Nick knew the value of his youngest brother’s word, so when he shot Kevin a knowing look, Kevin gave him a thumbs-up. He would make sure Jimmy stayed out of the way.
“Two hundred feet,” Ron said, checking his bob once again.
Nick grinned. “We’re already at the deepest anyone’s managed to get and we didn’t have to lift a finger.” He tapped the side of his head. “It’s all in the brains.”
Without another word he stepped off the rim of the pit and dangled over the mouth of the precipice, his body twisting kinks out of the rope until coming to stop. If he felt any fear, it didn’t show on his face. It was a mask of concentration. He nodded to the twins, and they pulled a little on the line to release the brake and then fed rope through the tackle. Nick sank a few inches.
“Okay, test it again.”
The boys pulled again, and the brake reengaged.
“Now, pull,” Nick ordered, and his brothers effortlessly raised him up those same few inches.
“No problem, Nick,” Don said. “I told you this thing’s foolproof. Hell, I bet even Jimmy could haul you up from the bottom.”
“Thanks but no thanks.” Nick took a couple deep breaths, and said, “All right. This time for real.”
In smooth, controlled motions, the twins let gravity slowly draw Nick into the depths. He called up to them to halt when he was just ten feet into the pit. At this shallow depth, they could still converse. Later, when Nick approached the bottom, they had devised a series of coded tugs on the plumb bob.
“What is it?” Don yelled down.
“There are initials carved on the oak timber here. ALR.”
“Uncle Albert, I bet,” Don said. “I think his middle name is Lewis.”
“Next to it is Dad’s JGR, and it looks like TMD.”
“That’ll be Mr. Davis. He worked with them when they tried to reach the bottom.”
“Okay, lower away.”
Nick turned on his miner’s lamp at forty feet where the wooden supports gave way to native rock. The stone looked natural, as if the shaft had been formed millions of years ago when the island was created, and was damp enough to support slimy green mold even though it was well above the tide line. He cast the beam past his dangling legs. It was swallowed by the abyss just a few yards beyond his feet. A steady breeze blew past Nick’s face, and a single uncontrollable shiver shook his body.
Down he went, deeper into the earth, with nothing to support him but a rope and his faith in his brothers. When he looked up, the sky was just a tiny square dot high overhead. The walls weren’t exactly closing in on him, but he could feel their proximity. He tried not to think about it. Suddenly, below him, he could see a reflection, and as he sank lower he realized he’d reached the high-tide mark. The stone was still damp to the touch. By his calculations he was a hundred and seventy feet belowground. There was still no sign of any way water could reach the pit from the sea, but he didn’t expect to see it until the two-hundred-foot mark.
Ten feet lower, he thought he heard something—the faintest trickle of water. He gave the plumb line two tugs to tell his brothers to slow his descent. They immediately responded, and his speed was halved. The sound of water entering the pit grew louder. Nick strained to see into the darkness while droplets dripped off the walls, pattering his helmet like rain. An occasional drop was an icy flick against his neck.
There!
He waited a few more seconds to be lowered another eighteen inches, then gave the plumb a sharp pull.
He hung loose next to a fissure in the rock the size of a postcard. He couldn’t estimate how much water was coming through it—surely not enough to defeat all the pumps his father and uncles had brought—so he decided there was at least one more channel to the Pacific. He carefully pulled a handful of oakum fibers from his bag and shoved them into the crack as deep as he could, holding them in place against the icy flow. As seawater saturated the fibers, they swelled until the surge dwindled to a drip and then stopped altogether.
The oakum plug wouldn’t hold for long once the tide came back in, which was why his time on the bottom would be so short.
Nick tugged again and started down once more, passing clusters of mussels clinging to the rock. The smell was noxious. He plugged two more similar-sized clefts and when the third was dammed completely he could no longer hear water entering the pit. He pulled the plumb four times, and a moment later the flaccid hose attached to the surface pump puffed out as it started to suck the shaft dry.
A few moments later, the surface of the water appeared below him. He tugged to halt his descent and took his own plumb bob from his oilskin’s pocket. He lowered it, and grunted with satisfaction when he saw that only sixteen feet of water remained in the shaft. Because the pit was a good two feet narrower at this depth, he figured the pump would clear it down to three feet in ten minutes.
He could see the surface receding by watching anomalies on the rock wall, and he realized his estimate was off. The pump was draining faster than he—
Something to his left caught his eye. A niche was slowly emerging as the water level sank. It appeared to be about two feet deep, and the same width, and he could tell immediately that it wasn’t natural. He could see where hammers and chisels had bitten into the crumbly stone. His heart caught in his throat. Here was more definitive proof that someone had worked in the pit. This wasn’t yet proof that this was the repository for Pierre Devereaux’s treasure, but in the nineteen-year-old’s mind it was close enough.
Enough water had been pumped from the pit for Nick to see some of the junk that had found its way to the bottom. It was mostly driftwood that had been sucked into the shaft through the channels, as well as branches small enough to fit through the grate. However, there were also some lengths of logs that been blown in before the grate was placed over the shaft. He could imagine his father and uncles throwing some of it into the pit in frustration after they failed to unlock its secret.
The pump on the surface continued its work, more than capable of defeating the small trickles escaping his oakum plugs. Off to his side the carved niche continued to grow in height. On a hunch, he had his brothers lower him farther, and he shifted his weight to start to pendulum at the end of the rope. When he swung low enough and close enough, he kicked a leg into the niche, reaching down with his foot. His boot found purchase in just a few inches of water. He let himself swing back once more and threw himself at the opening, landing solidly on both feet. He signaled for his brothers to stop the rope, and he unclipped it from the harness.
Nick Ronish was standing no more than a couple of feet from the bottom of the Treasure Pit. He could sense the loot just inches away.