Sylvie's Cowboy Page 13

  Midway between the fort and Caroline Lowe’s flagpole, on the tin roof of a three-story wooden house, behind the gingerbread railing of another widow’s walk, two athletic, handsome youngsters stood close together, blown by the wind. Twenty-year-old Richard scanned the sea with a spyglass. Joe, an inch shorter than Richard, kept one hand atop a floppy hat the wind wanted to steal.

  Richard found something interesting to the east. He handed over the spyglass and pointed Joe toward the same point on the horizon. Joe searched, then zeroed in.

  “Some rascal’s laid a false light over on Boca Chica,” Richard said. “Come on!”

  They tucked the spyglass into a hollow rail of the widow’s walk and hastened down the stairs.

  ...

  On neighboring Boca Chica island, night blanketed the beach. A hunched figure tossed a branch onto a blazing bonfire then slunk away into the darkness. Pine pitch popped and crackled in the fire, adding a sweet piney aroma to the tang of the salt breeze off the sea.

  ...

  Inside a warehouse on Tift’s Wharf, all shapes and sizes of kegs, boxes, and wooden crates towered in jagged heaps. Sickly yellow light from a sailor’s lantern sent quivering shadows across the stacks. A spindly boy of 15, Joseph Porter, kept watch through a crack in the door.

  On the floor a dozen teenaged boys hunkered down, whispering. Richard sneaked in from the rear of the building to join them. Behind him, out of the light and keeping quiet, came Joe.

  Porter hissed, “Mudsills comin’!”

  The whispered buzz of conversation halted. Out went the light. Bodies thumped to the floor as the boys took cover.

  Outside, footsteps ground into the gravelly dirt of the street. Four Yankee soldiers, the source of the boys’ concern, completed a weary circuit of the dark dockside buildings. They were Pennsylvania farm boys not much older than the Key West boys hiding inside.

  The southern boys would have been surprised to know that the Yankees in the street were not technically “mudsills,” that being the name given to northern factory workers who lived crowded together in dirt-floored shacks along muddy streets. Still, the word was applied to all the Yankee enemies, just as the northern boys would have called the Key Westers “mooncussers,” as if they all were pirates.

  One of the Pennsylvania soldiers said something in Dutch-German, and the others murmured agreement. They sounded homesick. One slapped a mosquito on his neck then turned up his collar, grumbling.

  In front of the warehouse the soldiers stopped beside a barrel set to catch rain water running off the tin roof during storms. They loosened their woolen tunics and dipped their handkerchiefs into the water, laving themselves, trying in vain to ease the steamy agony of tropical heat.

  Inside, the wide-eyed boys held their breath, listening to the sounds from the water barrel outside. Joseph Porter trembled, perspired, and looked cross-eyed at a gigantic mosquito making itself at home on the end of his nose. He tried to raise one hand quietly to chase the brute away, but his elbow nudged a crate of bottles. Glass tinkled. The boys froze.

  Outside, a soldier started at the sound and snatched up his weapon. “Vas ist das?”

  The other soldiers were less concerned. They were hot, tired, and not looking for trouble.

  “Rats,” one said. “These pirate ships are full of them. Let’s go back to the ice house. It’s cooler.”

  The sweat-covered boys heard the receding footsteps of the Yankees. Long, sweltering seconds later, Porter crept to his crack in the door and risked a peek. “It’s all right. They’re gone.”

  Red-haired William Sawyer lit the lantern.

  A bigger boy, Marcus Oliveri, stepped forward and cuffed Porter smartly. “Porter, you imbecile!”

  “Here now, Marcus!” said William. “He didn’t mean to.”

  Oliveri returned to his place in the circle forming around the lantern. “I don’t fancy getting arrested or maybe shot because Porter can’t abide getting mosquito bit for his country!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Porter. “It was an accident.”

  “Let’s just forget it,” urged William. “Let’s finish up and get out of here before they come back. Now, the English schooner leaves for Nassau tomorrow morning. Richard and Marcus and Alfred and me will be on it. The rest of you know what to do to cover for us.”

