truck.”
“I ain’t going nowhere but here. You still want Wyatt to order two squad cars out there, Sheriff?”
“No, June, thank you. We’re all right.”
Of course, as it would turn out, they weren’t all right. Nobody was.
Not even a little bit.
8
D RY T ORTUGAS
W hat’s so dry about the Dry Tortugas?” Luis “Sharkey” Gonzales-Gonzales asked nobody in particular. He was staring down at all the clear blue water below. Sharkey, who was tanned a dark nut brown, was sitting two rows back on the other side of the aisle looking like a true citizen of the Conch Republic. A wicked-looking shark’s tooth swung from his twenty-four-carat gold neck chain. He wore a faded fishing shirt with blue marlin leaping around, some old khaki shorts, and his trademark white suede loafers, no socks.
Sharkey had his head turned to the window, cheek pressed against the glass. He was gazing down at the glassy blue-green sea a thousand feet below the seaplane as the pilot banked left and lined up for a landing at a giant brick fortification called Fort Jefferson.
Stokely Jones didn’t answer Shark’s question about the Tortugas being so dry. He was too busy looking for the Isaac Allerton ’s skeleton. Wrecks, man. For the last ten minutes, he’d been seeing bones in the white sand beneath the turquoise water, the scattered and broken backbones and ribs sticking right up where you could see them. The Allerton was down there somewhere. She’d been caught in a blow off Saddle-bunch Keys back in 1856. After her anchor lines were cut, she ground over Washerwoman Shoals, lost her rudder, and sank in Hawk’s Channel in five fathoms.
Mick Hocking, the young Aussie pilot sitting to his left, said Allerton ’s remains were coming up. They were flying over the exact area where Mel Fisher had discovered the Spanish galleon Atocha and about a billion dollars in gold. Survey boats were moored in the shallow water, fifty feet or so, Stoke thought it looked like. You could tell the treasure hunters by the survey cable reels mounted on the transoms.
Off the Marquesas, and west over to the Dry Tortugas, the typical things you might find, if you stuck with it a few years, were artifacts and emeralds. Emeralds were almost common. Stoke had always had a fondness for buried treasure, a feeling he’d shared with his boss, Alex Hawke. He’d caught the bug the first time they’d worked together. They were down in the Caribbean, looking for the pirate Blackhawke’s lost treasure.
Hawke told Stoke something one time they were diving down here in the Keys. Hawke said it was interesting how many decades it took professional wreckers to figure out that the big Spanish galleons, loaded to the gunwales with gold and silver, would not be found in deep water. They would most likely be in shallow water, like you had right here.
The galleons headed back to Spain would have been here in the South Atlantic during the hurricane season, Hawke said. That was June to October. And, if you looked at any map of the trade routes, and saw the storm tracks, many of those galleons obviously have been blown here into the Florida reef line. Some would be lost in open sea, sure. But many of them would fetch up in shallow water before they ran aground. Then, huge rollers would lift them up and split their keels on the reefs. Voilà, they’d spill all their booty on the bottom down there.
Stoke heard a little crackle in his headphones.
“Ponce de Leon called these islands ‘Las Tortugas’ because they looked liked turtle shells on the far horizon,” Mick said. “The ‘dry’ part came later when he found out the hard way there was no fresh water to be had down there. Still isn’t, so bring that bottle of Fiji along with you.”
“Ponce de Leon, huh? Is that right?” Stokely asked the pilot. Stoke was up front in the cockpit, in the right hand seat of the seaplane.
“Yep.”
“Huh. All that time I was down here, I never knew that.”
He’d liked the
“I ain’t going nowhere but here. You still want Wyatt to order two squad cars out there, Sheriff?”
“No, June, thank you. We’re all right.”
Of course, as it would turn out, they weren’t all right. Nobody was.
Not even a little bit.
8
D RY T ORTUGAS
W hat’s so dry about the Dry Tortugas?” Luis “Sharkey” Gonzales-Gonzales asked nobody in particular. He was staring down at all the clear blue water below. Sharkey, who was tanned a dark nut brown, was sitting two rows back on the other side of the aisle looking like a true citizen of the Conch Republic. A wicked-looking shark’s tooth swung from his twenty-four-carat gold neck chain. He wore a faded fishing shirt with blue marlin leaping around, some old khaki shorts, and his trademark white suede loafers, no socks.
Sharkey had his head turned to the window, cheek pressed against the glass. He was gazing down at the glassy blue-green sea a thousand feet below the seaplane as the pilot banked left and lined up for a landing at a giant brick fortification called Fort Jefferson.
Stokely Jones didn’t answer Shark’s question about the Tortugas being so dry. He was too busy looking for the Isaac Allerton ’s skeleton. Wrecks, man. For the last ten minutes, he’d been seeing bones in the white sand beneath the turquoise water, the scattered and broken backbones and ribs sticking right up where you could see them. The Allerton was down there somewhere. She’d been caught in a blow off Saddle-bunch Keys back in 1856. After her anchor lines were cut, she ground over Washerwoman Shoals, lost her rudder, and sank in Hawk’s Channel in five fathoms.
Mick Hocking, the young Aussie pilot sitting to his left, said Allerton ’s remains were coming up. They were flying over the exact area where Mel Fisher had discovered the Spanish galleon Atocha and about a billion dollars in gold. Survey boats were moored in the shallow water, fifty feet or so, Stoke thought it looked like. You could tell the treasure hunters by the survey cable reels mounted on the transoms.
Off the Marquesas, and west over to the Dry Tortugas, the typical things you might find, if you stuck with it a few years, were artifacts and emeralds. Emeralds were almost common. Stoke had always had a fondness for buried treasure, a feeling he’d shared with his boss, Alex Hawke. He’d caught the bug the first time they’d worked together. They were down in the Caribbean, looking for the pirate Blackhawke’s lost treasure.
Hawke told Stoke something one time they were diving down here in the Keys. Hawke said it was interesting how many decades it took professional wreckers to figure out that the big Spanish galleons, loaded to the gunwales with gold and silver, would not be found in deep water. They would most likely be in shallow water, like you had right here.
The galleons headed back to Spain would have been here in the South Atlantic during the hurricane season, Hawke said. That was June to October. And, if you looked at any map of the trade routes, and saw the storm tracks, many of those galleons obviously have been blown here into the Florida reef line. Some would be lost in open sea, sure. But many of them would fetch up in shallow water before they ran aground. Then, huge rollers would lift them up and split their keels on the reefs. Voilà, they’d spill all their booty on the bottom down there.
Stoke heard a little crackle in his headphones.
“Ponce de Leon called these islands ‘Las Tortugas’ because they looked liked turtle shells on the far horizon,” Mick said. “The ‘dry’ part came later when he found out the hard way there was no fresh water to be had down there. Still isn’t, so bring that bottle of Fiji along with you.”
“Ponce de Leon, huh? Is that right?” Stokely asked the pilot. Stoke was up front in the cockpit, in the right hand seat of the seaplane.
“Yep.”
“Huh. All that time I was down here, I never knew that.”
He’d liked the
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