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Benjamin J. Gohs is a longtime award-winning news editor whose investigative journalism has included stories of murder, sex-crime, historical discovery, corruption, and clerical misconduct.
Benjamin now divides his time between writing literary thrillers and managing the community newspaper he co-founded in 2009.
A Thin Porridge
By Benjamin J. Gohs
When 19-year-old Abeona Browne's renowned abolitionist father Jon Browne dies in summer of 1860, devastating family secrets are revealed, and her life of privilege and naiveté in Southern Michigan becomes a frantic transatlantic search for answers—and someone she didn't even know existed.
Still in mourning, Abeona sneaks aboard the ship carrying her father’s attorney Terrence Swifte and his assistant Djimon—a young man with his own secrets—on a quest to Africa to fulfil a dying wish.
Along the journey, Abeona learns of her father’s tragic and terrible past through a collection of letters intended for someone he lost long ago.
Passage to the Dark Continent is fraught with wild beasts, raging storms, illness, and the bounty hunters who know Jon Browne’s diaries are filled with damning secrets which threaten the very anti-slavery movement he helped to build.
Can Abeona overcome antebellum attitudes and triumph over her own fears to right the wrongs in her famous family’s sordid past?
So named for an African proverb, A Thin Porridge is a Homeric tale of second chances, forgiveness, and adventure that whisks readers from the filth of tweendecks, to the treachery of Cameroons Town, across the beauty of Table Bay, and deep into the heart of the fynbos—where Boer miners continue the outlawed scourge of slavery.
Excerpt from A Thin Porridge by Benjamin J. Gohs
VISIONS OF THE GHASTLY Dubious Grimmis hastening toward the Bartholomew—knife drawn, long legs snatching away the distance between ship and shore—shivered the girl through. So, with ice in her heart, she mourned shrinking Cameroons Town from her poop deck roost. And even as they chugged for open water, Abeona cast her fearful gaze into unsympathetic horizons.
What if he followed in another boat? What if he was already hidden aboard this one? Abeona had to tell someone. But who, and what would she say? She tried to reason with herself. After all, Grimmis wanted the journals and they were gone. What use in hectoring some little girl? But the tattletale inside her spoiled the illusion: “All the journals? Is that the truth?”
The Bartholomew was two-thirds the size of the Elsie-Marie and carried only half the passengers. If Grimmis was aboard, Abeona would know it soon enough.
Sky glowed orange and pink. Sea swallowed last speck of earth. Dread of open water impelled Abeona to jump ship, chase after land. At one point she found herself pacing the rail like a skittish horse.
Just before dark, the sturdy little ship hooked sharply until land appeared on the portside, and there it remained the rest of the trip. There it remained eight days of easy seas. And the girl was comforted by its presence. Further, none of her hours were spent in endurance of tweendecks. No visits from her anemic stalker. Abeona was free to relax, to enjoy a different kind of adventure.
Swifte spent his mornings reading and sipping brandy on the main deck while Djimon and Abeona explored. They found the upper decks shabbier than those on the Elsie-Marie but below decks were nowhere near as foul. Trio met for breakfast and dinner in the main dining hall, but the youngsters sneaked their lunches of bread, jam, and tea to a favorite spot on the foredeck just below the pilothouse where the raised benches made for a fine view.
While Swifte slept off his morning libations, the pair walked the ship's narrow halls and passageways.
“We cannot arrive soon enough.” Djimon shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun as they looked to the south.
“Sometimes I find myself in a hurry to get back home and then I remember there’s not much left there for me.”
“You have all the time in the world to make a new life. Anywhere you like. Many would envy such a position.”
“I don’t even want to think about the future.”
“You had better, for it certainly has an eye on you.”
“What are your grand aspirations?”
“Aspirations?” Djimon hummed in thought.
“Yes. What is it you wish to do with the rest of your life?”
Djimon smirked. “I know the word.”
“Well?”
“I'm doing it. I travel. I read. I meet new and interesting people.” He gently elbowed the girl’s shoulder. “And do my best not to be devoured by wild beasts.”
Abeona touched his arm and gasped. “I was just thinking about that. Last night even.”
“Yet it will still be nice to go home. It seems as though this past year has been nothing but tramping from one location to another. My roots need to rest in their home soil.”
“You mean Michigan?”
“Of course. Your birthplace dictates not who you are. If that were so, the poor would never prosper and the weak would never triumph.”
“Will you take a wife when you return?”
“Someday perchance. But I am young, and Mr. Swifte keeps me quite busy.”
“You’re not so young.” She threw her head back to take the full sun. “And what kind of man doesn’t want a wife?”
“You would lecture on tradition?” Djimon grasped the rail and hung his head between his arms, his body stiff. “You, who dresses like a common laborer? Who thinks of no one but herself?”
“I do what I like.”
“We are all very well acquainted with what you do. And don’t. I just hope you realize how fortunate you are.”
“Meaning?”
“Nothing.”
“We’ve gone this far. Tell me what you really think.”
“Nothing. Just that you will never know what it is like to struggle.”
“Because of my father’s money. Well, let me tell you something, I never asked for it. I’d much rather he was alive. And I never once said I wasn’t going to do something with my life. I might like to be a teacher or a San Francisco cabaret singer or a policeman in New York City or whatever I decide.”
“Silly little girl. Who will care for your children? Your husband?”
“This little girl has seen more of the world than most folks my age.”
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