Alexander Key - Saltwater Scramble.doc

Saltwater Scramble

For a dish of turtle eggs, take a murder, a fightin' ghost, ten

thousand dollars, and a squall. Mix well. Then go find your eggs

By ALEXANDER KEY

Author of "The Devil's Jaw," "Luck on the

Ladybird," etc.

I

              THERE ain't but two things what can make Cap'n Lucius P. Shackel forget that he weighs as much as a buck elephant and that his port leg is a piece o' hickory.  Ordinarily he never stirs more'n a dozen steps ashore, for in the years since him an' me first started tow-boatin' together on the Mary Shackel, he's acquired such a terrible lot o' beam an' ballast that he cracks up an average o' five wooden legs a season. But just put him on the trail o' some buried money, or let him git a yen for a turtle egg omelet, an' then there's goin' to be action—an' sometimes a heap o' trouble.  Even so, I'd never a-thought I'd live to see the day when his hankering for turtle eggs would come nigh to bein' the death of us both.

              But I better not precede myself on this here egg business. It really starts away back yonder with a certain no-count shark-faced rascal by the name o' Cap'n Amos McTigue, a varmint what is so ornery he would steal the pennies out a blind man's cup, an' maybe take the cup if'n he thought he could turn it to some account.

I reckon everybody on the Gulf Coast has done heard about the last time we run foul o' this Cap'n Amos. That was when we was trackin' down a piece o' buried money in the swamps near Spanish Landin'. It has done been related how Lucius—there was something mentioned about me an' me come back with the money, and how Cap'n Amos come back with buckshot in his britches—a little matter which caused folks all the way from Biloxi to Key West to start layin' bets as to who will get kilt first the next time we meet up with each other.

              So that is the way matters is standin' one boilin' hot mornin' when the Mary Shackel is nosin' west on St. George Sound, with nine barges o' pulpwood in tow for the Panama mill. It is our first trip out since we installed the new Diesels bought with that money we found, an' there's good reasons why I'm mighty anxious for things to go through without no hitch. One of them is that it took the last dollar we found to pay for them motors; an' t'other is the fact that the radio is reportin' a sou'easter winding itself up down in the keys.

I'm sweatin' in the engine room, proud as a pelican over our thirty-thousand-dollars-worth o' new horsepower—which, by the way, is something nobody else has got in these parts—when I happen to glance out the port window and near swal­ler my store teeth. The island what bounds the Sound here is about two miles nearer than it safely ought to be. I tear up on deck, thinking Cap'n Lucius has done gone to sleep at the wheel. But the ole hop-toad is more wide awake than I've seen him in months, an' he keeps squintin' over at the sand dunes like a cat lookin' at a cage o’ canaries.

              HEY!" I yells. "Where you think you're goin'?"

              "Minnego," he says, my name bein' Minnego Jones, "we're right near Pilot's Cove, an' I was jest a-thinkin'

              "I know what you're thinkin'," I cuts in, seem' him run his tongue over his fat chops. "But you just clap a double hitch on your thoughts an' put that wheel hard over to starb'd. We ain't stoppin' at Pilot's Cove."

              "Now lissen, Minnego. When we signed the articles together forty-odd year ago, bein' skipper an' you bein' the engineer. So, if I happen to git a notion--" 

              "Engineer!" I bust out. "Hell, I've had to be mate, quartermaster, ship's carpen­ter, cox'n an' wet nurse—but I'm gittin' durned tired o' playin' wet nurse to a human whale. Sure, I know it's loggerhead season. But this is one year you ain't stuffin' no saltwater omelets down your hatch. Your belly is so big now it gits hung up on the binnacle every time you turn around."

              "Ye hadn't orta talk to me that way," he says, easing the wheel over to port. "Ye'll be hurtin' my delicate feelin's in a minnit. Besides, turtle egg season don't come but once a year."

