Amerika (14 page)

‘How’d you get hold of it?’

‘That’s my business, not yours.’

He drew himself up. ‘Well, missy, that’s a fine story you just spun, and not only that, it’s a true one, down to the last detail. But here’s something else that’s true: that gold belongs to the Confederacy and always will. My Daddy was under direct orders from Richmond, and so am I. When I hear the call, the gold will be released, and not until. Especially to low-down, no-good, treasure hunters like you.’

‘Your daddy ever tell you about General Longstreet visiting him?’

Riley smiled. ‘You sure did your homework, little lady. As a matter of fact, the great general did come here in person a year after the wreck.’ He spat on the sand. ‘’Course, by then the war was a lost cause, so the general says to daddy, ‘Patrick,’ he says, ‘this here order comes straight from General Robert E. Lee: you leave that gold where it lays. But if the day should ever come when the south needs to rise again to save this nation from its sorry self, you’ll be…’

‘Shown a sign,’ Ava said.

She fished something out of her pocket. Moonlight gleamed off the gold coin in her open palm. She aimed her penlight on the robed figure engraved upon the coin, a flag-bearing ‘Liberty’ striding forward, sheaves of wheat behind her, bales of cotton alongside, clouds above and the words in a hopeful arc over her head.

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA

‘Look familiar?’ she said.

I said, ‘The Confederacy never had its gold coins.’

‘They did too. Had them struck in England and were bringing them back to aid the cause.’

‘How’d you come by that one?’

‘They made test strikes before they sent the over the dies. This one belonged to General Longstreet.’

She flipped it over to the reverse side: a linked chain forming a circle against a field of stars with the initials of each state inside each link. The letters ‘CSA’ in the center and ‘50 DOLLARS’ underneath.

She smiled at the old man. ‘Your daddy taught you what to do if the time should ever come. It has, Mister Riley. Do your duty, sir.’

Riley looked long and hard at her and then let out a snort. He dug into his vest pocket and slowly pulled out a small leather pouch. He opened it and shook a coin into his palm. Worn from eighty years of handling, but an exact copy of Ava’s.

She said, ‘This gold we hold in our hands, and the gold you hid away, will help the Sons of Liberty.’

Riley’s face lit up. ‘By God, they’re back? You’re telling the truth?’

‘Would I lie to a patriot like you?’

He practically came to attention. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘All I can tell you is that we’re not taking neutrality lying down. The Yankees may think they can get along with the Nazis like they were some kind of business partners, but Johnny Reb knows better.’

‘I’m one of them, by God!’

‘I know you are, Mr. Riley and I am too. And here’s something else I know: you’re going to lead us to that gold because the time has come for the South to rise again, and with it the United States of America.’

Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace.

-Thomas Jefferson

N
obody could sleep. Too damn much excitement.

So we struck camp, piled into the plane and I step-taxied over to Bush Key, the site of Fort Jefferson and tied up near the East Coaling Dock. Just as dawn was breaking, Riley showed up in his Coast Guard-issued longboat. Together we set off for the fort, where he claimed his father had hidden the gold.

It had been twenty years since Orlando and I had raced through the abandoned gun rooms, pretending we were defending the Confederacy from the damned Yankees. But as our boat approached the landing pier, it seemed like we were doing it for real this time - at least according to Ava. Not the words she used when she spoke about taking action against the Nazis, although make no mistake they were dramatic. But way she held herself when she said them, like a regular Joan of Arc, only instead of armor she wore dirty khaki slacks and a sweat-soaked blouse.

I’d seen her in a lot of films, and while she played different characters each time, they were always the same: elegant, tough, self-sufficient. How much of this was true in real life and how much an act is hard to say. I guess that’s what being a movie star is all about; fooling all the people all the time. If so, then she was sure fooling me.

‘Ain’t it the perfect spot?’ old man Riley said as he pointed to the fort.

‘Beats hiding it in the sand,’ I said.

‘Daddy was a’feared the key might go under and he was right. It was gone for about forty years. Then it came back.’

‘Smart man.’

‘And you thought lighthouse keepers were crazy.  We’re crazy like foxes.’

‘You’re sure Mr. Button’s gone?’

