” Chris answered. “Guess she’s about fifteen feet. Taller one’s the bull, and he’s about seventeen.”

“Wow,” Sarah said. “Stupid question, but why on earth do they have such long necks?”

Chris smiled. “Not so stupid, really. There’s actually some debate about that. The obvious answer would be they developed them to graze on tall foliage, giving them an advantage. But one day, someone noticed they hardly ever did that. Mostly, they bend over like they’re doing now to graze on stuff closer to the ground.”

“So what do they think now?” Sarah asked.

Chris was embarrassed to answer, but figured what the hell.

“Now, they think it might be sexual. Before they mate, the bulls engage in these battles with their necks to see who’s more dominant. The bigger and more powerful the neck, the more dominant the male. Plus, the male sniffs the female’s pee to see if she’s ready to have a kid. Again, the longer the neck, the better advantage the bull has.”

“Kinky,” Sarah said, smiling.

Chris smiled too. “Hey, you know us guys. We’ll do just about anything …”

After Sarah whacked him gently on the arm, the two leaned on the fence in companionable silence a while before Chris decided it was time to broach the subject.

“You know, there’s something else I want to show you. I haven’t even seen it myself yet. But before I do, you have to cross-your-heart and hope-to-die promise you’ll keep it to yourself.”

“Sounds kinky,” Sarah said.

It was Chris’s turn to swat her on the arm. “I’m serious. I mean, I can’t tell you everything because there’s … well … the possibility that some of it might be illegal.” He wondered if that was the understatement of the year before going on. “But before I say anything, you gotta cross your heart.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Okay. I cross my heart.”

Chris didn’t believe her because, for one thing, she didn’t cross her heart. After making her do that and then making her say hope-to-die, the two left the giraffe pen and walked across the wide expanse of lawn toward the boat house.

Along the way, they passed the grazing llamas, and Chris thought something about them looked curious. After a moment, he realized they’d been shorn of all their hair. He wondered about that, not remembering if that was something the zoologists did every summer, perhaps to keep them cool. He smiled to think he was pretty sure Barney wasn’t making sweaters. Then again, with him, anything was possible.

Halfway there, they began to hear banging and shouts and the sounds of construction from within the boathouse.

“Sounds like they’re building something,” Sarah said.

Chris smiled. “You have no idea,” he replied.

~

Their eyes needed little time to adjust from the bright sunshine outside to the brilliant overhead lights inside the boathouse. The sleek yacht Pamela occupied the slip nearest the door they had entered, yet even she was dwarfed by the size of the boathouse. Looking up, Chris saw on the bow of the Pamela stood white uniformed officers, sipping coffee and leaning over the rail to watch something happening off their port side. Chris began leading Sarah down the metal stairways that led to the gangways that led to the slips.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked, shouting a little to be heard over the banging and clanging echoing throughout the building. Chris didn’t know quite where to begin.

“Remember that ship I found in the sand?” he said. “The one I told you about?”

He watched her nod as the two walked beneath Pamela’s sharp prow. Once beyond it, they had an unobstructed view across to the far end of the boathouse. There, in the farthermost of the three slips, hovering in the air like a spectral ghost ship, was the Lady Grace herself.

It took Chris a moment to realize she wasn’t really floating in the air, but was propped up by a slipway. On her near side, the starboard, huge beams were spaced at an angle every few feet that pressed against her hull. Her port side rested on a series of ramps spaced evenly apart. The effect was that the opposing forces kept the ship level – and airborne – while being constructed. Well, reconstructed, he thought. It soon became obvious to him that when she was ready to float, it was simply a matter of greasing the ramps, opening the floor to the open sea, and removing the beams that held her aloft. She would then slide down the ramps and plop gently into the water. He guessed that was the idea, anyway. But he smiled to think that if the men on the Pamela happened to be sipping coffee on their bow that day, they had better have brought a change of clothes.

But what astonished Chris the most was the hull appeared almost complete. The side not visible to him now had been mostly intact when he’d found it, and though he couldn’t see it, he assumed work had been done to bolster, repair, or replace much of that ancient wood. But the side that was visible to him, the starboard, hadn’t been there at all only a few short weeks ago. Now, only a few small patches of yellowish lumber and plywood peeked through here and there revealing the repairs. The rest of her was black.

Among the dozens of workers scurrying here and there was a man who remained stationary in the middle of the now covered middle slip, stirring a boiling cauldron of something or other. Chris recognized it was the African pirate named John. He never seemed to talk much – in fact, Chris couldn’t remember him uttering a single word – but he seemed well respected by his pirate peers.

