Beware the Pirate Ghost (5 page)

Sean jumped back out of reach. “We need your help!” he said. “There’s a little boy trapped in a hole in the caves.”

The fisherman’s anger turned to fear. “I told you kids not to go in there!” he cried out.

“We had to!” Sean said, and he quickly told the fisherman about Lester running away in the middle of the night.

The fisherman groaned. “I try everything I can to keep the kids away from those caves. I even dress like the ghost,” he said. “Nobody realizes how dangerous those caves can be.”

“Maybe Lester doesn’t know about your ghost,” Sean said. “Or maybe he doesn’t care. He’s kind of … well … used to getting his own way.”

“Where is he?” the fisherman asked.

“In the second cavern,” Sean told him. “Lester fell through a hole in the floor. He’s lying on a ledge. He said he hurt his ankle. My brother Brian is with him. Our friend rode his bike back to town to get help.” Sean shivered. “Bri’s afraid that Lester might fall off the ledge before the rescue teams get here, so he told me to ask you to bring your lantern and lots of strong rope.”

The fisherman strode so quickly toward his shack that Sean had to run to keep up. “Come with me,” the fisherman said. “You can help me carry the things we’ll need.”

He lit two lanterns, handing both to Sean, then picked up something that looked like a tangle of leather straps.

“What’s that?” Sean asked.

“An old harness,” the fisherman answered. “The kind that sailors once wore in heavy seas to make sure they wouldn’t fall overboard.”

He looped coils of the rope over his shoulder, staggering under the weight, and reached for something made of metal. “Lead the way,” he said to Sean. “Show me where to find this boy.”

Once inside the cave, Sean and the fisherman moved cautiously. Sean could hear the man’s heavy breathing and see the drops of sweat running down his face. The fisherman was scared, and that frightened Sean even more. Grown-ups were supposed to stay calm and say things like “Everything’s going to be okay, I’ll take care of it,” so kids could relax.

As they entered the second cavern, Sean could hear Brian talking to Lester. The lantern light flashed on the damp walls, lighting the cavern. Brian looked up, and Sean could see the fear in his eyes, too.

“Thanks for coming,” he said to the fisherman. “Lester’s down here.”

The fisherman squirmed slowly and carefully to the edge of the hole and looked down. “Can you stand up, son?” he asked. “If I send down a harness to you, can you put it on and fasten the buckles?”

“No!” Lester cried. “My ankle hurts. I want my mother and father! Where are they?” Angrily, he hit the cave wall with his fist. A handful of small rocks broke off and bounced from the ledge.

“Cut that out,” Brian said sharply. “Any more temper tantrums and you could find yourself falling off the ledge into that deep pit.”

“Stop it! You’re trying to scare me!” Lester yelled.

Brian spoke quietly to the fisherman. “Lester might have broken his ankle when he fell down there. If he tries to stand up, or even sit up, he could pitch right off that ledge.” He shuddered. “He might do that anyway.”

“Then somebody’s got to go down there and put the harness on him,” the fisherman said.

“I will,” Brian offered.

“No, you won’t,” the man told him. “It’ll be me alone trying to lower you and bring you up, and I don’t know if I can manage it. You’d be too heavy.”

Brian and the fisherman turned at the same time to look at Sean.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Brian said. “I can’t let Sean go down there. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’ll tie him up good and tight,” the fisherman said. “I brought a pulley and plenty of rope. I’ll find something sturdy somewhere on the cave walls that we can loop the ropes through. With the two of us on the ropes—one for your brother and one for the boy on the ledge—we can haul them up, one at a time.”

Sean took a deep breath, but his voice wobbled. “I can do it,” he told Brian.

“No,” Brian said.

“What are you waiting for? Get me out of here!” Lester yelled. He began to sob.

The fisherman backed away from the hole on his hands and knees. When his shoes bumped the side of the cave he stumbled to his feet. For a moment he took some long breaths to steady himself. Then he called to Sean, “Bring one of those lanterns over here.”