              "You crazy buck coot," I says, "we're due for a spell o' weather any hour now, an' if'n it should happen to hit us while we’re cuttin’ monkey-shines on the beach--"

              "Won't bother us 'fore night," he says. "An' in a couple o' hours we kin git all the eggs we want an' be back aboard."

              I see there ain't no use arguing with him. There ain't nothin' to do but heave to an' drop the hook, an' then put the dory an' outboard over the side an 'take him ashore. I'd rather send Sam, our black nuisance, with him, but I'm the only one what knows how to fiddle with an outboard motor. An' Lucius is one o' these here gourmets what insists upon diggin' his own turtle eggs.

              I don't for one second like the idea o' goin' ashore, and' if I'd had even half a suspicion o' what we was goin' to git ourselves into, I'd a’ started a little mutiny right there in the wheelhouse, an' taken the Mary Shackel away from that durned island in a hurry.

              On account o' the shoal water an' all them nine barges we got in tow, we have to leave the Mary Shackel anchored more'n a mile off shore. It worries me plenty, 'cause a little wind can kick up an awful chop in a shoal bay. It can make an out­board motor useless, an' raise plenty hell, with nine barges o' pulp-wood.

              We are right abeam this spot called Pilot’s cove that Lucius has his eye on, so I point the dory to the lower end of it where the island narrows. Trampin' over white sand on a burnin' hot day ain’t my idea o' sport, an' I'm figgerin' on savin’ some steps to the outside beach them loggerheads crawl up to lay their eggs.

              This island is a wild an' lonesome place, miles long an' so narrow in spots you can almost spit across it. The only humans on it is two lighthouse keepers down by the pass.  In the old days the pilot sloops used to hang out in the cove, waitin' for tops'l schooners that came up the coast for cotton. Before that it was the o' fellers like La Fitte, an' all the buckaroos that swarmed in these waters.  About the only boats that ever stop here now is maybe a stray shrimp fisherman, or a sponger ridin' out a blow—but all you need is to take one look at the rolling mounds o' sand, the little clusters o' palms on 'em and the blue sea beyond, an' you'll know the place has a heap o' past.

              I can just feel that past a-closin' in on me when I pull the dory up on the sand. There ain't a breath of air stirring, but from the outside beach a little way over the dunes the surf is muttering an' booming an' slashing in a way that makes scalp prickle all over my head. I ain’t superstitious, but I know now the surf was tryin' to warn me to keep away from it.

NOW, on account of his weight, Lucius has to strap a flat piece o' iron to the bottom o' his hickory leg so he won't sink clean to his bilge in the soft sand. While he’s doin' that, I load the rifle I've brung take a couple shots at a conch shell to kinda git my eye in trim. There's wild hawgs on this island, an' they're bad critters to meet.

              I'm lookin' for something else to shoot when I hear Lucius cuss. He's squintin’ way up the cove to where a little inlet makes up in a marsh. For the first time I notice there is a' boat anchored in the inlet.

              "I'm damned!" he says. "That looks like the Cajun!"

              The Cajun, as everybody knows, is Amos McTigue's boat.

              "Can't be," I says. "It's got a white hull an' the Cajun's black."

              "Shark-face could a painted it," says Lucius.

              "Not unless he stole the paint," I says. "An' 'twouldn't be his nature to steal white paint. He'd jest naturally take black."

              ''I don't like it.” mutters Lucius. "If he's on the island, 'tain't fer no Christian reason. His brother Scott broke jail 'tother day, an' ye kin always count on devilmint--"

              "Can't be McTigue's boat," I says, happenin' to remember something I'd heard last night. "They say McTigue's over at Mobile on a big tow job. Come on an' let's find them damned turtle eggs before the sand flies eat me up!"

              So we flounder over the dunes to the out­side beach, Lucius with a sack an' me with the rifle. What with the heat an' glare on the sand, an' the insects plumb eatin' me alive, I ain't as watchful as I should have been, or mebbe I'd a noticed a thing or two an' kept out o' trouble.

