by Sarah Gailey
She leapt through an open window and landed on the outer deck. The boat creaked with the sound of her vaulting the deck rail to land on her notorious albino hippopotamus. The real banker, disguised as a casino owner, cut Carter loose, and the Marshal eased himself off the floor, rolling his wrists. His eyes were shining, and he pressed his fingers to the place where Archie’s lips had left the faintest hint of warmth. He toed the moustache that rested on the floor. It was a handsome moustache.
“Regina Archambault,” he murmured to himself as the patrons of the bank boat began to stand, brushing themselves off and buzzing about the robbery. Carter’s fingers played over the silver star at his belt and he felt a shiver of admiration pass through his belly. “See you soon, indeed.”
APPENDIX 1: TIMELINE OF EVENTS
March 1857: Congressman Albert Broussard proposes the Hippo Act, seeking $25,000 to import hippopotami into the United States in an attempt to solve the nationwide meat shortage.
July 1857: The Hippo Act is signed into law by an enthusiastic President James Buchanan.
August 4, 1857: President Buchanan cuts the ribbon on the United States of America’s first hippo ranch in Alabama; declares the hippo ranching industry “open for business.”
November 1857: The Federal Marsh Expansion Project begins, employing 40,000 men to dam sections of the Mississippi, creating a series of marshes so as to meet the great demand for “lake pig.” The series of marshes are named “the Harriet” after Buchanan’s favorite pet cow.
December 1857: The territory encompassing the Harriet and the hippo marshes are declared neutral, free territory in the Great Hippo Compromise. The Great Louisiana Hippo Rush begins. Ranchers stake their claims.
January 1858: Quentin Houlihan, a hired hopper on Samuel F. Greenlay’s hippo ranch just outside of Baton Rouge, falls asleep on the job. His lantern falls onto a pile of rushes. The fire is put out, but not before the hastily erected fencing that surrounds the ranch is compromised. All 97 hippos escape into the bayou. None are recovered.
May 1859: During the Great Hippo Bust, ranches throughout the Harriet are plagued by feral hippo attacks and disease.
February 1861: President Buchanan, nearing the end of his term, signs off on the construction and staffing of the Harriet Gate, a measure intended to trap feral hippos in the Harriet proper and to save the remaining hippo ranches in the South.
March 1861: President Abraham Lincoln enters his office, declaring that he will fix Buchanan’s mistakes. During his inaugural address, he promises that “the Bayou will belong to the hippos and the criminals and the cutthroats no longer!” Unfortunately, some things come up.
March 1865: President Andrew Johnson declares in his inaugural address that he will fix the one problem Lincoln couldn’t. “The Wild South days are over!”
March 1869: The newly inaugurated President Ulysses S. Grant promises to clear the feral hippos out of the Mississippi “once and for all!”
March 1889: President Grover Cleveland declares the Southern United States under martial law, calling it “an unresolvable den of thieves, mercenaries, hoppers, and scoundrels”—but promising to maintain a steady flow of subsidies to the hippo ranches that feed the rest of the country.
ALSO BY SARAH GAILEY
River of Teeth
Taste of Marrow
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hugo and Campbell Award finalist SARAH GAILEY is an internationally published writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction has appeared in Mashable and The Boston Globe, and she is a regular contributor for Tor.com and the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. Her most recent fiction credits include Mothership Zeta, Fireside Fiction, and the Speculative Bookshop Anthology. Her debut novella, River of Teeth, was published in 2017 via Tor.com. She has a novel forthcoming from Tor Books in spring 2019. Gailey lives in beautiful Portland, Oregon, with her two scrappy dogs. You can find links to her work at www.sarahgailey.com; find her on social media @sarahgailey, or sign up for email updates here.
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these novellas and stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
AMERICAN HIPPO
Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Gailey
River of Teeth copyright © 2017 by Sarah Gailey
Taste of Marrow copyright © 2017 by Sarah Gailey
“Nine and a Half” copyright © 2018 by Sarah Gailey
“Worth Her Weight in Gold” copyright © 2018 by Sarah Gailey
All rights reserved.
Maps by Tim Paul
Edited by Justin Landon
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First Edition: May 2018
eISBN 9781250176424
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
River of Teeth
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Taste of Marrow
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Worth Her Weight in Gold
Nine and a Half
Appendix 1: Timeline of Events
Also by Sarah Gailey
About the Author
Copyright