Carried Away (The Swept Away Saga, Book Two) Page 2

  “He’s a mystery, Stephens is,” Hal said as we watched them all go on without us. “There was always something about him. I can’t quite describe it. He’s a nice man, though, despite his appearance.”

  “You’re talking like you’re my dad again, Hal.” Laughing, I looked back at the man, comforted by his remarks nonetheless.

  “And you better listen up, sonny!” he teased, finally hopping over the rail and onto the dock himself. “We’ll see the wreck tomorrow. Stephens may have some theatricality to him, but he’s as anxious as any for a good find.”

  It was decided we would send the cameras down first, after scanning the entire bay with a special machine that would create a map of the wreck for us. Ashley, one of the archeologists helping sort through the items at the Mission, had been the diver who found the ship to begin with. She looked more like a super model than a scientist, but it was instantly clear she knew what she was talking about.

  “It was my day off,” she explained, tucking her long black hair behind her ears. “I hadn’t been for a dive in a while and the water looked calm enough. The site is about one hundred feet under water, just inside the opening to the bay. The only reason I found it was because of the metal detector I’d brought with me; I’d been hoping to find some artifacts linked to the missionaries that lived here, maybe uncover how they interacted with the water.”

  “What pinged the monitor?” I asked, watching as the printer slowly pushed out a sheet detailing the area. “A cannon?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.” Her tone was apologetic and she shrugged. “It might have been. Once I saw all the stones laying in a row, though, I knew it must have been a boat. There’s not much left on the surface. Not of the actual craft, anyway.”

  Nodding, I continued to watch the map forming before us. “Just things that were on board.” We’d driven over the location five times with our equipment, hopeful that we’d get a good enough scan to really see what was there. So far, it looked like we were stumbling into the find of a lifetime. “Good catch with the stones, by the way. Most people would have thought they were just rocks sitting funny.”

  “I am an archeologist,” she said, laughing. “I know ships had big stones like that in the hold to help keep balance. Nature doesn’t really make perfect lines, either.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t be most people, then.” Looking over at her, I smiled warmly. She was very pretty, intellectual, and didn’t seem to shy away from the fact that she knew those things about herself. Confidence was very appealing to me; maybe I’d ask her to dinner one night.

  The printer made a final ding and the large map slid the rest of the way out, onto the table, a mess of lines and numbers. In the middle of it, though, plain as day, was a vessel lying on its side.

  “It looks like there’s quite a bit left under the sand, if these readings are correct.” Gingerly, I picked up the map, holding it so we could both examine it better. “This is where you tried to look for a name, right?”

  “Yeah.” Moving closer, she pointed to a spot on the ship at one end. “I didn’t dig very far, though. It’s pretty stuck in there. There was no sign of extreme decay, but I didn’t want to risk it. Based off what I was seeing, it looked to be a good size site, as well. There wasn’t exactly enough oxygen for me to stay down there all day and search through everything.”

  “Do you want to? I mean, when we send divers down. You can help me catalog everything, if you’d like.” Blushing slightly, I cleared my throat, aware that I’d phrased it like I would have if I were asking her on a date. I hadn’t meant it that way, but I could tell from the expression on her face that she had heard the proposal.

  “We’ll have to see how the work on shore goes. There’s a lot of books here. Maybe I’ll just keep an eye out for something about your mystery ship.” Grinning, her hand brushed across mine as she leaned in to study the sketch I held again.

  “Bell!”

  Turning, I waved at Joe, who was waiting to deploy the camera that would give me my first glimpse at the site below. “I have to go.” Focusing back to Ashley, I smiled, feeling a few butterflies at her presence.

  “I can see that.” Gracefully, she left the cabin, moving to get on the jet ski she’d rode out on. “Let me know if you have any more questions.”

  “Thanks, Ashley,” Joe said, beaming like an idiot as he watched her climb over the side and zoom away. After she was gone, he glanced at me knowingly. “Who knew they made the smart ones so pretty now, eh?”

  “Everyone, Joe.” Chuckling, I carried the map over to him, discussing a few key points of interest. “I can’t wait to get down there myself,” I added eagerly as I rolled the sheet up.

  “Me either. But we need to see what is down there first before we go running off like school kids. There’s no telling how old this thing is. I’ve seen them pull things up that were down there for almost five hundred years. Granted, there wasn’t as much salt, but who knows, right?” Falling silent, he helped position the expensive lens over the side of the boat, waving when he was ready for it to go under.

  Nodding, I watched as the high tech camera was carefully lowered, Hal working a small crane mechanism above us. Once everything was set, he’d join us in the cabin to steer the craft and see what showed up on our screen.

  As I went back inside and took my seat, I silently marveled at Ashley. Normally, it wasn’t recommended for divers to go below one hundred and thirty feet. It was surprising that she’d even gone as deep as she had, especially for a simple, unplanned dive. We were partly using the camera now because we wanted to make sure it was worth risking going down there. If there were a large amount of the ship buried, we’d be taking an even bigger chance on our lives to uncover it.

