Aloha, Lugosi! The Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #4 Read online

  “Almost,” Crumby said. “You see, he told me the story.”

  “You knew this man?” I asked. “You talked to him?”

  “He was my uncle,” the captain replied. “My cousin Alex’s father.”

  “Alex,” I said, “who is following us?”

  “That’s right,” he answered. “You see, Alex was an evil child. No one ever liked him. Not even his own father. He was much closer to me than his own son.”

  I was speechless. I’ve heard treasure stories before, but nothing quite like this. It was actually believable.

  “So your uncle,” I said, “he also told Alex about the treasure?”

  “No,” Crumby replied, shaking his head. “I was so distraught after the passing of my uncle that I told Alex the story. It is a mistake I regret to this very day.”

  “This uncle of yours,” I said. “Did he give you any clue as to where he buried the gold, besides on one of the hundred islands out here?”

  “Yes,” Crumby said. “Just before he died, his last words to me were, ‘It is under the big H.’”

  Chapter Nine

  Everything in Hawaii starts with an H or a W. The treasure

  could be anywhere. But I have to admit, I was thinking about it a lot. There wasn’t much else to do.

  I played cards with Sharkey and Barber while I wasn’t in the crow’s nest with Speck. I even learned how to steer the ship, which was easier than landing a P2Y-1 seaplane. But more often than not, our conversations kept coming back to the whereabouts of the Honolulu treasure.

  “It was forty years ago,” I said. “If your uncle somehow marked the site with a giant H, it has surely washed away by now.”

  “Unless it is some natural formation of the letter,” Jonas replied. “We found a waterfall on one of the islands one time. The water came down on the two ends, and the rock between them made it look like a giant H. I thought I’d found it then, but there was nothing there.”

  “It didn’t look like an H to me,” Barber replied.

  “Anything that remotely looks like an H, we’ve checked,” said Sharkey.

  Speck burst into the room in a panic, interrupting our conversation.

  “We have a major storm headed our way,” he yelled. “The sky is black directly to our right and headed straight for us!”

  “How much time?” the captain asked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Speck replied.

  “An estimate!” the captain yelled!

  “Ten minutes,” Speck replied. “Maybe less.”

  “We will have to change course immediately!” the captain shouted, as he spun the great steering wheel.

  Great waves of water struck the side of the Eclipse, cascading over us. It was impossible to see anything, but the captain kept a death grip on the big wheel in front of him.

  We were bouncing up and down through the ocean at great speed. I couldn’t tell how high, then low, we were going. It seemed like fifty feet or more in a matter of a few seconds.

  I clung onto the nearest pole and hung on for dear life. The ship was swept up, off of the ocean surface, then slammed down a second later. Time and time again, we were literally airborne, then almost completely submerged in violent seawater. Then just as quickly as it hit, it was gone.

  The sea around us was as calm as a sleeping baby. Seagulls yelped around us. We looked at each other in puzzlement. How the hell are we still alive? I thought.

  The crew scurried out onto the deck to survey the damage. The sails were still intact, except for the fore, which was shredded to pieces.

  “This is a miracle,” Speck said.

  “I’ve never been hit that hard that quickly,” Sharkey observed.

  “Look behind us,” Crumby said, pointing. We were completely on the other side of the massive ridge that forms the long line of islands.

  “I would have a hard time navigating through those rocks under the best of conditions,” the captain said. “We just went through them without hitting anything.”

  “So we are on the wrong side of the string of islands?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Crumby replied. “This side is too shallow. There have been hundreds of shipwrecks on this side through the years. That is why the merchant ships use the other side. And even there, it is dangerous to get too close.”

  Crumby didn’t know quite where we were. He was an experienced captain, but had never seen the islands from this vantage point.

  “We’ll have to go very slow between those two rocks,” he said. “We’ll use the little power motor and the anchors to tell how deep the water is.”

  We inched along cautiously but the water was too shallow to get our large boat through. We had no choice but to back up and continue down the bad side of the islands. Just as the crew got the go ahead to hoist the masts, Speck found something disturbing.

  “Lifeboat!” he yelled. There, just behind us, was a rubber raft with one man in it. He looked dead to me.

  Barber and Sharkey were dispatched in the dinghy to retrieve him. Once we hoisted the dinghy, Captain Crumby cringed in horror.

  “Is he still alive?” I asked.

  “He is,” Barber said.

  It was Alex. Crumby’s cousin and our worst nightmare was now on our ship. And there wasn’t a damned thing we could do about it.

  Chapter Ten

  When Alex finally came to, he told us his ship had crashed into a giant rock during the storm. He was lucky to get in a lifeboat just before she went down.

  “And the other men aboard?” I asked.

  “They didn’t make it,” he replied.

  Captain Crumby ignored Alex and walked back into the pilot room. “We have islands to cover, men!” he shouted. “Speck! Any rock that looks remotely like it could sustain human life, you tell me straight away! Now back up to the crow’s nest with you! Sharkey, Barber, keep your eyes peeled for reefs!”

  “I know he doesn’t want me here,” Alex said to me.“If it weren’t for you being here to witness it, I am sure they would throw me overboard.”

