Finding Miranda

by Chacon, Iris

  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 hanging 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 by grabbing it and hanging on for dear life.

  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 2

  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, with four young stow-aways on board, 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 jangled 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.

  It appeared that a young boy in floppy hat and baggy clothes stood 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. Someone must have distracted me.”

  Aaron had amused himself with Lila in the past, and they had renewed their acquaintance aboard the St. Gertrude in recent days, but in truth he found her shallow and annoying, regardless of her obvious physical charms. He was enough of a cad to use the ladies and discard them casually. He was enough of a gentleman that his paramours never felt his disinterest, never perceived him disrespectful. In every instance, his women felt he had been prevented from continuing their pleasant liaison by circumstances beyond his control. There was a war on, naturally.

  Aboard the Lady Alyce, Captain 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 tonight. 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 and was making excellent headway under full sail toward the Bahamas. Aboard were four Conch 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 on Duval Street 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 to the front door. 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—anywhere in sight.

  The sergeant looked at Caroline’s long, full skirt, but abandoned that idea for numerous reasons. He looked over the widow’s walk railing on al
l 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.

  ...

  It was nearly dusk in Key West harbor when the wrecking fleet returned, crowding the anchorage. All around, boats were made fast, and weary sailors headed homeward on foot.

  Joe left the Lady Alyce and was greeted on shore by Joseph Porter. 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.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Minutes later, in the dusk at Fort Zachary Taylor, Colonel T.H. Good stood on the ramparts, 50 feet above Key West harbor and the Gulf of Mexico, observing the activities on Tift’s Wharf through his spyglass. A noise attracted Colonel Good’s attention—someone climbing the steps from the parade ground to the shadows behind him. The colonel did not turn to look at the newcomer.

  “Matheson?” the colonel ventured.

  “Matthews, sir,” answered a deep voice from the shadows.

  Colonel Good continued his observations, throwing his words over his shoulder. “Matthews, then. If I may say so, Lieutenant, you chose the devil’s own way to get here. But for your encounter with Pelican Shoal, I might have had to arrest you for a blockade runner. A lot of help you’d be to me sitting in jail at Fort Jefferson.”

  “You would’ve had to catch me first.” The silence lingered almost too long before Aaron added, “Sir.”

  Colonel Good lowered his spyglass and delivered an affectionate pat to a massive black cannon pointing toward the sea. “Lieutenant, if I thought there was a ghost of a chance we wouldn’t catch you, I’d have blown you out of the water. And if I didn’t, the Union Navy’s blockade ships would. And if they didn’t, the guns at Fort Jefferson would. We are the gateposts to the Gulf, Lieutenant. Nobody gets into our yard without being seen by one or the other of us.”

  “May I beg the colonel’s indulgence to continue this audience in the colonel’s office?” asked Aaron.

  “You may not. This wind keeps the infernal mosquitos at bay, and I am partial to these sunsets.”

  The western sky glowed orange, red, pink, and purple as the sun sank into the Gulf of Mexico. Colonel Good and his cannon loomed as black shapes between Aaron and the dying sun. Aaron leaned well back into the shadows.

  The colonel broke the silence. “What did you think you were doing, Matthews?”

  “My job, sir. The one I’ve been given, not the one I would have chosen. Sir.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. The ignobility of it all. And what in God’s name did you think you would do if you had not grounded on Pelican? Go on to Mobile?”

  “Perhaps I would’ve been welcome there. I thought they picked me for this job because of my social connections in Charleston. I could have visited the homes of Confederate supporters—maybe even officers and politicians. I might even have done some good. ... Sir.”

  The colonel scoffed. “Until they caught you and hauled you before a Rebel firing squad. Your work is here. You will forego martyrdom for the time being, Lieutenant.”

  Aaron came to his feet, but before he could turn away the colonel wheeled to face Aaron and laid his spyglass gently but firmly on Aaron’s shoulder.

  “Tell me what you saw in the harbor when you left Havana,” the colonel said.

  “A couple of English-built sloops, very fast I think, and one frigate with nasty looking cannon.”

  “And you are not concerned, Lieutenant?”

  “Ending this war is my concern, Colonel, and wasting my time and talents on this godforsaken, out-of-the-way piece of rock is not my idea of the way to do it.” Aaron acknowledged the increased pressure of the spyglass on his shoulder and slumped back into his seat in the shadows.

  Colonel Good slapped his telescope shut. “You want to end this war? Food, gunpowder, clothing, shoes, tools, weapons—I’ve got a shipment of LeMat grapeshot revolvers sent from France for issue to Confederate solders—these are the things that will end this war. The South has to ship raw materials out and finished goods back in, just like breathing. We can strangle it.”

  “Be my guest,” said Aaron. “You don’t need me or whoever’s in Havana harbor.”

