ILLUSTRATION:  Messenger pigeon with message strapped to its foot.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Aaron is following a lead, preparing to question a man who keeps pigeons and who may have knowledge of the Rebel spy who has been sending birds to Cuba with messages for the enemy.

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(Illus.: a Key West garden)

Aaron rapped his knuckles on the heavy wooden door and turned to admire the garden. When the door opened, Aaron turned back with his mouth open to greet Sandy Cornish—but there was only empty air where Aaron was looking. He adjusted downward and there, spindly and shy, was a 9-year-old slave child.

"Oh, hello," he said with a bow. "Ah, I'm looking for Mister Cornish. Ah, do you...?"

"I'm Sandy Cornish." The door swung wider, driven by the rake-like hand of a large black man over 70 years old. The man gave Aaron a suspicious look then gently urged the child out the door with his other huge hand. "You get on home now, Salina. Tell your missy I'll be there first thing tomorrow to see to her papayas."

The timid child slipped past Aaron and disappeared toward Sandy's front gate. Sandy gestured Aaron into the one-room house, that seemed even smaller with such a big man standing in it. "Too much rain all at once sometimes," said Cornish. "Bad for papaya trees."

"My name is Matthews. I—"

"You come in the St. Gertrude." Cornish sat down in a home-built rocking chair that rested on a rag rug next to a hand-hewn table where an oil lamp glowed. He took up a whetstone and a wicked-looking machete from the floor beside his chair and continued what he had been doing before Aaron arrived: putting a razor edge on the machete's blade.

"Yes, well, that's true, yes, but that doesn't have anything to do with why I'm here. I—"

"You need somethin' moved?"

"No, I, thank you, no, I don't need anything moved. What I need is information, really. Something you might know, something you could tell me that would help me."

"Help you what?"

"Send messages to Havana, maybe." Aaron almost held his breath pending Cornish's answer.

"I don't do no marketing in Havana no more. Too hard to get back and forth these days. I sell enough produce right here in Key West. I don't need no trouble. I get by."

"Yes, I'm sure you do," Aaron said cheerily. "That's a wonderful garden, by the way. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Really. They told me to look for the best vegetable garden in town if I wanted to find Sandy Cornish, and by golly, they were right. Wonderful. Really."

Cornish put down his whetstone and, the machete dangling in one hand, stood up from his chair and towered over his visitor. "You don't want no vegetables."

"Ah, no. No, that's exactly right, I don't. I, ah, I'm interested in birds, actually."

"Sold my birds. Like I said, I don't do business in Cuba no more. No sense keeping no pigeons. Got no messages to send."

Aaron felt he was close to getting the information he sought, and the feeling made him bold. Perhaps too bold.

"Did you sell your birds to Noah Lewis?" Aaron asked pointedly.

An instant later the front door slammed open and Aaron Matthews flew out of it, tumbled down the rickety wooden steps, and sprawled full-length on the garden path.

Sandy Cornish, having tossed Aaron out, cast a long shadow as he stood solidly in the doorway, lamplight pouring from behind him. "Mister, you got business with me, fine. You want to meddle in my business, I ain't got time for ya. You want to talk Noah Lewis's business, you talk to Noah Lewis."

Cornish stomped back into the house, and the door whapped shut.

Aaron raised himself slowly from the ground, rubbing his new bruises. "Thanks," he murmured. "I will."

(Illus.: Ft. Zachary Taylor, Key West)

After midnight, Colonel Morgan's quarters were dark. The lock clanked, keys jangled, hinges creaked, and Morgan's uniform rustled in the blackness. His boots scraped and clomped as he entered. A match flared. Morgan lit the oil lamp on the table. His dress finery flashed and gleamed in the yellow light. He began to remove shiny accessories, humming like a man pleased with himself.

"You're late," came out of the darkness.

Morgan did not look up from his undressing. "Good of you to come. We could have used you earlier today, but of course you had gone sailing."

