Flint: The Quest for the Lost Island

By Jason Hamilton Hicks

Four friends living on a small island in the Caribbean in a town named Port Argyle are literally washed into a treasure hunt as a hurricane ravages their home. They set out on a quest to seek a long lost treasure of a famous pirate known only as DeLeon. This quest is started to restore their damaged lives and lands and hopefully bring a bit of missing excitement to their lives. Greggy, Twitch, and Pete, let by Master Flint, must use their knowledge and wits at every turn they take. The journey quickly escalates into more than a simple quest for wealth and pleasure as the friends must endure much more than they bargained for. Pirates, adventure, and treasure await our unknowing band of friends on their unexpected voyage into the wild new world at sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483520438

Book preview

9781483520438

Chapter 1

We have been at sea now for several weeks, and this ship smells worse than death. It is black with the blood of the fish it has hauled in over many years. The guts, fins and scales still lay scattered all over the once rustic deck. The small ship is less than desirable, but it was all we could gather in such short time. I am a young man, and I have experienced many things, but nothing like what I have seen and done over the past few months. My world, and the worlds of others, are forever changed. I had never desired to do all the things I have done over the past few months, but life has a funny way of moving you in all kinds of directions. You just never know what it is going to throw your way or how you will handle each situation it presents.

It is my turn to be behind the wheel. I have drawn the night shift and must navigate us home to unload our catch. Port Argyle is where this tale began, and that is where I hope that it ends. My friends and I have seen more of this world than we wanted to and suffered loss along the way. Our catch that remains hidden is vastly more important than the haul of any fish that this small vessel has ever hauled home. It’s a secret that only the four of us know, and all of us are to ready to be home and reveal it .I know that there is something much better about to happen for us all, and I am ready to start life anew. We have to get home and we all concede that, indeed, this journey took us farther than we ever intended. The funny thing is I can still remember my father telling me the same thing about sin.

As I slump behind the wheel of this vessel, my eyes are narrowed and vision poor due to the fog that has been rolling in. I catch myself thinking about my life and the recent events that have shaped it, and as always Cora. Now we are so close to home I can hardly contain myself. So much has depended on this trip for all involved. We have been gone for months, and to see the shores of our island will be a sight this friendship longs for.

Chapter 2

Remember……..

It was early fall on the shores of Mytair; the breeze blew in from the ocean with a still coolness. The sun hung low in the air wearing the sunset as a bonnet. I was lying in the sand watching gulls circle in the air when I first saw her. She walked by me on the beach with several of her friends. They were wading in the shallows looking for shells and splashing water on one another. She looked a little too old to be playing in the shallows, but I guess we all try to stay young at heart. Some of us are simply better at it than others. I would later find out that she was playing with her nieces who were fresh in from the main land.

Her face was the prettiest I had ever known; her big brown eyes coupled with an ever so slightly crooked smile and brown flowing hair was absolute. Her fair-skinned body seemed to dance in the breeze as she stumbled and fell in the water. Her dress was slightly torn around the bottom, and I could tell this was no dress for special wear but a play dress that she had had for some time but not worn much do to properness. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and I was in love from the first moment I saw her.

I watched her for as long as I could see her stroll down the beach and just when she was almost from my sight, she turned and looked right in my direction. Now, who is to say whether or not she was looking at me, but I would have bet my soul that she smiled. That is the first day that I met Cora, and from that day forward, she would never leave my thoughts.

Chapter 3.

I was no more the age of twenty when I found myself spending more time drinking rum on the beach than attending my father’s apprenticeship as a dock master. We ran the port in the town of Argyle; it is a beautiful town which lies directly beneath a great rock cliff that seems as tall as a mountain. Father had been gone to attend business in England for some months and promised to return with money from investments he had made in the years before we moved to Mytair.

I had grown up on this island from the age of five. We moved here to help colonize the island with English culture. My family was in the harbor business, and that is an important aspect of island life. I was being groomed each day to take over the family business, but between that and the advanced classes that mother insisted I take in school, I had time for little else for most of my youth. I had a better education than most people living on the island, due to my mother’s strict guidelines for my studies, which my father promised to carry out as long as he lived.

My mother got sick and died a few years ago; she hung on for almost a full year before she passed. It had been a long time since I had had a mother’s guidance, and I was in bad need of a womanly figure. My father did the best he could for me, but he was not much of the nurturing type. He was a good and honest man and very dedicated to his work. He liked to work; it was almost an obsession for him. I would not say that he loved money, but it was the simple joy of producing a product, from his work ethic, that he liked the most.

I looked like my father, tall, broad- shouldered, dark headed and fairly well built for a man. We even shared the same eye color, but that’s where the similarities ended. Where my dad saw the day as a chance to do and make, I saw it as a chance that something interesting might happen.

I was a dreamer. I wanted to see the world, not to charge people to tie up boats and secure decks of flag ships porting on their way to who knows where; I wanted to be on those ships. I wanted to see all they had seen and more. I wanted to sail the seas, and I boarded a ship any time I could, even if it was just for a trip around the island. I felt ready for adventure, to see the world and everything in it. Little did I know I would get my chance, only too soon.

Chapter 4.

I did have several friends from the colony in Mytair, and around sunset every evening like clockwork they would show up on the beach head. I would always have to build a fire, as I had done since we were children, and we would all drink a little wine or rum, as was custom on the island, and talk about the world as if we knew every corner. Drinking was a part of life in the island, even with the young. While it was in small amounts, a young man could expect to have a glass of wine with every meal. Drunkenness, on the other hand, was not accepted and would earn you a day in the stir if you were caught having too much fun in public.

