First Chapter - First Paragraph

Every Tuesday, Bibliophile by the Sea participates in First Chapter - First Paragraph: Tuesday Intros, and today I am too.

I choose my current read, A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil Warby Robert Hicks:

"I woke sick to the sound of an envelope slid under my door. Outside the cotton presses clunked and smoked, the roustabouts shouted oaths at the screwmen, the river slipped past silent and heavy with mud and men and their craft. I listened for the footsteps of the messenger but heard none. They'd begun to burn the sugar down by the molasses sheds, where the Creoles I'd bested at faro the night before would now be standing overseeing the sugar niggers, nursing their own illnesses of indulgence, and finding themselves unable to do anything but mutter oui, oui and call for more coffee. San Domingue rum is a hell of a thing, I should say, Oh Lord, my head. I wondered if M., lying next to me, could hear the bones in my head creaking when I breathed. The sound in my head was loud, like the sound of two ships scraping by each other at the quay. It must have made the sound. Or maybe that squeaking was me. Quite possible."

To participate in First Chapter ~ First Paragraph, visit Diane's blog at Bibliophile By the Sea.