Peering closely at the rough walls, the fisherman ran his fingers over them. In a few minutes he straightened and tugged hard at a section where the rock had worn through, leaving a four-inch pillar of rock that reached from the bottom to the top of the cave.

“This is just what we need,” he said. “I can pull the ropes through the opening, and they’ll hold.”

Lester cried out again. “Don’t leave me down here!”

Sean looked at the dark hole in the cave floor. Then he looked at Brian. “Let me go down and get Lester, Bri,” he said.

They heard a thump and a crash. Hands shaking, Brian aimed the flashlight down at Lester. A piece of the ledge, just beyond Lester’s feet, had broken off.

“What happened?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know,” Lester mumbled. “I just kicked a little bit.”

“I told you to lie still,” Brian said.

Lester scowled. “It’s your fault. You didn’t come down here to get me.”

“We’re coming now,” Brian said. He crawled back to join the fisherman. “Are you sure Sean won’t be in danger?”

“Not as long as we’re hanging on to him,” the man answered. He pulled tight the knots that fastened the second rope to the leather harness.

“How do I put the harness on Lester?” Sean asked.

The fisherman hurried to explain. Then he fastened one end of the rope to the wall and the pulley. With the other end he made a harness that fit over Sean’s shoulders, around his chest and back, and under his legs.

As he pulled the knots tight, he said, “When you get to the ledge, fasten the leather harness on the boy. Make sure all the straps are pulled tight and buckled. We’ll haul him up first, then bring you after him. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sean said, but the words came out in a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Okay,” he repeated.

With the harness for Lester over his right arm and shoulder, Sean crawled to the edge of the hole and looked down. The lantern light barely reached the ledge.

“Ease yourself over,” the fisherman said. “We’ve got a good grip on you. We’ll lower you slowly. When you reach the ledge, give us a holler.”

Sean, tightly clinging to the rope, felt himself dropping inch by inch. Finally his toes touched something, and he scrambled to get a foothold.

He had reached the ledge and was standing about a foot away from Lester’s head.

“I’m down!” Sean yelled to the fisherman.

But suddenly the chunk of rock on which Sean was standing gave way, and he swung out, over the dark pit.

S
EAN’S YELL ECHOED IN
the cave, hurting his ears. Panting, he tried to reach the ledge again, and once more felt something solid under his feet. “I’m okay!” he cried, but he didn’t feel okay. He felt dizzy and sick and wished he were home in bed.

“What are you doing?” Lester asked him.

“I’m helping you,” Sean said. He tested the ledge with his weight and found that this time it held.

“Give me more rope,” he shouted, and as the rope eased, he was able to kneel next to Lester.

“Put this on,” he said. “We’ll put your feet through first.”

“Don’t touch my ankle,” Lester said.

“I’ve got to,” Sean said. “It may hurt a little bit, but this is the only way we can get you out of this hole.”

Lester whimpered, but he let Sean pull the harness around his legs and up to his hips.

“Now, put one arm in,” Sean directed. As Lester did what Sean said, Sean eased Lester’s other arm into the harness. Finally, he buckled the leather straps around Lester’s hips and chest, making sure they were tight.

“They’re going to pull you up now,” Sean said.

“Will I swing in the air, like you did?”

“Sure,” Sean told him.

Lester’s lip curled out. “I don’t want to.”

“You have to,” Sean said. He called out, “Lester’s ready to come up!”

The rope attached to Lester’s harness began to tighten. It pulled him to a sitting position.

“I said I didn’t want to!” Lester screamed.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sean said. “You’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

Inch by inch, Lester was pulled upright and off his feet. Screaming all the way, he was dragged up to the cave floor. Sean saw the fisherman grab Lester by the shoulders and yank him up out of sight.

“Now me,” Sean said to himself. He gulped as he glanced at the black pit, less than a foot away from his toes. He closed his eyes and breathed evenly, trying to stay calm, but it seemed like hours before he heard Brian call, “Sean, are you ready?”

“Ready!” Sean yelled.

The rope tightened as Sean was jerked upward.

