Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) Jonathan Michael (red novels .txt) 📖

I’m a prisoner. Why should I learn their trade? I can refuse. Would they throw me overboard? That would be good. But would they slit my throat first? They’re not pirates, but they might. Gentry wouldn’t. Otherwise, he would’ve backhanded me for mocking him. I don’t think he knows of the captain’s decision. He’d be less assertive and more awkward. Unless I’m misjudging his character as I did with the captain.

“Did you see how I did that?” he asks. I nod. “Good. Next, we bait each hook with a minnow and attach ‘em to the downriggers like so.” He spears each minnow onto a barbed hook the size of my fist.

How big are these sockeye?

Gentry then fastens each line to a downrigger one at a time, dropping the bait into the water to a specific depth. Once all lines are set, he uses a mechanism to telescope the boom out over the water. “The one thing you don’t want to do is tangle the lines,” Gentry adds. “If you don’t take the necessary steps before you sink ‘em, you’ll leave your family starving. You got it?”

“Yes. Is that everything?”

“Yeah, now go on. Get the next boom set up.”

“By myself?”

“Yes. You said you got it. If you’re not confident, boy, I need to know. I don’t want you messin’ up any of our equipment. Now, do you get it or not?”

“Yes, sir. Seems easy enough.”

“Okay. Get to it then. I’ll be watching from here.”

I scurry to the other boom with a pail of minnows in hand. Before I know it, my foot snags an uplifted board in the deck and the minnows explode from the pail as I crash into the ironwood. The pail flies until it hits Captain Crowbill in the back of the head. I lay flat on my face on a deck permeated with the stink of rotten failure. And I wallow in it for a moment as I recover. My luck! Not the captain. Although… Maybe he’ll get rid of me if my clumsiness becomes more of a burden than I’m worth.

I gain my feet using the deck rail to hoist myself up. I stare awkwardly, uncertain if I should apologize or not. No. I won’t. Not after what he’s done to me.

With a peeved scowl, “Clean this shit up, and get back to work, Elder.” Then he turns and continues to wherever he was headed. He’s continuing to use my alias.

He stops and turns.

“And don’t let that happen again or Gentry will be scrubbing the decks with you. That’s a consequence you don’t want to face, lad.”

He pauses, staring me in the eye, contemplating something—maybe letting me think hard about what it’s like to have my face used as a mop. He wants to say something more, but he doesn’t. He turns and walks off.

“Way to go, numbskull!” Gentry scowls at me. “Enough dancing! Pick up the bait and get on with it. Be careful ‘cause I’m not scrubbing any decks for you. I can promise you that.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry.” I gather the minnows, leaving quite a mess for Shiner and the others to scrub—serves ‘em right. Oddly, I was able to raise the boom, line the outriggers, bait the hooks and get all the lines in the water without any hiccups. The standard, everyday walking is what proves to be my weakness.

After all the lines are set, we watch, and we wait. “The tension on the lines is tighter than a fish’s rectum, so we’ve to check ‘em occasionally,” Gentry instructs. He demonstrates on the first boom then lets me tackle the other.

He’s a trusting teacher. That or he’s waiting for me to fail. If he knew I was to be his Healer, then he wouldn’t do me wrong, would he? It wouldn’t be wise.

Beyond that, how is the captain going to force me to heal his crewmates anyhow? He can’t force me to do it. Don’t I have the upper hand here? I have what he wants. Curse this predicament. It makes my head spin.

We spend the entire day trolling with only a small break for the midday meal. Checking the lines doesn’t allow for much relaxation, and I’m beginning to understand why fishermen are so hard. It’s much more taxing on the body than scrubbing the decks, especially when a fish is on.

All the fishermen, however, leave their post to lend a hand when a fish is on. One mans the net and one cranks the pulley to tighten the line as the other two pull in the catch with their bare hands. The pulley is used for the smaller fish, but most are sockeye longer than I am tall. The pulley isn’t strong enough for them. Each a leviathan that could feed a village.

“I had no idea sockeye were as big as these,” I admit after the first few are stowed away in the ice chest. All eyes turn to me, and I grow warm.

“Hey, Elder!” Gentry calls. “There’re only two things you know about fishin’. The first, little fish live in water. The second, big fish live in water.” The crew mock me and laugh. At first, I’m irritated, but eventually I laugh along with them and accept it. The harassment won’t stop until I’m no longer the greenhorn. I’m sure of it. But hopefully that won’t be long.

The evening draws near, and we’ve caught a good day’s catch of sockeye. The others, unsatisfied I suppose, think it a clever idea to try for something bigger. We lower two booms and drop two lines on each. In place of the minnows, we spear sockeye on enormous hooks the length of my arm.

“There’s no way we’re reeling in anything using bait this size. Nothing’s large enough to swallow it.” It’s another comment for them to heckle me with.

“Little fish and big fish, greenhorn. Just wait