  “Is there a picture in there yet?” Hal called from above, still working the controls of the crane to drop the equipment while Joe watched.

  Shaking the anticipation and wonderment off, I leaned over and turned the television on, a vision of water filling the screen. “Yeah!” I yelled, scooting the metal seat I was on over so there would be room for all of us.

  The two men joined me, settling back as Hal took the remote control in his hands. “And they said video games weren’t worth the time,” he muttered, laughing. This elicited snickers from me, which I quickly masked as a cough. Hal had probably played three video games his entire life, and yet he still cracked the joke every time he used the deep sea camera.

  Silence fell over the room as the descent to the ocean floor began, nothing on the screen but some white flecks and lots of water. The deeper we got, the darker it became, until the overhead lights on the machine were triggered and lit up the space around the tiny craft. Along with the sunlight that still managed to penetrate the distance, the illumination gave us almost perfect vision.

  “Look, there,” Joe murmured pointing to a small object as the lens drifted over it. “That look like a bottle to you?”

  “Kinda,” I agreed softly, leaning forward. It was dirty and half buried, with organisms growing on it, but there was a faint outline that looked like a regular, glass bottle.

  “We’re coming up on the bow now, according to our last scan,” Hal stated, slowing down some.

  “Look, boots!” In awe, I watched the leather items as they lay on the ground, undisturbed for who knew how long. The sand around them swirled gently as the motion from the camera’s propellers moved over it. Suddenly, it occurred to me that there could be more than just artifacts here. What if there were human remains buried in the sand as well?

  “There’s the first stone from the hull,” Joe replied, already moving on to the next thing he saw. “And look at that bit poking up right there. Looks like a box to me. See the metal corner, coming up out of the mud? The rest of the chest could be buried in the sand.”

  Everything was covered in growth from the ocean, as was expected, and only a small portion of the actual ship was visible above the silt. After three hours of careful exploration with the camera, it was cl
ear that we would need to dive to the wreck ourselves.

  “Pistols, cannons, dishes—I can’t believe how much stuff is down there!” Popping some candy into my mouth, I smiled happily, leaning back in my chair. The ship was definitely from the same era as the Golden Age of Piracy, based on the outlines of the weapons we’d seen. Once we’d raised a few things and studied them, I was positive we could give the vessel a date.

  “It does look like she was taken down in battle,” Joe said, continuing the conversation. “If they’d burned her to the deck and sank her on purpose, don’t you think they would have taken those things with them? Why destroy all of the stuff as well?”

  “I think the greater question is what were they doing here to begin with?” Hal interjected from the doorway, having just hoisted the camera out of the water and set it back on deck. “This isn’t a good place to careen. If it came in the time frame we think it did, all that was here were the missionaries. What would pirates want with them?”

  “I suppose the battle that sunk the ship could have been with the Mission.” Joe looked doubtful even as he said it.

  “Because missionaries are the burning and sinking type.” Hal barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “No. I’d bet good money that there was another ship here, one that would have been a fair fight for No Name. Not some dinky fishing raft ran by religious types.”

  “But that leaves an even bigger problem, doesn’t it?” I interjected, standing. “One ship could be a coincidence. But two? There’s no way. A fight suggests they were enemies, or a reluctant partnership that went bad. What were they looking for that brought them both here?”

  No one had an answer for that. As we all stood there, contemplating what could have happened in this place so many years ago, I suddenly felt as if the ghosts of my friends were nearby. The notion sent a chill through me and I could practically feel the color draining from my face.

  “You all right, Bell?” Joe asked suddenly, lurching forward to grab me as if I were tumbling over.

  “Yeah.” The reply was stronger than I meant it to be, but it stopped him from saving me like some fainting woman. “My, uh, stomach suddenly doesn’t feel so well.”

  “There’s a storm blowing in.” Hal covered for me, changing the conversation as he looked out at the clear horizon. “I can smell it. The waves are picking up some, too. We’d best get back in to shore. The visibility below will be gone before we could get down there.”

  “A touch of seasickness?” Joe was joking, knowing that I had fine sea legs as he looked at me with slight concern, but I nodded all the same.

  It’s happening again, the tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered. You’re getting yourself into another mystery that could kill you.

  Pursing my lips, I tried to steady myself, banishing the voice and ghosts from my head. It was ridiculous that I kept feeling like I was on the brink of death. How many dives had I been on since I’d come to Florida? I’d never felt danger through any of them, besides the occasional things that all divers experienced. Sure, Michael and Sam weighed on my thoughts a lot, but this was . . . different.

  Why did I feel so terrified?

  The radio on the dash beeped in, saving me from the complexities of my own brain.

  “This is Explorer,” Joe answered, talking into the mouthpiece and steering the boat at the same time.

  “Are you guys planning on coming in soon?” It was Stephens, his high voice as smooth as silk. For some reason, whenever I heard it, I had to fight the urge to frown.

  “We’re on our way back now. Why?”

  “We’ve been going through some of the manuscripts here,” Stephens answered offhandedly. “Records, journals, that kind of stuff. It looks like we’ve found a couple entries about your ship.”

