LAST ASSAULT ON OAK ISLAND 21
Chapter 21
If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning.
Sunday morning greeted the island with an exceptionally warm sigh. The overgrowth of privet hedges lining the lighthouse base added a touch of softness to Rudy's modest yard, a sharp contrast to the burrowed, dredged, and mounded earth encompassing most of eastern Oak Island. An occasional blueberry bush and patches of hardy Scottish heather also dotted Lot 20, lending a sweet breath of aromatics as well as color.
A couple of football fields away a pneumatic drill churned into action, breaking the woodpecker's rhythm on a tree outside Lauren's window.
Lauren was expecting the drill and the woodpecker—had been every morning since they had come to the island—and had not been disappointed once. Soon Yearbright's pumps and drill would join the Clemens' racket. She flicked up her room's window shade. At least the smell of hydraulic oil was partially camouflaged by the mauve clematis climbing up the cottage walls. She reluctantly straightened the bed, collected her clothes, and took advantage of the empty bathroom.
At least she was still there.
Togan Geiger visited shortly after breakfast, commending Carlos and Lauren for keeping Rudy on his new diet, and delivered news from the mainland. Dr. Geiger lived on half an acre divided on a lot west of Joudrey's Cove. He and a one-time wealthy recluse had convinced Monro to partition off a tip of Lot 6, paying handsomely for what Geiger would only call a 'life-time arrangement', which included no treasure or sub-letting rights. It made a total of six permanent residents on the island, counting the doctor's wife and the Clemens.
"It's quieter this morning," Lauren noted as they remained indolent at the table.
"Lucy hasn't started yet," Dr. Geiger explained. "No one was around when I drove by. Except guards."
"She's always busy by now," Carlos said as he sampled another tea Lauren had brought from her trip to town.
"She's probably preparing for her interviews. She has to outshine Saul without really saying anything." Dr. Geiger tapped one of the newspapers on the table. "This is the big week for them. Two hundred years of the world's greatest, most futile treasure hunt."
"Futile?" Carlos' tone held mild interest. "You don't think there's any treasure?"
"Not anymore; it's been got."
"How?" Carlos swished the half-filled tea around in his cup. "When?"
"Oh, I don't know when," the doctor admitted. "I think some French officer made off with a government treasure and buried it on the island sometime in the early eighteenth century. Sometime between the fall of the fort at Louisburg and the expulsion of the Acadians in the Fifties."
Rudy and Carlos exchanged looks. Rudy asked, "Where did you hear that story?"
"It's my own invention." Dr. Geiger laughed at the lightkeeper's amusement. "Why not? There were all sorts of chaos on the province then. Oak Island's far enough away from Port Royal and the isthmus to provide privacy. It could have been dug up any time before or after that McInnis boy discovered it."
"Someone would have noticed, especially after the pit was found," Lauren said. "You think it was filled back in?"
"No. It wasn't even in the Money Pit," Dr. Geiger said authoritatively.
Carlos, Lauren, and Rudy dared not look at each other, all keeping their focus on the doctor.
"The Swiss bank theory," Rudy ventured.
"Why not?" Dr. Geiger frowned, looking through the newspapers pushed to one side of the table. "Pirates did it in other parts of the world; a French officer could, too."
Carlos finished his tea. "Why a French officer? Why not British?"
"Because I'm French," the doctor said with a chuckle. He found an article on the pit in the copy of the Bay Coast Star he had brought that morning. "I'm not the only one who thinks it's gone. Leo Mason says here . . ." He read silently, then aloud. "'Several reports of Lunenburg families coming into unaccountable wealth in the early nineteenth century have been recorded. Nigel McMullen and Andrew Smith both made healthy deposits in 1817 and 1819, respectively.'"
"War profiteers," Rudy diagnosed, dismissing the idea.
"Also," Dr. Geiger continued, "'in 1824, Martha Smith was said to have exchanged four Spanish maravedis dating from the late sixteenth century for a team of horses.'"
"Sounds like a bargain to me. Why would a French officer bury Spanish coins? The bay was quite a distance from either country," Rudy pointed out.
"The Spanish were interested in America, too."
Carlos set his cup down. "That was about 200 years before Nova Scotia was settled to any extent, and their interest was primarily along the west coast and throughout Mexico."
"That's a whole other theory, Dad," Lauren added, caution in her tone. "They had a Spanish-conquest/Indian article in last Wednesday's Star. Doesn't anyone have a Scottish theory?"
Dr. Geiger laughed. "I'm sure there's a few. But I do think it's gone."
Lauren fought the urge to look to the secretary drawer where Brielle's journal was kept. She stood up. "I'll make more water for tea."
They discussed theories and angles until lunch, with Carlos biting his tongue to keep from spewing newly found facts from Admiral Brielle's diary. Lauren watched him closely, hoping against hope when he would say something concerning the diary.
She had to admit, the temptation was incredibly strong.
The conversation with the doctor raised a lot of questions and theories the Brielle diary could not answer
LAST FLAG ON OAK ISLAND audio production, Part 1!
Watch your inbox for more chapters, moving our treasure hunters ever closer to . . . possible treasure? Or failure?
Subscribe below to get alerts for future chapters in the search for Oak Island treasure!
#treasure #treasurehunt #OakIsland #MoneyPit #mystery #history
 | A guest post by
|