  “Well,” I replied. “You have been trying to hoard in on his treasure hunt. What’s that all about? I mean, do you think he was just going to willingly share it with you?”

  “It was my father who fought for the treasure,” Alex replied. “I have a right to it.”

  “No disrespect,” I said, “but your father was a thief. You have no more right to the gold than he did.”

  “My father was a good man,” Alex replied. “He was young and naive at the time of the robbery. He went on to be a man of honor who raised not just me, but my cousin as well, despite years of illness. But he was my father, not Jonas’.”

  “I’m not on this vessel to look for the treasure,” I said. “And I don’t want to get in the middle of a domestic dispute. We are out here to find my friend and his wife. Not gold bars and giant H’s.”

  “What giant H’s?” Alex asked. “What does that mean?”

  I’d inadvertently let the damned cat out of the bag to Alex. I tried to think of something fast to cover it up, but it was too late.

  “You know,” I said. “These giant Hawaiian rocks. The giant H’s!”

  “If something happens to me on this trip,” Alex said, “it was not an accident. I just want you to know that.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I will remember that.”

  Speck suddenly shouted something from the crow’s nest and slid down a rope on a pulley, hitting the deck hard right beside me.

  “What is it?” I asked, helping him up.

  “Whale!” he shouted, pointing to the east.

  Barber and Sharkey ran to one side of the boat and began readying a giant harpoon.

  “Tell the captain to steer east!” Sharkey yelled.

  “That will take us away from the islands!” I said.

  Barber and Speck were moving the giant mast with ropes to swing us around towards the open ocean. They were acting like dogs who just spotted a squirrel at the park and couldn’t be c
alled back.

  “Wait!” I said. “Where are we going?” I ran into the pilot room and demanded that we turn around.

  “If we get this whale,” Crumby said, “it would be worth a small fortune!”

  “And just where are you going to sell it?” I asked. “We would have to go back to the main island, and that will take days! I don’t have time for this! Turn this ship around! Now!”

  Crumby came to his senses and changed courses. We wouldn’t be chasing the whale after all. The crew was not happy with his decision and didn’t hide their feelings about it. Alex smiled and nodded towards me. He seemed to get a kick out of knowing that I was the one who was in charge of the Eclipse, not his cousin, Jonas.

  “Can I ask you something, Speck?” I said.

  “Spoil sport,” he replied.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be studying the islands to our right?” I asked.

  “I was,” he said. “Very intently, I might add.”

  “Then how did you spot a whale to our left,” I continued, “out in the middle of the Pacific?”

  “I have to keep an eye out for ships as well,” Speck answered.

  “Ships?” I asked. “I understand. “But Speck, this was not a ship. It was a damned whale!”

  “Okay,” Crumby interrupted, “back up top with you, Speck. We are on a mission to find a missing man. No more whale watching!”

  Crumby ordered the others to keep a close watch on Alex. “Have him do the dirty work,” the captain said. “Keep him busy and if we do happen to see another vessel, we’ll ship him off the Eclipse in the lifeboat he came in on. And I don’t care what kind of ship it is!”

  When Crumby and I were finally alone, he apologized for the whole whale incident. Sharkey and Barber had spent $400 of their own money to buy the harpoon and other equipment necessary to bag a whale. They’d gotten close a few times, but never sacked a whale.

  “How much money are we talking about here?” I asked. “I mean, if you would have gotten that whale?”

  “Did you see the size of that right whale?” Crumby asked.

  “What is a right whale?” I asked.

  “The biggest ones out there,” he replied. “That is why they are called a right whale. They are the right ones to catch.”

  “And what would you have gotten for it?” I pressed.

  “Thousands,” he replied.

  Crumby explained that he had an agreement with the crew. If they ever got a whale, they would split the profits evenly. I just cost them a fortune by insisting we halt the whale hunt. They were making peanuts from me by comparison.

  “But a deal is a deal,” Crumby said.

  “I have a confession to make,” I told the captain. “I accidentally told your cousin about the big H.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Crumby replied. “If I can’t find it, he won’t either.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t have the spirits on his side, for one,” he answered.

  “What spirits?” I said.

  “The dead,” Crumby replied. “He doesn’t have them on his side, and I do.”

  I was afraid to ask the captain what he meant by that. It sounded a bit scary to me. I’d had dreams of dead people talking to me for years. I reckoned Crumby did, too. He probably had visions like I did. And the psychic Vieta Jo. So I wasn’t about to ask any more questions.

  “You’re not going to kill him, are you?” I asked bluntly.

  “Absolutely not,” Crumby replied. “I won’t have to.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” I said. “But he believes you will.”

  “Like I said, I won’t have to,” he answered. “He will die on this trip, but it will not be by any man’s hands.”

  I’d heard enough. I didn’t want to know any more. But I completely believed everything the captain had just told me. Alex had bad karma. And it’s just a matter of time before that catches up to you.

  Chapter Eleven

  We dropped anchor for the night just as the sun was setting, casting streaks of white and blue on the water surrounding us. It was stunning.

  Alex was below deck, presumably cleaning up after our dinner of lobster and fish. “Go check on him,” Crumby told Speck.