There's lots o' loggerhead tracks leadin' up from the surf—funny-lookin' things that looks for all the world like somebody had dragged a dead body out'n the water. There's the middle mark where the turtle's bottom plates scrape the sand, an' on either side is the flipper marks, like the prints of a man's shoes scuffling along backward. Maybe it is this ungodly track I don't like, for I'd as soon eat stewed squid as touch a turtle egg.

              Lucius passes up a couple o' tracks as bein' too old. The next one is fresh, so he follows it high up on the beach to a big area o' kicked-up sand. The logger-head has done this on purpose to hide its nest, for somewhere in the circle is a hole containin' mebbe a hundred white, soft-shelled eggs, the size an' shape of a golf ball. The only way to find 'em is to take a sharp stick an' start pokin' around in the sand; when the stick comes up drippin' yeller you know you've hit the spot.

              We're pokin' around with sticks when all of a sudden a shadow passes overhead, an' I notice there's buzzards wheelin' around us. One of 'em drops toward a big drift log close by.

              Them buzzards give me a funny feelin'. I'm lookin' at that drift log when suddenly I see a turtle track comm' down to it from the dunes. It's the wrong direction for a turtle to go-an' right off I realize I ain't lookin' at a turtle track a-tall. What I'm really seem' is what a turtle track always reminds me of.

              I holler at Lucius an' go runnin' over to the drift log. One look behind it is enough. In fact, it's nigh more'n I can take at one dose.

              Lucius waddles up, an when he sees what I see he grunts like he's been hit with an ax.

There's a man lyin' behind the log, an' it don't take no guessin' to know he'll never git up an' walk away from here.

II

WE'VE both seen plenty dead men in our time, an' ordinarily the sight o' one ain't enough to make either Lucius or me turn a hair. But this is an unusual corpus delicti. It is a short ornery-lookin' hatchet-faced young varmint of about fifty, dressed in soiled whites. He's got stiff, iron-grey hair, an' through his torn shirt I make out a mermaid tattooed on his chest. I've seen that mermaid before.

              "Gawd!" Lucius croaks finally. "It's—it's Amos!"

              It's Cap'n Amos McTigue, all right. If'n I was blind in Hades I'd know him, cause there ain't another human map no-where with as much cussedness writ on it. Death ain't changed it none. He's still got that nasty smirk on his face like he'd just skint a widder out'n her last dollar, an' was gittin' ready to laugh.

              But he won't do no more laughin', 'cause there is a bullet hole smack between his little close-set eyes. What's more, his shirt is still damp from sweat—so I know he ain't been dead more’n a little while an’ that the feller that kilt him was probably draggin' him down to the water when he seen us commin'.

              The whole thing kinda stuns me. It's bad enough to find anybody done to death out on a wild beach in the glarin' sand but to have it be Amos McTigue, of all people, an' to know that his killer is prob­ably watchin' you every minnit, an' that you've walked slap into something that is not only damned queer but mighty unhealthy in the bargain—

              "Let's git away from here," I whispers hoarsely to Lucius.

              "Wait a minnit," he says, bendin' over Amos. "It's durned funny-"

              "I don't see nothin' funny," I says.

              "He's ungodly pale," says Lucius.

              "You'd be ungodly pale, too," I answers, "if'n you had a bullet hole where your brains is supposed to be."

              "We got to notify the law," says Lucius, frowning. "Bill Brennan down at the light­house is deputy for the island, an' one of' us ought to go an' git 'im!"

              "We ain't notifyin' nobody," I snaps. "Everybody knows how Amos an' us got along. Now I'm just askin' you what the law'd think when we try an' tell 'em--"

              I stop, listenin', an' then I jerk around an my tongue goes dead in my mouth.

              Hurryin' down the dunes towards us is four men, an' every durned one of 'em has a gun.

