By Eric Douglas
www.booksbyeric.com

Author of Cayman Cowboys and Flooding Hollywood
Sponsored by Scuba Diving Magazine and ScubaDiving.com

|| |---| | About the Author| | Eric Douglas' books: Flooding Hollywood & Cayman Cowboys | |

| | Eric Douglas began diving in 1990 in West Virginia. He became a dive instructor in 1998 while working for the world's largest dive training organization, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. There he helped develop training materials and served as the Assistant Editor of The Undersea Journal, a publication read by more than 150,000 professional divers worldwide. He is currently the Director of Training for Divers Alert Network (DAN), an international scuba diving safety organization where he develops dive safety training programs. He also frequently teaches those programs to dive instructors and instructor trainers so they can teach them to divers. Trained as a journalist, with a degree from Marshall University, he has written thousands of stories and has traveled the world with his cameras in hand. Eric currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, the home of Duke University and DAN, with his wife, two daughters and three dogs.|
The air was still and hot. The humidity was so thick, it felt like oil. The Florida Keys were almost always caressed by a gentle breeze that made it bearable in the summer time. But this day was different. The air had an almost unnatural feel to it; like something was holding the wind back.

"So tell me again how this all happened," Jackson asked his friend, Randy Littlebear, as the other man sat beside him on the fly bridge of his boat, the Daydreamer, a 28-foot Boston Whaler Outrage with twin 250 horsepower Yamaha four-stroke engines. Littlebear was scanning the water with high-powered binoculars. He was a federal officer with the Bureau of Indian Affairs--a cop. He worked on the Seminole reservation to the north, but he liked to spend his spare time in the keys, diving and fishing. Littlebear and Jackson met when Littlebear was working undercover to break up a drug smuggling ring. A Navy diver who had served with distinction in the first Gulf war, he was cool and focused. Diving wasn't what was on his mind today, though, as he searched the water. He was looking for a body.

"Littlebear," Jackson barked louder when his friend didn't answer. "Tell me again how we know this guy went overboard?"

"Oh, sorry man. I guess I zoned out for a second," Littlebear replied, as he dropped the field glasses from his face and rubbed his eyes. "All right. This is all I know. A group of treasure hunters were out here. They've been scanning this general area for the last few weeks. Supposedly, they had some good indications that a Spanish treasure ship went down around here."

"With all the coral growth around here, we could be sitting on top of Fort Knox and I don't know how you'd find it," Jackson grunted as he steered the Whaler through the search pattern they were conducting. His on-board GPS unit indicated where to turn to complete the pattern with as little overlap as possible. Several boats were out searching for the man who had been lost overboard. Each was working a grid on a pattern laid out by the Sheriff's Department.

"True enough, but something told them this was the spot. You know how these guys are. Mel Fisher and a few others hit it rich in these waters, but most of these treasure groups don't think about the years and millions of dollars those 'success stories' took before they paid off," Littlebear agreed. "So anyway, something showed up on their magnetometer so this guy hit the water and went down to see what they'd found. No doubt they'd done it dozens of times, but you check everything out, or you always wonder if you've missed it."

"You got that right," Jackson said, silently urging his friend to stop rambling. Normally Littlebear was pretty quiet, but sometimes he got off on a tangent. Jackson knew he would just have to wait it out.

"So, this guy finds this box underwater and brings it up. He handed it up to the guys on the boat and then climbed up on board," Littlebear continued.

"OK, I got that far, but you said something earlier about things getting a little bizarre, but then never finished it," Jackson prodded.

"Oh yeah. So, anyway, the guy gets up on the boat and one of the guys hands him the box he'd brought up. The others on the boat all said the boat suddenly rocked back and forth--pretty violently from the sounds of it. It must've been a rogue wave or something," Littlebear said.

"That sort of thing is pretty rare around here. In the Pacific, I've seen that. Those waves can cross the entire ocean as little more than a bump in the water and then turn into a monster when they get in site of land. Out here, you just don't see that," Jackson said, shaking his head. "At least not when the ocean is this flat and the air is this still. Nothing out here to even cause a rogue wave. I've seen heavy freighters throw off some pretty big wakes when they come plowing through here, but you said there was no boat traffic around, right?"

