Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5) by Wayne Stinnett Page B

water and driven them onto Elbow Cay.”
    “Then the rest,” Charlie said, “and now a ship, maybe named after someone with the initials I M, finally rests. Her consignment, meaning cargo, suppressed outside the prodigious mainstay, I’m guessing that’s some nautical term, eighty forceful advances to the west.”
    “On land,” Doc said, “distances are sometimes measured in paces. Advances?”
    “Okay, eighty forceful paces then,” Charlie said. “If it is paces, then forceful paces must mean long paces. But what’s a prodigious mainstay? ‘Prodigious’ means amazing or impressive.”
    “Eighty long paces?” I thought out loud. “A regular pace is about thirty inches, a long pace could be anywhere from thirty-six to forty-eight inches. That’d be two hundred and forty to three hundred and twenty feet. Probably less, depending on the terrain. What was the word for ‘mainstay’ in Spanish again?” I asked.
    “Pilar,” Tony said. “Pillar? Like a big rock or spire?”
    “The restless woman finally rests,” I thought out loud again. “Her cargo suppressed. Buried?”
    “Of course!” Doc shouted. “What else do pirates do with treasure?”
    “Outside the giant rock or spire, eighty long paces west?” Tony asked. “Outside would have to mean away from the water, or inland, right?”
    “After the fog the hurricane crossed Florida and circled around us and now the restless woman finally rests,” Charlie began, really getting excited. “Her cargo buried inland from the giant rock two to three hundred feet west. It would have to be a giant rock. They couldn’t mean anything that might not be there in a few years. Maybe they knew they were going to die and wanted to leave a clue for another Spanish ship.”
    “Now all we need is a ship’s name, and to find the giant rock,” Doc said.
    “Do you know exactly where on Elbow Cay the chest was found?” I asked.
    “The Judge said his fifth great-grandfather found it while walking on the northern beaches of the island. He was waiting for the tide to rise to refloat their ship, which was stuck on a sandbar.”
    “Satellite view!” Tony and I said together. We all jumped up and headed toward the western bunkhouse and Chyrel’s little office.
    Chyrel was just coming out when we got there. “Not a galleon at all,” she said as she turned and went back inside, the rest of us crowding around her desk. “There was a fleet of four galleons, five caravels, and one carrack that left Havana in early September. I didn’t even have to calculate the distance. They were the only ships that didn’t make it to Spain in the summer and fall of 1566. A carrack is much larger than a caravel or galleon. This particular carrack was the Nuestra Señora de Magdalena y las Angustias, or Our Lady of Magdalena and Anxieties. The Restless Woman.”
    “Can you pull up a satellite view of the northern part of Elbow Cay?” I said.
    “Satellite time is expensive,” Chyrel replied.
    “Doesn’t have to be live,” I said. “Even an aerial picture might do the trick. We’re looking for a large rock on the eastern shore of the northern part of the island.”
    A moment later, she zoomed in on the beaches of Elbow Cay, north of Hope Town.
    “There,” I said, pointing at a place that jutted out into the water. “Zoom in on that.”
    “It’s a big rock, all right,” Doc said. “But look at the scale. The island’s only a little more than a hundred feet from beach to bay.”
    “Zoom back out,” Tony said.
    Chyrel zoomed back out and scrolled the screen down, showing the beach further north.
    “What’s that?” I asked
    “Looks like a house,” Chyrel said.
    “Yeah, but the way that piece of land juts out, it’s got to be built on a huge boulder,” I said. “Zoom back out,”
    “The island’s a lot wider there,” Tony said. “Almost a quarter mile or so.”
    “You think that’s it?” Doc asked.
    “No way to know for sure,” I replied. “Hell, the rock