“All right,” Marcus said. “Why didn’t Blackbeard’s son or his grandson, for that matter, dig up the treasure? Oh God, there wasn’t a treasure, that’s the only thing that makes sense.” He stopped. Jessie was shaking her head madly.
“I remember now that Mr. Tom said something about Blackbeard’s son not getting the treasure because he was caught by the British just after he’d found his father’s diaries in his mother’s attic. He only had time to pass them along to his son, Samuel Teach, Old Tom’s father. So Badger was right. Why Samuel Teach didn’t get the treasure, I don’t know. Surely we’ll find out when we read his diaries.”
“Red Eye Crimson,” James said. “What happened to him, Jessie? Didn’t you tell me he went to jail?”
“I was told that he wouldn’t get out of jail for ninety years. I was mighty relieved.”
“Just perhaps,” James said thoughtfully, taking her hand in his, his thumb smoothing over her skin, “he did. Just perhaps this Red Eye is the one who killed Allen Belmonde when he found out Allen was trying to kill you. Just perhaps he’s your savior and your devil. Just perhaps he’s been after you, only you were lucky and he never got you alone. Then you went to England, and when you came back to Baltimore you were surrounded by a crowd.”
Jessie shuddered. “I don’t like to remember that night Red Eye came, James. He was so angry, so enraged. He wanted to kill me but he knew he couldn’t at that point, not until I’d taken him to where I’d buried the diaries. I was very, very lucky.”
“If James is right,” Marcus said, “it means that Red Eye Crimson could still be lurking about. It’s possible that he’s here on Ocracoke, that he followed us, guessing what we were after.”
“We will keep a sharp eye out,” James said. “Did anyone bring a gun?”
Spears said simply, “Naturally. I never travel outside my own environs without proper protection. If you will remember, my lord, I had a gun in Paris when we were encouraging you to marry the Duchess. Ah, that was a time.” Spears cleared his throat and, to Jessie’s astonishment, looked mildly embarrassed. “I will fetch it shortly. But it’s not enough. We will arm ourselves. May we procure firearms in the village, Jessie?”
She nodded numbly, somehow fancying that the world had taken a faulty turn. Red Eye Crimson killed Allen Belmonde because he knew that Allen was trying to kill her? It sounded beyond farfetched. Besides, why did Allen want to kill her? She said finally, “Mr. Styron has a fine collection. If he won’t sell us guns, he would surely lend them to us.”
“Well then,” James said. “That takes care of the threat from Red Eye Crimson.”
“Yes,” Jessie said, drawing a deep breath. “Let’s look at the diaries now. It’s time, don’t you think? Is everyone ready?”
32
“OH DEAR,” JESSIE said, her turn again with the diary. “This is the last entry. It’s very short and no mention at all of those English bastards or running low on rum or of where Blackbeard hid his treasure.
“It appears he married fourteen women and he calls the last a ‘most charming young creature of twelve. Her name is Valentine, jest like my great-grandma. I took her on because of it. We’ll see if she’s too young to give me a babe. I like the little buggers. Makes a man feel immortal even when he’s in hell playin’ with the divil.”’ Jessie looked up, stunned. “Valentine isn’t a very common name. This is interesting. I told James about another Valentine who lived in Sir Walter Raleigh’s colony on Roanoke Island. That was the colony that disappeared, simply vanished, sometime between 1587 and 1590. No one knows what happened to it. But we’ll find out.” Jessie held up Valentine’s diary. “This will tell us what happened not only to Valentine but also what happened to the rest of the colony.” She laid the diary on her lap. “You know what I think? I think Blackbeard’s last wife, this second Valentine, was indeed Old Tom’s great-grandmother. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“It’s almost as if it came full circle,” Marcus said. “All these ‘greats’ and these ‘grands,”’ Badger said. “It makes a person’s brain boil. All right, Jessie. This first Valentine who was on Roanoke Island was Blackbeard’s great-grandmother. The second Valentine was Old Tom’s great-grandmother, and Blackbeard was Old Tom’s great-grandfather.”
