For loveable-retard <3

"...I'll never forget the day this picture was taken. It was the end of summer, about to set foot into autumn, so the chilly nights had started up again.

Boy, Sampson forever hated the end of summer. He preferred the warmer months, and complained bitterly about the change in the season. I really don't know how Captain Winchester coped with him moaning all the time. I guess I was rather oblivious to it myself, I loved watching the Riverlands change with the seasons, watching the leaves begin to change colour and fall by the bucketloads. Billy was always at the logging mill, or the sugar mill, and when we caught up when the day was through, we'd go traipsing up the windy streams, looking for that perfect place to rest and talk about what we wanted to do one day.

Billy never had any problems with my fascination for the tall structures of the encroaching Bigg City Port off in the distance. Sampson did however, and would always lecture me if I made the mistake of mentioning anything about the Port to him. Sometimes Captain Winchester would save my hide, other times Billy would usher me away mid-lecture, promising to discipline me on Sampson's behalf. I learned pretty quickly to keep my thoughts, and respects, to myself, and speak of them only in Billy's company.

I remember I was tiring of the lack of work we'd had over the past few months, Billy too had been off for a spell. We spent that time with our ears attuned to the fast-flowing water, waiting for a chance, any chance whatsoever for hard work. It just wasn't coming, considering Bigg City Port was, again, encroaching on our territory. A kerfuffle rose up a few weeks later, and Sampson was involved with that. I don't know the exact details but...it hadn't been very pretty. It gave all of us a bad name, which was the reputation we were tiring of. Sampson was in the Captain's bad books for months afterwards.

I loved my home, despite the fact I'd been dumped by my former fleet. Times were tough then, much like they were now with my new home, The Red Fleet (or "The Red Flags" as Sampson coined for us...). As Billy told me over and over again, at least I'd been dumped and not sent to my maker like a good chunk of the working lads on the River had been. But I longed for a chance to explore beyond our boundaries, I longed to know what lay beyond our borderlines. And that morning, during the briefing, Captain Winchester made me stay behind.

I honestly thought I was in trouble, and I pleaded my case to him immediately; I hated to do something wrong by the Captain, utterly despised myself if I did trouble him any. He motioned me to be quiet, before explaining to me that he had recieved word from the River Master (again I thought I had done something wrong!), and that he wanted to speak to me privately. It turned out, he'd been visited and told that a Bigg City Port Captain, Captain of The Star Fleet, had specifically requested a River-wise tug for a trial run. The River Master had forwarded my name to Captain Star.

How do you describe a feeling in which you know you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't?

Billy must have sensed something was up because he pulled me aside whilst I was on my morning delivery and made me moor up and talk to him. I told him what Captain Winchester had told me and Billy just about whooped in glee. I was nervous, excited, but at the same time, I knew Sampson was angry that it hadn't been him. Billy told me Sampson was only angry because he was jealous, and if anything, he'd talk to him for me.

Which...kinda brings me back to this photo. I can still feel Sampson's anger here, his annoyance, his fury that it wasn't him going to Bigg City. Billy told me later in a letter that Sampson was actually very proud of me, he just couldn't see past his jealousy to tell me that. I guess that's where our friendship really ended, Sampson and I...

I still keep this photo around; I carry it close to my heart, mainly because of Billy, and because of the memories I have attached to it. We had it taken where it overlooked the passage leading to Middleton, right where the new plantation of trees were growing. Billy reckoned it was fitting, new growing trees symbolising my new life in Bigg City Port.

I know one day Ten Cents'll ask about its significance, and I'm not sure what to tell him.
Maybe when I have the courage, I'll think of something better than to say my River life officially ended that day..."

Drawn for my fellow writer and majestic bastard, Laurence. Rock on, dude!

TUGS © David Mitton & Robert D. Cardona, 1988 - 2015
Stock photo from Public Domain Photos