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Corpos Santos Island (or the Island of the Lights)
by Jack Trammell
Four years of war and countless surgeries had left the Confederate doctor a man not prone to panic. When he found himself approaching three lice-infested, unshaven, odoriferous Federal deserters in the middle of the road, all of them armed and scowling threateningly, he merely stepped sideways and continued his steady gait as if nothing was out of the ordinary. One of soldiers discharged his pistol into the air, however, and he was forced to draw up short.
"What do you want?" he said, turning to gaze somewhat disdainfully at their bedraggled uniforms. The one nearest to him poked his chest with a pistol.
"You there, Reb, tell me what road this is."
"It's the Mangrove Road."
"Where does it go?"
"North to the Columbia Turnpike."
The word "Columbia" evoked an unusual reaction amongst all three of the soldiers, who seemed to flinch and smile simultaneously.
"Sherman, " one of them said.
"I really need to be on my way," the doctor said, "and I suggest that you make good time in leaving the neighborhood. I work at the prison, and I know for a fact that this road is regularly patrolled by men who would just as soon shoot you as ask questions. I am armed myself."
He began to move away and found his path blocked by a swarthy arm.
"We can't let you go, can we boys?" the closest one said. "You'd sound the alarm on us before we could get half a mile up the road."
"You are the fools traveling a road!" the doctor said. "If you wanted to stay hidden, you should have kept to the fields by night."
They all seemed to think about that for a moment, and he used the time to his advantage. He pulled out his own pistol and pointed it at the ringleader. With his other hand he produced a wallet. Cautiously, he removed some paper money and handed it to them.
"It's all I've got. Now take it and get out of here before someone gets hurt."
They finally let him pass, and each party moved off in opposite directions.
* * *
When he reached the prison where he worked, he quickly passed through the checkpoints and entered his private quarters, a humble frame building ten feet square built by Union prisoners out of green pine. He had done his best, despite its crudeness, to make it feel like home, placing the stern portrait of his father, Solomon Watts, on the wall near the black-pipe stove, and arranging all of his papers on a small desk beneath the only window. On the third wall was an unusual cabinet of a type which opened and folded out in various directions, like the case of traveling salesman only bigger, and which was currently locked shut, containing many of his prized medical instruments and scientific equipment of significant investment.
The doctor, still mulling, had barely taken his coat off and placed it on the swivel chair at the desk when there was a sharp knock at the door.
"Come in."
A Confederate soldier entered, a private in uniform, who placed his musket gingerly against the wall and removed his hat politely. He carried the strength of youth in his appearance, and there was a striking similarity in his gray eyes to those of the worried doctor.
"Did you get the map?" the young man asked.
"Yes. Clovis knew all about it."
"Let me see it," the private said.
"Just a moment." The doctor unlocked the cabinet and folded out several shelves. "I have something I want to show you." He rummaged in a series of trays, finally picking up two pieces of some type of dull metal that he laid back to back and tied tightly together with three separate pieces of twine. These he fastened to the end of a slender pole that had been lying on top of the cabinet.
"What is it?"
"It's a precious metal detector," the doctor said, holding it out over the floor. "Give me something silver or gold."
The private shrugged hopelessly. "Uncle, are you forgetting so soon that I've been disowned, and barely make a few worthless dollars a month?"
"Of course." The doctor browsed through the desk drawer, eventually withdrawing a worn silver dime with a grunt of satisfaction. He carefully placed it on the floor so that it wouldn't fall between the pine planks, then retrieved the rod again.
"Watch," he said, slowly holding the contraption out until it was directly over the dime. Nothing happened. Then he placed a nail beside the dime. The bamboo rod, which was of fragile thickness, doubled over, threatening to snap.
"Amazing, Uncle! How did you do that?"
"It's called the science of metallurgy. Certain metals are irresistibly attracted to others. You simply have to understand which metals affect the others. These iron slabs will be attracted to metal silicates that are often found with silver and gold. Du Fay invented this alloy."
"What if the gold is corroded away?"
"Gold doesn't corrode. That's why people like it so much. It's practically indestructible." A cloud crossed the doctor's face. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he said, setting the pole down and facing his nephew at close quarters.
"Is it really that hard to understand, Uncle? You are a man of some means; you're educated; you have your science and your hobbies. I have nothing. You promised me when this war started that I would receive my rightful share of the inheritance -- you swore to it -- and now is the time; the war is lost. We can't even protect our own homes from looters. What better opportunity? Tell me you haven't thought about this yourself! When the surrender comes, the chance will be gone. We must do it now!"
