The Cabo Verde lighthouse was cobbled together by the Spanish at land's end of a verdant arm that flexed into the sea, much like Cape Cod. When the British took control of Santa Barbara they renamed it Saint James. The cape retained its melodic Spanish name due to bureaucratic oversight. The lighthouse received a facelift, financed by none other than Captain Morgan himself, with booty looted from galleons bound for the Azores. It stood sentinal for two centuries. Then came the Catagory 4 hurricane known as Hecate.
*
Above the nomadic dunes terra firma began with seagrape shrubs and Australian pines. A piedmont of wild Bermuda grass rose from a bed of coarse sand to overlook the cove. There was a stairway hewn from coquina, pocked and filled with living green.Twelve symbolic steps flanked by croton climbed to the base of the lighthouse.The keeper's cottage lay nestled in a floral chaos of hibiscus, oleander, gardenia and orchid. Its ancient walls were of white stucco and its roof was of Spanish tile.
Pirate Jenny unlatched the heavy wooden door and shoved it open.
Furnishings could have been those of Robinson Crusoe.
A fishnet hammock with navy bedding had been slung high enough to be free of anything worrisome that might crawl in and bite.
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum," Speedboat teased.
"You said it, sister."
"Yow! What's that?"
"Mangrove spider."
"Outta here!"
Like schoolgirls they scampered out, squealing and giggling. They paused at the foot of the lighthouse and gazed upward at its head, three stories above and awash now in a vermilion sky.
Pirate Jenny gave her new pal an elbow poke. "That spider didn't scare you."
"Naw. Not many things do. Dying does a little."
Of course, Pirate Jenny thought. Cancer. The woman has battled breast cancer.
"Let's go inside," she said, brightening. "I want to show you something."
Gingerly they stepped across the threshold. This scene was far different from the one inside the cottage. It was someone's secret garden.
"Lo behold!" Pirate Jenny pointed toward the flooring. In the dim light they observed a circular maze. A labyrinth, handpainted handlaid tiles.
"It's beautiful," Speedboat whispered, making the Sign of the Cross.
"My man Johnny Luck copied it from a book. It's from a place he once visited. Chartres Cathedral."
"This is fascinating," Speedboat said reverently. She knelt and touched the gateway with her finger.
Stifling a smirk, Pirate Jenny said, "It's not holy ground, dear."
"Art is holy."
*
"Is your man the keeper?"
"Heavens no. He's the builder."
"Who is the keeper? Where is he?"
"One never sees him. I think he's a ghost."
Speedboat rolled her eyes like Mantan Moreland in "King of the Zombies" and replied, "Oooh, spooky."
"You know, my honeyboy doesn't attend any church. But he is very spiritual."
"I'm anxious to meet him."
"Well look, it's getting on toward nightfall. We gotta get going."
Outside they looked up and saw that the great lantern already was throwing light toward the sealanes, a beacon from what was called Luck's Tor.
*
The women stumbled through dunes so precarious they thought they were wading in gypsum. Legs gobbled up to shin and calf. They stopped and stood in total starshine. Ever so awesome, the Milky Way arched overhead.
"The Bridge of Souls," Speedboat proclaimed.
Pirate Jenny clicked on a torch from her fanny-pouch. Following the cone of light they entered the sea-oats and familiar territory.
She exclaimed: "Up there! Our cabana, but I don't see him."
"Didn't you say he went crabbing?"
"Yes, but he would have returned by now."
"Maybe he gave up on us and went home."
"I suppose."
"Well then. I invite you to dinner with Kit and Kat. You can call your honeyboy from there."
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