The Treasure of El Patron Read online

  Cowboy slid his tank over his head. “I hope you’re right. I sure wouldn’t mind letting someone else clean those fish down at the market.”

  Tag already had his equipment on. He handed Cowboy his extra waterproof flashlight, stuck a Ping-Pong paddle in his weight belt, and gave the thumbs-down sign to go over the edge. Cowboy returned the signal and they rolled backward into the water.

  The trip to the bottom was executed in a thick blackness. Tag exhaled, and as his lungs emptied he began to sink farther into the chilly water. Pain shot into his left ear. Stupid, he thought. A first-year diver knows you have to relieve the pressure. With all the excitement, he had forgotten. Quickly he pinched his nose and blew out.

  In a little less than a minute they were on the sandy bottom. Cowboy pointed his light at the red-and-orange coral. A school of yellowtail snapper swam by in front of him.

  Tag tapped his friend on the shoulder and pointed to the right. Cowboy nodded. He understood that they had less than an hour’s worth of air and that they would have to split up if they hoped to find any trace of the treasure.

  Almost thirty minutes had passed before Tag saw anything that caught his attention. He’d been in this area before but somehow he’d missed this. It was a small round opening the size of a plate near the bottom of the reef.

  Tag pointed his light at the hole and peered inside. How could he not have seen it before? The inside was hollow, like an underwater cave. Something shiny lay near the opening and reflected the beam from his flashlight. He reached inside and pulled it out.

  A pewter spoon.

  If he could have, he would have screamed with joy. He tucked the spoon into his vest pocket and reached into the hole again. This time he used the Ping-Pong paddle to delicately sweep the sand from the floor of the cave. As if by magic, a plate and knife appeared. Tag put the paddle back in his belt and reached for the two new treasures.

  A sharp stab of pain shot through his left hand. Something had hold of the tip of his thumb and was trying to yank him into the hole.

  The flesh ripped from the end of Tag’s thumb. A small moray eel gulped it down and then released its grip to try to get a better hold on the rest of his finger.

  Tag jerked his arm out and swam back from the hole. The pain was worse than a thousand sharp needles all jabbed into his hand at once. A greenish fluid surged from the end of his thumb. Tag knew it was the color of his own blood under the water. He held the wound and tried to keep from passing out.

  Frantically he searched for Cowboy. When he spotted him he gave the sign to go up and tried not to panic as he headed for the surface. It was all he could do to resist the urge to shoot to the top. Stay calm, he told himself. Breathe deeply and don’t rise any higher than the air bubbles from your tank. Tag knew that if he went up too fast he might get the bends and become paralyzed, or die.

  In the boat, Cowboy helped him lift his tank off his back, then whipped off his own tank. “What happened down there?”

  Tag showed him his thumb. “Nearly lost it to a bloody moray.”

  “That’s it.” Cowboy threw his hands up in disgust. “No more night diving for us. Anything we want to see we’ll just have to find in the daytime.” He flipped open the first-aid kit and grabbed a roll of bandages.

  “Take a look at this.” With his good hand, Tag pulled the antique spoon out of his pocket and held it up. “Thanks to Gamell’s maps and the old admiral’s records, I think we may have found the hiding place of El Patrón.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Tag opened the gate to his backyard and stepped in. A big ball of white fur hit him in the chest. “Hey, watch it, Ghost!” Tag patted his big, shaggy mutt. “I’m glad to see you too, boy. You been keeping an eye on things?” The dog whined and wagged his tail vigorously.

  Tag glanced at Cowboy. “Want to come in for a while?”

  Cowboy set his tank next to the compressor on Tag’s back porch. “No, I better get home, mate. It’s getting late. My dad’ll be having fits.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Come by the bait shack when you get the day’s catch cleaned. Maybe we can close up early and get started looking for the treasure.”

  “We’re going down tomorrow?” Cowboy raised one eyebrow and pointed to his friend’s thumb. “What about that?”

