Black River
Authors: Tom Lowe
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Thriller & Suspense, #War & Military, #Private Investigators, #Thriller
ALSO BY TOM LOWE
A False Dawn
The 24th Letter
The Butterfly Forest
The Black Bullet
Blood of Cain
Destiny
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BLACK RIVER
- Copyright © 2014 by Tom Lowe. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, Internet, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Published by Kingsbridge Entertainment, P.O. Box 340, Windermere, FL 34786.
Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data
Lowe, Tom 1952-
BLACK RIVER (A Sean O’Brien novel)
by Tom Lowe – 1st edition
ISBN: 150304971X
ISBN: 9781503049710
1. American Civil War—Fiction. 2. British Crown Jewels—Fiction. 3. Espionage—Fiction. 4. Koh-i-Noor—Fiction. Title:
BLACK RIVER
BLACK RIVER
is distributed in ebook and print editions. Printed books available from
Amazon.com
and bookstores.
First Edition: December 2014. Published in the U.S.A. by Kingsbridge Entertainment
“The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright
P
eople often ask me about my “favorite parts” or “favorite scenes” from some of my books. For me, the best part is right here. This is where I can publically thank and recognize those who’ve helped me with the book.
For BLACK RIVER, a special shout out to Helen Christensen and Darcy Yarosh for their attention to detail. I tip my hat to the production team at Amazon: Carina Petrucci, Kandis Miller and Brianne T. Great job. To Stacy Stablin, thank you for all you do to help promote my books. And finally, to my wife Keri for her creative insight, patience and editing skills, and her sense of humor. Thank you.
And to you, the reader, the person holding this book right now. This story is for you. If you’re a new reader, welcome. And for those who’ve been here for the Sean O’Brien journey, welcome back. I hope you enjoy BLACK RIVER.
For Natalie
CONTENTS
H
enry Hopkins looked over his shoulder and saw his wife disappear behind the mist rising above the river. The fog couldn’t hide the fear on her face. If he wasn’t killed in the next hour, Henry knew that Angelina would be there for him when he rowed the small fishing boat back across the river, after midnight. She would wave the lantern precisely at 1:00 a.m. for a few seconds to help guide him to the clearing on the shore, to the Confederate-controlled side of the St. Johns River. But now Henry and another man rowed toward the most famous racing sailboat in the world, and Henry felt a knot grow in his stomach.
The river was a half-mile wide at Horseshoe Bend. The weather-beaten boat smelled of dried fish guts, wet burlap, and burnt pipe tobacco. A crescent moon rose over the eastern shoreline and sent a sliver of light bouncing from the surface of the black river—a river filled with alligators, some as long as the boat. And it was filled with Union Navy gunboats.
The men rowed quietly, the only sounds coming from water dripping off the oars and from a great horned owl, its night calls echoing across the river from the top of a large cypress tree near the shore. The moon cast the tree in silhouette, its massive branches holding shadowy beards of Spanish moss hanging straight down. The old cypress tree had been standing since before the first Seminole War with the U.S. government. The tree was a well-known landmark, a visual marker near the secluded entrance to Dunn’s Creek, a deep-water tributary to the St. Johns River. It was in the creek where the Confederates were hiding
America
, the schooner that beat the
British ten years earlier in a race now known as the
America’s Cup
. The creek was more than seventy feet deep near the place where it flowed into the St. Johns, a few miles downriver from Jacksonville, Florida.
America
was recently bought by the Confederate Navy and used as a blockade-runner to outrun the Union Navy blocking southern ports. It had just made a trans-Atlantic voyage from Liverpool, England, and it sailed with a top-secret crew, cargo, and a contract to be delivered directly to the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and his top general, Robert E. Lee.
Henry wore his wide brim hat pulled low over his eyes. His unshaven face was lean and rawboned. He watched the river, eyes as dark as the water, searching for Union gunboats, listening for steam-fired engines coming from upriver. His nostrils tested the breeze, trying to detect burning coal, the smell of trouble. The two men rowed silently and spoke in whispers as they got closer to
America
, its mast and stern in a dark profile under the moon rising high above Dunn’s Creek. Henry stopped rowing. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asked William Kramer, a bull of a man with a thick chest and powerful forearms. He stopped, lifting his paddle from the water and sat erect, listening to the sounds of the night on the river.
Henry looked south. “Sounded like a yank patrol boat.”
“I didn’t hear nothin.’ Just an old hoot owl, that’s all.”
“C’mon. We gotta get into the creek and scuttle the ship before the yanks take her.”
“Who’d you say we’re supposed to meet?”
“Don’t know. Top secret. Maybe General Lee himself. Time’s a wasting. Let’s row.”
They entered the wide mouth of Dunn’s Creek, bordered by towering cypress trees and thick hammocks of palms and live oaks older than the young nation. A weeping willow tree leaned into the creek, its tentacle-like limbs scraping the surface of dark water. Bullfrogs competed in a thick chorus of mating calls. Hungry mosquitoes greeted the men with whines, orbiting their heads, biting at necks and ears.