Chapter One
I killed my first man before I hit my growth spurt, when frogs and turtles still excited me more than women. I remember ever’ detail of that night, June 2, 1855, down to the cigar smoke billowin’ from the private game room on the second deck of the Arkansas Princess. I stood outside the doorway, listenin’ to the soft splashes of the big sidewheel churnin’ the waters of the wide Mississippi, and watched Moss Edmund toss a double eagle onto a loose pile of gold coins in the center of a poker table. Not one of the six players noticed me. Night could be a black boy’s best friend.
I eyed Edmund, one of Gregory Halpern’s hired thugs, his fat lips puffin’ on a thick cigar under his black, droopin’ moustache. The white bastard sat with his back at an angle to the doorway. Perfect. I fingered the butt of the derringer tucked in my vest pocket. One shot, up close, should do the trick.
I grew up on the Halpern Company’s paddle wheelers, servin’ customers, washin’ clothes, even playin’ a little piano, and had long since learned to balance a loaded silver tray with one hand. That night I carried a bottle of French cognac and six crystalline shot glasses. I stepped through the doorway, my tray held high, a white cloth draped over my arm for decoration.
“Would the gentlemen care for refreshments? Compliments of the Arkansas Princess.” I moved toward them, a stomach-flutterin’ lightness in my step.
Edmund, cradlin’ his cards, gave me only the slightest glance. “Set it on the table.”
As I lowered the platter with one hand, I slipped the derringer from my pocket with the other. A flick of my wrist sent the tray airborne. As the players, eyes wide, watched the glass and liquor fly, I shoved the barrel of the derringer against Edmund’s temple. I wanted to shout what a whore-beatin’ son of a bitch he was, but I couldn’t waste the time and my mouth was too dry, anyway. I pulled the trigger, which said enough. A crisp pop sent a trace of blood streamin’ in a thin, red arc.
I raced through the doorway, flew across the deck, and vaulted over the guardrail. I had both feet under me when I hit the dark water, and shot like an arrow straight to the muddy bottom. Landin’ in ooze, I sank to my ankles. Worries about what I done vanished in an instant of primal terror. I kicked myself free of the thin muck and scrambled through the water. I felt like my lungs would burst. Up? Down? I couldn’t see. I struggled to keep from breathin’, but my body craved air. About to give in, I popped to the surface. I inhaled mostly water with my first breath, choked, and went under. My arms and hands, workin’ on their own as my mind melted in panic, took my head above the current. I coughed and spit and floated on the surface, grateful to taste air.
Alarm bells from the riverboat yanked my attention from drownin’ back to escape. A blast of gunfire sent me under. When I resurfaced, angled torches threw a yellow glow out from the sidewheeler. A dozen men linin’ the railings shot into the river. But they fired blind and, as I bobbed up and down in the current, the Arkansas Princess moved away.
I floated until the riverboat became no more than distant lights, then kicked and paddled, tryin’ to swim across the river. Even with the flow, the current wore me down fast. A tree trunk, or a large limb—I couldn’t tell which—drifted by and I latched on, though the branches ripped my arms and face. Exhausted, I clung to it—no tellin’ how far—until my arms couldn’t hold any longer. That’s when the log spun into an eddy close to the bank. The lucky chance to live gave me enough lift to stroke toward the shore until my feet touched. Then I walked—or dragged—myself onto the bank. And just laid there, spent.
Safe at last. Now I just had to cross Missouri, a slave state, while dodgin’ every sheriff, slaver, and bounty hunter for five hundred miles.