He watched John pull the stick from the goo and sniff it before letting it drip back into the pot. Evidently unsatisfied with something, he reached into a bucket by his side and dropped fistfuls of fur or hair into the steaming pot and stirred it again. Chris realized that explained the tar-like smell he’d noticed when entering the boathouse. He remembered from his night of Internet sleuthing that ships of this age often had two layers of planking. The outer layer took most of the wear and tear and was easily replaced. A mixture of pitch and animal hair was slathered in between layers to keep worms from infesting the hull. That was no doubt the substance the men on ladders were plastering all over the ship. He smiled to realize it solved another mystery too, that of the llamas missing hair. Turning to Sarah, he saw her eyes were wide.

“She’s called the Lady Grace,” Chris said. “She sank in a storm back in the seventeen-hundreds. Barney is … well, he’s bankrolling the rebuilding. But like I said, it’s real secret. Can’t leave this room. Okay?” He watched her smile.

“Hope to die,” she answered, with wonder in her voice.

Chris smiled too before grabbing her arm. “Come on. Let’s check it out.”

They began making their way across the gangway toward the ship. From the ground, they saw far more activity than met the naked eye above. All around them was a symphony of sound: endless banging and shouts and the sound of machines. In one corner, longtime Rumpster Fred Granger worked a band saw, cutting dowels into smaller pieces and dropping them into a basket below. A man standing nearby waited for the basket. When it was filled, he ran off with it. Moments later, another man showed up with an empty basket and the cycle repeated. Chris pointed.

“He’s making the nails,” he said. “They’re building the ship exactly as it would’ve been built back in the day. Real nails were hard to come by, so most of these ships were built with what were called tree nails, made of wood.”

Beyond Fred and his machine were a dozen cots, half of them now occupied by sleeping and snoring men who seemed oblivious to the noise around them. It was a true twenty-four hour operation, Chris realized, and it was smart to give the men a place to rest. To the right of the cots was a food station, where women were handing out sandwiches or hot meals to the dozen or so men waiting in line.

Beyond that sat women at long tables running sewing machines. Chris smiled to see hovering nearby were the Holcombe sisters, the ladies Hornblossom had so charmed in church on Easter Sunday. They appeared to be in charge of the women making pants, shirts, and other garments for the pirate’s journey home. If they hadn’t already, Chris knew at some point, these women and machines would be tasked with sewing together dozens of canvas tarps into arrays of sail.

He recognized most everybody. It seemed like more than half the town was here. He saw Paul Wilson and Ron Fernald, and the fishermen, Clem and Perry. At one point, Chris caught the eye of the inn’s handyman, Bill Foley, who had turned from the food counter and was carrying a sandwich and some coffee back to one of the tables. Upon seeing Chris, Bill winked and smiled. There was nothing for Chris to do but wink and smile back. Moments later, they heard a shout from above.

“H’lo down there!”

Looking up, Chris and Sarah saw a blackened something holding a paintbrush and bucket waving at them from a ladder beneath the hull of the Lady Grace. Chris turned to Sarah at the same moment she turned to him, and they both said it at the same time.

“Billy.”

Laughing, by the time they turned back, Billy had already scampered down the ladder and was now heading toward them. Covered in the mixture of black tar and hair, he looked like a creature from another world.

“You oughta be more careful with that stuff, you know.” Sarah said.

Billy smiled. So did Chris when he saw the whiteness of Billy’s teeth – which weren’t all that white to begin with – standing in stark contrast to the blackness of his face.

“Don’ know ‘bout that,” Billy replied playfully. “Because every time I’m careful, I get yelled at. ‘Slap it lib’rally!’ they say, so that’s what I’m doin’.”

“I can’t believe how much progress you’ve made,” Chris said.

Billy turned to appraise the ship. “Don’ quite believe it meself. Course, there’s still another layer of plankin’ to do. But the cap’n, he be driven. An’ with all the help we’re gettin’ from yer townsfolk, I expect we may jes make it.”

Just then, they heard another shout from above. This one had an edge of cruelty in it.

“Get yer arse back up here boy,” it said. “Don’ recall anyone sayin’ it be break time.”

Chris recognized the voice by the time he looked up. Even beneath the blackness and the fur he would have recognized Sykes’ sneer, the man who would be captain. If anything, Chris thought, Sykes appeared even more covered in hairy goo than Billy. He wondered a moment if this lowly, backbreaking work was continued punishment for his attempted mutiny, and of course he knew it was. But Billy just smiled.

“He’s right, ya know. Gotta get back!”

He had already turned when Sarah asked him, “When are we going to see you again?” He was a rung or two up the ladder when he answered.

“Saturday night. Hear tell there be a frightenin’ exhibition of dangerous beasties down the green.”

Chris and Sarah turned to each other, then both understood at the same time and smiled. Jurassic Park.

