Mysterious Signal (19 page)

“We watched for him all the way here,” Caleb said. “With all the changes of trains we didn’t catch a glimpse of him. But he’s always known how to find Libby’s pa.”

Jordan guessed the rest of it. “So Dexter could have beat us here. He could have slipped on board and hid himself away from Captain Norstad. If he did, he’s waiting to pounce.”

“With three hundred people on the boat it wouldn’t be hard to hide,” Caleb said. “Dexter might have another man with him.” Caleb described the man who sold chances on the train from Springfield and probably helped Dexter escape from jail.

“We has to outsmart them.” Jordan looked sideways at Libby, then corrected himself. “I mean we
have
to outsmart them.” In no time at all, Jordan would sound just as fine as the great speaker Frederick Douglass.

“Libby,” Peter asked when they started to go their different ways. “Could Samson sleep in my room tonight?”

Libby stared at him. Peter knew that Pa bought Samson for her protection, that the dog always slept outside her door. But all through Jordan’s story and their talk about Dexter, Peter had sat in silence, unable to read the slate in the darkness.
Now Libby remembered that Peter understood Dexter’s evil thoughts better than any of them. Why else would Peter want that huge dog inside the small room that he and Caleb shared?

Sick at heart, Libby looked into Peter’s eyes. Jordan and Peter would be the first ones Dexter looked for. He had threatened Peter with one thing.
“I’ll get even with you if I have to follow you to the end of the earth!”

Libby felt glad she could loan the dog. Leaning down, she put her hand on Samson’s neck and gave him a push toward Peter. “Take Samson with you. He’ll like that.”

She spoke without thinking, but Peter understood.

You’ll like it too
, Libby thought when she saw his relief.

CHAPTER 15

S
ometime in the dark hours of the night, Libby woke to footsteps outside her room. In those first half-asleep moments she thought it strange. Many of the people with rooms on the texas worked for the
Christina
. At night they walked quietly, trying not to waken the others.

Then, as if jerked out of sleep, Libby was fully awake. The footsteps came from the hurricane deck, just a few feet below the narrow walkway surrounding the texas. Whoever walked there was going around and around, from the bow of the
Christina
to the stern, then to the bow again. Each time the person circled the deck, they passed Libby’s small room twice.

Now she heard the rhythm. He walked with a heavy thud, as if his boots had higher heels than most. The footsteps moved away, then returned to pass close again.
Clump. Clump. Clump
.

At first Libby’s fear started as a tiny wondering.
Can it be?

Then as she listened more, Libby knew. The footsteps were the same as those she heard outside Annika’s house.
Dexter’s friend the gambler! Is he also the man who helped Dexter escape from jail? And is he a forger too? Someone who printed counterfeit money, then used others to pass it on?

Trying to keep her thoughts from the footsteps, Libby worked it out in her mind. What other explanation could there be for all the counterfeit money in Bloomington? Yes, the man could have gambled to make change, to get counterfeit bills into circulation. But did he also have his own people who spread the money around?

No longer could Libby push her frightened feelings away. With a door on either side of her small room, she felt surrounded. Held by fear, she listened.
Clump. Clump. Clump
.

Filled with panic, Libby grabbed Annika’s safe quilt and wrapped it around her. In spite of the warm night, she pulled it over her head.

Safe
. The word echoed in Libby’s thoughts, reminding her of the runaway slave hiding in the cargo area.
I told Sadie she’d be safe. I thought that here on Pa’s boat, I’d be safe
.

Instead, the footsteps filled her with terror. Whoever the man was, he and Dexter worked together. Of that one thing Libby was sure.

I asked You to keep me safe, God. I thought You’d hear my prayer, that You’d protect me. I thought You’d keep scary things away from me
.

As the footsteps circled around the back end of the texas and started her way again, Libby pulled the quilt aside to listen. Closer. Closer. Closer the footsteps came. Then they stopped right outside her door.

For what seemed an eternity Libby listened.
Oh, Pa!
she wanted to cry out. She could think of only one thing—wanting to be with her father.

Just one wall separated Libby’s room from her father’s cabin, but there was no door between. Libby felt afraid to step
out on the deck and race to his cabin. The footsteps held her prisoner.

Libby hardly dared breathe. Here, as close as one room away, she could not call out for her earthly father. But her heavenly Father—

In the silence, hearing no movement at all, Libby remembered her prayers.
Lord, I asked You to keep me safe. Safe from what Auntie says and does. Safe from Dexter and his friend. I thought You’d keep me safe from anything bad happening to me
.