"I'm just telling you what they told me and no, there weren't any freighters cruising up the coast. So, anyway, this rogue wave hits and the treasure hunter is thrown overboard. He dropped the box to the deck as he fell backward and then he just disappeared below the surface. They said it didn't look like he tried to swim or struggle or anything. He was just gone," Littlebear finished.

"Did they dive to find him?" Jackson asked.

"A couple of them jumped in the water almost as soon their buddy dropped. They couldn't find anything. They searched the entire area. No sign of him," Littlebear replied.

"Well, that's it," Jackson said as he reached down and took the Daydreamer out of gear for a minute. "We've covered the entire search grid and no sign of a floating body."

"All right, I'll call it in," Littlebear acknowledged. "I've heard a couple other boats report in with the same result. Doesn't sound like it's going to be a good day for the treasure hunters."

With that, Jackson headed the boat back to his slip in the marina. He would've helped out in the search for free, but the Sheriff offered to pay him for his time and fuel anyway, and Jackson wasn't going to let that slip by.

A former New York City firefighter, Jackson Pauley had decided to change careers following 9/11. In his mid-40's he took a 20-year pension and moved to where the water was warm and the pace of life was still pretty slow. A long-time diver, mainly off the coast of New York and New Jersey, he became a dive instructor and headed to the Keys. He'd tried out a couple other places in the chain of islands before settling on Withrow Key. He hadn't regretted that decision a bit. The island had been largely ignored by the development of the Upper Keys and Key West. Withrow Key still had the feel of small town America, from a time before the Keys became trendy.

Jackson worked as a dive instructor and dive guide for one of the local dive shops and took things easy. He'd bought the Daydreamer when he arrived and got a small houseboat that hadn't been out of the marina in 10 years as part of the deal. The houseboat became Jackson's home and he tied Daydreamer up beside it. In all, it worked out pretty well.

When Jackson docked the boat in the one marina on the island, next door to his floating home, Randy Littlebear jumped off and went to the sheriff's office. He wanted to check in to see if anyone else had had any luck.

After getting his boat's spring lines secured and then going back through and rechecking everything, Jackson jumped in his old truck and went to the one diner in town. It wasn't that far, and he could've walked but he thought he might get some supplies for his house after getting some lunch and so he drove. The diner overlooked the same marina, but he had to drive out and around to get there, forcing him to pass through the one intersection in town with one of the few stoplights in all of the Keys.

As he pulled up, he noticed the traffic lights begin to fade. He watched as they went out completely, then immediately blinked on again. Just as quickly, the lights flashed in series and then they all flashed back off. Two drivers were so distracted by the light show, they both rolled into the intersection and collided. Neither driver was hurt, but it took a few minutes get things sorted out. By the time they did, the lights had returned to normal.

Jackson walked into the diner a few minutes later and took a familiar seat at the bar, nodding to most of the crowd that was there, although everyone seemed distracted. There was a buzz in the room that made Jackson uneasy. Everyone was talking at once.

"This is totally burnt."

"You're lucky. Mine is frozen solid. I can't eat this."

"I think mine is spoiled."

"This isn't what I ordered at all."

Everyone in the room was complaining about something. Jackson looked around for a waitress, but it didn't look like he was going to get any service and from the sounds of things, he wasn't sure he wanted anything. Walking back outside, he ran into Randy Littlebear--literally. The man was in a rush and seemed distracted.

"Whoa there, Randy," Jackson said as he grabbed onto his friend to keep himself from falling off the deck that ran around the outside of the restaurant. "Where are you going? Did they find something?"

"Great, Jackson. It's you. I was looking for you," Littlebear said nervously, looking all around as he spoke. "Let's go get something to eat. I've got something to tell you about and I'm going to need a full stomach to do it."

"From the sounds of it, Duffy's is not the best place to eat at the moment. Something strange is going on in there," Jackson said, shaking his head.

"I'm not surprised. It's started," Littlebear said without explanation. "I'm afraid strange things are going to start happening everywhere."

"You're telling me. I was driving here and the stoplights just started freaking out. Some kind of short in the electrical system, I guess," Jackson said, pointing his friend toward a bench near the railing.

"It's not just that. Everything is going to go wrong. We've got to put it back. We've got to," Littlebear said, nearly shouting as he looked around quickly, as if he expected something to fall from the sky.

