CHAPTER 3
1831, New Orleans
Abraham Lincoln scowled at the flatboat captain. ‘But … but … this is no more than half the pay you promised me, sir!’
The captain’s dark-skinned face, buried beneath an even darker beard, wrinkled up with amusement at the young man’s indignant rancour. His eyes glinted under his faded red woollen trapper’s hat and he laughed, offering the young man a glimpse of half a dozen tobacco-stained teeth.
‘You are too lazy, monsieur. No good to me.’
Abraham’s jaw hung open. ‘Curse you, sir! I worked my fair share!’
‘Non …’ He shrugged. ‘You lazy. No good to me. Not very good worker.’
‘Now … listen here …’ Abraham balled his fists in frustration, taking a step off the wooden dockside on to the bobbing prow of the flatboat, piled high with bundles of beaver pelts. The captain, Jacques, short and stocky, remained unfazed at the young beanpole of a man towering over him.
‘You get half … no more,’ he said calmly.
Abraham felt his temper get the better of him. He reached out and grabbed the collar of the little Frenchman’s chequered shirt in one big-knuckled fist. ‘Curse you … I earned –’
The little man was quicker and more agile than his stocky frame would suggest, and with a deft flick of his strong arms he pulled Abraham off balance. He stuck a booted foot behind his heels and shoved him backwards.
Abraham pinwheeled with his arms, his feet unable to step backwards to recover his balance. He toppled over the side of the flatboat and into the Mississippi river, surfacing from the muddy water coughing and spluttering to hear the rest of the flatboat crew, half a dozen lads his own age or thereabouts, guffawing with laughter.
Jacques bellowed at them to get back to work and they resumed tossing the bales of pelts from one to the other ashore on to the busy dockside.
Abraham pulled himself, dripping and still spluttering, on to the wooden planks of the dock, his hot temper doused for now by the cool river. He turned to Jacques, the man’s broad shoulders shaking with poorly concealed laughter.
‘It ain’t fair, I tell you!’ He pushed a tress of dark sopping hair out of his eyes and glared back at the captain. ‘Hell’s teeth, sir … you are even paying a negro more than I!’
Jacques turned to look at the one dark-skinned member of his crew. He shrugged at that. ‘He a better worker than you, boy.’
Abraham realized by the Frenchman’s undaunted, wrinkled smile that he was not going to get anywhere with him. ‘Well, to Hell with you, then!’ He spat. ‘Crook! You thieving piratical parasite!’ He stood on the edge of the wooden jetty, standing as tall and defiantly as his six-foot-four-inch frame would let him. ‘I shall … I shall go find other work, then!’
Captain Jacques’s bearded smile only widened further. ‘As you wish.’ He waved a hand at him. ‘Good luck, mon ami. You will need it.’
The Eternal War
Alex Scarrow's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene
- The Steele Wolf