Treasure of Montbars the Exterminator

The young woman in the yellow bikini emerged with the tide. The water had been beautiful, but a bit chilly, and far too cloudy for any fishing. Tropical Storm Lilith had stirred up the sea too much. Little Gouverneur's Bay would disappoint tourists for the next few days; what few tourists it held. The entire island of St. Barth closed for hurricane season. For two months, there were no flights in or out. The young woman would still have to do maintenance work at her parents' hotel, but for the most part the next two months would be her vacation.

A weathered log had washed up with the storm, and she sat on it, letting the sun warm her. The log would be a perfect place to make a little fire to drive away the insects which typically emerged in the evening. Marta, the young woman, had noticed that over the years how storm after storm would scour the beach, and all the storms reacted the same. For example, even the most violent hurricanes never seemed to scour the white stain of guano off the cliffs. The storms would all stir up the water, which would stay agitated for two to three days as the rain washed down the hills and out into the ocean. They would deposit driftwood and all sorts of flotsam in the wide cave on the southern edge of the beach. Each storm would remove a little sand from the cave, yet the cave floor never seemed to reach bedrock. Without fail, on the third day, the water would be clear, and by the fourth or fifth, the sun would have warmed the bay again. Marta treasured the beach during hurricane season. To her, the ocean in the dry season got too hot. The tourists loved it, but to her the water wasn't refreshing in August, to say nothing of the crowds.

Marta glanced down the beach. She was alone - the entire beach to herself. With a stretch, she reached behind her, undid the knot on her bikini top, and removed it, spreading it out next to her on the log to dry. Yesterday, some American tourists reacted in outrage when she'd done this. Somehow, this meant she was going to hell, she was a whore, not to mention a harlot (she'd made a mental note to remember that one) and several other absurdities. Yet to her, her behavior seemed perfectly normal. Most women on the island chose not to wear tops when they lay on the beach. Most of the European tourists found it ordinary as well. Only the silly Americans, she thought with a chuckle - and only a few of them, in truth - could manufacture outrage over something so trivial. Sure, the young boys would leer sometimes, but even if she feigned anger at them, it didn't really bother her. Better they look then not want to look.

She'd come a long way, she thought with a smile, since being the ugly little girl they'd called "Crapaud." Even on a French island, they had called her a toad! She had to admit, she hadn't been pretty as a child, and young girls can be the cruelest thing this planet has yet produced. Yet she wasn't so gangly anymore. The girls who picked on her then seemed plain in comparison now. The clothes in the boutiques which were created for the rich and famous seemed designed specifically to flatter her figure. A week didn't go by in tourist season without some man filling her head with empty promises of sweeping her off her feet and taking her back to the mainland (for some reason it was usually Italy) for a life of pampered luxury. She recognized more than one of them from television and magazines. She knew better than to accept. Working in her parents' hotel had shown her how "stars" treated Island Girls - and especially Island Boys - behind closed doors. She knew several people who had been swept away, or drugged, by the rich and famous and found themselves being asked, if not forced, to do vile things. One more joy of hurricane season would be the lack of these indecent proposals.

Now dry, Marta arose, put her top back on, and entered the cave. In the afternoon, the sun illuminated almost all of it. She started by removing trash. The storm deposited most of it but the rest had been left by dumb kids. In truth, it hadn't been long since she was that dumb adolescent, but back then the other kids would never have invited her to their beach parties. She liked to think that had she been invited she wouldn't have been too lazy to throw out her beer bottles and empty cigarette packs. After all, it was only fifty meters or so to the trash can in the little parking lot where the palm forest and sawgrass met the beach. In her first pass through the cave, she found a plastic bag, a weathered sandal, a bucket-style hat emblazed with a Hennessey logo, several bottles - both glass and plastic, cigarette packs, and the soggy remains of a horrible purple stuffed dinosaur.

