[ILLUSTRATION:  Ships loading at Tift's Wharf, Key West. These days, the spot is called Mallory Square.]

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The last lines of Chapter 15 are reprinted here, to bring you up to date on our story.

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The Yankee commanding officer came out of the crowd on deck to face Aaron. He looked carefully at Aaron's blackened, mangled jacket. "Looks like you've been putting out fires in that jacket," the officer said. "I believe I owe you a great debt."

Aaron smiled wryly. "You want to thank me? Drop anchor right now and send these people home."

"I'm truly sorry," said the officer, seeming sincere. "That I can not do."

"Then add me to your list," said Aaron.

"I have no authority—" the officer began.

Aaron interrupted, "My brother is in the Confederate Army, my family is well known in Charleston for its Southern sympathies, and I ... have been known to consort with Rebel spies ... once, at least. If anyone deserves exile, it's me." It seemed to have slipped his mind that, as an officer in the Union Army, he could be shot for desertion if he left the island.

Captain Thibodeaux moved quietly behind Aaron while he spoke. Lazily, Thibodeaux leaned against the mast a few feet from Aaron's back.

The Yankee commanding officer argued, "I think I can appreciate your position, but my orders are clear. I must ask you to leave—"

"I'm not leaving this ship!"

Thibodeaux removed a belaying pin from the rack at the base of the mast and stepped closer to Aaron.

The commanding officer told Aaron, "I will not miss the tide, sir. This ship is leaving immediately—and without you!"

"Over my dead bod—"

Thibodeaux whacked Aaron from behind with the belaying pin then handed it to the officer and caught Aaron as he crumpled to the deck.

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AND NOW, THE FINAL CHAPTER OF MUDSILLS & MOONCUSSERS.

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The Yankee commanding officer moved to the ship's rail and shouted to Pfifer, whose patrol was standing on the wharf. "Sergeant! Some assistance, please!"

Pfifer motioned to two men to follow him, and the three rushed up the gangway onto the ship. There they collected the unconscious, soot-stained man and carried him back to the wharf.

Minutes later, the crowd on the wharf watched the flagship draw up its gangway and begin to ease away from the wharf. Aaron Matthews lay unconscious in Sandy Cornish's vegetable cart, gently dumped there by Pfifer and his men.

Aboard the ship, Bogy Sands and Joseph Porter edged through the crowd on deck to where Alyce Thibodeaux sat watching Joe sleep. Porter nudged Bogy and mouthed, "Go on."

Bogy fumbled in the pocket of his pants and brought up something, which he handed to Alyce. "When she wakes up, would you give her these?" Bogy asked.

"Matches?" said Alyce.

Porter said, "Just tell her she was ... we were ... we decided not to use them. She'll understand."

The flagship was gaining momentum, moving forward along the waterfront, several yards off shore. Behind it, the other ships were drawing up gangways, preparing to follow. The ships' decks were crammed with people.

On the wharf, in the vegetable cart, Aaron stirred. His eyes opened. He remembered where he was, what was happening, and rolled out of the cart, stumbling toward the wharf's edge. "No!"

It seemed he would stumble right into the water, following the ship, but Pfifer grabbed him. Still Aaron struggled forward, intent on the departing ship.

Two, then three of Pfifer's soldiers jumped in to hold Aaron back. He dragged them with him several feet before they could stop his forward motion. He stood, struggling, in their corporate grasp. "No!" he wailed like a madman. "Josephine Marie! Josephine Marie!"

On the ship, Joe's eyes were closed, but something penetrated her sleep. She turned her head and murmured, "Aaron?"

"Josephine Marie!" came the cry across the water, growing fainter as the ship proceeded.

Joe woke and looked around. Alyce leaned toward her as if to quiet her, but Captain Thibodeaux reached in to take her one good hand, pull her up, and guide her to the rail. Groggy, she blinked the receding shoreline into focus. "Aaron? Aaron!"

On the wharf, Aaron derived new strength from the sight of her at the ship's rail. He gave Pfifer's patrol a workout, holding him back. "Josephine Marie!"

Pfifer told his exhausted men, "Let him go. He can't do anything now."

The soldiers released Aaron, and he was off like a shot, leaving his shredded jacked in the soldiers' hands. He ran bare-chested along the shoreline, paralleling the moving ship, shouting, "Josephine Marie, will you marry me?"

"Yes!" she shouted.