  “Aw, it’s nothing. By tomorrow it won’t even hurt.”

  “If you say so.” Cowboy bounded down the steps. “See ya.”

  Tag waved goodbye to his friend, scratched Ghost’s ears one more time with his good hand, and went inside.

  The white-roofed house was small, with only two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a tiny living room. The lights were out, which meant his mother still wasn’t home from work. Not that he expected her. During the summer months she always worked late.

  He flipped on the light switch in the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator. Careful not to touch anything with his injured thumb, he pulled out some leftover fish chowder and heated it on the stove.

  When he had finished eating, Tag cleaned up his mess and settled down on the worn, overstuffed couch with his father’s diary and the spoon he’d found.

  The diary was precious to him. He’d found it in his dad’s gear after his dad had died, and had never shown it to anyone. The only person he’d ever told about it was Cowboy. He especially didn’t want to tell his mother because she worried enough about his “preoccupation” with his dad’s last dive.

  It wasn’t written like most diaries, in which routine daily events were recorded. This one was a log of “finds.”

  Since before Tag was born in Bermuda’s Smith’s parish, his father had always worked for someone else, going on whatever diving expedition paid the most money. On his final dive, he and his good friend Thomas had worked as partners, searching for their own lost treasure.

  Normally Tag loved to pore over descriptions of the salvage operations, imagining what it must have been like to work with so many diving crews, searching through old wrecks for buried treasure. But this time he skipped to the end of the entries.

  June 17—Thomas and I are getting close. Found only one gold coin—hole reef—but am sure more will follow.

  Tag’s mouth fell open. It had been right there all the time and he’d missed it. His dad had left him a clue, hole reef. Before, because the diary was so water-damaged and words and letters were smeared or missing, he’d thought the entry said there was only one coin on the whole reef. But his father had been talking about the exact same place Tag and Cowboy had been today—a small round hole in the side of the reef.

  So they had found it.

  But now what? If the reef had grown over the wreck, how would they ever get to it?

  Tag’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door closing. He slid the diary and spoon under a couch cushion and jumped up to help his mother with the heavy sack she was carrying.

  She gratefully handed it to him while she kicked off her shoes and pulled the scarf out of her long, blond hair. “Harry down at the café sent you some of his cassava pie and … Tag?”

  Tag stopped halfway to the kitchen and turned. His mother’s blue eyes looked worried.

  “What happened to your thumb?” She pointed at the bloodstain on the white bandage.

  “Oh, that. It’s no big deal. Cowboy and I were diving off the Tiger Head and I ran into a little trouble with a moray.”

  His mother dropped wearily into a nearby chair. “The Tiger Head? That’s where your father …” Her voice trailed off.

  Tag put the sack on a low table and walked over to her. “I was careful, Mom. Cowboy and I aren’t exactly amateurs, you know.”

  “Neither was your father … or Thomas. I know I can’t ask you to stop diving. It’s in your blood. But couldn’t you at least choose another place?”

  Tag hated to see her upset. He knelt by her chair and decided it would be in everyone’s best interests for him to stretch the truth a little. “Don’t worry about it, okay? One pl
ace is as good as the next as far as I’m concerned.”

  Relief washed over her face. “Good. Want me to take a look at that thumb?”

  Tag shook his head. “It was just a little nip. Cowboy cleaned it up real good. It’ll be good as new by morning.” He stood and moved to the sack. “Now, weren’t you saying something about cassava pie?”

  CHAPTER 5

  “What took you so long?”

  “Long?” Cowboy tried to look offended. “So that’s the thanks I get for working my tail off just so you can hurry over to Tiger Head and be live bait for some hungry moray.”

  “Very funny. Besides, that’s not going to happen this time.” Tag held up two large salted fish. “These are my insurance. The first one is for the moray that nipped my thumb yesterday. I’m bringing the second in case he has any friends living down there with him.”

  “So what are we waiting on? Let’s get going.”

  “I can’t. Your tourists still haven’t brought my poles back.”

