Patricia Cornwell - Isle of Dogs

It is my contention that the treasure belongs to the watermen, and we should allow them to have it. Tangier's economy is depressed. There are strict limits on the number of blue crabs they can trap, and the crab population has been shrinking for years. I am asking everyone, including the governor, to stay away from that crab pot marked by a yellow buoy that is approximately 10. 1 miles off Tangier's western shore. Let decency prevail and greed vanish as you consider that most of us don't suffer the hard, often unrewarding lives of the watermen. Since their ancestors suffered so much when Joseph Wheland set up his winter headquarters on their island long ago, it would be only fair and right for today's Tangiermen to profit from that evil pirate's ruthlessness. It may very well be a perfect example of poetic justice.

Anne Bonny and Wheland never met the punishment they deserved. Even Blackbeard didn't get what was coming to him. Hacking him to death and impaling his severed head on a gunwale was light punishment compared to the way some pirates were dealt with in other parts of the world. Before piracy was first romanticized in modern times and then mundanely reduced to armed robbery, it was taken with grave seriousness in past centuries. All you need to do is flip through the pages of the two-volume 1825 edition of The Terrific Register: or Record of Crimes, Judgments, Providences and Calamities, and you will be shocked and sickened to see what I mean.

By way of example, I offer what was the typical fate of Russian pirates on the Volga, which in centuries past was so infested with pirates that merchants stopped transporting any cargo of value down the river unless the ships were accompanied by an armed convoy. These

Russian pirates, who were not nearly as cold-blooded as Bonny, Wheland, or Blackbeard, were taken alive and no doubt became quite unsettled as they observed soldiers building a float and erecting gallows on it that were equipped with huge iron hooks.

The captured pirates were stripped naked and hung by their ribs on these hooks, and the float was sent slowly drifting down the river, allowing one and all to view the ghastly sight and hear moans of pain. If anyone in the bordering villages and towns the floating gallows passed showed a whisper of pity by offering the wretches water or liquor or a merciful death by gunfire, the punishment for being a Good Samaritan was to suffer the same slow, tormenting death as the pirates. This threat was sufficiently severe to prevent the public from intervening, and in fact, when one pirate managed to escape from his hook and, nude and trembling from pain and blood loss, came upon a simple shepherd, the shepherd's unsympathetic response was to beat the pirate's brains out with a stone.

I'm sure the shepherd was quick to loudly boast throughout the village about the unkind thing he had just done, otherwise the story would never have made it into historical records. This is not to say that I believe in vigilantism or torturing prisoners on death row. Nor should you assume I approve of the way the Russians dealt with piracy. But my point is that Bonny, Black-beard, and Wheland, and their bloodthirsty sea dogs were just lucky they weren't caught in Russia.

It is quite likely that a piece of iron from one of Wheland's grenades has led to the discovery of at least one of his sunken ships, and one can only imagine the mysteries and treasures that have rested for centuries at the bottom of the bay in the area of the yellow buoy I previously mentioned. I realize that some maritime historians will insist that there is no evidence of a Tory Treasure, but I must remind my readers and Governor Crimm that Wheland "Wheelin' Bone" did not leave a list of all the ships and plantations he raided, and we can't be certain what ships sank, including his own, and what was on them.

Be careful out there!

Possum didn't notice the essay when it was first posted on the website because Smoke and the road dogs had returned to the RV not even an hour before, and dread had seized Possum by the back of the neck.

"I just wish you was here with me, " Possum was praying to Hoss. "I know I ain't always done the right thing, but I'm trying to now. You be sure you tell Little Joe, Mr. Cartwright-and maybe Adam, if he ain't left the show yet. Okay? If you hear me, Hoss, please round up a posse and meet me at the race. I'm real scared-the most scared I ever been in my life. I don't know, but I got a bad feeling something ain't gonna happen the way Trooper Truth thinks it will.

"And I can't stand giving up Popeye. She's the only thing warm and alive I can trust, Hoss. Think how you'd like it if you had to give away your horse or was worried a bunch of outlaws was going to ambush you when you wasn't expecting it and shoot your horse! I know Popeye don't belong to me and it ain't fair for her to be locked up in this RV. I know I gotta do the right thing. But I need some help, Hoss. "

"Now listen up, little buddy, " Hoss said as he sat high on his beloved horse. "Outlaws are outlaws, whether they're horse thieves or truck thieves, and you do gotta do the right thing. Me and Pa and Little Joe ain't sore at you, and you gotta believe that. We're mighty sore at Smoke and his pack of gun-toting outlaws, though. Each and every one of them ought to be hung from a long rope. Now you do exactly what Trooper Truth told you, and don't be scared 'cause we're pulling for ya. "

Hoss faded from Possum's mind and Possum dried his tears on the Jolly Goodwrench flag and sat up, noticing the Trooper Truth website glowing on the computer screen. He went over to his crate and clicked on the newest essay and read it with great interest, not certain but guessing what Trooper Truth had in mind. Taking a deep breath and telling Popeye to stay and be a good girl, Possum dashed out of his room and banged on Smoke's door.

"Smoke!" Possum yelled. "Smoke, get up and look at this! You won't believe it!"

Smoke was sitting cross-legged on his bed as he filled a hypodermic syringe with a poisonous mixture of solvents and rat poison that he had stolen from the hardware section of Wal-Mart when he had taken the road dogs out to find NASCAR colors.

"What the fuck do you want?" Smoke shouted at Possum. Smoke was high on beer, crack cocaine, and meanness after robbing another convenience store and discovering there was only eighty-two dollars in the cash drawer. "You seen Cat? Where the hell is Cat?" Smoke shouted again as he stuck the orange plastic cap back on the tip of the hypodermic needle.

Possum cracked open the door and peered through the space, his heart hammering.

"Smoke, I don't mean to bother you none, but there's something on the Trooper Truth web you got to see!" Possum said in a small, intimidated voice. "It's got to do with a whole lot of treasure and we can get it if we think quick. What you doing with that needle?"

Smoke jumped up from the bed, his bare chest covered with tattoos and beaded with sweat. His eyes were glassy, and the only thing worse than Smoke was Smoke when he was high and needed to sleep it off.

"Pop-eye, " Smoke said with a cruel laugh as he pretended to inject Popeye with the syringe.

"Forget the fucking dog for a minute, " Possum said, faking the bad act he had gotten fairly good at.

"Don't you fucking tell me to fucking forget anything, you little retard, " Smoke said, pointing the needle at Possum as if he might just inject him instead of Popeye. "See, this is how Smoke makes assholes pay for their sins. Right when that bitch Hammer and her fuckhead sidekick Brazil come rushing up to the pit to save the stupid dog, I whip out this syringe and inject Popeye with rat poison right in front of them. While they're busy trying to save the dog, which will instantly go into convulsions and be in terrible pain, we shoot them in the head and run for the helicopter. "