“Anyhow,” Billy went on, halfway up the ladder now. “Captain says we complete the pitchin’ an’ he’ll spare us the evenin’. So, Lord willin’, I’ll see ya then!”

Chris took one last look around. He really wanted a peek inside the ship, but that could wait for another time.

“Well,” he said. “We should probably go. Don’t want to get in the way.”

Sarah nodded, and the two started back the way they had come.

~

The bells on the door jingled as Lucas stepped out of Liberty Coin. The visit had made him more certain than ever there was a counterfeiting ring on the Rump. He’d already concluded by deduction that the Rump was the only place he could have acquired the coins that ended up in his pocket. Might’ve been McGarvey’s. Or maybe Annie’s Variety. Hell, it could have been the Cove for all he knew. But he knew now that whoever it was, they were getting sloppy.

After walking into the coin shop, a man stepped out from the back office to greet him at the counter. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Can I help you?”

Lucas removed the coins from his breast pocket and set them on the counter. The man took one glance at them before he spoke.

“Peruvian. Eight reale,” he said.

That was all. The man seemed almost bored by them, as if reciting the facts by rote. There was more going on here than met the eye, Lucas realized then. But he wasn’t yet ready to show his hand.

“I gotta say, you don’t seem all that surprised,” Lucas said, keeping his voice neutral. To his surprise, the man smiled.

“Buddy, these are showing up all over the place.”

Lucas knew that, but tried not to let it show.

“In fact,” the coin dealer went on. “You’re, oh, I don’t know, the tenth or eleventh person to come in here with these in the last month. It’s almost as if …” He stopped as if he didn’t want to say anything more.

Lucas didn’t want to play hardball, but would if he had to.

“Go on,” he said.

The man actually blushed. “Well … it’s stupid I know, but it’s almost like they’re being used as some sort of currency. I mean, they are everywhere. Everywhere! Got one myself just the other day. Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

You and me both, brother, Lucas thought, as the man went on.

“But hell, there’ve been so many new coins lately, I can see how people might get confused. First, it was Susan B. Anthony, then Sacagawea. Now, they’ve got that presidents series. Have you seen those? Got a James K. Polk recently handed to me as change. James K. Polk! I’m telling you, if James K. Polk can get himself on a dollar, then anyone can.”

Lucas had no opinion on James K. Polk and so remained silent. Instead, he reached into his pocket for his notepad.

“Would you mind telling me exactly when the first of these showed up, and the names of the people who came in with them?”

The man got suddenly less chatty. “Can’t say as I got any names, but … wait. Come to think of it, I did get one, and it was the first of them I saw. I remember because he was only a kid. Came in here about a month, maybe a month and a half ago.”

“A kid, you say?” Lucas asked. Curiouser and curiouser.

“That’s right. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Had some kind of speech impediment too, or maybe it was a funny accent of some sort. Hell, I don’t remember. But he said he got the coin from his grandfather.”

Lucas was getting impatient. “The name?” he asked.

The man searched his mind. “Said it was … William … no. Wait. Not that. Billy was what he said. Billy Grey. Blond kid. Seemed okay.”

Lucas wrote down the name and closed his notebook. After taking the coins from the counter, he thanked the man for his time and turned for the door.

“Wait! Don’t you wanna know more about the coin?” the man asked.

Lucas kept walking. He’d already had his suspicions confirmed: Peruvian, worth eight whatevers in Peru. Worth nothing here. Less than nothing, he thought. Being passed off as dollars on the Rump. Maybe even hitting the mainland, if what the coin guy said was true. This was big. Really big. Clever boy, this Billy Grey. Hell, maybe grandpa was in on it too.

He thought for a moment it might be time to bring this matter to his superiors, maybe even the Feds. But there was that little matter of him sitting on it for several weeks, and he just couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not yet anyway. He needed an ironclad case before he brought it to anyone. And though he’d never heard the name before and didn’t know the kid, he’d keep his ear to the ground. Boy, would he keep his ear to the ground.

~

The article was waiting on the kitchen table when Chris got home. Cut out of the newspaper with scissors, it spanned two pages. Above the article on the first page was a photo of a smiling Arthur Cobb. On the inside page was a photo of some loot laid out on his coffee table. Chris almost smiled to realize that Arthur hadn’t shared any of these finds with him: a sword, some daggers, bits and pieces of other stuff. Most of all, there was the bell. The ship’s bell. This was big, he knew. This was really big.

Cobb had absolutely no idea what he was getting himself involved in, Chris thought. But he would do what he could anyway. Still, after reading the article, Chris couldn’t help it, and the word escaped his lips before he could stop it.

“Bastard,” he said.

He noticed only then that a corner of the first page had been turned down. Turning it up, he saw a word written in the corner in his mother’s handwriting.

“Bastard,” it read.

~