He narrowly missed a cat, which yowled and bolted as Aaron did a frantic two-step over it. "I never told you my real name!" Aaron yelled.

"I don't care!"

"I'm an officer in the Union Army!"

"I don't care!"

He stumbled over a water barrel, sending it rolling, nearly sprawling full-length himself, but sheer determination kept him up and running. "I'm the black sheep of my family!

"So am I," she shouted.

Incredibly, he began to unbuckle his belt as he ran.

Joe saw this and couldn't imagine what was happening. "Mister Matthews!" she cried. "You're going to lose your trousers!"

"I got drawers on, don't I?" He had reached the end of the waterfront seawall. He could go no farther. The ship was passing him, pointed toward open sea. With his last ounce of strength he wrenched his initialed belt buckle from the leather strap and threw the buckle at the ship.

The crowd on deck—and the crowd ashore that had followed Aaron as best it could—watched in silence, mesmerized, as the bronze oval arced, end over end, out over the open water. The buckle was falling, but the ship was moving away, away, and it might be too—

Joseph Porter leaned far out from the rail of the ship and caught the buckle. Bogy Sands grabbed his feet before he could fall into the sea.

A murmur of surprise and satisfaction rippled through the watching crowds. Many hands helped Bogy haul Joseph back from the railing with his bronze prize. Porter worked his way along the rail to present the buckle to Joe.

She kissed it and waved it at Aaron. He stood, panting, on the end of the seawall, his heart in his eyes.

Boom! A cannon blast from nowhere split the air. Women screamed. People scrambled for cover. Seawater exploded just ahead of the flagship. Aaron's head jerked seaward, seeking the source of the shot.

Stepney Austin broke from the crowd on the wharf and scaled the lookout tower like a rabid chimp.

Boom! Another cannon ball whistled through the air. People screamed. People ran. Soldiers drew their sidearms. Sailors raced to man their posts. The sea near the bow of the flagship exploded, raining concussed fish and water on the crowded deck.

In the lookout tower, Stepney Austin had a spyglass pointed in the direction from which the shots had come. He grinned and shouted to wake the dead: "It's Colonel Good! Colonel Good, back from South Carolina! It's Colonel Good!"

Aboard the colonel's ship, every inch of sail was up, and the schooner was making excellent speed. The crew looked as if they had sailed all night. Colonel Good, standing in the bow with a spyglass in his hand, looked like a very determined man. His voice boomed with unquestionable authority across the waves.

"Belay the evacuation order! I repeat, the evacuation order is canceled! Turn those ships around!"

A cheer went up from men of all colors, all uniforms. A cloud of hats was thrown into the air.

Aaron's face lit up. The flagship was ceasing its forward motion. Aaron began removing his boots.

He dropped his boots behind him and dove off the seawall. He began swimming toward the flagship.

On the ship, Joe gave Joseph Porter a happy one-armed hug. William and Euphemie Curry exchanged hugs and handshakes with Elias and Alyce Thibodeaux.

On Tift's Wharf, Sergeant Pfifer and his patrol tossed their hats and clapped one another on the back. Sandy Cornish lifted little Salina into his vegetable barrow and began to push it away from the wharf, followed by Cataline Simmons and Lucy Drake.

On the ramparts of Fort Zachary Taylor, the cannon pointed seaward. The sentries at their posts watched with interest the activity in the harbor beyond Tift's Wharf.

Some thoughtful person aboard the flagship casually tossed a rope over the side. When a dripping Aaron climbed the rope, he was met at the rail with cheers and helping hands. As soon as his feet landed on the deck, the crowd parted and someone gently pushed Josephine Marie forward into his arms.

A few weeks later, the people of Key West presented Colonel T. H. Good of the United States Army a gold-hilted sword engraved, "the Savior of Key West."

EPILOGUE

In all, fifteen men escaped Key West to serve in the Confederate Army. Two, William Sawyer and Charles Berry, gave their lives.

A few years after the war, Doctor Joseph Porter discovered the link between mosquitoes and yellow fever. His house on Caroline Street, built in 1838, is a popular Key West landmark.

William Curry became Florida's first millionaire, famous for his family's solid gold tableware service for 24, manufactured for them by Tiffany's of New York. Curry's son, Milton, built the ornate Curry Mansion at 511 Caroline Street in 1899. The Curry Mansion is now an inn and tourist attraction.

