Страница 3 из 81
Behind them, Pelletier had dropped the coil of rope and was knotting one end around the base of a column under the glow of the lantern.
“Going down, are we?” Napoleon asked. “Into the pits of hell?”
“Not today, General,” Laurent answered. “Across.”
Laurent aimed his lantern into the tu
“You’ve been across?” Napoleon asked.
“It’s quite sturdy. It’s rock beneath the ice. Still, you can’t be too safe.”
He secured the line first around Napoleon’s waist, then his own. Pelletier gave the knotted end a final tug and nodded to Laurent, who said, “Watch your footing, General,” then stepped into the tu
They began inching their way across the crevasse. At the halfway point, Napoleon looked over the side and saw nothing but blackness, the translucent blue ice walls sloping into nowhere.
At last they reached the opposite side. They followed the next tu
Napoleon stepped closer to one. Then stopped. He narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t a stalagmite, he realized, but a solid column of ice. He placed his palm against it and leaned his face closer.
Staring back at him was the golden face of a woman.
CHAPTER 1
GREAT POCOMOKE SWAMP, MARYLAND PRESENT DAY
Sam Fargo rose from his crouch and glanced over at his wife, who stood up to her waist in oozing black mud. Her bright yellow chest waders complemented her lustrous auburn hair. She sensed his gaze, turned to him, pursed her lips, and blew a wisp of hair from her cheek. “And just what are you smiling at, Fargo?” she asked.
When she’d first do
“You,” he now replied. “You look beautiful—Longstreet.” When Remi was a
She held up her arms, coated to the elbows in slime, then said with a barely concealed smile, “You’re crazy. My face is covered in mosquito bites, and my hair is flatter than paper.” She scratched her chin, leaving behind a dollop of mud.
“It simply adds to your charm.”
“Liar.”
Despite the look of disgust on her face, Sam knew Remi was a trouper without peer. Once she set her mind on a goal, no amount of discomfort would dissuade her.
“Well,” she said, “I have to admit, you do look rather dashing yourself.”
Sam tipped his tattered Panama hat at her, then went back to work, scooping mud from around a length of submerged wood he hoped was part of a chest.
For the past three days they’d been plodding through the swamp, searching for that one clue that might prove they weren’t on a wild-goose chase. Neither of them minded a good goose chase—in treasure hunting it came with the turf—but it was always better to catch the goose in the end.
In this case, the goose in question was based on an obscure legend. While the nearby Chesapeake and Delaware bays were said to be home of nearly four thousand shipwrecks, the prize Sam and Remi were after was land based. A month earlier Ted Frobisher, a fellow treasure hunter who’d retired not long ago to concentrate on his antique shop in Princess A
The pear-shaped gold and jade brooch was said to have belonged to a local woman named Henrietta Bronson, one of the first victims of the notorious outlaw Martha “Patty” (a.k.a. Lucretia) Ca
According to legend Martha Ca
Ca
Ca
In 1829, while plowing a field on one of Ca
In subsequent years both Ca
Sam and Remi had of course heard the legend of Patty Ca
After a detailed study of the Pocomoke’s historical topography and mapping Ca
Their interest in Ca
“Remi, what was that poem . . . the one about Ca
She thought for a moment, then recited:
“Hush your mouth
Go to sleep
Old Patty Ridenour take you back deep
Got a gang of seven
Taking slave and free
Riding day and night