Stiff with fear, Libby clutched the quilt around her.
Jesus, where are You? Why aren’t You taking care of me?

There in the dark, curled in a ball in the middle of her bed, Libby could think of only one word—the name of Jesus. As she repeated His name over and over, something within Libby changed.

As if she had just memorized the words from Annika’s Bible, they came to her. “I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I will not be moved.”

If I set the Lord before me, I will not be shaken!

Slowly Libby loosened the quilt. Outwardly nothing had changed, but inside Libby, everything was different.

In the next moment the man outside the door shifted his feet. After a time he started away.
Clump. Clump. Clump
. As Libby listened, the thud of heavy steps moved toward the stairs, then down to the boiler deck. For three or four minutes Libby listened, waiting to be sure he was gone.

Gathering the safe quilt around her, Libby slipped out of her bed. Without a sound she opened the door, looked both ways, and fled to her father’s cabin.

When Pa swung wide his door, Libby knew she had
wakened him. After only a minute of listening to her, Pa asked, “Is the man still around?”

Libby shook her head. “I heard him leave. He went down the stairs to the boiler deck.”

“Where he should be,” Pa said. “That is, if he’s a first-class passenger. Could you hear him walking around there?”

Again Libby shook her head, but Pa was already pulling on his captain’s coat. “I’ll take a look. Stay here till I come back.”

When her father left, Libby kept the quilt around her. Huddled inside its warmth she listened. Finally Pa returned. He had found no sign of the man Libby described. “Why don’t you stay here the rest of the night?” Pa asked.

“And tomorrow night too?”

“As long as you like. I hope we’ll have this problem solved soon. But let’s have a signal to rap on the wall between us.”

“Two knocks, a space, two more knocks for
Come quick!
” Libby said.

Pa smiled. “And three knocks for
I love you, Libby!
”

As Pa sat down in his big rocking chair, Libby pulled up a footstool and sat down beside him. For a few minutes Pa rocked back and forth. Finally he spoke. “Libby, I don’t like having you get caught in something so frightening. If this man is a friend of Dexter’s, it goes back to one thing. The choices I make affect you.”

As clearly as if it were yesterday, Libby remembered Pa standing up against Dexter and the man’s threat to get even. Now, though she still felt scared, there was something Libby knew. “Pa, I don’t want you to be any other way. I’m proud of you and what you stand for.”

Reaching out, Pa hugged her. As he talked, he stroked
Libby’s hair. “Sooner or later, all of us are put in a place where we have to decide what to do. We choose what is right, or we choose what is wrong.”

“That’s where the trouble begins.” Libby was starting to catch on. “Once I choose to do what is right, I need to stand up for what I believe.”

Pa’s smile was slow and gentle. “You’re growing up, Libby. You’re learning to stand for something yourself.”

Again he rocked without speaking, then asked, “Libby, did you notice what was going on tonight?”

Turning on her stool, Libby kept her gaze on Pa’s face as she spoke. “I watched the men loading donnage and fuel—men I haven’t seen before. They aren’t our rousters or deckhands. And they don’t work on shore because they stayed on the
Christina
.”

Pa’s gaze was steady, and no change of expression gave away his thoughts. It reminded Libby of the way Caleb hid his feelings when something involved the safety of a fugitive slave. Then Libby remembered.

“Pa, I helped a woman come on board. She’s going to have a baby. Maybe even tonight.”

Pa’s proud smile broke the tension both of them felt. “The owner of that sawmill, John Van Doorn, is a close friend of mine,” Pa said. “When runaway slaves started swimming across the river, his sawmill was right in their path. John once told me that because of where he was located, he had to make a choice. Would he ignore what he believed? Or would he hide the outcasts? If he helped runaway slaves, he would be persecuted as an abolitionist, a man who wanted to get rid of slavery.”

“It’s not fun having someone call you a name,” Libby said.

“John knew that,” Pa said. “So he asked the Lord what to do. When the Lord showed him, he did it. For years he’s helped fugitives.”

“Has God protected him?” Libby remembered her fear again.

“John doesn’t do anything foolish. He must be very careful, or he wouldn’t have lasted so long in this business. Yes, the Lord has given him protection. But I think John knows something I needed to learn. Being safe isn’t having everything go right. What counts is knowing God’s peace, even when life is hard.”

Libby smiled. Yesterday she wouldn’t have understood Pa’s words. Now she did.