  “But Captain, he’s only been down there alone for fifteen minutes,” Speck replied. “He’s not going anywhere!”

  “We have fifty barrels of gun powder stored in the lower end,” the captain replied. “I wouldn’t put it past him to light the whole boat up like a Christmas tree. Just go check!”

  A light fog rolled in just as Speck and Alex joined us on the main deck. Suddenly, to our left, a ship appeared. It was headed straight for us at a pretty good clip.

  “Dammit!” I yelled.

  Everyone scrambled to hang onto something. The boat showed no signs of slowing down. My first thought was that her crew was dead and she was running wildly on her own. My second thought was that we were all going to die.

  Crumby had predicted that Alex would sack the rabbit on this trip. Maybe he was right. What he didn’t foresee was that we would all be going with him.

  We all screamed in horror as the ship closed in on us. And just as her bow breached the Eclipse, nothing happened. There was no sudden jolt or crash. We could see her, but she passed us. And when I say she passed us, I mean the ship passed through us! As she faded into the darkness, we witnessed her aft. Then, she was gone. Just like that. We stood in stunned silence, staring into the fog of the night.

  “Did you see that?” one of the men asked.

  “We all saw it!” Sharkey said. “It was the Lenora!”

  “Holy Mother!” Barber said. “I saw it, too. The name on the back of the ship! It said ‘Lenora’!”

  The men were all swearing and talking at the same time. I was in absolute shock, but finally managed to speak. “What the hell is the Lenora?” I asked.

  “It was the name of the ship that robbed Honolulu,” Crumby said. “My uncle told me. It was the vessel of death. The one he escaped from with the gold!”

  “We just saw a ghost ship,” Speck said.

  “Seventy men perished on that vessel,” Alex observed.

  “Has anyone ever seen this before?” I asked.

  “No,” Crumby said. “I’ve never heard of anyone seeing anything like this.”

  I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it for myself. But I did. It was foggy, sure, but it was a damned big boat and I could make out the name of her as she went off. It did say Lenora.

  “She was turning left,” Barber said. “Just before she disappeared. The ship made a left. Did you all see that too?”

  “Yes,” Sharkey replied. “I saw that.”

  “What the hell difference does that make?” I asked. “It’s a ghost ship!”

  “Maybe she is trying to lead us to the treasure!” Barber answered.

  “That boat didn’t have the treasure on it after the men killed each other off,” I countered. “Your uncle took the chest with the gold in a dinghy. Isn’t that right, Jonas?”

  “Yes,” the captain replied. “That is what he told me.”

  “How could one man lift such a treasure chest?” Speck asked.

  “He slid it off the boat on the blood of those who had perished fighting for it,” I answered.

  “Ghosts know things we mortals don’t,” Barber said. “It doesn’t matter that the Lenora and these men lost the treasure. They could still know where it ended up.”

  “They would know better than anyone!” Speck said.

  “It is under the big H,” Alex said.

  “And just what do you suppose that means?” Barber asked, lunging towards Alex.

  “I don’t know!” Alex yelled, putting his hands up to defend himself.

  “Stop it!” Crumby screamed, pulling the two men apart. “You all! Just stop! I can’t explain what we just saw, but we are on a mission here! And that mission is to find Mr. Bay’s friend! We are going to continue doing jus
t that as soon as the sun rises! So I would suggest you all get some shut eye!”

  I don’t think any of us got any sleep. I know I sure didn’t. We spent the remainder of the night gazing out into the pitch black ocean, waiting to get another glimpse of the ghost ship, the Lenora.

  Chapter Twelve

  “There are a lot of plants there,” Speck explained, “and a few trees. A person could live on this island.”

  Crumby and I took the dinghy to the tiny island. On the far side was a fairly large cliff, surrounded by lush vegetation. The plants were beautiful and smelled sweet. We headed for the cliff, about a thousand feet ahead of us.

  “My god,” Crumby said, stopping dead in his tracks ahead of me. “Do you know what these plants are?”

  “No,” I replied. “Don’t tell me they are poisonous.”

  “These are marijuana plants,” he answered. “And there are thousands of them!”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.

  A voice suddenly answered from behind us. “That depends on your point of view,” he said.

  We spun around and were face to face with a man with long hair and a beard. He looked like he’d been shipwrecked on the island for years.

  “I haven’t had any visitors in a while,” he said. “What would you like to see first? The whale in the pond or the bus on the hill?”

  “We are looking for my friend,” I replied. “We just want to know if he is here.”

  “He may be,” the man replied. “Follow me, and we shall see.”

  The strange old man was smoking a pipe and humming to himself as he led us through the field. We wound up at a very large pool of water just below the giant cliff.

  “She’s not here right now,” he said. “But maybe we will see her tomorrow.”

  “See whom?” I asked.

  “My whale,” he said.“Her name is Mary Jane. You see, the water from the ocean passes underground here, to this lake. And sometimes she comes here to visit me. I think she feels safe here. Like I do.”

  “We can’t stay,” I said. “We’re just looking for my friend. Does anyone else live here besides you?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Follow me and see.”