The Abduction of Smith and Smith: A Novel - Hardcover

Harrison, Rashad

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1451625782 ISBN 13: 9781451625783

Verlag: Atria Books, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

In this harrowing and thrilling work of historical fiction, two enemies become the unlikeliest of allies as they fight to save their own lives aboard a hell ship headed into the dangerous unknown.

The Civil War is over, though for Jupiter Smith, a former slave and Union soldier, many battles still lie ahead. He returns to the plantation he worked on before the war in search of his woman, but rather finds his old master gone mad, haunting the ruins like a ghost. Out of pity for the now mentally ill Colonel, Jupiter strangles him and heads west to seek a new life in San Francisco.

When the Colonel’s son, Confederate soldier Archer Smith, arrives at home and finds his father murdered, he vows revenge upon Jupiter for all he has lost—following his former slave to the far reaches of the continent.

But things take a new turn as Archer’s desire for retribution is overwhelmed by his dependency on opium, and he ends up the target of a gang of “crimpers”…the very gang that Jupiter works for in San Francisco. When Jupiter fails in an attempt to save Archer, they both end up shanghaied aboard a ship headed on a dangerous mission and ruled by a merciless captain. Will the two Smiths work together to stay alive and return home, or will they become victims of the sea, the crew, and their mad captain?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rashad Harrison has studied writing at San Francisco State University and Columbia University. He received his MFA in creative writing from New York University where he was a Jacob K. Javits Fellow in fiction and taught creative writing. He and his wife currently live in Chicago and San Francisco. He is the author of Our Man in the Dark (2011) and The Abduction of Smith and Smith (2015).

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The Abduction of Smith and Smith

1

Embarcadero Port, San Francisco. 1868.



Moonlight rippled on the black water. The sounds of the Barbary Coast saloons filled the air and met them on shore. Jupiter watched the rocks. He aimed his lantern at the shadows. Something moved underneath the sand. “They’re here,” he said to Clement. The earth parted, light shined through the crack, and a hand emerged beckoning Jupiter and Clement. The trapdoor under Maggie’s saloon opened and an unconscious man slumped to the shore. He was young, about twenty or so, and strong. His palms were pebbled with calluses, no stranger to work on a ship. He’d fetch about twenty-five dollars, a tidy sum, but Jupiter searched the man’s pockets anyway. No money, just a crooked deck of cards and loaded dice. Poor boy had tried to trick the wrong people and ended up on the bad end of a vanishing act. Jupiter nodded to the man underneath the earth. The hole closed and all was dark again.

Jupiter put the shady paraphernalia in his pockets, then he and Clement dragged the boy to their boat and dropped him on top of a pile of three other unconscious men. The lad was all muscle; maybe they’d get an even thirty for him.

They pushed off. Clement manned the oars and Jupiter held the lantern, waving its beam in the darkness until the masts of the Halcyon became visible. She was bound for the Philippines; a ton of pepper in her hull, she needed a crew badly.

• • •

“What have we here?” asked the first mate as he looked at the three unconscious men at Jupiter’s feet. Clement spoke up. “We’ve got a carpenter, a cooper, and one able-bodied seaman—skills to be determined on deck.”

The ship’s crew buzzed about.

The first mate scratched his beard. “Are you sure these men have sailed before? Last lot you two provided were so fond of land that they damn near had tree trunks instead of legs.”

“It’s our promise,” Clement said, “to provide you with the most skilled seamen available at the time.”

“Aye, and I’m sure you’d swear it on your mother’s soul,” the first mate grumbled.

“Well, I’m glad we are in agreement,” said Clement.

“How much?” asked the first mate.

“Fifty dollars for the lot,” said Jupiter.

Clement looked at him. “You heard the man.”

The first mate spat. “Highway robbery, this is,” but paid Clement accordingly: fifty dollars—ten to Jupiter, fifteen to Clement, and twenty-five to Maggie.

“Be careful of this one,” Jupiter said, pointing to the man as he climbed back in the boat. “He likes to beat women.” Judging them made it easier for Jupiter. If they had done bad things, if they were bad people, then they must deserve what was happening to them. In places like Maggie’s there was an ample supply of men who did terrible things.

“Oh, does he?” asked the first mate. “Too bad for him—and the lot of us—that there ain’t any woman aboard. Although, these long trips do tend to play tricks on your mind. Some of these younger lads may get mistaken for mermaids.”

• • •

The ship vanished into the fog as if by some natural sleight of hand. Jupiter was no magician, but he was quite good at making men disappear.

They brought the boat back to shore, secured it, then walked onto the portside road, merging with a crowd teeming with sailors, drunks, and thrill seekers.

Jupiter could feel Clement staring at him as they walked. “Something on your mind?”

“I feel as though I should ask you that question,” answered Clement.

Jupiter hated when Clement acted as though they were friends. It was closer to indentured servitude than a relationship, and he wasn’t foolish enough to think otherwise.

“Where were you the other night?” Clement asked. “Had to hire off the docks for muscle.”

“Had a prior obligation.”

“Tea with the Queen? I don’t see a note pinned to your shirt.”

Jupiter stared him down. Clement had seen Jupiter kill a man once. Jupiter gave him a look to remind him of that fact. Clement stared back as if he remembered but didn’t care.

“Did you say anything to Maggie about it?” Jupiter asked.

“No, I didn’t. There’s me saving your ass again,” said Clement.

“Fine. Thanks to me, we got double what we expected for those last ones. Just take what you spent out of my share.”

Clement spat in the road and barely missed the shoe of a passerby. “Damn right I will. Listen to you acting like you don’t need the money.”

He always needed the money. He had strong-armed his way across the country, tarnishing whatever honor remained in his uniform. During the day, Negroes, old and young alike, had waved at him as he passed in his tattered blue coat. At night he stole food and rifled through the pockets of unconscious drunks. By the time he arrived in San Francisco, smelled the briny air, and saw the harbor—a forest of masts—he had turned desperation into an art. He had killed countless men during the war, only two since its end. Maybe he was becoming a better man.

“And we’re still one man short,” said Clement.

“Or we can take what we have and call it a night.”

“Call it a night, he says. This isn’t that kind of job, now is it?”

Jupiter was walking. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Something faint and shrill floated over the ironworks. “That. It was a scream.”

“So what if it was,” said Clement. “Screams are popular this time of night.”

Jupiter heard the sound again and walked toward it.

“Jupiter, don’t bother—”

At the end of a dark alley, he found the source of the sound: a Chinese girl, about thirteen or so, pinned to the wall by a man three times her size and three times her age. “Ease up, honey,” the man growled. “The more you fight the longer it’ll take.” There was a tipped-over basket of laundry, clothes strewn on the ground.

The girl screamed again. She looked up and saw Jupiter. She began shouting at him in her language. Jupiter had not picked up much Chinese, but it was obvious that she was screaming for help.

The man slapped her into silence. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jupiter. “Get out of here, nigger. This doesn’t concern you.” He put his hand between her legs, forcing them open.

“I think it does. Why don’t you leave the girl alone? Go to one of the saloons up the street, plenty of willing women there. I’ll even buy their time for you if you let that little girl take the laundry back to her family.”

“Ain’t this somethin’. Why would you care what I do with this little whore?”

Jupiter looked at her, then the clothes; small clothes, the clothes of children. “How much do you want for her?”

“What?”

“You said she’s a whore. How much do you want for her?”

Clement had caught up with him. “Jupiter,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atria Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1451625782
• ISBN 13: 9781451625783
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland