A Taste of Shaman

South Coast Shaman
A Shaman’s Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper

Chapter 1
Callum’s Cove
September 15, 2304

All happy families resemble each other; all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. Otto Krugg sat on a bollard picking at the paint with a grubby nail and thinking how unhappy he was with his particular family.

“Otto!”

He looked up in time to see the cast line snaking through the pale green, autumn sky. He slipped from his seat on the heavy metal plug and caught it deftly, lashing it over and under in a neat figure-eight almost without thinking. He turned to wave at the smiling fisherman on the bridge of the boat alongside and heard the rumbling of the engines as the skipper backed down against the line to snug his vessel in against the dock. In two ticks the heavy fishing boat was moored securely and an over head crane began lifting the fish boxes out of the hold.

“Thanks, Otto!” Red Green hopped lightly off the side of the boat and onto the dock. His face was caught in a perpetual grin and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had pale creases where the sun seldom reached even while burnishing his face in a mahogany glow at sea.

Otto smiled back in spite of himself. It was impossible to not smile back at Red, no matter what your father had done to you earlier in the day. “You’re most welcome, of course, Red,” he replied. “Any chance I can go out with you next trip?” he asked hopefully.

Red pushed his cap back and grinned even more while shaking his head. “Now, laddie-buck, you know your daddy would skin my hide …” he began with a chuckle. He lowered is voice and gave a fair approximation of Otto’s father’s intonation when he finished with, “Shaman’s son needs to tend to shaman’s business.”

Otto grimaced. “Bad enough from him all the time,” he said.

Red’s face took on a sympathetic cast and he reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Aye, laddie, but he does have the right of it. Shaman is too valuable to be riskin’ his skin on Old Briney, here,” and he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the harbor mouth.

…. (To Be Continued) ….

Don’t say I never gave ya nuthin’ :)