Sean clung to the rope and stared upward at the dim light. Bri was up there. So was the fisherman. They’d get him out of this awful place.

With strong arms holding him, Sean scrambled onto the cave floor and quickly crawled away from the hole. For a few minutes he lay on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms, and tried to breathe normally.

But Brian grabbed him. “Sean!” Brian shouted. “That was cool! That was cooler that cool! You were terrific!”

His fingers fumbled with the knots in the rope around Sean, untying them.

“You did a fine job,” the fisherman said.

He scooped up Lester, who grumbled at Sean, “My ankle hurts. You bumped it.”

Brian and Sean collected the rope and the lanterns and followed the pirate out of the cave. As they reached the entrance they could hear sirens.

Brian looked at his watch. “It’s almost two-thirty. Lester will get back in time to take his medicine.”

“I’m not going to take my medicine! Ever!” Lester shouted. “That’s why I ran away.”

The fisherman looked into Lester’s face, almost nose-to-nose. “You’ll take your medicine, or the pirate ghost who haunts these caves will make you walk the plank.”

“I didn’t see any pirate ghost,” Lester said.

“You didn’t? He was there. He saw
you
.”

Lester’s lower lip stuck out. “How’s he going to make me take my medicine if I don’t want to?”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t try to find out.” The fisherman’s mouth twisted into a gap-toothed grin, and he chuckled a horrible laugh, low in his throat.

“I want my mother!” Lester shrieked.

A parade of cars, led by the sheriff’s cruiser and an ambulance, turned into the cove.

Lester’s parents ran toward him. His mother waved the medicine bottle and a spoon. Lester glanced up at the fisherman, who growled. When his mother reached him and held out a spoonful of the medicine, Lester gulped and swallowed it without a complaint.

As the paramedics tended to Lester’s injured ankle, the fisherman sighed. “People will come around the caves again, once you tell them I dressed up like a pirate ghost.”

“Sean and I aren’t going to tell them,” Brian said. “We all saw the ghost. Remember his sword dripping with blood?”

“What about Sam?” Sean said. “He knows who the ghost is, too.”

“I’ll tell Sam to keep it quiet as soon as I see him,” Brian said. “Sam’s going to have great fun scaring his little brother and everybody else who’ll listen when he tells them he personally met the pirate ghost.”

Mr. Quinn drove up, and Sam and Debbie Jean jumped from his car.

“You found Lester!” Debbie Jean shouted. “And all because of me!”

There were introductions to be made and questions to be answered. True to his promise, Brian pulled Sam aside and told him to keep quiet about the ghost’s identity. Sam quickly agreed.

Finally, to Sean and Brian’s relief, they piled into Mr. Quinn’s car with Debbie Jean and Sam.

Brian quickly told their dad why they’d come looking for Lester at the caves.

“I saw your note,” he said. “That was good thinking on your part. If Mr. and Mrs. Hopper had been honest with me about what really happened, we might have found Lester much sooner.”

He glanced at Brian and Sean and added, “Now, tell me where you found Lester and what happened.”

“Uh … in the second cavern, Dad. Lester was hiding in the caves,” Brian said.

“You went into those caves?”

Sean interrupted. “Start the car, Dad. Wait till we get home. Then we’ll tell you all about it.”

“You know the caves are dangerous,” Mr. Quinn said. “I’m not happy with the idea that you were inside them.”

Debbie Jean stared at Sean, open-mouthed.

“You really, truly went into the caves, even after that awful pirate ghost warned us away?”

“Debbie Jean keeps insisting that you saw a pirate ghost,” Mr. Quinn said.

He smiled, and Sean was thankful that he and Brian weren’t in really big trouble.

“Take Debbie Jean’s word for it, Dad,” Brian said. He grinned at Sam and Sean.

As Debbie Jean began to describe the ghost again, Brian turned to wave good-bye to the fisherman, who stood at the door to his shack, watching them. Brian nudged Sean, who glanced back, too, as the fisherman raised a hand and waved.