Historical Fiction Finalist:The 2016 Awards from AwardsForStories.
In 1863 on the tiny island of Key West, Yankee spy Aaron Matthews must find and eliminate a deadly Rebel saboteur whom he fears just may be the woman he loves.
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."