"Man, take a deep breath. You need to pull yourself together. Come over here and sit down," Jackson said, motioning the tribal officer to the bench. Littlebear hadn't moved when Jackson did. "You need to a grip, pal. What are you talking about? Put what back?"

"OK, look. When I went to the Sheriff's office to report in, I saw the box that the treasure hunter found on the reef before he was lost at sea. We've got to put it back," Littlebear continued to rant.

"Slow down. You're not making much sense. You saw the box. And that's what we need to put back? Why?" Jackson asked trying to follow along as best as he could.

"There is a legend about a stone box that has great powers. It holds the remains of a chief and shaman from another tribe. He cursed the men who killed him. When he died it unleashed powers. They were all so afraid, the tribesmen rowed out onto the reef, beyond the site of land and threw the box into the sea," Littlebear continued, searching his mind for the relevant parts of the story from his childhood. "The story goes that the ocean rose up against the men. Three boats went out and only one made it back. The warriors in the other two boats were never seen again. They just disappeared. The story ends that once the box sank beneath the waves, things returned to normal."

"Are you trying to tell me you think this box is full of ancient bones of a witch doctor who cursed another Indian tribe a thousand years ago?" Jackson said, more than a little disbelief in his voice.

"Well, I didn't say how long ago," Littlebear replied defensively. "But, yes, I've seen it and I know the box is the one from the legends. We've got to put it back where it was."

"So you said, but why? You're a cop, Randy. You've been around too much and seen too many things to believe in curses and ghosts," Jackson laughed.

"You're right; I've also seen things that I can't explain. Sometimes there are things we just can't understand," Littlebear answered.

Both men jumped when they heard a loud crashing sound behind them. Two women fell through a window behind them and were wrestling over what looked like a piece of pie.

"It's mine!"

"I saw it first."

"Liar."

"You're the liar."

Jackson and Littlebear jumped in quickly and separated the two women, pulling them off the ground before either one could get cut too badly by the broken glass strewn around. After the medics arrived and got the two women cleaned up, Jackson and Littlebear walked away from the scene.

"Are you still going to try to tell me that weird things aren't happening around here?" Littlebear asked.

"Because two women got in a fight?" Jackson asked. "It isn't exactly common, but I don't know if I'd call it supernatural."

"Jackson, they were fighting over a piece of pie. That's not exactly normal," Littlebear said with a shake of his head when they got to their cars.

Jackson returned to his houseboat and took care of some boating chores for a while. He didn't step back outside until almost dusk. He heard a dog barking and it sounded like it was just outside, so he decided to see what was going on. To get a good view, he climbed the inside stairs to the roof of the boat. Living in a marina, he thought the dog might be a few slips away or on land. A dog barking on Withrow Key wasn't exactly news and this one didn't sound like it was in pain or anything, but there was just something about the tone and the consistency that made Jackson curious--one loud bark from what sounded like a big dog, every 10 seconds or so.

At the top of the stairs, Jackson faced out over the water for a second. The sun was setting behind him but then that singular bark made him turn. What he saw froze him in his tracks.

There wasn't just one dog, but an entire mob of them. There were brown, white and black dogs. Some with spots, others with curly hair. Some dogs had short faces, or round bodies. They were all standing on the dock around his boat and they were all staring at the water, just as he had done. Jackson heard the same barking sound again, but it was coming from a small Jack Russell terrier, not an animal capable of the throaty bellow he'd been hearing. He stood and watched, but none of the animals moved. He kept watching the little Jack Russell, but then a different dog barked; it made the same sound he'd heard before.

"What in the hell is going on here?" Jackson said out loud, without moving. Then a third, different, dog barked--still the same sound. Jackson turned and went back down the steps.

"Someone's got to be putting me on and I think its time to figure out who," he grumbled as he walked through the main cabin of the boat and stepped back outside and onto the dock. The dogs ignored him, but continued staring out over the water, into the final rays of the orange sunset. Jackson turned, but couldn't see what they were all staring at. Only the marina and a few boats were between them and the open ocean.

He stepped toward the animals and shouted "Get out of here. Go home. Go away."