The doctor nodded and picked the rod up.
"Very well, then. We'll take a small measure of revenge on your father. We'll need to find a boat."
"What about the map, Uncle? You went home to get the map!"
He reached into his pocket and pulled his leather wallet out. It was empty. The Yankee scoundrels had "acquired" the map.
"All we need is the precious metal detector," he said. "We'll do without the map."
His nephew regarded him skeptically.
* * *
Corpo Santos Island was a lonely spit of land out in the Atlantic, just north of the more popular isles around Charleston. It measured less than one mile square, and was filled with dense pines, snakes, sand dunes and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. It had belonged to the Watts family for generations, and in its Colonial heyday had boasted a small pier and rice plantation, though no family members ever resided there permanently due to the fierce Atlantic gales that periodically ravaged it, and the abundant mosquitoes that ruled it during peaceful weather.
There were stories that the island was haunted by ghost lights, balls of bright blue flame that hovered three feet off the ground and moved as people neared them, and the local slaves insisted that they were actual ghosts, the souls of those formerly worked to death in the stifling heat and malarial vapors. The Watts family had maintained a beach house on the corner of the island before the war, which was now in disrepair. There were no vestiges of the rice fields or the pier remaining, so the overall appearance of the island was rough and deserted, and it seldom received human visitors.
The doctor and the private reviewed the inventory of items in the bottom of their flatboat. Shovels, picks, lanterns, empty cracker boxes from the prison, and the divining rod for precious metals.
"I hope this doesn't take long," the nephew said. "I've never really liked this place." He rubbed his hands together as if they were cold.
The doctor grunted, pulling a small eyeglass out of his coat and scanning the foggy horizon for the profile of the island. The island did not intimidate him. On the contrary, it was a source of fascination to his scientific mind, and he had often drifted out to it on fishing journeys during the days before the family feud to study the brightly colored lizards, or the frond palms which grew only on the south shore. Since the start of the war, however, he had not set foot on it.
On this particular evening, there would be no fishing or sightseeing. The fog had rolled in early, almost touching the tops of the gray waves breaking across the stony beach. They slid the flat boat into the surf, using poles to push it away from the shore.
The nephew seemed unusually nervous, casting quick glances across the water, even though the fog obscured the isle.
"I hope this can be done quickly," he said. "I've heard stories that I don't want to investigate very thoroughly."
The doctor seemed happy to take a break from his oar and raise his eyeglass again.
"You worry too much. There's nothing on this island but the family fortune and our imaginations."
The nephew winced. "It's my imagination that I'm worried about."
Suddenly the silhouette of the trees and shoreline was in front of them, a slightly darker shade of charcoal that looked ready to melt into the mist at any moment. The flatboat silently ran aground on the sand, small waves splashing against it. They grabbed all of their equipment and jumped onto the beach.
"We really could have used that map," the nephew said. "Maybe we should wait."
The doctor did not answer and instead seemed to fix his gaze on a point inside the foggy trees, and then set out for it at a steady pace. The nephew hesitated, finally running after him.
"The old pier ran out from here," the doctor said, not even breaking stride as he pointed to a small inlet that encroached on the left. "The map indicated that a group of old mangrove trees to the southwest was where he buried it, in this direction." He veered off to the right, tripping over a mossy root and using a shovel to catch his balance. He continued, undaunted. "He chose the most remote place possible."
"Did he really think it would be safe out here? What if the moisture has rotted it all away?"
"Your father is a shrewd man. He would take the proper precautions, and besides, the gold and silver will not be affected."
The nephew stopped in his tracks, as if facing a wall. "You don't think he rigged traps, do you?"
"No. No. There won't be anything like that. As you said, let's go get it over with. If your conscience is bothering you, then only take what is your rightful share."
"I wouldn't think of doing otherwise!" the nephew said, clearly offended.
They soon found themselves in the mangroves, their spider-web roots like crawling snakes in the mist. There was an eerie silence, and the air smelled of nitrates and swamp gases. Scientific interests momentarily distracted the doctor.
"Where, Uncle?"
The doctor looked around until he spotted the three largest trees, specimens that clearly were older and thicker than the rest. They formed a perfect triangle. They were probably alive when the colonists had first set foot on the island several hundred years ago.
"The place should be right over --"
The doctor drew up short. Behind him, his nephew gasped.
