Confederate Gold and Silver (51 page)

“Donna, did you hear what I just said? The sign says this is the Allston family cemetery!” Paul excitedly glanced back and forth between his tired wife and the sign. Then he quickly read the rest of the sign which greeted visitors to this old family cemetery and to its place in American history for the region. The sign told of the Allston family receiving Land Deeds from King George of England prior to the American Revolution. It also told those who read it who had been buried in the cemetery. As he came to the end of what he was reading, the sign ended with the clue he had been looking for.
“Among
those
family
members
buried
here
are
children
of
Governor
R.F.W.
Allston.”
He could not help but to react to what he had just read. “What!” His loud and unexpected outburst startled Donna. It also caused other people who were sitting on the marina’s nearby dock to turn and look at him. In a matter of moments their attention returned to what they had been doing and they ignored Paul as he continued to stare at the sign in front of him.

Standing in silence, Paul stared at what he had just read. “Have I just found the children of Governor Allston who Francis referred to in his letter? But what about the gold and silver, what did they do with it?”

“You OK, Paul? It looks like you just saw a ghost in there.” Donna was not sure what had startled her husband.

“Maybe I did, maybe I did. Just give me a minute. Just be quiet for a minute, please.”

Silent as he walked around the perimeter of the small cemetery, Paul strained to recall exactly what Francis had written in his letter about leaving some of the gold and silver with the children of Governor Allston. His brain could not seem to focus on one single point as it repeatedly bounced back and forth between the contents of the letter, to the discovery he had made of the soldier’s remains, and to the sign he had just read. “Why can’t I concentrate?” He quietly asked himself this as he tried to recall the words Francis had used in his letter.

As she stood nearby, Donna could sense Paul was struggling with something, but she remained quiet. She now allowed him time to work out whatever it was he was trying to figure out without disturbing him. She had learned to recognize when he needed his own time and now she could tell this was one of those times.

It took a few minutes, but then the fog which had clouded Paul’s brain lifted and he remembered exactly what the words were Francis had used in his letter.
‘Those
assets
were
secured
within
their
compound
for
safe
protection.
They
rest
comfortably
NW
with
the
money.’
Remembering what he had recently read so many times in the letter over the course of the past week, he quickly walked past Donna, walking back to the locked black gates of the cemetery. Again he stared at the grave markers. The sign he had just read identified the children’s grave stones as being the smallest ones present in the cemetery. Now his eyes quickly located them. Softly he muttered his thought out loud. “I wonder which grave stone is marked with the letters NW as his letter makes reference to?”

“Paul, I’m sorry, I did not hear what you said.”

Excited by what he had just found and by the connection his new find had with the Francis letter, Paul turned and started to run back to his truck. “Donna, lets go!” By now he knew the importance of what he had just found.

Not yet figuring out what had caused Paul to get so excited, Donna struggled to catch up to him as he jogged towards his pickup truck in the marina’s parking lot. Making his way towards his truck, Paul’s mind continued to put the connections together. Reaching the truck before Donna, his mind continued to race, thinking of both the descriptions laid out in the Francis letter and what he had just read from the sign on the cemetery wall. “The family grave site was the
‘compound’
the letter referred to and the lines in his letter about
‘the
children
resting
comfortably
with
the
money’
meant the children had already been dead and buried. Francis had buried the money near one of their graves, the grave marked with the letters NW. Now it makes sense! The Allston cemetery is also on the way from North Carolina to Charleston where Francis was last seen. This has to be the spot where he has left some of the money.” As a somewhat winded Donna finally caught up to him at his truck, Paul tossed her the keys so she could drive them home. As she did, he began to explain to her the clues he had just put together.

“Oh, my goodness! You think he buried some of the money there thinking that no one would look for it in a cemetery?”

“Not sure, perhaps he just stumbled on the cemetery and he needed a spot to hide some of the money. I doubt we will ever know that answer.”

“Very weird, but a great place to hide something if someone wanted to.” Then it came to her and she almost drove off the side of Willbrook Boulevard as she turned to look at her husband. “Wait, you aren’t going to dig in a cemetery are you?” When Paul did not answer her, she quickly knew the answer to her question. “You are, aren’t you?”

Soon after they arrived home, Paul was burning the phone lines to Chick and Bobby Ray, trying to get them to meet him at the diner in the morning. They asked him why, but he refused to tell them. He just told them he had solved one of the clues he had discovered in one of the letters. He told them by the time they met the next morning he hoped to have all of the answers he needed. Before hanging up the phone with each of them, Paul promised he would fill them in with the rest of the details over breakfast. “Chick, get in touch with Jayne and tell Pete to bring one of his small video cameras. I don’t want him attracting too much attention when I show you what I think I have found.” While Chick told Paul he and the others would meet him at the diner, Bobby Ray told him he would have to catch up with them later in the day as he had an arrest warrant to serve early the next morning. “Bobby Ray, call me on my cell when you are done and I will tell you where we are.”

******

Paul arrived at the Waccamaw Diner early the next morning. Entering the diner, Betty could not resist the opportunity to needle him again. “Here he comes, the world famous finder of dead bodies! We ain’t seen you here for days, just where have y’all been?” Expecting some smart comment from her as he walked through the door, he simply gave her a smile and a brief wave as he made his way to his favorite booth in the back of the diner.

“Betty, I’ll take some coffee please. That’s of course when you can find time to do some work around here!” His comment drew a couple of quick laughs from those who were seated at the nearby lunch counter.

As Betty brought over his coffee, Paul looked around the diner and was relieved to see neither Chubby, nor Swamp, were in the diner. “Good,” he thought, “two less people I have to deal with this morning.”

