“Nah. He don’t use neither compass. Don’t need one, noways, ” a young male said, and the crab recognized the voice as belonging to that skinny blond Islander who was always talking about pirate treasure when he was out potting in the dark early mornings.
“Hmmm. What about your post office box?” another voice asked, and the jimmy didn’t recognize this one, but he sounded as if he was from the mainland.
Fonny Boy tried that number, but the padlock wasn’t interested.
“A lucky number, maybe? Does your dad have a lucky number?”
The only luck-related number Fonny Boy could think of was thirteen, and the padlock wouldn’t budge. He tried playing straight harp style and “Oh Susannah” was almost recognizable.
“What about a favorite food or drink that might have a number in it?” Dr. Faux was not going to give up. “Such as Heinz fifty-seven sauce, Seven-Up, or two-alarm chili?”
“My daddy, he likes the Seven-Up, ” Fonny Boy said with a glimmer of hope. “He’s right fond of it with Spanky’s ice cream, drinks more’an it of anybody I ever seen. But the combination, it takes four numbers and seven is only one number. ”
“What if you added the up part?”
Fonny Boy decided to stay in the middle of the harmonica and stick to blow notes.
“Is there a number that might mean up, Fonny Boy? Come on, think!”
“The compass, it ain’t got neither up on it. Only north, south, east, and west, ” Fonny Boy replied.
“Up could be north, now couldn’t it?” Dr. Faux persisted. “You know how people say they’re going up north to New York or down south to Florida. Try three-sixty. That’s three numbers and is due north. So maybe he used seven and three-sixty for seven-up. ”
The jimmy’s fusiform body propelled itself quickly back down to the bottom, where he warned his frightened friends.
“There’s seven of ’em up thar!” he exclaimed. “And they’se breaking the law by potting in the sanctutary and I’m of a mind to get ’em warranted!”
The jimmy assumed that the seven watermen up there in the bateau were a posse looking for the crabs and the trout, although the crabs hadn’t seen the trout for quite some time. Or maybe the Seven-Up gang, as the jimmy began to think of them, were pirates the governor had promised immunity to if they would find the crabs and the trout and return them to the mansion in the bucket. Blue crabs were quite familiar with pirates and were neither impressed with nor afraid of them.
Pirates were too angry and drunk to bother chasing after crabs, and this had been true for hundreds of years. Nor was the life of any crustacean made a whit better by all of the old cannons, coins, and jewels that crabs routinely scuttled over on the bottom of the bay. Crabs frankly didn’t give a damn about treasure.
But that blond Islander named Fonny Boy certainly did, the jimmy thought as he scuttled through billowing silt to a shelf in the bay floor, where the wreckage of a sloop appeared in the murk. The old wreck had been blasted with cannon fire and sank in a shoal, and over the centuries the current had nudged the broken vessel along the bottom of the bay until it had settled in its present location. The jimmy rooted around near a rusting anchor and seized a small piece of iron. He paddled furiously with his swimming legs and sculled back up to the bateau, climbed on the small outboard motor, and tossed the piece of iron up in the air. It landed in Fonny Boy’s lap right when he was in the middle of practicing a fish face by sucking in his cheeks to play cleaner single notes on his harmonica.
“Why, I’ll swagger!” Fonny Boy cried out in surprise. “Look!”
He studied the piece of iron and knew it was extremely old and very likely from a sunken ship.
“Treasure’s nigh as peace falling from Heaven and it’s for to tell there’s a picaroon ship down thar!” he exclaimed in uncontrollable excitement as he realized that finally, after such a hard life, he had met his destiny. “We have to mark the spot or we likete lose it!”