“That’s it.”
“All well and good,” Marcus said, “but like Maggie, I want to know where the bloody treasure is. Blackbeard makes no mention at all of it, the damned bounder.”
“Maybe we’ll find out more about what happened to Blackbeard’s bride—poor twelve-year-old Valentine—when we read Blackbeard’s grandson’s diary,” Spears said. He leaned down and patted Jessie’s shoulder. “Don’t give up hope yet, Jessie.”
It was Anthony who stood legs akimbo, his arms crossed over his chest. “We have three sets of diaries. We’ve only read Blackbeard’s diaries. I think we should read the grandson’s diaries. Perhaps his grandmother, Valentine, Blackbeard’s wife, was still alive and she told him something. We’re not going to give up until we’ve read every word in every one of those diaries.”
“Yes, y
ou’re right, Anthony,” James said, but he didn’t sound at all convinced.
“This pirate was a right smart villain,” Badger said slowly, shaking his grizzled head. “I believe to renew my mental workings I will prepare a luncheon of baked sheepshead—he’s a handsome fish marked with six vertical black stripes on his side; I counted them. Gypsom caught him early this morning off the pilings at the dock. Weighs a good twelve pounds, he does. Yes, I’ll bake our sheepshead and we’ll have some of those tasty little green peas that Bess bought from Mrs. Fulcher. The sweet lady insisted that Bess drink a bit of her cider. Bess came back smiling like a loon.”
Badger took himself off to the dilapidated Warfield kitchen, so ancient and battered Jessie wondered how he could continue to produce such magical meals.
* * *
After dinner that evening, everyone adjourned again to the parlor, Bess and Gypsom included. “Why not?” Marcus had said. “They’re a part of this just as we are.”
James said, “This evening we’re going to read the two diaries written by Blackbeard’s grandson, Samuel Teach. Maggie, you and Anthony begin. We’ll put the original Valentine’s diary aside and keep it for later.”
Anthony, Sampson, and Maggie were a team. Suddenly, in the utter silence of that evening, Anthony shouted. Maggie cuffed him and laughed. “Go ahead, Anthony, read aloud what we found.”
“Just listen, Papa,” Anthony said, gently lifting the book from Maggie’s hands. “Old Tom’s grandpa, Samuel Teach, writes, ‘I think my grandma, Miz Valentine, is daft, poor old dear. Today she went on and on about a gold necklace that her dear husband Edward gave her—Edward Teach was Blackbeard the pirate.”’ Anthony continued in his precise schoolboy’s voice, “Samuel goes on to say that he’s writing down exactly what she told him because who knew what could come of it.
“‘ . . . He went out into the night, a stormy night with waves pounding against those black rocks near the inlet, rain whipping through the twisted trees, leaving me with three of his men in that small stone castle of his that was so cold and wet even under the hottest sun that I occasionally nearly gained the nerve to say something to him. Of course I never did. Ah, that night. Aye, I told him to send one of his men out if he wanted something, but he just told me to warm him some rum, not too hot, but just the way he liked it. When he returned he looked fearsome, his black beard all tangled and wet, steam rising from his wet clothes when he got near the fire, his full-cuffed black leather boots squishing from all the rain and covered with rank black mud. I gave him the rum. He drank it all down and grinned at me. He then pulled a huge rope of gold from beneath his shirt. He laughed in that terrifying way of his and wound it once, twice, thrice, around my neck. It weighed nearly as much as I did. This was good, I thought, so I gave him more rum for I’m not a stupid girl. He drank it down in one gulp, belched, said he’d soon breathe fire now, and pulled out another necklace from his shirt. This one was all colored stones—white so clear it looked like ice, red stones, deep and mysterious, and blue stones that a summer sky would envy. There were even some green stones and these weren’t as shiny as the others. He told me as he patted my face with his big callused dirty hand that both necklaces he just happened to find in a neat little chest what was afloat near a sinking vessel.