by C. Litka
03
Captain DenMons proved to be a sharp-tongued, no nonsense captain. She clearly told you exactly what she wanted done and you snapped to it, with an "Aye, Cap'n". Her boys seemed to have leave to mutter and whine just as long as they snapped to it. We didn't. Or if we did, we didn't test it.
The Shadow Bird was a family barge. Both DenOrn and DenBarn had spent most of their lives aboard her, only getting away for some schooling in their youth. DenMons's mate, the "Old Man" was mentioned only in passing by the boys. I never did learn anything of his whereabouts or fate. It was not a happy subject. I generally steered well clear of Cap'n DenMons at the beginning of my time aboard the Shadow Bird, when I could - which I could if I stayed in the engine room, save for meals and sleep. KaRaya, who served under some pretty hard boiled captains, said DenMons wasn't very social, but was mostly bark, not bite.
The boys, however, were friendly enough, and eager to hear all of our adventures in the wide-sky - the wide-sky they dreamed of sailing one day. But only over their mother's dead body, which looked to be some tens of thousands of rounds in the future. The cook, known only as "Cookie" was a fine-feathered man of some undetermined age. Small, lean, but built of leather, and full of energy. He'd been aboard the Shadow Bird for some 20,000 rounds or more, and was considered family.
The Shadow Bird's usual voyage consisted of a call on Mountain Vale, followed by two to four mining or lumber towns, a day's sailing or less apart. The exact destination depended on the cargo.
These small towns, deep in the forested shadow-side were collections of log buildings with slate roofs. They reeked of wood smoke from the stoves and power plants that provided the electricity needed to constantly light the interiors of the buildings and mines in the dim lit shadow lands. Every mining town had a mine at one end, and a short landing field for the ore barges at the other, with one main street linking them, with a few short streets branching out to access the workers' houses. They all had a trading post that traded with the native shadow-land natives. These natives traded furs and feathers, plus hand crafted wooden knickknacks, and the occasional gold or silver nugget for industrial products.
The lumber towns were smaller than the mining towns, and built to be moved when the local lumber supply was exhausted. They were set in park-like forests, with flowering meadows under the massive, storm-twisted deep green and mauve pines. The forests were far too slow growing to be clear cut. Ancient wars with the shadow-land natives had settled that question back in the era of legends. Natives selected and the lumber companies harvested the storm downed and damaged trees within reach of the mill and charcoal kilns. What could be used for lumber was cut to size and exported. Everything else was ground up, pressed into cakes and slowly carbonized into charcoal.
The ore, lumber, charcoal, and crew rotations were carried out on company barges. General supplies were brought in by small tramp barges like ours, along with the odd commercial traveler, visitors or returning resident which we carried in those tiny cabins. It didn't strike me as a very lucrative business, but it was steady enough, with not a lot of competition.
The Shadow Bird's last stop was always on the gravel strand between the a long, deep lake known as Chasm Lake, and the small fishing village of the same name. Here we'd find a dozen big boxes of smoked Chasm Lake trout waiting for us. Then, once we arrived, the fishermen would switch to fresh fish. We'd spend an idle round or two, depending on the fishermen' luck, waiting to load dozen or so barrel's worth of fresh trout, which were shipped live in the water filled barrels.
'Don't let King get at those fish,' said Cap'n DenMons as the cart with the barrels filled with fish started to arrived. 'He likes to go fishing in those barrels, if you don't keep an eye on him.'
Sure enough, ol'King with Hissi in tow, wandered down from the bridge as we were lugging the barrels into place.
Now King may have been old, but he was a big Simla dragon, especially when he's standing next to you. And he still had most of his teeth. So when he looked down to gave me a deep, suggestive growl, I said to KaRaya, 'We might want to have a little accident while loading that last barrel?'
She looked at King and said thoughtfully, 'It's been known to happen that barrels occasionally get tipped, covers come off, things get lost.'
King grunted.
'The fish count is going to come out a bit short,' I said, as I watched the dragons slink off with their fish.
'Spoilage,' replied KaRaya with a shrug.
'Spoilage?''
'Dockside corruption. Trout cannibalism, take your pick.'
'I doubt they'll buy either cannibalism or spoilage. That leaves dockside corruption, and a rather short list of suspects, especially since Ma counted them herself as they were barreled.'
'Well,' she sighed, 'ol'King still has more teeth than Ma. That sort of figures into my calculations.'
'Yeah, mine too.'
So, occasionally, a barrel of live trout got tipped too far and its covers, not properly attached, flew off, sending a few squirming trout sloshing out onto the deck - when DenMons wasn't looking. Looking back, this seemed to have happened on every trip. Still, nothing was said about it. Teeth count, I guess.
The voyage from Chasm Lake to Bindare, our light side home port, was the longest flight in the Shadow Bird's voyage, taking a full round to complete. Everyone was worn out by the time we arrived, as sleep aboard the Shadow Bird in flight was a rare occurrence.