Pirates on the Bayou
by Rita Monette
Pirates!
by Rita Monette
Pirates!
Good or bad, everyone seems to love pirates. Arrgggg!
My hands-down favorite pirate is Jean Lafitte.
I suppose it’s because he is both good guy and bad guy, and because his base of
operation was my home state of Louisiana. There is much legend and lore
about this famous pirate-turned-patriot.
In my upcoming
middle grade novel, The Curse at Pirate’s Cove, our Cajun kiddos get more than
they bargain for when they go after some of Lafitte’s buried treasure on a
nearby swamp island. Look for it this November, from Musa Publishing.
Excerpt:
“How do you know it’s a pirate ship?” I asked.
“It has to be, Nikki. Listen.” He turned
toward me. “I was out at Uncle Luke’s this past weekend, and he told me all
about it.”
“I ain’t believing there’s no pirate ship out
in those swamps.” I lifted my chin.
“Just hear me out, Tomboy.” He sounded
impatient. “There’s a legend that goes along with it, see.” He leaned toward me
and lowered his voice. “There might even be a curse.”
“A legend?” He had my attention. I prided
myself in being a super legend buster ever since I solved the one about Ghost
Dog Island last year. I even got my picture in the newspaper. “Well, tell me
about it.”
“I’m trying to.” He waved his hands in the
air.
We propped ourselves against a couple of
large limbs and got out our lunch bags.
“Uncle Luke says he first heard about it back
when he was a kid. He says a friend of his grandfather, by the name of Beco,
was out trapping on Fog Island with his buddy Clamare. They came across this
here hole in the ground with a half-buried wooden chest, see. It had a big old
lock on it. There was a couple of coins in the dirt, so Clamare picked them up
and slipped them in his pocket. Beco decided he’d go back for some tools and shovels
to dig the rest of it out, and told Clamare to stay there and watch the chest.
On his way out to the edge of the island, he saw this ragged old ship. Thinking
it was kind of odd looking for being in the swamps and all, he got a little
closer. It had a broken mast and raggedy sails.” He poked me with his elbow. “When
was the last time you ever saw a fishing boat with sails?”
I shook my head. “Never.” I unwrapped a
peanut butter and jam sandwich and took a bite. “What’d he do?”
“Well, he started to board it, see?” Spikes
dug into his own lunch bag. “But then he heard some talking coming out of the
boat. He stopped right then and there, ’cause he didn’t know who might be on
that old wreck out in the middle of nowhere, and there weren’t no other boats
around. This one had a big old hole in the hull, so it couldn’t have sailed
there on its own. At least anytime in recent history.”
“Then what?” I licked some of the jam off my
fingers.
“Then someone stuck his head up over the bow,
see. He had on one of them three pointed hats that pirates always wore. Old
Beco yelled a big hello, and the man took out a pistol and shot over his head.
Well, Beco took off right then and there. That night, he went down to T-Noon’s bar
and got drunk, and told some other fellows about it. The next day, they all
went back out to the island with shovels and brought guns just in case that
crazy guy in the boat was still there.”
“Was he?” I asked.
“Nope. The ship was gone, and so was Clamare.”
“What about the treasure?”
“They never could find it. Not even the hole
it was in.”
In the
meantime, if you haven’t read The Legend of Ghost Dog Island, it’s a must read
for anyone ages eight and up, interested in Cajun history and living in the
bayous of Louisiana in the 1950s.
