The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp by Micah S. Harris

Author:Micah S. Harris [Harris, Micah S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780981677002
Goodreads: 4966872
Publisher: Minor Profit Press
Published: 2008-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

Our journey to the New England coast was without further incident. Mocha Dick, it turned out, was of no consequence. Apparently, he sported in other waters while we made our way through the olive-green Atlantic. Whatever reason we were spared further complication, I was thankful. The winds were good, and the men bent to the galley’s oars with a single-minded purpose: to secure the key of freedom for the man who had freed them all.

When the rocky coast of the Northeastern United States became visible, the oar men’s efforts doubled. They worked in unceasing shifts, and before long we were in brackish waters, which meant fresh river water was mingling with the salt of the ocean.

Not long afterward, we entered the mouth of the Hudson. The Imogene drew much interest from those manning the vessels among which it now cruised, as well as those people along the shore. Quaint Dutch cottages were mirrored on the river. Men, horses, and carriages traveled along crooked cobblestone streets sprawling up from the piers and quays into the hills where more cottages could be glimpsed.

We passed by other towns and settlements, though we took no time to satisfy the curiosity of those whose skiffs and barges drew near and slid alongside us for a pace. Indeed, a vessel manned by a predominantly black crew, apparently under their own command, was a novelty even in the northern states.

Add to that, these were flamboyant black men with colorful plumes sprouting from their hats, gaudy baubles hanging from their ears and noses, and shirts and breeches of clashing hues. With my baggy clothing and my hair pulled up under my hat, I was taken for a white man, all according to design: were a lone white woman to be spotted among so much dusky skin, we would invite investigation, even in this abolitionist state. And we could brook no delays.

Finally, we left the villages and settlements behind, observing only an occasional, solitary, buckskin-clad trapper along the shore. Once we found ourselves amidst a small sporting fleet of canoes, propelled by red men who incessantly alternated their oars from side to side, skimming from the water’s surface the wet leaves which clung limply to the wide blades of their paddles. We had arrived among the Kaatskill Mountains in the fall, the trees conflagrant over the Hudson River a luster with autumnal hues.

These American Indians found Clegg’s pirate crew as colorful a novelty as we did them. Where the river diverged, they propelled their canoes around a bend, headed with their catch for dark huts we could see in the distance, smoke rising into the chilled air. We took the other watery path. One Indian in the rear of their party laid his oar across his canoe, turned, and beckoned emphatically to us, seeming to indicate that we should go that way no further.

Then thunder cracked in the blue, cloudless sky, emanating from the direction in which the Imogene was winding. Thunder fallen from a clear sky? Hadithi and I looked at each other.

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