Once these assorted prizes had been discarded, she returned and started scrounging driftwood. Over the years, she developed a system. First, she went for the stuff that was still wet. Once she'd hauled it out in the light, the sun would dry it as she gathered more wood. Then she went for smalls; little twigs which would ignite easily, burn fast, and would catch larger wood. Often, she'd find the best smalls in the parking lot rather than in the cave. She didn't bother to search the rest of the beach; the tides always seemed to push it into the cave. Next, she'd look for medium stuff - about the size of her arm. These would create a sustainable fire while waiting for larger fuel to catch. Anything big would wait until last. In the unlikely event that she couldn't find anything in the cave, the washed-up branch which had served her well as a seat would serve again as fuel.

When she had been removing trash, Marta noticed two, maybe three large pieces which would make ample fuel for her little fire. She grabbed the first, a battered chunk of particle board with some timber remnants nailed to it. Unless she found a way to remove the nails, she wouldn't burn this. Someone would inevitably step on the nails; possibly her. Next came another fragment of tree trunk, washed up from some long-forgotten shore. She treasured these pieces. As the fire burned, she'd let her mind wander, imagining where the tree grew, and what sort of journey through the ocean it made in order to arrive at her little island. By the time the wood had burned, she would have imagined an adventure far greater than most people would ever have in their entire lives. She couldn't identify the species, but that would only hinder her imagination. By not knowing, it could come from as far away as Canada, or Indonesia, or even the wild desert of Namibia.

In the back of the cave Marta had seen a third bit. It looked somewhat like a curved board. As she brushed the sand away, she saw weathered leather attached to the board. She couldn't tell if the leather held the wood together, or if the wood instead held the leather and kept it from disintegrating. As she continued to brush sand away, she came to the edges of the wood. It looked like the lid of an old box of some kind. Time and nature had left it well worn, whatever it was. Marta continued brushing away the sand in front of the box, if that's what it was, trying to see how far down she'd have to dig to pull it out. Maybe it wasn't worth it. She could burn the wood with the nails in it and save the hassle. As she was thinking this, her hands reached something solid. It looked and felt like sand packed hard, almost to concrete. It wasn't wood, nor plastic, nor metal.

Marta kept brushing sand away from the object, it seemed to be somewhat round, and smaller than a football. Now she could pull it out. As she did, she exposed the wooden object, revealing a worn metal latch on the front. It was a box, or chest, of some sort, and ancient at that. The latch now dangled, only half attached to the crate. Meanwhile she took the round object out into the light. There seemed to be something, possibly leather, hanging out the bottom.

As she walked into the light, brushing sand, she looked down. With a gasp, she dropped the object. Two vacant eye sockets leered back at her; their empty voids filled with sand. A skull! She shook yet tried to tell herself she was being silly. There was nothing to be afraid of here. She'd seen skulls of chickens and pigs many times. So why did her heart race? Perhaps because the skull appeared human? Was this a skull from someone who'd disappeared in some voodoo ritual a century ago? Or did it have to do with the box in the cave?

As she calmed down, her attention turned to the thing hanging out of the bottom. She hoped it wasn't something gross, like a dead animal or worse, flesh that hadn't yet decomposed. She examined it, and it fell out of the skull's jaw, bringing the few remaining teeth with it. It was rolled up, like leather. Parchment maybe? She'd never actually seen parchment but that was her best guess. Surely paper would have disintegrated long ago. As careful as she tried to be, the page broke into several pieces as she unrolled it.

She pieced the bits together in the sand and looked at the words. They were in French! Old. Not modern, proper French, but she could understand it:

Here Lies the Head and Horde of Montbars the Exterminator -
Sailor of the high seas, privateer extraordinaire, and scourge of all New Spain.
BEWARE! This chest contains his share, but only after he tried to rob his own crew.
He we bring him to justice.
May this chest and all of its contents be cursed for all eternity.
Montbars may roast in the hellfires of eternal damnation and this gold will pay the devil to stoke the fires hot.
Removal of any of this hoard will summon the rotted corpse of Montbars and his undead soul will hunt ye down, destroying ye wherever ye may be found, and in the gruesome fashion for which Montbars be known.

The curse couldn't be real, she thought. Could it?



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