‘I seen the Key West supply ship head out last night. The man’s off to feed his sins of the flesh. And while the cat’s away the mice will play, yes sir.’Ava shielded her eyes from the glare of the rising sun. ‘Nobody else around?’

‘Nobody but us chickens,’ he cackled.

Most kids have haunted houses in their towns. Orlando and I had a haunted fort. Every time went fishing in the Tortugas with my dad, we’d beg  him  to  let  us  poke  around  Fort  Jeff,  which  by  then  had  been abandoned for years. Once upon a time the tramp of soldiers’ boots had boomed inside its vast, six-sided walls and endless corridors. Today they echoed to the screams of sea birds and the wind.

Riley led us across the beach and past the abandoned remains of the east coaling dock. Row after row of stone pilings and rusting turnbuckles poked up from the crystal clear, fish-filled water, hinting of a time gone by when all was glory and the Yankee flag snapped proudly in the breeze.

We followed him over a rickety bridge that spanned the moat surrounding the fort. Below us, angel fish and sergeant majors darted in a thousand  directions,  their  bright  blues  and  deep  yellows  like  colorful comets.

We headed straight for the stone-columned main entrance, its massive doors long gone, their three-inch thick oak planks snatched away by some determined Key West wrecker.

Irony at its best: Fort Jeff had been designed to be a mighty engine of war. But in truth, that engine never turned over once. Made obsolete by rifled cannon, they made it a prison instead for unlucky Yankee deserters during the war. But plagued by malaria and other tropical illnesses, the army finally threw up its hands and walked away in the 1870s. And so it sat here for all these years, doing nothing but protecting the rebel treasure that Riley was supposedly leading us to.

We marched across the inner parade ground like we owned the place, thanks to Billy Button gone up to Key West to get his ashes hauled. No wind as yet to ruffle the palm trees scattered in clusters here and there, their drooping leaves making them look like sleeping soldiers.  Most  of  the service  buildings  had  crumbled  away  years  ago,  leaving  only  their foundations upon which to puzzle their purpose. The commandant’s single two-story brick structure remained, used for Button’s private quarters. The morning sun was just now striking the tops of the palm trees surrounding it.

‘This-a-way.’ Riley disappeared inside one of the arches. We followed him up a curving staircase leading to the parapets. Our footfalls echoed in the cool silence, as surprised lizards and other creatures darted into the shadows.

‘You buried it up here?’ I said.

‘You’ll see,’ Riley answered.

Ava huffed and puffed alongside. ‘‘There’d better be gold at the end of this guy’s crazy rainbow.’

The view from the parapets was as thrilling today as when I was a kid.

Back  then  Orlando  and  I  would  raise  our  pretend  sabers  and  shout ‘Ready...aim...FIRE!’ and imaginary fleets of Yankee ships would explode in showers of flame and destruction.  The brick parapets had a thick layer of soil on them and wild grasses grew in abundance. From here looking west, Riley’s black and white lighthouse flashed its familiar beacon.

Ziggy saw it too. ‘Aren’t you supposed to turn that thing off during the daytime?’

‘’Course I am.’ Riley said. He pulled out his pocket watch and regarded it for a moment. ‘Watch how the experts do it.’

He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted in a high pitched shriek, ‘Turn off that light!’

It kept flashing.

‘Takes time for my voice to travel from here to there,’ he said casually.

The light winked out. He nodded approvingly. ‘That’s more like it.’

And he walked away.

Ziggy called out after his retreating figure, ‘How’d you do that?’

Riley shrugged his shoulders but said nothing.

I said, ‘My guess is that it’s on some kind of timer.’

Ziggy couldn’t help himself, he crowed, ‘What a movie this is going to make! And what a comeback it’ll be for you, darling. I even have the title.’ He framed his hands against the sky and intoned, ‘REBEL GOLD.’

We traversed two of the six sides of the fort and stopped by another tower.  The  morning  wind  had  picked  up,  but  from  the  looks  of  the cloudless sky the high pressure pattern was firmly in command, at least for a few days. Then all hell would break loose again. That’s how it is down here in August.

Riley said, ‘Here we are. Ladies first.’

And down we went on the stone steps, past the gun rooms, past the ammunition chambers, deeper and deeper until we finally arrived at the bottom level of the fort. Our flashlights swept back and forth over the moss-covered bricks, lost in the darkness for almost a hundred years.

