Caution: Ghosts, grog, and government men abound. Also features narration that could derail time perception or summon Wendigos mid-sentence. Sip, don’t gulp.
From the East Bellmont Notebooks of an Unknown Pirate Prophet
I got the old Naptha launch warmed by kerosene breath and ghost-flicker, pipes rattlin’ like the bones of a Methodist skeleton smuggled in from Ogdensburg and it’s me again, movin’ likker crates under Orion’s rusted elbows, ferryin’ sweet amber pain from the sugar-maple shadows of East Bellmont to the contraband cradle of Rocky Brook where the Syndicate’s boys wait with damp wool coats and the eyes of men who’ve seen the inside of a customs man’s soul — and come out laughin’ or burned
Legs Diamond’s name rides the pinewinds like an old show tune played backwards — still out there somewhere maybe, maybe not, maybe sittin’ right now in that white cabin near Clayburg, playin’ solitaire with aces cut from an honest man’s payroll
And it ain’t even the revenuers I fear no more, not with them Gitaskog sea snakes — little bastards — flickin’ up from under the skiff like wet cats with too many teeth, knockin’ the rudder just enough to send me skimmin’ sideways into the cattails like a drunk jazz clarinet tryin’ to hit F-sharp on a foghorn
I seen one once, I mean really seen it — eyes like copper pennies dropped in snowmelt, head all horns and mossy grin, little nipper serpent with the attitude of a union foreman and the sense of humor of a Shatagee barmaid
That was the run we lost a whole case of Diamond’s winterproof gin — sank right through the hull like the serpent wanted a drink worse than the boys at Rocky Brook, and I swear I saw its tail slap out a burp in Morse code: “Tell Schultz he owes me a bottle.”
That’s the racket. That’s the jazz of the lake.
And I ain’t even near W Mountain yet.
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?