Key West is a trendy, touristy, party-all-night island town connected to Florida and the rest of the USA by the southern end of narrow US Highway 1. But Key West was there before the highway or the tourists. It was there before Jimmy Buffett made it Margaritaville, before Ernest Hemingway made it famous, before there was a Miami or a Palm Beach.
In the 1860s, Key West was a tiny island - only half the size it is today, and even that ain't big. It was the wealthiest city per capita in the whole country at one time - if you calculated the money divided by the number of people living there. There were few people living there, and there was lots of money, mostly from salvaging cargo ships that ran aground on the shallow reefs in the Gulf of Mexico or the Florida Straits.
There was no road or railroad that went to Key West. The railroad wouldn't be built until the 1920s, and it would be destroyed in the 1930s by a hurricane. The highway would be built even later than that. So nobody came or went except by ship or boat. Most of the citizens had immigrated from the Bahamas or Cuba, some from other Caribbean islands, and a good many from the mainland United States.
Ladies in Key West did their shopping in Mobile, Alabama, or Charleston, South Carolina. Those were the nearest big cities, and ships were always traveling from Key West to one or the other of them. Miami didn't exist, and Tampa was a little spot where cattle were shipped to or from mainland Florida. St. Augustine existed, and Pensacola. Tallahassee was the capital, mainly because it had been located halfway between those two old towns.
Key West was then, as it is now, the southernmost point in the country. It lies a mere 90 miles from Cuba across the Gulf Stream waters known as the Florida Straits. The people of Key West, understandably, had Southern opinions and Southern sympathies, so they were greatly angered and chagrined when the Northern military sneaked into the only fortress on the island. The southernmost city had been captured by the North, and the War Between the States began in miniature on the small island off the tip of Florida.
In this story, a Northern spy, Aaron Matthews, has been sent to Key West to work undercover and find a Southern saboteur reported to be on the island. Aaron faces a moral, political, and very personal dilemma when he begins to suspect that the woman who whom he is attracted is, in fact, the Southern spy he must eliminate.
This is a work of fiction, and though many factual events and locations have been incorporated into the story, the persons, events, and places described herein are fictional. Any resemblances to actual persons, events, or places are purely coincidental.
This work is copyright protected. Please do not use any portion of the narrative without seeking permission from the author. Such permission will not be unreasonably withheld.
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Mudsills & Mooncussers (#multimedia)
Historical FictionHistorical 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.
