River of Teeth (River of Teeth #1)
Sarah Gailey
Foreword
In the early twentieth century, the Congress of our great nation debated a glorious plan to resolve a meat shortage in America. The idea was this: import hippos and raise them in Louisiana’s bayous. The hippos would eat the ruinously invasive water hyacinth; the American people would eat the hippos; everyone would go home happy. Well, except the hippos. They’d go home eaten.
Much to everyone’s disappointment, Congress didn’t follow through on the plan, and today America lives a cursed life—a beef life, with nary a free-range hippo within the borders of our country.
Reader, this is an actual, literal thing that almost happened. The hippos are not a metaphor. You should investigate hippo ranching for yourself; as much as I’d like to call this novella the definitive text on the matter, it is most assuredly fiction. With that in mind, I caved in to my desire to make this a hippo-cowboy romp and fiddled with some dates. I shifted everything back by about fifty years, and took some liberties with what technology existed at the time in order to fit the story to the time period. I regret nothing: it was worth it for the hats alone.
For actual facts about hippo ranching, check out Jon Mooallem’s fabulous piece in the Atavist Magazine (“American Hippopotamus”).
Yours in dreams of the America that Might Have Been,
Sarah Gailey
Chapter 1
WINSLOW REMINGTON HOUNDSTOOTH was not a hero.
There was nothing within him that cried out for justice or fame. He did not wear a white hat—he preferred his grey one, which didn’t show the bloodstains. He could have been a hero, had he been properly motivated, but there were more pressing matters at hand. There were fortunes to be snatched from the hands of fate. There were hors d’oeuvres like the fine-boned young man in front of him, ripe for the plucking. There was swift vengeance to be inflicted on those who would interfere with his ambitions. There was Ruby.
Winslow Houndstooth didn’t take the job to be a hero.
He took it for the money, and he took it for revenge.
The scarred wooden table in front of him was covered in the accoutrements of The Deal. The two-page contract, signed and initialed in his cramped handwriting. The receipt for disbursement of funds. A set of five photographs that had been culled from several dozen files: his team, selected after hours of arduous negotiation. There was a round-faced woman, her hair set in a crown of braids; an ink-dark, fine-boned rogue; a hatchet-nosed man with a fussy moustache; and a stone-faced woman with a tattoo coiling up her neck. The latter two were concessions he was already braced to regret. And finally—never last, only ever finally—there was Houndstooth himself. The photo didn’t do him justice—he noted that the part in his hair was off-center by at least two centimeters—but he was wearing his finest cravat in the picture, so he’d call it a wash.
And then of course, there was the fat sack of money.
He counted out the thick gold coins, his eyes flicking to the photo of the hatchet-nosed man once every few seconds, and he waited. Now that the negotiations were over—now that his rate and his team had been established, and the money had changed hands—the small talk would begin. It was always the same with these government types. They were deeply confused by the juxtaposition of his vague accent and his eyes. His country’s accent. His parent’s eyes.
“So, where are you from?”
Ah, yes. There it was. They could begin the requisite dialogue about where he was from and where he was from. Houndstooth didn’t look up from the coins.
“Blackpool.” He could have made his tone frostier, but being in the presence of such a lovely stack of hard money warmed him like a milky cup of Earl Grey.
When the agent didn’t immediately respond, Houndstooth paused in his counting, placing a mental finger next to the number “four thousand.”
The agent was staring at him with such blue eyes. Such attentive eyes. “You don’t sound British,” the agent said quietly. Houndstooth found himself intrigued by the catch in the young man’s voice.
“Yes, well,” Winslow Houndstooth replied with a crocodile grin. “I suppose my accent’s almost gone by now. I’ve been in Georgia for some time. I came to the States to be a hopper, and once I tasted my first Georgia peach”—he reached across the table to touch the agent’s arm, scattering the photos—“it was just too sweet for me to leave.”
The federal agent’s cheeks reddened, and Houndstooth’s smile grew. He didn’t move his hand.
“I do so love the peaches down here.”
*
Winslow Houndstooth left the federal agent’s office an hour and forty-seven minutes later, smoothing his hair with an elaborately carved comb. He eased the door shut behind him with a small smile.
That young man would need to take a nap for the rest of the afternoon.
The sack of gold coins was heavy, and he divided it evenly into each of Ruby’s saddlebags. She could have carried the weight on one side easily—eight thousand dollars in U.S. government gold would hardly wind her—but it pleased him to know that he was flanked by four thousand dollars on each side.
He swung himself into the kneeling saddle on Ruby’s back. She grunted at him.
Ruby had settled her bulk deep into the water-filled trench next to the hitching post. She wasn’t made for long periods standing on land, although her breed could do it for longer than most. The Cambridge Black hippopotamus was the finest breed in the United States: sleeker, faster, and deadlier than any other hippo on the water. Ruby wasn’t bred for meat; she was a hopper’s hippo, meant for herding her slower, grazing cousins.