Mayflower Treasure Hunt (3 page)

The three kids stood there staring at the childish drawing.

“What if Mudgett stole the jewels, then when the
Mayflower
got to land, he
went ashore in one of those explorer boats?” Josh suggested, thinking out loud. “He hid what he stole. Then back on the
Mayflower
that night, he drew this picture to remind himself where he’d hidden it. He planned to go back for the jewels after the boat had been thoroughly searched. But before he had a chance, the
Mayflower
sailed again and landed here. And then Mudgett drowned during a storm.”

“Or got gobbled up by a shark,” Ruth Rose added.

“I suppose it could have happened that way,” Dink said. “So if you’re right—”

“If I’m right, the jewels are still wherever he hid them!” Josh finished for him. “He never got back there, and the jewels have been waiting for someone to find them since 1620!”

“But where?” Ruth Rose asked.

“Wherever this piece of shoreline is,” Josh said, pointing to the drawing. “Who’s got something to write with?”

Ruth Rose handed Josh a pencil and a sheet of paper. Josh began making his own sketch of the drawing.

“Wait a second,” Ruth Rose said as she watched Josh’s sketch take shape. “What’s that where the eagle’s beak should be?” She pointed to the rock that looked like an eagle. “Doesn’t the eagle’s mouth look like an
X?
”

Josh moved the magnifying glass back over the drawing hanging on the wall. He focused it on the top part of the pointy rock. Up close, it did resemble an eagle’s head. And the eagle’s beak did look a bit like an
X.

“It looks like the eagle is carrying a couple of branches to its nest,” Dink said, squinting one eye.

Josh put his face practically on the
framed drawing. “It does sort of look like an
X
,” Josh said. “I wish this wasn’t so smudged.”

Clint had walked back to them. “If you want to go see the place where the
Mayflower
first landed, there’s a ferryboat called the
Sea Witch,”
he said. “It leaves from the pier next to the
Mayflower II.
”

Josh folded his sketch and slid it into his pocket.

“How long does it take to get there?” Ruth Rose asked.

“Under an hour,” Clint said. He glanced at his watch. “The next one leaves at one o’clock.”

Dink checked his own watch. “My mom expects us at the hotel by five,” he told Clint. “Could we make it back here by then?”

“Oh sure,” the friendly docent said. “Plenty of time.”

The kids thanked Clint, then hurried back toward the pier. They had no trouble finding the ferry called the
Sea Witch.
There was a colorful sign on the dock showing a life-size drawing of a Halloween witch riding her broom over the ocean. Beneath the picture were the words
SEA WITCH TO PROVINCETOWN
.

Dink glanced farther along the dock where the ferry was moored. The
Sea Witch
was twice as long as the
Mayflower II
, and the decks were crowded with people.

Suddenly a loud horn blast came from the ferry. “That must be a warning to hurry up,” Dink said, looking at his watch. “We still have ten minutes.”

They bought tickets at a small booth, then walked up a gangway to an outer deck. They stood at the rail, looking down at the
Mayflower II
, which was moored on the other side of the pier.

“Let’s go inside,” Josh suggested.

The kids walked to the seating cabin and sat on a bench. Other passengers sat nearby. There were tall windows on all sides, providing excellent views of the sky and water.

Another horn went off.

“Five minutes,” Dink announced.

An old woman entered the cabin and looked around for a seat. She wore sunglasses, and a shawl over her thick gray hair. Her long black coat reached to her shoes. The woman shuffled over to a bench in a far corner of the cabin.

They all heard a final horn blast. The engine started, and the deck under their feet began to hum and shudder. Soon the
Sea Witch
was backing away from its mooring.

“We’re leaving!” Ruth Rose said. She got up and hurried outside to stand at the railing. Josh went with her.

Several of the passengers moved to inside windows. The
Sea Witch
had left the pier and was cruising past the shoreline. Outside the windows, seagulls shrieked as they soared alongside. Some kids were throwing potato chips into the air, hoping the gulls would grab them.

Dink noticed that the old woman was watching him. Or was she? Her eyes were covered by the sunglasses, so maybe he was mistaken. But he had a feeling that she was looking at him.

Dink stood up and walked a few yards away. He casually walked back, sneaking a quick look at the woman. Now her head was down, and she seemed to be sleeping.

As Dink watched the drowsing woman, he realized that there was something familiar about her. Had he seen that mole on her face before, or
those gloves with the fingers cut off?

No, he hadn’t met her before, but there was still something about her that … then he laughed at himself.

This woman looked like the cartoon witch he’d noticed on the dock sign. The cartoon witch wore a scraggly dress and a long scarf and had a mole on her face, just like the woman sitting opposite Dink.

Dink shook his head, feeling foolish. Then he walked outside to find Josh and Ruth Rose. A gust of wind made Dink shiver, and he felt goose bumps march up his arms.

Dink found Josh and Ruth Rose standing at the railing. Below them, the sea rolled beneath the boat. Seaweed clumps drifted by, and one passenger pointed at some jumping fish. The sun glistened off their silvery scales.

“Josh wouldn’t share his M&M’s with the seagulls,” Ruth Rose teased.

Dink laughed and took a deep breath of the cold air. It smelled of salt and something sweet. Soon land came into view, and the ferry began to slow.

“Won’t it be awesome if we find those stolen jewels?” Josh asked.

“What’s really awesome is that the
Mayflower
sailed right where we are almost four hundred years ago,” Ruth Rose said. “Think how happy those people must have been to see land!”

Straight ahead, the kids could see trees and buildings come into view. Then red and green buoys appeared. The ferry kept to the left of the red buoys all the way to the long pier.

Passengers began walking toward the stairs that would take them off the boat. As the kids followed, Dink kept his eyes open for the old woman with the mole on her face. He didn’t spot her, but he wasn’t surprised. There were dozens of other people in the line leaving the boat.

Once they were on solid ground again, Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose walked along the pier. They started following a small sign that pointed toward the
center of Provincetown.

“Wait a minute, guys,” Ruth Rose said. She was pulling her guidebook from the pouch in her sweatshirt. She read for a minute. “Okay, this says there’s a place called First Encounter Beach. It’s where the Pilgrims first landed and where they first saw Indians.”

“So where is this beach?” Josh asked.

Ruth Rose turned her guidebook so Dink and Josh could see the map. “I think we take a right off the pier,” she said. “See? That doesn’t look too far.”

Ruth Rose was right. Five minutes of fast walking brought them to a windswept beach. A plaque on a boulder said
FIRST ENCOUNTER BEACH
.

“The
Mayflower
wouldn’t have been able to land here,” Dink said, remembering what he’d read in school. “They anchored pretty far out and used
smaller boats to get to land.”

Josh unfolded the sketch he’d made in the Pilgrim Hall Museum. The shoreline in that drawing looked nothing like the one stretching in front of them. “So where do we start?” he asked.

Ruth Rose looked at Josh’s drawing. “Trees and shorelines could change a lot in four hundred years,” she said. “But that tall rock might still be here somewhere.”

“I don’t see any rocks,” Dink said, “let alone one that looks like an eagle.”

The three kids turned in a circle, trying to spot a tall, pointy rock. They saw a few trees that looked really old and some beach cottages. One man was scraping the bottom of a rowboat in his yard.

“Let’s ask him,” Ruth Rose suggested.

The kids walked over and told the
man what they were looking for. He glanced at Josh’s sketch. “Nope. Nothin’ like that around here,” he said. “I been here thirty years and never seen a rock like that.”

Dink had an idea. “Do you know where the Pilgrims came ashore?” he
asked. “Was it really here, on this beach?”