The Map Story Starter (from Pumping Your Muse)

I got this prompt from the Pumping Your Muse Site (Thanks Donna)
http://pymprompts.blogspot.com/

PROMPT: Pumping Your Muse: Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Map Story Starter

Today's writing prompt will start out with dialog. Create a conversation between two characters starting with...

"Cap'n, we found this map on them."

Within the scene, add one sound and one odor or aroma.

Have fun!

Here's my take. Freewrite, but fun to write. Thanks for taking a look.

God bless,
shadowlight
with God all things are possible

The Treasure Map
© Marlicia Fernandez (WC 1558) 9-6-10


“Cap’n, we found this map on them.”

Gerald Winston III looked up from his books and pushed his glasses back on his head. “How many times do I have to tell you, we’re not kids anymore, Martin? We’re not even yachtsmen. We’re just here on this cruise, looking for rich wives to take care of us.”

Martin Lawton II skidded to an abrupt stop, inches from the mahogany desk behind which his best friend of over two and a half decades sat, looking decidedly un-pirate like. “You’re never gonna find a rich wife hiding behind someone else’s busywork. You have to be yourself.”

“So says my twenty-five year old baby sister’s ‘best friend’. Gerald pushed his leather swivel chair back, scattering papers everywhere. “How’s campaign Isola going, anyway?”

“Well enough,” Martin sniffed. “Or it would be if she’d ever get her nose out of those wretched romance novels. How’s a man to live up to those ideals? They’re impossible.”

Gerald stopped to pick up the wayward papers surrounding the desk like patches of dirty snow. “What’s impossible is that we have to work as mere lackeys to beastly upstarts who stole our fathers’ cruise line from him.”

“Not stole,” Martin corrected. “Won. Our fathers put the line up as collateral for a…” He held up his finger and assumed the dramatic pose of a thespian delivering his all important monologue. “They put it up as collateral on a ‘sure-fire win’.

“Don’t confuse me with the facts,” Gerald grumbled. He snatched the paper from Martin’s hand. “Now, what’s this about a map?”

Martin put a finger to his lips and shook his head. “Not here,” he mouthed.

Gerald sighed and strode to the door and flung it open. “Fine. Where would you prefer to talk?”

“Follow me.” Martin glanced furtively toward the decks in all directions. Laughter floated from those in the pool and playing shuffleboard, but no one was in sight. He hurried along the promenade until he reached a door marked: ‘No Admittance. Employees Only.’

Martin fumbled in his pocket until he came up with a large bronze key. He put it in the lock and twisted. The door opened with a soft click. “Come on.”

Darkness and damp surrounded them. “Can’t we at least turn on the lights?”

“Shhh…” Martin pressed something cold and hard into Gerald’s hand. “Use this.”

Gerald flicked the switch and the flashlight came to life. “Why all the cloak and dagger?” He wrinkled his nose. “And why do we have to talk in the bowels of the ship? It smells like old fish cooked in motor oil.”

“Stop complaining.”

The passage widened into a large cargo hold; dark, like the rest. Prickles raised the small hairs on Gerald’s neck. “Shouldn’t people be working?”

“Shh…”Martin commanded. “You want to get us caught?”

Men in striped shirts and bandanas strolled out from the shadows surrounding the crates. They spoke in high pitched, excited voices. Gerald couldn’t understand a word. He looked at Martin. His friend shrugged and put his finger to his lips.

The circled the open area in the hold, keeping to the deep shadows thrown by the crates and the sunlight coming in through the loading doors. An unfamiliar boat bobbed alongside, flying the skull and crossbones. Gerald swallowed. His world spun. Pirates? It couldn’t be.

Martin swore softly and steadied Gerald with one hand and caught the paper Gerald dropped with the other. “Pull yourself together. This is our way to fame and fortune. I’ll get Isola and you’ll get your money, without having to make yourself, or some poor old woman miserable to do it.”

Gerald bristled. “Suffer…” he hissed.