              Leading 'em is a big red-faced feller in paint-spattered dungarees. It's Bill Bren­nan himself. Right behind him is the as­sistant lighthouse keeper, a little grim-jawed sun-burnt weasel known as Topsy Dean. An' close in the rear is a couple o' dark-complected sea lice off M.cTigue's boat, the Cajun. They is Joe Rossi, the mate, an' Tampa Mike, the engineer.

              I could a kicked myself all over for not knowin' McTigue's boat when I seen it.

              The gang comes up to us, an' for a few seconds nobody says a word. But there is plenty bein’ thought, an' from the looks they’re givin' us I know we're in for it.

              “Talk!”  Brennan says at last. "What's been goin' on here?"

              McTigue," I says. "His past has caught up with 'im."

              “You mean you an' Peg-leg Shackel caught up with 'im!" snaps Brennan.  “Sure I seen you come ashore, an' I seen take a couple o' shots at 'im."

              “You—you seen what?" I gasped.

              "Jest what I'm tellin' you," says Brennan. "I was comm' down to the cove from the lighthouse, goin' to the Cajun where Topsy an' the crew was havin' a round o' stud. As I was crossin' them high dunes west o' here, I seen you two land at the other end o' the cove an' I fig­gered right off you'd follered Amos to the island, an' that there was gonna be trouble. So--"

"Damn ye!" bellows Lucius, turnin' pur­ple. "We come here to hunt turtle eggs!"

"Turtle eggs!" says Topsy Dean, nasty like. "Haw! I don't see no turtle eggs!"

"An' I don't either," says Brennan. "But I did see Minnego grab his rifle the minute he got ashore an' start shootin'--"

              “I was shootin' at a conch shell!"

              "It was a two-legged conch," says Bren­nan. "I seen it jump up an' fall down again—an' it looked like Amos."

              "Hump!" sneers Lucius. "You got damn good eyes to be seem' so much at that distance. Suppose ye tell me how Amos got down here behind this log!"

              "Why, you big hop-toad," answers Bren­nan, "you had plenty time to drag him here while I was gittin' the boys off the boat. None o' them could a-done it, 'cause the three o' them has been on the Cajun all the time. An' there ain't nobody else on the island, so-"

              "So nothin'!" roars Lucius, an' I see he's nigh ready to bust with the bile in him. "Ye lyin' connivin' pusillanimous buzzard! Ye seemed damned anxious to pin the hull thing-"

              "Easy, Peg-Leg," Brennan interrupts him, thrustin' his rifle against Lucius' bilge. "I ain't got nothin' again' you, an' I ain't tryin' to pin nothin' on you. I'm jest tryin' to do my duty as I see it. I'm the law in these parts, mister, an' there's been murder done."

              "Yeah, but ye orta be offerin' a gold medal to the feller what done it. If 'twas me--" Lucius stops with a gulp. He looks up at the sky, an' his face turns green. When I look at the sky, I feel myself gittin’ green too.

              That sou'easter I been worried about has come ahead o' time. The sky is black­enin' down on the horizon; a sharp wind is beginnin' to make the sand fly, an' I give it less'n a half hour before all hell pops loose.

              "Lissen," Lucius croaks thickly, "we got to git back to the boat in a hurry! There ain't nobody but Sam aboard, an' when that thing hits--"

              "Oh, no you don't!" snaps Brennan. "You ain't leavin' this island till I git things settled. An' I'll just take your rifle, Minnego, before it accidentally goes off an' hurts somebody else."

              He relieves me o' my rifle, a matter in which I ain't got no choice, what with all the guns pointed at my middle. An' I see we ain't got no choice but to stay here until His Royal Highness Mister Brennan allows us to go. It's terrible hard on Lucius' blood pressure.

              "Now," says Mister Brennan, "we'll have a look at them tracks yonder an' see who really did drag Amos down here."

              "Ye can't tell nothin' about tracks in dry sand," croaks Lucius, on the verge o' apoplexy.

