Mississippi Jack by L. A. Meyer

Author:L. A. Meyer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"We're gonna move her about fifty yards downriver to load cargo. Everybody on the poles to pull her off!"

The Belle comes off the shoal fairly easily and we slip back into the stream.

"Mind the rocks now, Jim ... There! You see those two boats tied up there? Head in!"

We slip in beside the other boats and tie up.

"I'm going back up," I say, leaping onto the deck of the flatboat and then onto the other keelboat. "Clementine, you, too." With a delighted yelp, she follows me off.

She falls a bit behind me 'cause it's always been my pride that no one beats Jacky Faber in climbing the rigging, and nobody beats her on a steep trail, either.

There is a rustle in the bushes next to me, and startled, I turn to face a very large, extremely wet man with rivulets of blood coursing down his face. Apparently he is one of the men from the robbers' attack boat, obviously his rifle is wet and useful now only as club, and plainly he wishes to kill me. He swings the rifle butt at my head as I manage to raise my shoulder in time to deflect the blow, but still it knocks me facedown in the dirt, stunned.

Looking up, I see with horror that there is a bayonet at the other end of the gun. He reverses the gun in his hand and lifts it over his head and prepares to use all his force to drive the point through my back and pin me to the ground.

I can't reach my pistols, I can't ... Oh, God, I'm gonna...

I hear two shots, one right after the other, and two blossoms of red appear on the man's chest. He drops the weapon and falls back, still as a stone.

I roll over to see Clementine standing over me, her two smoking pistols held out at shoulder level.

"Thank you, Sister," I say, my voice quavering as I get to my knees and then shakily stand. "He'd have skewered me for sure."

She nods, looking dumbly at the smoking pistols in her hands. I know how that feels, Clementine, when you kill someone, no matter how vile they might be, but we'll deal with this later.

"Reload, Clementine. There might be more." Given this simple task to do, she does it, and we continue on to the cave, with me being much more watchful this time. Stupid thing, you! Keep watch!

We gain the cave mouth and the Hawkes boys begin taking the plunder down to the boats. I go around to the side, where Lightfoot and Chee-a-quat and Katy are standing guard against a possible return of the thieves, and I call Katy to me. As she comes toward me, I notice Lightfoot watching her as she goes. Hmmm.

"Katy," I say. "Stand guard on Matty and 'Thaniel as they take the goods down. I was almost killed by one of the survivors of the bandits' boat on my way up here. If not for Clementine, I'd be dead right now.

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