  “My tourists?”

  “You remember, those two guys you sent here who didn’t know anything about fishing, Davis and Spear.”

  “I remember, but—” Cowboy broke off as they heard the sound of a moped engine. “Looks like ‘my’ tourists are coming. Want me to disappear?”

  “No. They saw you in the boat with me last night. Anyway, as soon as I get the poles, we’re out of here.”

  Only one moped pulled up to the bait shack. This time Davis was alone. The stocky man passed the poles to Tag and waited while the boy put them away.

  “Is there something else I can help you with, Mr. Davis?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you boys might be able to do something for me. Yesterday, when my friend and I were out near the reefs, we accidentally dropped something in the water. Since neither one of us dives, I was hoping I could hire you to find it for me.”

  Tag rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. We sort of had other plans for today.”

  “Excuse us a minute.” Cowboy took his friend’s arm and propelled him to the back of the shack. “We’re going down there anyway, right?” he whispered.

  “Right.”

  “Why not make a little money while we’re at it?”

  “We won’t need any money if I can figure out how to get to that wreck.”

  Cowboy sighed. “Okay, then let me make the money while you look for the treasure.”

  “Have it your way. But you have to get rid of them as soon as you find their stuff.”

  “No problem.” Cowboy moved to the counter. “My friend and I would be happy to dive for you, Mr. Davis.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Tag steered his boat in the wake of the blue-and-white outboard directly in front of him. “Did those guys tell you what they dropped?”

  Cowboy shook his head. “Davis said it was extremely valuable and he’d rather not say what it was. We’re supposed to recognize it because it’s wrapped in a yellow plastic bag. He’s already given me a deposit. If we find it, he’ll give us more.”

  “The sooner we find it the better. Those two guys are weird, if you ask me. Why wouldn’t they want us to know what’s in the bag?”

  Davis and Spear stopped near the edge of the reef. Tag anchored a few yards away. Davis cupped his hands and yelled, “We think it’s somewhere around here.” He pointed to the area in front of his boat.

  Tag and Cowboy checked their equipment and rolled over the side of the boat into the ocean. The water looked completely different in the daylight. At night it had been pitch black and ominous; now it was a beautiful clear blue. The sand was a pale bluish gray and the fish were bluish green.

  When the boys reached the bottom, they searched the left side of the reef, moving in a zigzag so that they wouldn’t miss anything. Near the end of the reef Tag stopped and looked for the small hole where he’d found his treasures the night before. He swam by it twice, wishing they hadn’t agreed to dive for Davis and Spear.

  Tag moved to Cowboy and tapped him on the shoulder, shrugged, and gave the thumbs-up sign. Cowboy followed him to the top.

  They surfaced near the left side of Davis’s boat. The bald man leaned over. Beads of sweat clung to his head. “Did you find it?”

  “We searched this whole side carefully. There’s nothing here.”

  Spear slammed the side of the boat with his fist. “I told you we shouldn’t have hired kids,” he said angrily.

  “Shut up.” Davis turned to the boys and mopped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “Perhaps we made a mistake about the location. It’s hard to be sure out here. Everything looks the same. Would you mind looking around the other side?”

  Tag rolled his eyes. He wanted these people gone so that he could get back to the treasure.

  Davis pulled out his wallet. “There’ll be a bonus in it for you. Say … fifty bucks apiece.”

  Tag looked at his friend. Cowboy’s eyes were pleading with him to say yes.

  “Oh, all right. We’ll go down again. But this is the last time.”

  They swam to their own boat, changed to their reserve air tanks, then dropped back to the bottom. Halfway around the reef they both spotted it at the same time. The mystery package was wrapped in yellow plastic as Davis had said. But something was attached to it.

  Tag lifted it a few feet off the bottom. Sand drifted up and clouded his vision. When it was clear he could see that a deflated rubber buoy was attached to the yellow package with heavy string.