  An older boy with a thick Bahamian accent, Alfred Lowe, shook his finger under the nose of a friend. “And you, Bogy Sands, stay away from my sister while I’m gone, y’hear?”

  Richard looked surprised. “Caroline? Bogy!”

  “You ain’t engaged to her, Thibodeaux,” said Bogy.

  William Sawyer’s hair flashed the same fiery color as the lamplight when he reached across the circle to separate Richard and Bogy. “That’s enough of that! God willing, we’ll all be soldiers of the Seventh Florida Regiment within the year. Any questions?”

  All around the circle the boys murmured in the negative.

  “Let’s get home then, and be ready when the call comes,” William said.

  The boys scrambled away. Joe and Richard were the last to leave, watching for Yankee patrols while the others sneaked out.

  Joe complained, “I’ll probably break my neck walking around in your boots. You got such big feet, Wretched! I had to stuff the toes with rags.”

  “You just keep that hat on and stay out of Papa’s way—you’ll do fine,” Richard replied.

  As they moved to leave the warehouse, Richard put an arm around Joe’s shoulders and gave an encouraging squeeze.

  ...

  In the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba, just before dawn, two lithe, black fishermen reacted to the pop and flare of a distress signal that arced upward in the eastern sky. One fisherman reached into the bilge of his craft and produced the empty pink-and-white spiraling shell of a large mollusk called a conch. He lifted the trumpet-size conch shell to his lips and blew a loud, hooting blast.

  Seconds later on Tift’s Wharf, a lookout in a wooden tower reacted to the distant conch horn, scanned the eastern horizon with a spyglass for barely an instant, then clanged the wreckers’ bell and shouted to wake the whole island.

  “Wreck asho-o-o-re! Wreck asho-o-o-re!”

  Men of all sizes came running from every direction. Black men and white, old and young, in jerseys and loose short pants, they raced through the streets of Key West to the Jamaica sloops moored in the harbor. Every shopkeeper (save one, William Curry) left his store, every clergyman his church, every able-bodied homeowner his house. Quickly it became apparent that nearly every man in Key West, whatever else he might be, was a wrecker.

  Men shouted, the bell clanged, the distant conch horn trumpeted. The race was on. Yankee soldiers, standing on the street corner, did well not to be trampled in the rush.

  At Fort Taylor, blue-clad soldiers on the roof of the fort took note of the wreck and watched closely the activity in the harbor, ready to take action if necessary.

  Aboard the moored schooner Lady Alyce, white-bearded, patriarchal Captain Elias Thibodeaux, regal in his double-breasted jacket, surveyed the scene with hawk’s eyes. The Lady Alyce, at 50 feet and 136 tons, was a sleek topsail schooner with well-greased masts, coiled lines, and shining brightwork. She looked like she could outsail anything.

  “Mister Simmons,” the captain shouted.

  The mate, Cataline Simmons, was a black Bahamian with the muscles and instincts of an experienced sailor and the accent of an Oxford professor. “Aye, sir!”

  Thibodeau’s eyes searched the wharf again, but it was no use. “Hoist the mains’l,” he commanded.

  Cataline, too, looked with concern at the wharf before executing the order.

  “Today, Simmons!” bellowed the captain. “We’ll leave him if we have to, but I will be first to bespeak that wreck!”

  Cataline leapt into action, gesturing to four crewmen—three white, one black—who waited poised at their stations. “Aye, sir! Hoist the mains’l.”

  The three white crewm
en set about their tasks quickly, skillfully. The small, wiry black man, Stepney Austin, hesitated. If Thibodeaux was king here, and he undoubtedly was, then Stepney Austin was the court jester. Monkeylike in his movements and Cockney in his speech, he could be the bane of Simmons’ existence if he were not so brave and loyal.

  “Cast off the docklines,” said the captain.

  Cataline threw Stepney a look. Stepney moved as if this was what he had been awaiting.

  The sail was filling; other boats were getting underway. Stepney cast off the bow lines and moved deliberately toward the stern, watching the wharf as did Cataline. Thibodeaux turned away and looked seaward, giving up on finding what he sought upon the wharf.