In front of them were three shimmering blue orbs of light, balls about the size of a man's head, each of them hovering about three feet off the ground. They undulated and pulsated, somewhat indistinct in shape beyond a general sense of roundness. There was an electric buzz in the air that could have been coming from the mysterious lights, or it could have been generated from inside his head -- he wasn't certain. They were alive, it seemed, very different from other phenomenon he had studied that clearly had an inanimate source or explanation. They seemed to increase in brightness as the seconds passed.
Another sound of sheer terror escaped the lips of the nephew, a sound somewhat akin to that a dying animal makes when it takes its last breath. A moment later, he bolted through the trees in the direction of the boat.
The doctor grasped for his science, reaching and stretching, reasoning and analyzing, until finally his intellect failed and emotion violently pushed him the same direction his nephew had retreated.
* * *
Back at the shack within the prison stockade, the doctor poured through books that had been retrieved from the hidden recesses of the cabinet. The nephew sat in the desk chair, trembling, his Confederate issue winter coat draped over his shoulders. His eyes were glazed over, and his breaths came in ragged spurts.
The doctor pounded the page in one book with the back of his palm, which caused a tiny cloud of dust to erupt.
"Ah, ha! Look at this!" He held the book to the light on the desk. "Will of the wisps! Or treasure lights, as they are called in the old world. Small sources of light usually seen hovering at night over precious mineral deposits or --"
"I don't want to hear about it!' the nephew cried. "I don't want the money! I don't want anything of my father's -- it's not worth it."
The doctor lowered his glasses so he could study the nephew more closely. "Now slow down just a minute. Have you forgotten so quickly what this is really about? It's not about money. Your father cut us off for standing by our principles. He and your three brothers tried to buy our loyalty to some star-struck notion of patriotism, and tried to convince us that we were the fanatics and the crazy ones. Now, their hypocrisy has come full circle. Now his so-called friends threaten his own security and wealth. I'm sorry to say this to your face, but your father sickens me. If he wants to make bedfellows with Yankees and scalawags, then he should mail his fortune straight to Abe Lincoln and be done with it. Instead, he hid it like a coward.
"Nephew," he said sternly, in conclusion, "you deserve your share of the inheritance and I'm going to see that you get it. Your mother would have wanted it that way."
The nephew nodded meekly. "What about the ghosts?"
"They weren't ghosts. They were earthlights; small, torch-like lights that hover above the ground, somewhat ethereal in appearance but perfectly harmless. They have great mineral locating properties. Look here." He pointed to the book again. "They often lead travelers astray. It's been proven that marsh gases can be ignited, and that they don't represent a threat, and this may be the explanation. They are, however, an observed fact, albeit a curiosity." He slammed the book shut and removed his glasses. "Get your musket. We're going back to the island."
* * *
The second trip went much more quickly than the first. It was beyond the midnight hour and the moon had risen low on the horizon, illuminating the fog like a milky lantern with a sheet thrown over it.
They approached the area with the mangrove trees cautiously, the nephew with his army-issue musket loaded and ready to fire, the doctor with his detecting rod ready to detect.
When they reached the grove of trees, they stopped and waited. There was not a complete silence, but instead a meandering melody of nighttime performers--crickets, tree frogs, and an obscure relative of the cicada that made muffled screeching sounds. The doctor thought it strange that he hadn't noticed all of the noises the first time they had been there.
There were no earthlights either. The pale moon reflected in a rippling pool at the base of the largest mangrove, and there was the greasy candle in his hand, which in practical terms, barely made a dim arc six feet in diameter and, in fact, hindered his line of site over a distance. But there were no earthlights.
"Where is it?" the nephew asked.
"It should be buried over there between those two trees."
"No, I mean the lights -- where are they?"
The doctor paused. If they were of scientific origin, then why had they disappeared? Perhaps it had to do with the amount of moisture in the air, or the temperature of the air, or even the ground temperature.
"Where are they?" the nephew repeated.
"They're gone. Be quiet and help me over here."
The doctor set the candle in the crook of a tree limb, propped his shovel next to it, and then began to slowly extend the precious metal detector outward. It quivered as he stepped forward, though it did not bend as it had with the silver dime.
"It won't find the stocks and bonds, will it?" the nephew said.
"Be quiet! Bring the candle over here and keep it beside me."
They walked forward deliberately, watching the stick with intense anticipation. They practically fell into a freshly dug hole.
"What?"
The nephew held the candle higher, revealing not just one hole but a series of them, in a rough arc that started near the second largest mangrove and ran across the clearing to another. There were all freshly dug; they were all empty of any contents.
"Curious," the doctor said slowly.