Capt. John Geiger's family lived in his house on Whitehead Street for 120 years. The house is now known as The Audubon House, a popular tourist attraction. Audubon had sketched in Capt. Geiger's garden when visiting Florida in 1832.

Caroline Lowe's flag was found a hundred years later, when the house was renovated to make it into a night club.

Right after the war, Sandy Cornish and Cataline Simmons built the first African-American church, on Whitehead Street, just about two blocks from the 1847 Key West lighthouse.

Asa Tift, a shipper, sometime wrecker, and owner of Tift's wharf and ice house, built a home on Whitehead Street in 1851 out of coral stone quarried on the site. From 1931 to 1939 author Ernest Hemingway lived in the Tift house, and his wife Pauline lived there until Hemingway's death in 1961. It is now the Hemingway Home and Museum.

The turtle industry flourished in Key West from 1849 until the 1970s, when the turtles were designated an endangered species.

At one time, more than three hundred blockade runners were imprisoned in Key West harbor. Through it all, the guns of Fort Zachary Taylor were never fired in anger.

Authorities on both sides agreed that continued occupation of the fort at Key West by Union forces shortened the war by several years.

THE END

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Read More About Key West

A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, 1st Ed. Lewis G. Schmidt, Allentown, PA, 1986. Firsthand accounts of the hardships faced by Pennsylvania farmers at war on Key West—from mosquito bites to water rationing to the high price of oranges.

A Guide to Key West, Compiled by workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in State of Florida, Revised 2nd Ed. Hastings House, New York, 1941.

Brown, Jefferson B., Key West—The Old and the New. Reproduced in 1973 by the Bicentennial Commission of Florida. Judge Browne, born in 1857, was the son of the U. S. Marshal in Key West. (In 1896 he wrote an article on reaching Key West by railroad for National Geographic.) When he first published his memoirs, in 1912, many Key West Civil War veterans were still living on the island.

Diaries of William R. Hackley, Esquire, (manuscript available at the Monroe County Public Library, Key West). Mr. Hackley was an attorney for the U.S. District Court, Key West, from the late 1820's until 1857. He worked for Judge William Marvin (the admiralty judge who presided during and after the Civil War) preparing briefs on the salvage of wrecked ships.

Florida Territory in 1844, The Diary of Master Edward Clifford Anderson, USN, W. Stanley Poole, Ed., University of Alabama Press, 1977.

Heroines of Dixie: Spring of High Hopes and Heroines of Dixie: Winter of Desperation, Katharine M. Jones, Ed. Mockingbird Books, St. Simons Island, GA, 1955. The Civil War diaries of Southern women.

Langley, Joan & Wright, Key West—Images of the Past. Images of Key West, Inc./Langley Press, Key West, FL 1982. Marvelous drawings and vintage photographs of the people and places about 19th century Key West.

Shepard, Birse, Lore of the Wreckers. Beacon Press, Boston, 1961. Includes detailed excerpts from captains' logs and correspondence from rescued voyagers.

Sherrill, Chris, & Roger Aiello, Key West—The Last Resort. Key West Book & Card Company, Key West, FL, c.1987. Includes walking tour to Caroline Lowe's house, Tift's Ice House on Tift's Wharf (now called Mallory Square), the Geiger home, the Porter home, Bartlum's and Roberts' Bahama houses, the Martello Towers, Fort Zachary Taylor and more. It's all still there!

Wells, Sharon, Forgotten Legacy—Blacks in Nineteenth Century Key West. The Historic Key West Preservation Board, Key West, FL, 1982. An assemblage of tax rolls, bills of sale, census reports, Key West newspapers shows us Stepney Austin's purchase of three small houses for $600, Cataline Simmons's personal emancipation by his owner (ante bellum), and Simmons's purchase of the 9-year-old child, Salina, among other things.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thank you for reading MUDSILLS & MOONCUSSERS.  I hope you've been inspired to take a trip to Key West, now.  I recommend the winter season for lovely weather, or the summer season for lower prices. 

If you've enjoyed the story, please take a second to click on that "vote" button, and then share a comment with the author or a recommendation with a friend.

Coming next Tuesday to Wattpad:  DUBY'S DOCTOR, the story of a former undercover agent who survives assassination, with no memory of his previous life. Too bad, his enemies haven't forgotten. Life is about to become quite the adventure for the lady doctor who is helping the handsome John Doe recover.