Read Online Matt Drake 11 - The Ghost Ships of Arizona by David Leadbeater - Free Book Online

for days, at last spotting and then capturing it. The Santa Anna struck her colors and then the English swarmed aboard, taking enough treasure to fill both their ships. Cavendish did allow the Spaniards food, water and weapons and put them ashore, then he set fire to the Santa Anna , before sailing away to continue their voyage across the Pacific. The Content was never heard from again. The Desire spent the remainder of her voyage hiding from every skirmish.”
    “Never heard from again?” Drake repeated. “How could that be with a ship carrying so much loot?”
    “Is anybody else here wondering how a Spanish galleon ended up wandering the friggin’ desert?” Smyth grouched. “And especially how this English entrepreneur and privateer sounds like nothing more than a marauding pirate?”
    “Ships being marooned in the desert is not unheard of,” Drake said. “Storms. Great tidal bores. Even hurricanes and typhoons can deposit ships miles away from where they were. And that includes onto solid ground.”
    “A tidal bore is most likely in this area,” Karin stated.
    Now Smyth shook his head. “I’m lost again. What’s a tidal bore?”
    “A wall of water moving fast up the stream bed.” Karin finished her coffee and deposited the cup in the bin. “The Gulf of California’s topography, incoming tides and river outflow produced the potential for unparalleled tidal bores. The basin was more than two hundred and seventy feet below sea level, perfect for flood waters. The flood could have skipped the land barrier, cresting over the natural dam and down into the Salton or Cahuilla Sea. In addition, it seems that the Salton Sea and Gulf of California were once connected.”
    Drake whistled. “I bet those poor sailors had a bit of a shock.”
    “Early surfers,” Lauren agreed. “But without the boards.”
    “I never heard of such a great tidal flood,” Smyth said with suspicion. “Surely it can’t only have happened that one time.”
    “These days a tidal bore can no longer occur,” Karin read. “Due to the depletion of water from agriculture and municipal use before it reaches the gulf.”
    “Gah. Always a freakin’ answer.”
    Karin glanced around at him. “You can always try this yourself.” She picked up the laptop.
    Smyth quickly held his hands out, muttering an apology. Lauren frowned in his direction.
    Karin sighed. “Sorry. I’m not myself at the moment. Bores occur in relatively few locations worldwide and are generally nothing to write home about. You only hear about them when a tragedy occurs or a rag newspaper needs some sensationalism to help sell a few extra copies.”
    “Okay,” Drake said. “So in the right conditions the ship in a desert phenomenon could occur. What we have to do now is to find it. I know you said ‘old timers’, but where in particular have all the ghost stories come from?”
    “The Red Indians,” she said. “Or Native Americans, as they’re now called. They started it. Legends were expanded when the local prospectors and explorers of the time decided to make their own investigations. One man named Charley Clusker. Another named Colonel Albert S Evans. Another called Fierro Blanco. These men knew natives from every tribe of Baja California of that time and attest that the local tribes never once lied to them. The kicker here is that—just like the peculiar worldwide dragon myth—everybody tells the same story and offers the same descriptions. The myth has persisted. It’s always similar, and survives both in Native American and frontier lore. It’s spookily uncanny.”
    “Why has it never been found?” Lauren wondered. “Surely a well-organized flyover would do it.”
    “The desert’s an astoundingly large place. Wind-blown sands from the desiccated delta of the Colorado River generate vast sand dune systems that are constantly shifting. Storms spring up in seconds. Then there’s mud near the inland waters and other dangers. It’s entirely possible