The Ancestor by Goldberg Lee Matthew

Author:Goldberg, Lee Matthew [Goldberg, Lee Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Historical, Contemporary, Science Fiction, Mystery, Adventure
ISBN: 9781643961149
Amazon: 1643961144
Goodreads: 54552798
Publisher: All Due Respect
Published: 2020-08-21T07:00:00+00:00

August 19th, 1898

I wake up to a beautiful Tlingit girl with long hair and button eyes. She beckons me to join the campfire where the tribe eats a breakfast of fish with Indian potatoes, along with greens, seeds, and berries. George has already finished and plays games with the Injun kids. When he sees me, he hurries over.

“Enjoy breakfast? When the tide goes out, the table is set. It’s an old Tlingit saying.” He indicates the fish bone on my plate, all that remains.

“It was delicious.”

“So, we have two options. One, we can have them build us a canoe, but that will take some time and we’ll have to leave the canoe at the Chilkoot Pass, since it will be too much to carry.”

“What’s the other?”

“I’ve learned that a gang of Indian braves has passed through Chilkoot and a US Navy gunboat was dispatched to apprehend them. One of the tribe members speaks decent English, better than myself. I didn’t tell you this but I’m former Navy. I think I can convince the ship to take us up the Taiya.”

“The ship is still there?”

“We’ll find out.”

We leave with foodstuffs: jerky bacon, flour, beans, and some tools to build a boat once we cross the Chilkoot Pass: a two-man whipsaw, sturdy axes, iron nails, along with pitch and oakum. In addition to the whiskey bottles, the two guides loaned are paid in gold and silver from George’s pocket with the promise of many more riches. George was right that they didn’t care about white man’s paper money.

The little girl with the ring in her nose runs up, pinching my palm to say goodbye. She’s about the same age as Little Joe seems but so much wiser, like she’s lived a dozen lives already where all he’s experienced is our farm. I plan on taking him on an expedition sometime so I can watch his eyes dance. I miss him so already.

As we head back into Juneau I’m introduced to the two Injun guides, a man named Kaawishté, who was the Injun who knew some English, and one other whose name is a blur and speaks nil English.

We reach the dock off Front Street. The streets have muddied due to a sleety rain, and sure enough, the USS Pinta galley’s stovepipe rises from the harbor. George boards with me and the guides in tow and marches right for the captain. With a glint in his eye, George the showman pleads his case, tells of his military background, and how if we can get a lift to the Taiya, it would position us to begin our adventure up the Yukon. The captain, Commander Henry Nichols, USN, seems to have a wanderlust bone in his body and agrees that they could take a detour and deliver us and our supplies to the Taiya.

I’m in disbelief but George seems nonplussed. I get the sense that lucky things like this happen to him all the time. He simply has that kind of easy charm. Until he tells me, “I’m AWOL, just so you know.

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