  “Wrong. I need you because of whoever’s in Havana harbor. Practically everyone one on this island has closer ties to Havana harbor than you have to your own mother.”

  Aaron’s tone was ironic. “That goes without saying.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”

  “Permission to withdraw, sir. I need to see to housing myself with the locals.”

  Colonel Good nodded and seemed tired as he turned away. “Is your brother well, Lieutenant?”

  “With General Floyd’s troops near Sewell Mountain last I heard, sir. Just another loyal son of the Confederate state of South Carolina.”

  “At least it must be some consolation that while you’re here you will not be shooting at him,” said the colonel.

  “Let’s stop this war before someone else shoots at him, sir. How shall I contact you?”

  The colonel sighed. “See the ship’s chandler, Curry. But be discreet. Goodnight, uh, what name are you using, again?”

  “Matthews, sir.”

  “Well, goodnight Matthews.”

  Aaron was halfway down the stone steps when the colonel called to him. “Aaron. Several of the officers and enlisted men have honorable intentions with regard to local ladies. I’ll not tolerate complaints of defrauded debutantes. I shall expect you to exercise restraint.”

  “I’ll try, sir.” Aaron disappeared down the steps and across the darkness of the parade ground.

  ...

  At dawn the next morning, Josephine Marie Thibodeaux entered her brother Richard’s bedroom expecting to find it unoccupied. She beamed with surprise and delight when she beheld a slumbering form behind the mosquito netting. Thinking Richard had somehow regained his sanity and stayed away from yesterday’s war-bound English schooner, she leapt upon the sleeping form, hugging it about its middle.

  “Wretched!” she cried happily.

  The bed’s occupant was shocked out of a sound sleep and bounded up to grapple with its attacker, sending them both to the floor in a tangle of bedclothes and mosquito netting.

  After a frantic scramble, two heads burst from beneath the linens, one shouting, “What are you doing here?” at the same time the other shouted, “Who the devil are you?”

  Joe continued, “You’re not Wretched!”

  “As many ladies with ... intimate knowledge of me will attest,” said Aaron Matthews with a grin.

  They began untangling themselves from the bedclothes, Joe with the object of getting out of them—Aaron with the object of keeping at least a portion of them wrapped about his loins. The girl was fully clothed, but Aaron had been sleeping in the nude. Even in winter the nights were tropically warm on Key West.

  “This is Richard’s room!” declared Joe.

  “Dear me, I understood it to be vacant. At least, that is what Captain Thibodeaux indicated when he let it to me last evening.” Aaron finally succeeded in disengaging himself from her. He sat (appropriately swathed) on the bed while Joe backed across the room to press her posterior against the door.

  “I had the impression from your parents,” said Aaron, “that while your father and all the other wreckers were racing to the reef to save my unfortunate St. Gertrude, good old Wretched Richard was sneaking off to join the Glorious Ar
my Of The Confederacy.”

  Joe was pressing door splinters into her backside in her haste to get out of the room. “I’m going turtling before it gets too light. I only came to get the poking stick ... here it is ... I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mister ...”

  “Matthews. Joe, isn’t it?”

  “I gotta go. It’ll be light.” With that she slipped out the door and closed it behind her.

  Aaron snatched up his clothes, from the chair where he had piled them, and jigged into them.

  End of Sample Chapters

  of

  Mudsills & Mooncussers

  by

  Iris Chacon

  PROLOGUE

  As he fell, he wondered why he had once again jumped from a perfectly good aircraft. He assumed it was perfectly good because he heard the helicopter’s rotor blades beating the air as its engine noise moved off into the distance somewhere above him.

  Half-formed thoughts lumbered through his muggy brain.

  Pain.

  Pain screamed through every nerve ending of his body. So much of it, he couldn’t even pinpoint its source.

  Cold.

  Wind whipped at bare skin as he fell.

  Where are my clothes?

  Self-preservation bellowed at him from deep within a mind-shrouding fog, “Look down, Dilbert!”

  He seemed to be stretched out on his back in the air; he fought the up-rushing wind stream to turn his head slightly. In his peripheral vision, Caribbean blue ocean stretched in all directions.

  “Prepare to hit the water!” Self-preservation yelled.

  He tried to pull himself into a tight ball, rather than smack the surface like a pancake, possibly breaking every bone in his body. If he could become a hydrodynamic object, and if he hit the water at a good angle, and if he could manage to swim or at least float an undetermined number of miles, he just might survive this. Whatever this was.

  He tried to wrap his arms around his knees and pull them into his chest, but one knee wasn’t following instructions. One leg bent toward his torso as he ordered, but the other leg was AWOL for all intents and purposes, being dragged along for the ride. Oh, well, he’d just do the best he could.