The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“They went with the Croatoan Indians when they had no more food. I imagine once they filled their bellies, they began to behave like the masters even though the Indians had saved them. The Indians, in retaliation, sold them to the Spanish. Valentine was taken to Spain. Later she traveled to England and married a merchant from Bristol. As to what became of the other colonists, I suppose most of them remained in Spain.”

“Thank you,” he said. “James, perhaps you won’t tell my mama that I killed Allen Belmonde. She always liked him, even though I knew he was a scoundrel.”

“I won’t tell her,” James said.

“Thank you,” Fielding said, jerked once, then lay still.

A cottonmouth slithered up the bank and moved with incredible speed through the soggy grass, the pearl necklace still held in its mouth, its ends trailing behind him, perfect black circles becoming streaked with white as they were pulled through the grass.

“He’s dead,” James said. “All because of that damnable treasure.”

“What shall we do with the treasure?” Jessie asked, eyeing the chest with revulsion. Even as she spoke, another cottonmouth poked its head through the surface, coins sliding off its thick head.

Sampson raised his pistol and fired.

The cottonmouth fell back into the chest.

“It’s horrible, James, just horrible,” Jessie said, unable to look away from the chest. “These jewels and coins, all of it stolen from the people Blackbeard killed to fill this chest. I can’t bear it.”

“I agree,” James said, looking first at Spears, then Badger, then Sampson, and finally at Marcus and the Duchess. Slowly, each of them nodded.

“Let the filth and snakes have it again,” the Duchess said. “Let it sink to China.”

James and Gypsom both put their booted feet against the chest, kicking it hard. It fell back into the marsh, sinking slowly until it was nearly gone from view beneath the black surface. They watched a snake rise from the chest and out of the water, then sink down again as the chest disappeared.

Fat, lazy bubbles rose to the surface, popping, flattening. No one said a word, just watched until the black water again became still.

Gypsom said, “I itch. Gawd, I thought I wanted to be rich, but not that way, Mr. James. Niver that way.”

Suddenly the Duchess leaned down and picked something up from the sodden marshy grass. “Look at this,” she said, and without thinking, cleaned it off on her skirt. It was a necklace, an elaborate chain of gold. In its center was a ruby, as deep a red as a winter sunset on the Outer Banks. The Duchess rubbed the ruby against her palm, then held it up. “Look,” she said. “It’s a swan.”

She handed it to James. He turned it over and over in his hand. The huge ruby was very warm against his flesh. “There is printing on the chain,” he said, bringing it up close so he could make it out.

“What does it say?” Jessie said.

“It says ‘Valentine Swann 1718 Edward Teach.”’

They just stared at each other.

36

Which horse to cheer for? They all look the same to me.

—ANONYMOUS

“GO, JIGG! YOU can do it, boy, go!” Jessie was straining forward to see her beloved six-year-old quarter horse spurt through the pack to take the early lead.

“Not well done of you, Jessie,” her mother-in-law said in a voice loud enough to be heard through all the cheering. “You’re a Wyndham, not a Warfield. That’s your father’s horse.”

“Oh dear, it’s such a fast race, isn’t it? Only a quarter mile. Go, Console. Go, boy! Yes, Console, you can do it!”

Her father frowned at her and shook her arm. “You were shouting for Jigg. Now you’re shouting for a Wyndham horse. Where are your loyalties, Jessie?”

“Oh dear. Both of you, run! Run! Move, Jigg! That’s it, Console, you can do it!”

James was riding Console and losing. The other jockeys weighed less then a sandbag, James would say and curse, saying he’d have to shoot them to win. But he tried, flattening himself against Console’s back, hugging his neck.

Jessie couldn’t help herself. She yelled at the top of her lungs, “James, you can do it! Give Console a good kick with your boot heels! He loves it!”