Sylvie's Cowboy (17 page)

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 crewmen 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.

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!”