"We've been robbed!" the nephew exclaimed. "The luminous vapors have taken it back to the devil's den!" He dropped the candle, extinguishing it, and turned around in mad circles, pointing his weapon into the shadows.
"The devils have been at work here," the doctor said gravely. "Your inheritance has vanished into thin air. There's no reason to search here any longer."
* * *
The nephew was inconsolable for many hours. The doctor stayed up until the early morning hours reassuring him that fate had conspired against them for a reason, even if it was beyond human understanding. He told him that money would solve none of life's distressing challenges; would not bring him any more measurable happiness.
"You have made your choices and you must stand by them, just as I have," the doctor said. "When the war is over, you'll be able to go where you wish and seek whatever employment you see fit."
The nephew nodded, rubbing liniment on a swelling bump on his forehead where he had run into a tree trying to find the flatboat. He finally fell asleep with his head on the desk.
* * *
The next day, the doctor set out on the Mangrove Road again. He walked several miles in the direction of the plantation that had percolated all of the controversy, his brother's small fiefdom and ruined cotton empire. It gave him a measure of satisfaction to think about the wrecked market and the possibility his brother might have to grow livestock, or work at some other more respectable living. The fool deserved the harvest of whatever he had sown. As for himself, he had listened to the laments of his young nephew, and that had given him the idea to pay one of the disgruntled field hands to make the map.
The doctor's walk down the lonely road was interrupted by three shadows that emerged in his path.
"You should have learned the first time not to travel alone by foot in this neighborhood," the lead straggler said.
"I travel this road every day."
"Mining for gold?"
"Where's my share?" the doctor said, "You gave me your word I would get my portion."
Another deserter stepped forward. "What are you talking about? We didn't get the gold. The roads were swarming with patrols, just like you said. We couldn't get out of the barn we were in."
"What do you mean, didn't leave the barn? The gold was gone. You were to get there before us!"
The third soldier pulled out a revolver and handled it with exaggerated interest. "You know, Uncle, I'd hate to get the feeling you know something we don't. Have you been playing out on the island? You didn't get any greedy ideas all of a sudden did you? You and little brother didn't decide to make a deal did you?"
The doctor paused. "Someone moved it."
"Is it still on the island?"
"I'm sure that it is. Clovis made the map. He's the only one that knew, other than your father."
"You have your science, Uncle," the last brother said, poking him in the stomach. "Figure out a way to locate it. We'll take care of Clovis."
The one with the revolver smiled.
* * *
The young nephew was on guard duty for another four hours, so the doctor wrote a hasty note explaining that he had a theory about the island and the lights that he wanted to test out. He would return in the late hours of the night. The nephew should not follow him.
He then put a collection of items together that included the precious metal detector, a bright oil lantern, and some other instruments designed to show the temperature and moisture in the air. Then he set out for the river, where the flatboat was hidden. It would be hard work getting the whole way out by himself, though the tide would soon be aiding the endeavor.
After almost an hour of maneuvering and paddling, he approached the island. It was not so foggy as the previous evening, and there was nothing suspicious that he could see beyond the canopy of dense trees. Even the birds and crickets sounded softer, more innocuous and unconcerned. The doctor was surprisingly reassured by such minor details.
He wasted no time in climbing out of the boat and trotting past the finger of mud where the old pier for the rice plantation had run out into the bay. He turned slightly to the right, avoiding snarled roots and poison sumac bushes, finally arriving in the swale where the giant mangroves were. The sun had just about set, and long shadows stretched across the ground like giant strokes from a black paintbrush. He walked slowly to the holes.
They were unchanged. If anything, the tan, clumpy soil had dried and hardened somewhat, making the events of the night before seem even more distant than they really were. He looked for footprints, and found several slight depressions that might or might not have been left by a human tread.
A strange smell, similar to that which a new burning wick makes upon first flame, caused him to glance up from his studies.
The ghostly flames were back, just across the clearing, shimmering and glowing, wavering slightly as he moved. As an experiment, he visually marked the position of the closest orb and deliberately stepped forward, noting that it most definitively shifted in response to his movements. He was somewhat delighted, and terrified all at once. He took another step forward and it moved again. He repeated the process several times until the realization struck him that the wisps might actually be leading him somewhere. He picked his pace up and they led him through the woods, carefully avoiding the thickest foliage and muck-filled pools, into the deepest section of the island, an area that had not been tamed even during the days of the rice plantation.