On those warm evening, the places we had all been to and the tall tales that we spun made each passing story better than the last. It seemed like everyone had a brand new story almost every night. They ranged from stories of sea monsters to lost cities of gold. That was the best part of each day, spending time with my friends and just enjoying life’s free gifts, my favorite of which being words.

I had three really close friends on the island.The first was Pete or Black Pete, as he was called, due to the jet black hair he had. It was so curly and full that there was no way he could comb it, so he didn’t. It was an awful sight. He had green eyes and was tall and lanky, and he fished just about every day of his life, often joking that as a baby, he cast a line in the womb and pulled his way out. He was my best, good friend, and we would share much together. Next, there was Greggy, Sam McGregor the third actually. There were way too many Sam’s on the island, and we were not about to call him McGregor, so Greggy was the name he had thrust upon him by default. He had red hair with blue eyes and a fair complexion, average height but was as strong as an ox. He could haul three nets by the time he was fourteen. He never fully understood all the stories or had a strong desire to be adventurous; often he would ask, Why do people do these crazy things? Lastly, there was Twitch. His real name was Harry, but we all called him Twitch because of the slight twitch he had in his left eye. Twitch was a short and small man; he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. He was a ladies’ man; however, girls seemed to swoon off the youngster everywhere we went. He was the youngest of our crew and dreamed of being married to Millana, a young village girl, no older than Twitch that he spoke of constantly. Millana was going to be a beautiful woman. He always wore a shell necklace that she had made for him after a storm we’d had one night, when thousands of shells washed up on the shore. The times we shared on the beach would forever shape my life and the lives of others.

Chapter 5.

The months............

It had been some months, and my father had not returned from his trip to England. I was starting to worry that he may never return or that something had happened upon the sea. After all, it was a long journey, and the sea can be very fickle at times. I thought about how tough that would be to lose both parents and be completely on my own. I guess that is human nature, to always think the worst.

Father would finally returned one day in late spring, and he would not be alone. He had met a young woman in England named Kati, and she was steadfast by his side. Kati was tall and thin with a button nose and flowing blond hair. She seemed to be a bit overly proper and snooty, and from the start, I did not care for her too much. Father and I made a trip to the dock and inspected working conditions, as well as, log books and work orders. He was well pleased with the place and the work that I had done. Not too shabby for someone who spent a small part of everyday in the sand drinking rum. I left that part out when he asked me how life on the island was going. After we made our rounds and inspected everything, we headed down to the beach right as the high tide was coming in for the evening. Father sat me down, and we watched the sun start to set. Then he told me he had wonderful news. Father told me that he and Kati were to be married in a couple of months, and they would be returning to England to stay. Father was worth a lot of money now. It seemed his investments had been paying off. He dressed as I had never seen him before, like he was a governor or an official.

Father told me how proud he was of me and that he hoped that I understood his new found love. He told me he had been a lonely man since mother had died and that Kati had been an unexpected surprise to his life. He had met her while closing a business deal with a new partner. She was working as a house maid for the home where father was staying. He said they would talk every evening and started taking walks together in a meadow near the house. They simply fell in love with one another over time. I was more concerned that she loved him for the money in his bank. I did not say that to him because I could see he was genuinely happy.

After father finished with his love story, he then paused for a moment. He then looked at me and told me that I had the choice of staying and continuing the family business of running the port, or I could return to England and start anew. I loved the island life; the work I had was easy and paid very well. I could still find time to do all the things I wanted and make a very good living. It didn’t take me long to decide that I would stay and take charge of the family business, something I had been doing quite well for the past few months anyway.

Chapter 6.

Father and Kati would stay on the island for almost two weeks, making final arrangements and placing me as full time Harbor Master. I enjoyed having him home again and did begin to warm up to Kati. She turned out to be a lot of fun to be around; I guess she was as skeptical of me as I was her in the beginning. She made us all play games almost every night and told us stories of strange things seen in the village she grew up in as a child. She knew more about history than I did, and once the ice was broken I could truly see why father loved her so.

They left for England on a Tuesday. Father and Kati were to buy a home there and start a family of their own. When they left, he handed me the deed to the office on the port and our house. He also gave me 300 pounds that he put in local bank for protection. I was set. I had a business, home and money; I would never need anything again, or so I thought. I sat on the dock, the evening they left, and watched their ship till it was completely hidden from view. I had a strange feeling inside me that would take me a long time to figure out. I would miss them more, now, than I ever had anything.

Chapter 7.

Cora………

It was a warm, windy, fall day, and clouds were starting to form over the ocean. This gave the sky a darkened appearance that almost made me feel lazy just by staring at it. I had been working ever so hard at the dock, as of late, and had not had much time to do anything else. I was in the process of training a replacement for a man that I had lost due to illness, and that in itself was a full time job.

I had decided to take half the day off to attend to some errands I had needed to do. So I went to market to buy some fresh fish and vegetables along with a few other things. I thought that I would have a cook out for all my friends and share the wealth. I bought 5 pounds of sliced tuna and various fruits and vegetables for the occasion. Along with the food, I purchased a case of rum. How could we ever celebrate without the rum?

I had all these items on a cart that I was struggling to push through the crowded streets when I heard the words, Hey, watch where you are going. I had run into the back of a girl, and this was not ordinary girl. It was her, Cora. She seemed somewhat agitated at me but managed a smile. I had ripped the back of her dress, just a little. I had also lost several carrots and mangos in the process of running