              "No?"  answers  Brennan,  soft-like. "Maybe not ordinary tracks—but if they was made by a man with a wooden leg..."

We all turn an' study them tracks, an' right there I git a jolt. If I hadn't been with Lucius all the time, I'd a sworn he'd made 'em himself. The wind is fast fillin' 'em with drivin' sand, but even so it looks for all the world like a feller with a peg leg had dragged Amos to the log.

              I glance at Lucius. He is turned mighty calm now, but I can tell his brain is workin' forty miles a minnit.

              He catches my eye with a look that orders me to be on my pins, 'cause he's gittin' ready to yank a trick out of his bag. I'm hopin it's a devilish good trick, for we're needin' one bad. "Come on," he says to Brennan. "Let's foller them tracks up the dune. I'd kinda like to see where they come from."

              "That's just exactly what I'm aimin' to do," snaps Brennan. "But we got to hurry before this wind covers 'em up. You lead the way, Minnego—but don't pull nothin' funny, 'cause Topsy an' me will be right behind you."

              IT's a high dune, an' Lucius is pantin' like a steam engine as we near the top. The first thing I see as I look over the palmetters is the Mary Shackel 'way out in the sound. My heart jumps to my mouth. The wind has whipped that shoal water into a froth o' whitecaps, an' them nine barges o' pulpwood are bouncin' all over the place.

              "Great Jeroosalem!" I holler to Lucius. "I got to git aboard an' start them mo­tors! With that tow behind her she'll be draggin' her anchor in a minnit!"

              Topsy jams his pistol in my back. "Just slack off, gran'pa. You ain't goin' no place till Mister Brennan says so."

              "But you can't let a man lose his boat--" I begin.

              "I don't give a damn what happens to your boat!" snarls Brennan. "I thought a heap o' Amos, an' I ain't lettin' no pair o' rascally derelicts that ought to be in 'the old men's home-"

              He stops, for there is a sound behind us like a bull 'gator on a rampage. I whirl an' see Lucius struggling on the edge o' the dune; evidently he has managed to slip off his iron shoe, for his peg leg is rammed to the hilt in the soft sand. He tries to jerk loose, grabs on to Brennan for support, an' then the fun begins.

              It happens so sudden that Brennan is took completely by surprise. He drops both rifles he's carryin' an' starts clawin' to keep his footin'. But with a half ton o' human ballast hangin' on to him, it don't do him no good. There's a geyser o’ sand as Lucius heaves sideways an' jerks his wooden leg free, then the two of 'em topple backward. Mike an' Joe Rossi is right below 'em, an' they can't git out of the way. They are caught head-on, an the four o' them becomes a huge ball o' tangled flesh that goes rollin' down the dune, spittin', cussin' an' snarlin'. In the middle o' that blast o' language I hear Lu­cius hollerin' for me to run.

              I'm rearin' to run, but first I got to deal with this little wart, Topsy. For a half second Topsy is so flabbergasted that he forgets me. It gives me just time enough for my hands to flick into my pockets an' then flash out again—an now I'm wearin' the pair o' brass knuckle-dusters what has served me so handsomely ever since the Garfield administration.

              In the next instant Topsy whirls back to me an' his gun streaks up. It don't come up quite quick enough. I'm already swingin' hard, an' one knuckle-duster rakes him across the mouth for a ninety-dollar dentist bill. The other cracks into his right mitt an' sends his pistol kitin' up to the gulls. An' with that I'm off full speed to starboard, sailin' down through the sand an' palmetters to where I left the dory.

              I ain't mebbe as young as I used to be, but it ain't made no difference with either my hittin' or my runnin'. It's close to two hundred Yards to the dory, but I figger I can just make it before that passel o' var-mints unscramble themselves an' start shootin'.

III

              I'M HIGH-TAILIN' it over the last clump o' palmetters, within ten jumps o' the dory, when I hear an outboard motor start popping.

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