He eventually found himself at the edge of a small clearing where, to the doctor's amazement, old Clovis was digging a hole in the ground, the sweat glistening on his skin from the glare of an oil lantern hanging nearby on a stick. There were three iron strong boxes beside the hole, each of them more than big enough to hold a small fortune in gold, silver, or paper bonds. Clovis looked up when he noticed a subtle increase in the light.
The old slave reacted quickly, rearranging his grip on the shovel so that he held it like a medieval halberd. It wasn't the earthlights that frightened him, though. When the doctor stepped forward, the floating orbs were suddenly content to stay still, though an ugly expression crossed Clovis' face.
"Clovis!" the doctor said. "You surprise me. You happily took my money for the map, then you turn around and steal the very thing I was trying to buy. Did you think you could get away with stealing the money?"
"I don't want no money," Clovis said, spitting. The shovel trembled in his hand. "All my life I worked for these folks, and none of them -- excepting maybe the youngest -- not one of you worth a dime. I don't want nothing with this money. I don't want anyone to have it. The spirits guard it."
"Spirits?"
He pointed with the shovel. "Old Mex told me, them lights are the souls of the dead. I believe they be the souls of slaves who died in the old days. Once this buried, no one gets it."
The doctor moved closer. "Clovis, it's not your money to bury."
"It ain't yours!"
Blood surged into the doctor's cheeks. "You had best remember whom you are addressing, Clovis!"
Before either of them could say anything else, the earthlights suddenly began moving away through the woods.
"Someone here," Clovis said, dropping the shovel.
They both ran over to edge of the clearing. The earthlights had rushed through the trees in the direction of the original burial spot. The doctor was fearful that his younger nephew might have foolishly tried to follow him out to the island.
"Can they hurt people?" he asked Clovis.
"Naw, but there's quicksand o'er there, you gots to step right."
For a period of fifteen minutes, they could see nothing beyond the edge of the clearing. There were many sounds, noises that to the doctor sounded much more like those from the night before, more sinister and foreboding.
The lights reappeared several hundreds of yards to the south, barely visible between the trees. Then there was one blood-curdling scream that pierced the night air for a long minute before fading away into the buzz of insects and crickets.
"My nephew!" the doctor said, running into the brush.
"You gonna sink!" Clovis ran after him, shoving branches aside and stumbling over roots. He caught up with the doctor just as he was drawing near the earthlights and grabbed him by the coat collar.
"Lookie there," Clovis said, turning him and making him look down. "You ran in it, mostly."
"But what if he's in there! It's my fault he came out here. I need to help him!"
Clovis held him back. "He's gone. That's how come I bury this gold."
The earthlights slowly began moving back to the second clearing. The doctor and Clovis carefully walked back with them, the doctor numb and in shock.
"I gots to finish diggin'," Clovis said.
"I'll give you a hand," the doctor suggested.
Clovis held the shovel up menacingly. "You go. I find another place."
* * *
Later, the doctor opened the door to his quarters and was mildly shocked to see a body slumped over his desk. He ran over and pulled the shoulder over, exposing the face of the youngest nephew. He woke him slowly, waiting for him to rub his eyes and fight off the disorientation of interrupted sleep.
"Uncle? What did you find on the island?"
"The treasure isn't there," he said slowly. "I wanted to make certain of it, and I'm convinced of it now."
"What about the fiery drakes?" the nephew asked. "The spook lights?"
"Methane gas," the doctor said. "Ignited by some sort of chemical reaction. It's documented that such a thing happens, you know. It's stated as fact in the books I was showing you."
The youngest nephew nodded slowly.
* * *
The next day the doctor met the stragglers again, noting that there were only two of them now.
"Well?" one of them asked.
"I can't find it. It's not there anymore."
The two brothers exchanged a dubious glance.
"Then where is it?"
"Your father has it back by now. Did you take care of Clovis?"
"He's been taken care of. You won't be getting any more maps from him. What about Father -- can you find out where he put it?"
"You don't understand. He knows you're in the area, and with Sherman's scouts due here any time, your best bet is to leave."
They hesitated. "You're sure the gold isn't there?"
The doctor felt in his pocket. The two iron bars were there. He would form a rod out of a palmetto branch, and tie them with string. Another boat was hidden downstream.
"There's no gold on that island."
They slowly walked away, and the doctor smiled.
The End
Corpo Santos Island © 2000 by Jack Trammell
Jack Trammel has published four novels, two collections of poetry, a math book for middle schoolers, almost a dozen short stories, over one-hundred poems, and more than 40 non-fiction articles for well-known newspapers, magazines and journals.
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