Riley said, ‘This-a-way.’

We arrived at a solid-looking wall. Riley pulled out a screwdriver and slid it along one of the mortar lines. But instead of hardened cement, packed sand trickled out. He removed the brick as easily as a rotten tooth. Minutes later, a pile of them lay on the floor and a hole in the wall, inside which lay a mound of moldy, gray cloth sacks.

‘Daddy didn’t want nobody finding this no how.’

‘He did a good job,’ I said.

Riley leaned back on his haunches and sighed. ‘Well, like the man said, who ate a bad oyster, ‘What goes down must come up.’’

Ava stepped forward. ‘Let me look, if you don’t mind.’

She knelt down, dragged out one of the bags, untied it and reached inside. You could hear the soft clink of gold long before her flashlight revealed its splendor. The Confederate coins slipped through her slender fingers like water in Cleopatra’s bath. Nobody said anything for a long moment. All you could hear was our breathing and the quiet drip of water on the walls.

‘I can’t believe it’s really here,’ she whispered.

Riley said, ‘You had better put that gold to good use, hear?’

‘We will.’ She stood up and put out her hand.  Her face was set and determined. ‘Mr. Riley, on behalf of the Sons of Liberty, I want to thank you for your selfless devotion to the cause for which our fathers so proudly served. May we continue in their footsteps with bravery and courage.’

The old man refused to take her hand. He saluted her instead.

Each bag weighed at least forty pounds, and I counted fifty. We’d have a hell of a time getting them topside, but it had to be done. Orlando carried three in his arms like they were feathers, I managed two, but it killed me after the first few steps. The rest took what they could and we began the slow climb, knowing we’d have to repeat it many times before we were finished. Riley led the way, and then me, Ava and Ziggy. Orlando was our rear guard. Riley’s stooped figure was silhouetted in the bright sunlight as he neared the top of the stairs. Wasn’t our rear that needed guarding.

A voice said, ‘Mr. Riley, just what in hell are you doing inside my fort?’ Riley froze and the rest of us did too. Then, to his credit, he stepped forward. ‘What in hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Key West with your ladies.’

‘I made other arrangements.’

Riley whooped. ‘You mean you brought one here?’

‘None of your business, and what’s in that bag?’ Mr. Button stepped forward and looked down the staircase. ‘And who are these people?’

‘Morning, Billy,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Long time no see.’ He peered into the darkness. ‘That you, Sam?’

‘Indeed it is.’

‘Me too,’ Orlando said.

We climbed up and out into the bright sunlight. Mr. Button kept adjusting  and  re-adjusting  his  suspenders  over  his  ample  belly  as  he struggled to comprehend our disruption of his quiet little world.

Riley said, ‘How’d you know we were here?’

‘Shouting at your damned lighthouse woke me up from a sound sleep.’ Riley winked. ‘Why didn’t you just roll over and...’

‘Look here, you’re trespassing on government property. I’m going to have to report you.’

Ava said quietly, ‘Mr. Button, you’re a federal employee, correct?’

He nodded.

‘And as such, you’re entrusted to care for this national monument.’

He stood tall, his broad belly tight with importance. ‘Ensuring that no harm befalls it by unauthorized visitors like you.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So, what if I were to tell you that a year from now, maybe sooner, you’re going to be out of a job and this monument will be allowed to sink back into the sea. What would you say to that?’

He pulled at his suspenders and frowned, but said nothing.

Ava continued. ‘You read the newspapers, you know what’s going on in this country.  America’s in free fall because of the Nazis.  The state of Florida’s going to secede, right?’

‘And why shouldn’t it?’

He frowned. ‘We Southerners are mighty particular about being trod upon.’

‘I’m Louisiana-born.’

‘Then your governor’s saying the same thing. Nobody’s in charge at the

Federal  level  so  he’s  taking  the  bull  by  the  horns  and  taking  care  of Louisiana first, by God, and to hell with everybody else. Same is true for us

Floridians.’

‘You’re all dead wrong,’ Ava said.

‘Why?’

‘Because even though Abe Lincoln was a damned Yankee, he had it right; united we stand, divided we fall. And this…’ She emptied her bag onto the ground. The coins sparkled and danced in the sunlight as they landed. ‘This is going to make sure we do just that.’