Nothing happened, at least not a first. He felt it at first more than he heard it, but then the growling rose up. All the dogs took a step toward him and began to let out the same deep guttural growl.

"This is not good," Jackson muttered to himself, the king of all understatements. Even if I had a gun there is no way I could stop this many dogs. Dogs can swim, but I don't think they can swim down, Jackson thought, not saying anything else that would cause the dogs to attack. He knew he could easily dive into the water behind him and swim to another boat underwater. The only problem was going to be making it to the water before the dogs made it to him. He'd have to run about 20 feet to get clear of the dock.

Jackson took a side-step in the direction he wanted to go. The dogs shifted as one to block his movement and the growling got louder. He tried it again and the dogs moved with him. They were plainly going to cut off his escape.

Facing the dogs and the island, Jackson almost didn't realize that the sun had finally dropped below the horizon and night was beginning to settle. In the Keys, the difference can literally seem like night and day, as if someone switched off a light. Darkness isn't going to make this any easier, he thought to himself.

But, he was wrong. The growling faded and the random barking stopped. The dogs began to turn and walk away. Where they had all faced the same direction, as if one dog, now they sniffed each other and turned in random directions. A few tails wagged and they all walked away as if there was nothing unusual in a pack of dogs watching the sunset--or all sounding alike.

"I didn't know there were that many dogs around here," Jackson said to himself, as he let out the breath he realized he'd been holding. "That was weird," he said as he leaned against a piling on the dock. None of the dogs turned back or gave him a second look.

Jackson almost jumped out of his skin when his cell phone, which had been quiet all afternoon, suddenly began ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and it showed he had six voicemail messages. And then another call came in.

"Hello," he said when he thumbed the phone on.

"Man, I've been trying to get you for a couple hours. Where've you been?" Littlebear asked. "Strange things are going on all over the island. There are unexplained electrical problems and people are acting weird. I know you don't believe in all this stuff, but I need your help, now."

"Don't worry. I believe something's going on," Jackson replied as he watched the last of the dogs walk up the ramp to the shore from the dock. "What do we need to do?"

Jackson was in Littlebear's car five minutes later.

"All right. From the top again, but explain this to me in simple terms. I'm having a very unusual day," Jackson said, watching his friend closely. He knew Littlebear was a solid guy, and good under pressure, but there were too many strange things going on. He could only be sure of himself and he wasn't even completely sure about that.

"I did some checking when I got home. The legend says that the Tequesta people who lived throughout the Keys were constantly at war with the Calusa tribe from the southwest part of Florida. There were more of the Calusas, so the Tequesta were usually on the losing end," Littlebear explained. "The story goes that the Tequesta managed to capture a Calusa chief and were going to sacrifice him, hoping to gain power over their northern rivals. Just before they cut off the man's head, he uttered a curse on the tribe. After they were done, a lot of really strange things started happening to them."

"You mean like the stoplights malfunctioned?" Jackson joked, still skeptical.

"Like all the fish disappeared. In a single day," Littlebear answered, ignoring Jackson's sarcasm. "These people survived on fish and the sea. They didn't farm, so all the fish disappearing at once was serious stuff."

"So, they put his head into a box and threw it in the ocean to bring back the fish?" Jackson asked.

"Short version, yes. What I told you before was pretty much right," Littlebear answered.

"Look, I don't know what's going on, but something sure is. If you think putting this box back in the water will straighten things out, then let's do it. I'd rather not have a visit from my kennel club again," Jackson said.

"I know what you mean. I saw birds doing the same thing, just looking out to sea," Littlebear said.

"One thing that bothers me though; why does the spirit in the box want to go back to the water? Wouldn't it want to be released from the box?" Jackson asked.

"That's the interesting thing. I believe the spirit in the box is causing all the trouble around here and it will only get worse if someone opens the box, but I think the dogs and the birds are a sign from other spirits on the island, from the Tequesta people, to send it back. That's why they keep pointing out to sea," Littlebear explained.

"So, why did they stop when the sun went down?" Jackson asked.

"I'm not exactly sure, but the spirits probably have less power at night. At least that is the only thing I can think of," Littlebear answered. "So, we need to take care of this, tonight."

"Where is the box? How do we get it?" Jackson asked.

"The sheriff gave it back to the treasure hunters who found it," Littlebear explained.

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