  “What year?” I immediately asked, holding my breath as Joe repeated the question.

  “These entries are dated sixteen ninety-seven. Once in a log book, another in a personal journal.”

  Shocked silence fell between us. There it was—the boat, if it was the same one, was indeed from the period we wanted.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Joe said softly. He looked at Hal and I, thinking over something before he turned back to the window and pressed the button to reply. “We’re going to need to call someone about this, right, Stephens?”

  “I’ve already contacted the local authorities and informed them of the historic value of the site. Hopefully, they’ll get back to me soon and send some help to keep it secure.”

  “Can we see the documents?” I pressed again, impatient as the message was relayed.

  “We’ve got them in a holding room for you. Ashley is looking at them right now to see if there’s anything we could possibly match to the wreck.”

  “We’ll be in as soon as we can,” Joe announced. “Thanks, Stephens.”

  “These books are from right before the Mission was abandoned,” Ashley said, leading us through one of the many work tents that were set up outside the old building. “Around seventeen hundred, the missionaries packed up and moved down the coast. We think they were headed for Veracruz, but we aren’t exactly sure what prompted them to leave in the first place.” She paused, a frustrated look passing over her before she shook her head and sighed. “There are stories that relations with the indigenous people were becoming more difficult, but I personally feel that there had to have been some type of catalyst to make them run so suddenly. I was hoping to find some answers in this journal that was left behind, but it stops before anything occurs. For some reason, all of the records stop at sixteen ninety-eight. It’s like they decided what they were doing wasn’t worth saving anymore.”

  “That’s why you’re so interested in what happened here,” I continued, trying to fill in the blanks she was leaving. “There’s two whole years missing.”

  “Yes. There’s some things here and there, but it’s not enough to really understand why it was abandoned. I mean, look at it! It’s beautiful—a real oasis, surrounded by green forest that leads off into desert and mountains. This was a good place to put down roots. Why did they run?”

  We left the work area and moved into the actual building, following an already excavated path to the holding room we’d been told about. It felt like the building was going to fall down around us; it looked so worn and old. The government had put it under protection decades earlier, constructing a large fence that surrounded the entire area, but they’d never brought anyone out to go through everything. Preliminary findings had made them conclude that the building was empty—that is until someone broke in one night and discovered a door beneath the rubble of one wall. The secret basement behind it had immediately drawn curious eyes and the team that was working in the space now.

  “Here’s some gloves,” Ashley said, pulling them out of her pocket and passing them out. “Don’t touch anything without them. The room you’ll be in is just a holding area, but we’ve filled it with a lot of artifacts.”

  Unlocking the padlock of the entrance in front of us, she stood to the side, allowing us to scoot by her. The room itself was small and boring, the walls carrying a somewhat crumbled appearance. The workers had lined them with tables, though, all of which were covered with various odds and ends that had been brought up from the basement. In the center of the room, one long bench sat with only a few items laid out, among them some very old looking books.

  “It’s all written in Spanish,” Ashley said from behind us, watching as we slowly gathered around the table. “Do any of you speak it?”

  “We each know a little,” Joe replied.

  “I read it better than I speak it.” I felt confident that I could decipher anything, as long as it gave me the answers I was searching for.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Smiling, she closed the door, the sound of the lock never clicking shut on the other side.

  Carefully, I pulled my latex gloves on and picked up one of the books, slowly thumbing through the pages. “This is the log,” I murmured. “Thi
s line is saying they bought fish from someone. This one about herbs picked from the garden.”

  “The brothers were good housekeepers,” Hal said, smiling. “They would have needed to keep track of everything, especially their stores.” He frowned then, glancing down at the objects on the table. “But that makes it even more strange that they just stopped writing it down.”

  “Maybe they had a change in leadership?” Joe guessed, shrugging.

  I continued my perusal, ignoring their banter, hunting for any signs of a galleon, but all that was mentioned were fishing boats. Then, finally, on almost the last page, I found it. “Here!” Excitedly, I set the book down for the other two to see, pointing to the entry. “One galleon, nameless. Paid to drop anchor; ten pieces of silver.”

  “Sounds like a lot to just let your ship sit out in the water.” Hal frowned, obviously put off by the price. “Doesn’t it?”

  “There’s no mention of it leaving, either,” I said, ignoring him. “The log ends with it still there.”

  “Let’s look at the journal,” Joe suggested, picking up the other book and flipping it to the back. He perused the pages for a few moments before nodding and sitting down in the chair beside him. “Here, I think I found it.” He struggled over a few words for a second and then began reading the passage out loud, translating as he went.

  I do apologize for not writing for so long—this past week has been filled with so many strange occurrences! It has made life here something I have not experienced in quite a while; exciting.

  It began on the Sabbath. We had just finished evening prayer, when there was a knock at the chapel door. A married couple—an Irishman and his wife by the name O’Rourke—had arrived seeking shelter. Apparently, they had been looking for a friend of theirs, a Father, whom they had been separated from in Mexico City. Their informants had told them he might have headed this way, but none of us had ever seen or heard of him.