In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

Joe Wong and two burly rivermen. Joe didn’t bother to introduce them. "Over there," she said, pointing at Franks.

"How long will he be out?" the nearest man rumbled.

"Most of the day and part of tomorrow. I gave him a strong dose," Giselle responded. "Thank you, Joe. How much do I owe them?"

"Nothing," Joe said. "They are doing this because they owe me a favor. Remember, you two, this man doesn’t get away until you are as far north as your route takes you."

One of them stooped and slung Franks dead weight over his shoulder.

"Go out the back, the way we came in," Joe reminded them. He dropped a kiss on Giselle’s cheek. "Amy and I will expect the two of you to dinner tomorrow."

"We’ll be there. Thanks again Joe."

When the men had gone, Iris studied her grandmother thoughtfully. "What are we going to tell Papa about this and about Jeanne?"

"The truth of course," Giselle said. "He will rant and rage a little, but at heart he does want his daughters to be happy."

She was pleased with how her plans had worked. Jeanne would be happy, and she had been right about this granddaughter; despite her fragile looks there was strength in Iris. That trouble-maker Franks would be kept out of the way for a few months, by which time Giselle hoped to have things back home settled.

Broken Shackles

MAX FRANKS WOKE UP shackled and with a raging headache to discover he was not the only deckhand wearing chains. Tom and Jeff Bardeoux, who owned the Tumbling Gem, 'hired', if it could be called that, some of their crew from the jails in the towns they traded with. The practice of renting prisoners out for work saved a town the expense of housing and feeding prisoners and it was cheap labor for the rivermen. In return for a small fee, rivermen like the Bardeoux brothers agreed to put a town's prisoners to work as deckhands, feeding and housing them for the term of their sentence. When a prisoner's sentence was over, the Bardeoux brothers either dropped a prisoner at the city he came from on their next trip or let him leave the ship at the next port.

Franks was an angry, unhappy man when he woke up and discovered what had been done to him, and the longer he stayed aboard the madder he got. Three weeks had passed since that abortive tea with Iris St. Vyr and her grandmother and he had been stuck on this cargo barge as it traveled slowly up the Black River. That little bitch had tricked him. She had to pay for that.

His chains allowed a shuffling walk around the deck, but he knew if he dived into the river, they would drag him under, and he would drown. There were small outposts and towns along the river, but they were small oases of civilization between vast stretches of wild lands. Thick forests of Skinwood trees (so called because of their flesh colored bark) stretched up into the rugged mountains. In some places the bushes and vines were so thick no boat could land even if it had been wise to do so.

The fierce Dire bear clans made their homes in the thick purple brush along the river. Higher up in the mountains, striped lions hunted game in prides of two or three. Knowing both predators would find an unarmed human a tasty meal, Franks had no intention of attempting to traverse the wilderness on foot. That meant he needed a boat for his escape.

The further north they traveled, the more the Tumbling Gem kept to the deeper waters in the center of the river and away from the banks. If they were hungry enough, both bears and lions had been known to board a ship moored too close to the shore at night.

Franks was determined to escape. Usually there were a few boats docked at each hamlet. He knew that one man couldn't handle a ship the size of the Tumbling Gem, but he was confident that if he stole a smaller steam powered boat from one of the places where they stopped to take on cargo, he could make it back down the river.

First though, he had to find out where the Bardeoux brothers kept the key to the shackles. He knew he needed to steal a gun and wait until they were docked at one of the small hamlets where the brothers took on cargo.

Franks watched the brothers and the free deckhands, looking for weaknesses he could use in his escape. While he waited, and watched his captors, his fury with Iris and her grandmother grew. It stung his pride that the two women had trapped and drugged him. When he got back to River Crossing, that sweet-face liar would be taught something. He would teach her a lesson she wouldn't forget.

The deck crew consisted of three other chained men like himself, the two Bardeoux brothers Hank and Jeff, and two free deckhands. Franks and the other three prisoners got the dirty jobs of cleaning cabins, swabbing the decks, washing dishes, and cleaning the fish caught in the nets thrown over the side each morning and evening when they dropped anchor for the night. The Bardeoux brothers steered the boat, and the two freedmen kept the Tumbling Gem away from sandbars and other obstacles with long poles. Each evening before sunset, the Barge dropped anchor. Without lights, traveling the river at night was suicidal. If they didn't run aground on a sandbar in the dark, they could hit a fallen log or a boulder.

When they stopped each night, one of the brothers lit a fire under the steam powered grill on the deck. One of the free rivermen, Jason Bourteen, usually cooked the meal and boiled the next days drinking water pulled from the river. The other riverman, Leo Miller was in supposed to keep an eye on the chained crew.

The other three prisoners had their own pecking order. It was