  Then Joe, baggy in Richard’s clothing and unsteady in Richard’s boots, appeared at the far side of the wharf, running toward the Lady Alyce.

  Stepney cried, “There he is!”

  Thibodeaux did not look. “Cast off!”

  Cataline lifted a cargo block from the rigging nearby and, as he spoke, swung the block like a great pendulum out over the wharf. “Casting off. Aye, aye, sir.”

  Stepney was forced to comply, but it was in slow motion that he cast off the stern line.

  Joe ran desperately to close the gap of several yards between Richard’s reluctant boots and the departing schooner. When the cargo block swung toward Joe, Joe took full advantage of it.

  Stepney chanted, “Come on, come on!”

  Joe’s forward motion combined with the pendulum swing of the block to carry Joe, like a trapeze artist, across the chasm now yawning between schooner and wharf. Joe landed more-or-less flatfooted on the deck behind Captain Thibodeaux. Richard’s floppy hat tumbled from Joe’s head, followed by a cascade of unruly curls that reached halfway down her back.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Stepney Austin lurched forward and opened his mouth, only to find Cataline Simmons’s hand clapped across his face. Cataline gestured with a sidewise tilt of his head to the schooner across the harbor—the one flying the English flag—then glared disapproval at Joe and the errant hat.

  Joe grabbed the hat, stuffed the telltale curls into it, and replaced it on her head.

  Thibodeaux still did not look around. “Good morning, Richard. So good of you to join us. Now get aloft and find me that wreck.”

  “Aye, sir!” said Joe and climbed for the top of the mast. The other crewmen tackled their duties with renewed relish. Cataline and Stepney exchanged a look. The wrecking fleet departed, leaving behind the English schooner across the harbor.

  ...

  On Pelican Shoal, near the edge of the Gulf Stream’s warm current, the St. Gertrude, a 200-foot merchantman, sat at an odd angle, jarring, creaking, and shuddering. Waves whapped her sides and wind rattled her rigging. She had wedged her keel firmly aground. A dozen anxious crewmen lined the St. Gertrude’s rail, watching the Lady Alyce approach, trailed by other wrecking sloops—though none within 300 yards of her.

  A young boy in floppy hat and baggy clothes appeared to be at the helm of the Lady Alyce. The white-bearded, red-coated captain was an imposing figure as he stepped into the bow and hailed the grounded merchantman. “Ahoy, St. Gertrude!”

  Aaron Matthews, a tall, well-built man in a brocade jacket, returned a lusty shout from the bridge of the merchantman. “Ahoy, yourself! Can we assist you?”

  Thibodeaux smiled at the younger man’s audacity. “Could you stand to lighten your load a bit?”

  “Have you come to rob me, then?” replied Matthews.

  “Naw! Naw, no need for that. We’ll just bide here ‘til the next tide breaks you up and take what’s left. Or, we could pull you off, see you safe into Key West, and let the admiralty court decide who gets what.”

  The young captain of the St. Gertrude was considering his options when his arm was taken by a beautiful woman who came up behind him—an antebellum china doll, from the taffeta hoop skirt to the shiny hair piled high on her head, showing off her dainty dangling earrings. This was Lila Dauthier.

  “You’re not seriously thinking of allowing those ... those mooncussers to come aboard, are you, Aaron?” Lila simpered.

  “I was, yes.”

  “But, sweetheart! Everyone knows they’re no better than pirates. Vultures. They cause ships to wreck just so they can loot them.”

  Aaron fondled her earring and teased her with a smile. “They may have played a trick or two in their time, Lila my dove, but I can hardly blame them for this one since I myself was at the helm. Something must have distracted me.”

  Aboard the Lady Alyce, Thibodeaux knew the other sloops were drawing closer, but his position as master of this wreck was secure. He took in the situation with a shrewd look and shouted to the stranded vessel, “St. Gertrude! Have we permission to come aboard?”

  Lila gave Aaron her most persuasive pleading look, but his smile told her she had lost this argument.