  Cowboy took one side of the package and gave the sign to go up. Tag shook his head. He didn’t want to give them the bundle until he knew what was in it. From the looks of it, it had been dropped in the water on purpose, not accidentally.

  He put his hand out, palm down, and rocked it back and forth, giving his friend the sign that meant something is wrong. Then he put both his fists up, indicating that he wanted Cowboy to wait.

  Tag wrapped the buoy around the yellow package, swam across the reef to his treasure hole, and dropped it inside. Then he went back to his friend and gave the thumbs-up sign.

  Through the water they could see the bottom of their boat. But they could see something else too: a grayish blur a few yards out in front of it.

  A tiger shark.

  The twelve-foot creature opened its mouth, exposing rows of saw-edged teeth as it swam in a wide circle around the two boats. One unblinking dark eye seemed to be looking at them but paid no real attention.

  They knew better than to surface. The shark might think they were fish in trouble.

  Suddenly the shark began thrashing and rolling in the water. Streaks of green spurted from its body.

  Tag pointed up and both boys surfaced and climbed into the boat as quickly as possible.

  Spear was standing near the edge of his boat with a handgun pointed at the water. He yelled over at them, “Saved your lives, squirts! You should thank me.”

  “Nearly got us killed, you mean.” Tag was furious. He slipped his tank off his back. “In a few minutes, every shark within miles will be here to help finish him off. Watch this.” He picked up one of his salted fish and threw it out into the water. The ocean boiled furiously. Two or three fins were plainly visible. A large shark took a bite out of the smaller one that had downed the fish.

  “Diving’s over, Mr. Davis. It’ll be hours before their feeding frenzy ends. Besides, there’s nothing down there.”

  Davis studied Tag’s face. “We’ll just have to see about that, son.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Later that night, under cover of darkness, two figures hoisted a bundle wrapped up in yellow plastic into their boat and sped toward shore without using any lights.

  Neither one uttered a word as they secured the small boat to an old makeshift dock and hurried across the beach and up a rocky trail toward an abandoned lighthouse.

  Tag closed the creaky door of the lighthouse and snapped on a small flashlight. “All right. Let’s see what’s so important to those two guys.”
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  Cowboy cut the string from the buoy with his diving knife and pulled it away from the package. Then he made a careful incision near the top of the yellow plastic and pulled out a small, clear plastic bag containing white powder.

  Tag turned the yellow package over and dumped the rest of its contents. Out fell nine more small bags. Each one was filled with powder.

  They sat quietly for a while. It was Cowboy who broke the silence. “Sorry, mate. I didn’t know they were dope dealers. What do we do now?”

  Tag rubbed his chin. “This looks like a big haul. I don’t think we’re dealing with amateurs here. My guess is someone made the drop from the air and Spear and Davis were supposed to pick it up. But somehow the buoy got a hole in it and the whole package sank to the bottom.”

  “Do we take it to the police?”

  “That’s the tricky part. It’s hard to make a move on this island without everybody and their grandmother knowing about it. These kinds of people are mean, and if we don’t want their buddies coming after us, we’re gonna have to be real careful.”

  “I’ve got it.” Cowboy started stuffing the bags back into the large yellow container. “We’ll put it all back where it came from and nobody will be the wiser.”

  Tag looked at him.

  Cowboy made a face. “Okay, so that was a bad idea. You have a better one?”

  “No. But I know who will—Thomas.” Tag helped stuff the rest of the bags inside the larger one. “Help me hide this and let’s get the boat back to the marina. Tomorrow we’ll show Thomas what we’ve got and let him decide what to do.”

  They hid the bag in a corner of the closet under the stairs and crept out to the boat. Tag rounded the tip of the island and expertly maneuvered the small craft through the reefs to the marina.

  “I’ll meet you at the bait shack tomorrow afternoon,” he whispered. “We’ll go into town together.”

  As the boys split up and hurried away, a man stepped from behind one of the gas pumps on the dock. He flicked a cigarette butt into the water. His eyes narrowed as he quietly made his way back up the beach to the motel.