Page 81 of Ship Outta Luck

Waves pound against the shoreline, providing a dramatic soundtrack to her tale. The light fades, the sky blazing gold and pink and red. June holds up two fingers, her face alive with the story.

“Two months later, in August, two of the four ships landed in Cuba. Two months. It should have taken weeks, not months. A third foundered in the Caribbean, blown off course. The treasure ship, the Santu Espiritu, loaded with the ill-begotten goods of colonial greed, was never seen again. Lost, according to the sailors’ accounts, in a surprise storm.”

She smashes her hands together for impact, and Thompson makes a low noise of assent in response.

Charlie catches my eye across the fire and I bite back a laugh at the familiar annoyance in her expression.

“Some say she was struck by lightning, a sign of God’s wrath at the greed of the Spaniards, sinking in a blaze of fire and fury, flames licking like hair across the face of the beautifulfigurehead. Others say the treasure of Cibolo was cursed, and any who searched for it, much less took it out of greed, would find a watery grave.”

We’re all silent, save for the fire popping and waves breaking on the beach behind us.

Charlie coughs delicately, breaking the spell. “Tell them why you think you know where she is now.”

June’s face becomes more animated, and she leans forward.

She’s entirely captivating.

“I found a journal in an archive of a man set to become captain of the ship. He took ill, as did most of the crew, and theSantu Espiritu’strip was delayed. She didn’t set off with the rest of the flotilla in June, but a month later, in July. She slammed into the famed hurricane of 1554, which took out several coastal villages, and sank somewhere near here, not far off the shore of the Padre Islands.”

“Then why hasn’t anyone found the rotting thing yet?” Pierce snorts in disbelief, voice brimming with sarcasm. “There are countless oil rigs around here.”

“The gulf is huge,” June tells him, eyes narrowed.

“Man, what a load of liberal garbage,” he mutters under his breath, but not quiet enough that we don’t all hear him.

Anger flares.

“1554 was a banner year for storms.” June tilts her head, considering, and a lock of hair slips over her face.

I catch the scent of the shampoo and inhale deeply, relaxing into the flow of her voice.

“I think between the storms and coastal erosion over the last few centuries, she’s been covered up. Besides, no one has charted the entire seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico. The only reason to spend the money doing that is for oil, and there’s no oil around where I think theSantu Espiritu’s buried, so no one would have disturbed it. But we had a huge storm a few monthsago, and…” She trails off, raising her hands in a shrug. “Based on current maps and where the tropical storm is, it’s likely the seabed shifted enough that she could be uncovered again.”

“I see why you didn’t manage to get your grant,” Pierce says with a derisive laugh.

My hands curl into fists.

“Believe it or not, Pierce, what I told you sitting around a campfire isn’t the same thing I presented for my grant. I had to take into account my audience’s own shortcomings.” June’s grin turns sharp. “I’d be happy to lecture you on tracking coastal erosion and the science of bathymetry, as well as all of the gruesome firsthand details of the captain’s illness, even the local myths and the historiography of this area. That is, if you think you can keep up.”

Pride swells in me, and I let out a laugh. Something dark passes across Pierce’s face, illuminated by the crackling fire.

“You know what the most interesting part of this is?” June continues, blatantly ignoring him. “The colonial history. Colonialism, especially American colonialism, didn’t stop centuries ago. It just kept going. And going. Most of the instability in Latin America can be traced to American imperialism, interference, and destabilization.” Her dark eyes are intense, her chin lifted as she stares defiantly at Pierce, whose mouth twists to the side.

Charlie stills in his arms.

“June’s right,” she finally says.

Pierce’s jaw twitches, an ugly expression marring his pretty-boy features.

“S’mores?” Thorne stands, throwing his soggy paper plate into the fire. The quiet man glares at Pierce, daring him to say shit.

“Dessert.” I nod, less at the idea of sugar than at the fact Thorne sensed something ugly in Pierce, too.

Fuck.

I hate wading in distrust. And yet, as I size up the man and woman sitting across the fire, that’s about all I can manage.

CHAPTER

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