“Shhh….” Martin rolled his eyes. “Don’t you see?” he whispered. “This is it. We stop the pirates, find the treasure and become heroes. Isola will have to at least look at me then and you’ll have everything you ever wanted.”

“I don’t want it badly enough to get killed.” Gerald stared at his friend. “You stole that map from them, didn’t you? Are you crazy?”

Martin sighed. “They said you’d say that.” He whistled once, a sharp shrill sound, grabbed Gerald’s flashlight and stepped into the cargo hold, dragging Gerald with him. “I had hoped they were wrong.” He looked at the motley group of men approaching them. “I do apologize, gentlemen.”

“No worries, mate, ye had to try to save yer friend.” A large, smelly man with a long curly beard, yanked Gerald to an empty chair, shoved him onto it and secured his hands and feet. “But he’s got no sense of adventure. No ambition. He won’t go far.” He spat a wad of tobacco to the floor. “Not at all.”

“I never would have believed it. He was always such a leader when we were kids.” Martin shook his head and leaned forward. “What happened to you Gerald?”

Gerald glared at his friend. “I grew up.”

Martin laughed and backed away. “So you have. But I’d rather be twenty-five and planning, than twenty-seven and dying.” He turned to the pirates. “I see the boat. Where’s the girl?”

“The girl?” The pirate grinned and shook his head. “She stays here, knowin’ nothin’s wrong. At least until you return with the treasure.” His eyes narrowed. “Ye didn’ think we’d be stupid enough to let you go with everythin’ ye wanted, did ye?”

“What do you mean?” Martin demanded. “She’s not here, is she? You dirty, stinking…”

“Now, now, me lad. No sense getting’ all, what’s the sayin’? Bent out o shape. We be pirates. Ye can only trust us so much. And ye be pirate too, if not by blood than by nature. Ye want yer Isola, ye find the treasure and bring it to us. We’ll be sittin’ a waitin’ as marked on the map.”

“Fine,” Martin snapped. “My secret’s out. But you better keep Isola and…” he nodded toward Gerald, “her brother safe until I return.”

The pirate’s eyes narrowed and he waved his men back. “Ye think it be wise to threaten me boy? After all, yer the one who failed. Ye promised me the famous Pirate Seahawk. Instead ye bring us …ye bring us him.”

Gerald strained against his bonds. “Now just one minute. Seahawk’s a myth. Never existed.”

“Is that what ye be thinkin’?” The pirate scratched his bearded chin. “And did ye think the legends sprang out of the sea spray then?” He shook his head. “No, the youngest and most successful pirate ever to sail the stormy seas be no myth.”

“And what does this have to do with Isola?” Gerald demanded.

“It be simple.” The pirate leveled a steely glance at Martin. “We want the pirate Seahawk. We promised the girl for him. He didn’t bring him. But he delivers the treasure, Seahawk will come to us. It belongs to him, after all. When he does, you’ll get yer girl, and we’ll take the booty and the pirate, just as arranged.”

“That wasn’t the agreement.”

The pirate scowled. “It be the agreement now. If ye know what’s good fer ye, you’ll stop yammerin’ before it changes again.”

Gerald fingered the key Martin had slipped into his hand when he’d leaned forward to taunt him. It was from his foot locker. More than likely that locker held another copy of the map, or the directions to where that copy was hidden. Apparently they could no longer hide who they were. Someone had found the treasure map they’d lost. And they wanted the valuables Seahawk and his accomplice had hidden to rebuild their family’s fortunes. The life they’d embraced at the downturn of their family fortunes and abandoned less than five years later would have to be resumed. Isola’s life was at stake. All that they’d worked for was at stake. His past, and Martin’s had come back to haunt them.

He looked up and caught Martin’s eye. A tiny inclination of his friend’s head indicated understanding. Martin was good, but he’d never find the treasure alone. He’d need help. Seahawk would have to rise from the mist and the waves to lend a hand. Once he got free of his bonds.