“So where y’all been? I ain’t seen you for some time now. Y’all doing OK?” Betty asked Paul more than he wanted to share with her, but he knew she was just making conversation with him. He had far too much going on his mind to have much of a conversation with her.

“Just been up in North Carolina visiting old friends. All is good with the world though, thanks for asking.” Paul smiled at his comment about visiting old friends. He wished the three Confederate soldiers had been friends of his.

“That’s good. You still plan on telling me about your big discovery someday?”

“Told you I would. I keep my promises, but I don’t have time to talk about it today. Some of my friends are going to be joining me here in a few minutes, just so you know.”

Betty smiled at what Paul told her. Too many men in her life had not kept their promises to her, but for some reason she trusted he would. “Sounds good. Now what can I get ya for breakfast, some grits maybe?” She knew he detested the taste of grits, but it made her laugh each time she asked him if he wanted them.

Somewhat irritated by her grits joke, Paul gave her a sarcastic response back. “No thanks! I’ll pass on them
forever
, but thanks for asking
again
. I’ll just have some blueberry pancakes. You can also bring me a side of bacon and a small OJ as well.”

“Coming up!”

Engrossed with his breakfast and with the day’s
USA
Today
, he did not notice the others until they began to sit down in the booth with him. “Too hungry to wait for us?” Jayne looked a bit miffed as she sat down next to him.

Paul had wanted to get his meal out of the way so he could tell them about the clues he had deciphered. “I could have waited, but once I started telling you about what I have uncovered, I did not want to be chewing and talking at the same time. What I have to tell you is going to be kind of freaky, so I hope you are all up for it.”

“In that case, thanks for eating first.”

After Betty refilled Paul’s coffee cup, she took the other breakfast orders. After she left to place their orders with the cook, Paul told them what he had uncovered the previous day.

After hearing what Paul had to say, Chick was the first one to speak. “But if he had nine children and only a couple of them are buried there, what makes you think the gold and silver is with them?”

“I don’t know, but what I do know is they were already dead and buried by the time Francis came through the area. We don’t know, at least not yet we don’t, where the other children are buried. But like I’ve told you, the letter makes reference to Governor Allston’s children sleeping with the money in the compound. Pretty good chance I have found the right spot. I’m just disappointed that it took me this long to figure it out. I mean the darn cemetery is right there in plain view and it has the Allston name all over it. It was begging to be found. I guess when I was looking for answers to the questions I had, I just kept asking the wrong questions before I accidently found what I was looking for. I guess dumb luck is just as good as good luck is.”

Jayne had almost finished her breakfast as Paul answered Chick’s question about the Allston children. “Paul, you have done a remarkable job so far. I would not worry about fretting away a couple of weeks over this. Others have spent years on this and have found nothing.”

Always the quietest one of the group, Pete was sitting across from Paul in the booth. Paul was grossed out as he watched him eat his breakfast of yellow grits, hash, and scrambled eggs. As he ate his breakfast, Pete paused to ask the obvious question. “So what’s the plan?”

Paul had spent part of the previous night working on a plan for visiting the cemetery. He was ready with his plan when the question was asked. “Here is my idea, tell me what you think. This morning we will drive over to the cemetery and I’ll show you the spot where I think the money has been buried. I’ve got to tell you, this cemetery was well respected when someone developed the area around it. The adjacent property now includes a small marina, a public boat launch, and an upscale neighborhood. Both Governor Allston and Francis would be proud of how the cemetery has been maintained. It’s truly a beautiful setting.” Then he told them the rest of his plan. Soon they were driving to the cemetery.

As they drove up to the security booth outside the Reserve Marina, Jayne, a natural worrier in life, started worrying that their reason for being at the cemetery was going to be discovered by the elderly part-time security guard manning the booth. As Chick put the driver’s window down in his van, Paul leaned across the front seat. He saw the security guard was wearing the typical white short sleeve shirt with the embroidered arm patches which read
Security
Officer
. The white shirt, which had coffee stains across the left breast pocket, had a name badge on it. The badge identified the guard’s first name as Jerry.

“Good day, sir! How can I help you?”

“Hey, Jerry, a good morning to you also! My friends and I are just headed down to the marina for a short time.”

Exiting the booth, Jerry wrote down Chick’s license plate number and the time they arrived at the security booth on the daily
Visitor’s
Log
he had attached to his clipboard. Then he handed Chick a parking pass for his vehicle. “Good day for it, enjoy yourselves!”

Taking the opportunity to needle Jayne, Paul turned around from where he was sitting in the right front seat to look at her. “You can relax now. Jerry hasn’t broken our secret plans to excavate the cemetery.” His sarcastic comment drew smirks from both Chick and Pete, and even Jayne had to laugh at her own nervousness.

Chick soon found a parking spot under a couple of large pine trees off in the left front corner of the marina’s parking lot. Pete had asked him to try and park in the shade so his camera equipment would stay somewhat cool while it remained in the van. It was already a warm morning by the time they arrived at the marina.

“Pete, I’ll take you guys for a walk down to where the cemetery is. This way you can see which camera you might want to use. Then you can casually walk back to the van and grab it. Jayne’s bringing her camera with her so we will just need one of your video cameras to capture what the cemetery looks like. I figure it might attract a little less attention if we make it look like we are just taking a walk at first.”

The walk to the cemetery took them across the marina’s parking lot, across the public boat launch area, and then down a wooden walkway. The walkway, which ran along the right side of the small marina, also continued alongside the small inlet off the river. It continued out as far as the Waccamaw River. It was an ideal spot to fish from and to watch the passing traffic on the river. The walkway also had a separate section which led up towards the small cemetery. As they walked they had a chance to look at several good size boats tied up along the docks. To those boat owners and their guests who were enjoying themselves on their boats on this sunny morning, Paul and his friends looked like typical visitors to the marina. No one could have suspected why they were there.