  “Very well,” she said. “I shall be in my cabin—securing my valuables.”

  Aaron watched her leave the bridge, her gait calculated to keep his attention. Suddenly he was in an expansive mood. He called over the rail, “Come aboard, my friends! Do your worst!”

  “On the contrary, sir,” Thibodeaux shouted. “We shall, as always, do our best!”

  Thibodeaux gestured to his crewmen, who moved to carry out his unspoken order. Joe, at the helm, worked the Lady Alyce close alongside the St. Gertrude, where crewmen tied her up.

  While Joe concentrated on this maneuver, Captain Thibodeaux took a seat near the helm, and lit his pipe. He spoke for Joe’s ears alone.

  “Richard never saw the day he could make six knots through Dry Rocks in a wind like we had today. I don’t know what shenanigans you two are about, Josephine Marie, but if you’re fool enough to take Richard’s place, I’ll expect you to keep your hat on and carry Richard’s share of the load. Is that clear?”

  Joe swallowed hard. “Aye, aye, sir. Clear as a bell.”

  A trace of a smile showed behind Thibodeaux’s beard and pipe as he rose to step away. “Your Mama’ll kill you when you get home, I reckon. Don’t suppose you’d tell me where Richard has taken himself off to? Courting Caroline Lowe, maybe?”

  “I don’t know exactly where he is this minute,” Joe answered truthfully.

  ...

  Miles away, in the Gulf Stream, the English schooner had left Key West harbor behind her and was making excellent headway under full sail toward the Bahamas. Aboard were four runaway boys on their way to join the Confederate Army.

  ...

  On the streets of Key West, a patrol of Yankee soldiers made its way under the glaring mid-day sun toward Tift’s Wharf. Something atop one of the houses caught Sergeant Pfifer’s eye. “Shades of ‘Barbara Frietchie,’ she’s at it again!” the sergeant cried. “Come on!”

  A gray-haired lady and her plumpish daughter sat on the wide front porch of the Lowe house, plying their knitting needles. The sergeant and his men trooped through the front gate, strode up the walk, climbed the porch steps, and proceeded directly into the house. A black house servant, waiting inside the door, swung it open just before they could crash into it. The ladies on the porch took no notice of the procession.

  “Mornin’, Miz Lowe. Miz Euphemie,” mumbled the sergeant in passing.

  On the Lowe house rooftop, feisty Caroline Lowe stood next to an improvised flagpole wherefrom waved her homemade Confederate flag. She watched the soldiers disappear through the front door below her, headed her way. She began taking down the flag with practiced speed.

  The sergeant led his men, huffing and puffing in their woolen blue jackets, up the interior stairs to the roof. “Today’s the day, Miss Caroline,” he muttered. “Today we’ve got you.”

  Sergeant Pfifer and his men emerged onto the widow’s walk to find Caroline waving to an admiring Bogy Sands, who watched from the street below. No flag—and no place to hide a flag—was anywhere in sight.

  The sergeant looked at Caroline’s skirts, but abandoned th
at idea for numerous reasons. He looked over the widow’s walk railing on all four sides; nothing. He looked at empty-handed Bogy Sands in the street below. He gave up. He turned back and growled at his men in frustration, “Search the house!”

  The men piled back downstairs, mumbling. One said, “We searched the house yesterday.”

  “We’ll search it again today and every day until we find that blasted pennant! Good day, Miss Caroline.”

  The lady answered with a thick ‘Brilander British accent, “Always a pleasure, Sergeant.”

  ...

  At dusk in Key West harbor, the wrecking fleet had returned, crowding the anchorage. All around, boats were made fast for the night and weary sailors headed homeward on foot.

  Joe left the Lady Alyce and was greeted by Joseph Porter, waiting on shore. Together they turned and looked at the empty mooring where the English schooner had been that morning.

  “They made it, Joe!” said Porter. “They got away clean.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Now comes the hard part.”

  “Fightin’ the Yankees!”

  “Telling my mother.”

  End of Sample

  Get your copy of Mudsills & Mooncussers, by Iris Chacon, wherever ebooks are sold.

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