Aaron emerged from a chair in the darkest corner of the room. He still wore the clothing he had slept in the night before—but he had at least tucked in his shirttail.

Morgan continued, "I will not ask how you got in here. 'Set a thief to catch a thief,' isn't that what they say?"

"I'm no thief."

Morgan clearly disagrees. "While you were at the pirate regatta this morning, your Rebel friend was busy poisoning my cisterns. Tell me, was there enough loot to make it worth the lives of the men who may die because of it?"

Aaron grabbed Morgan's shoulder and jerked him around, forcing him to talk face-to-face. Aaron's knuckles whitened as his fist clenched around Morgan's lapel.

"They are not 'pirates,'" Aaron enunciated carefully. "They are people. Just like you. Just like me. Just people. And there was no 'loot' because a pigheaded Connecticut Yankee of a captain who believes everything he hears decided not to let the evil 'mooncussers' aboard his beloved ship until it was too late. These people risked their lives and their boats to save nothing more than the miserable skins of the captain and crew—for which there will be no charge, thank you."

Disgusted, Aaron shoved Morgan backward a step and released his lapel. "If men die from bad water in the cisterns of Fort Zachary Taylor, it won't be because I put to sea this morning; it will be because they are soldiers and we, like it or not, are at war! And I'm not here to 'catch a thief,' I'm here to find a spy and a saboteur so we can end the dying—from bad water or anything else!"

Morgan, unrepentant, straightened his clothing where Aaron had rumpled it. "Well, when you find him," said Morgan, "you might ask him what he told the Rebel Navy in today's message."

"Today's—! But your man—!"

"He missed."

Aaron threw up his hands, turned his back on Morgan, and slumped into the chair in the corner once more. He was only a voice in the darkness when he said, "Dear God, what next?"

Morgan resumed undressing, a man obsessed with his regalia of office and his own importance. "I'll tell you what's next. One of two alternatives. Either you bring me the man who poisoned my water and wants to set the Rebel Navy upon me at my weakest moment, or I assume that every citizen of Key West is potentially that man, and I deal with them all."

"What, hang them all?" Aaron scoffed. "A whole town of innocent people? You'd be court martialed, or worse."

"One of these people is far from innocent, Lieutenant. I intend to hang that one from the highest point in this fort while this fort is still in Union hands. And if you do not find that one for me, the fate of all the others is on your head."

Aaron bolted out of the chair and across the room to the door. With his back to Morgan, he ground out, "I won't listen to any more of this. Goodnight. ... Sir."

"Miss Dauthier sends you her regards, by the way," Morgan said.

"You told her you'd be seeing me!"

"She rather assumed it, I think. I am pleased to see you've taken my advice and quit carrying a firearm."

Aaron touched the small of his back, where his pistol used to reside. He hesitated as if he would say something about it, but decided against it and, in silence, left the room.

(Illustr.:  a home like the 1860s Thibodeaux house, converted to an inn in the late 20th century.)

Upon reaching the Thibodeaux house, Aaron slipped quietly in at the front door and looked around. He was alone. He felt his way to the settee and poked around and beneath it, searching for his pistol. No luck. He looked toward the upper floors, made a decision, and headed for the stairs.

He arrived at the top of the stairs and slunk to a bedroom door. Light glowed under the door from a lamp burning on the other side. Aaron pressed himself flat against the door. "Joe!" he whispered. "Joe, are you awake?"

"Come in," a voice whispered from beyond the door.

Aaron eased the door open, slipped in, and turned his back to the room to close the door quietly. He stiffened. The cold metal barrel of a gun was poking him in the middle of his back.

"Is this what you were looking for, Mister Matheson?" she said.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Aaron's troubles seems to be mounting, and now he's being threatened with his own gun.  The gun he lost when he slept on the settee last night - with Josephine Marie.  Oooh, busted!

Things heat up even more in chapter 11, coming on Tuesday.  Happy Valentine's Day weekend.

(Thanks for reading, voting, and - most of all - leaving a comment.)

Iris