Mysterious Signal (7 page)

CHAPTER 6

A
gain Dexter’s gaze slid past Libby. With two quick steps he was on the depot platform, moving away from them.

Peter handed Mr. Lincoln his hat and seemed to shrink behind the tall man. Looking into Peter’s eyes, Mr. Lincoln thanked him. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

“He’s fine,” Libby said quickly. “He’s sorry he bumped into you.”

For a moment Libby looked into the deep eyes.
Could I tell Mr. Lincoln what’s wrong? He seems like a person who would help
.

Just then the conductor sang out, “All a-boooard!”

Mr. Lincoln tipped his hat. “Sorry. I’m on my way to Chicago. I need to get back on that train.” With great long strides he was off.

Breaking into a run, Libby started after him. When Mr. Lincoln reached the conductor, she stopped.
I’d make him miss the train. Someone like that must have important business
.

The instant that Libby turned back, Peter took off. This time he ran lightly across the rest of the platform. There he jumped down on the grass and raced toward the end of the train.

Afraid she would lose him, Libby took off after Peter. Without a backward look he crossed the cinders, then the tracks. Even then he didn’t slow down, but Libby kept him in sight.

When the train whistled its departure, Peter ran even faster. As the train chugged out of the station, he crouched down behind a small building at the back of someone’s yard. Libby caught up and knelt on the ground beside him.

For a minute neither of them could speak. When Libby caught her breath, she peeked around one side of the building. Now that the train was gone, she had a clear view across the tracks. Dexter stood next to the depot, looking one direction, then another.

Libby ducked back behind the building. “Peter!” she whispered, then remembered to reach for his sleeve. Libby pointed to the station.

Still kneeling, Peter peered around the building. Ducking back again, he muttered, “I don’t like the looks of that.”

Libby thought that he meant Dexter. When she took another look, she felt an extra jolt of surprise. The man with the wide mustache stood next to Dexter, talking as if they were old friends. The gambler they had seen on the train!

Shrugging her shoulders, Libby raised her hands, palms up, to ask, “Who is he?”

“Probably the person who helped Dexter break out of jail. He has all kinds of friends like that.”

“Friends!” Libby dreaded the thought. The more she learned about Dexter, the more she disliked the way he lived. Taking Peter’s slate, she wrote, “Friends who steal?”

Peter nodded. “Swindlers, forgers, counterfeiters. You wouldn’t like his friends, Libby.”

For a time they waited, kneeling there on the ground, peering out now and then from behind the building. At last the two men turned toward the door of the depot. When they went into the building, Libby and Peter stood up.

Walking quickly, they headed away from the depot, as Caleb had told them to do. The moment Libby felt it was safe, she signed Jordan’s name.

Peter understood her question. “Dexter and his friend went into the depot,” he said. “Jordan and his daddy would be in the freight room. Dexter won’t go there.”

“How do you know?” Libby signed.

Peter grinned. “He thinks it’s beneath him. He wouldn’t mix with the freight unless he thought there was a good reason. Then he’d try to send someone else.”

“You?” Libby pointed.

“Me.” Peter was still walking fast. “Haven’t you noticed how Dexter dresses? How he acts? In public he always pretends he’s something he isn’t—a big, important businessman.”

If only …
Again the thought leaped into Libby’s mind.
If only we could find a policeman. If we could take him to the depot while Dexter is still there
.

For a minute Libby rolled the idea around in her mind.
But what could we say?
Caleb and Peter hadn’t been able to convince the conductor.

Even so, the idea wouldn’t go away. Two blocks later, when it was time to circle around, Libby took Peter’s slate. “Let’s find the city marshal,” she wrote. “Let’s tell him Dexter is here.”

The moment Peter read her words, fear leaped back into his eyes. Just the same, he nodded.

From a woman walking along the street, Libby asked directions
to the police station. When they got there, the marshal was on duty somewhere else in the city.

Leaving the station, Libby and Peter tried to make up for lost time. Half running, half walking, they hurried to meet Caleb. Even from a block away, Libby could see him.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. Caleb would not be standing in the open if he had anything to hide.

When they reached him, Caleb signed Jordan and Micah’s names, then wrote on the slate. “They aren’t here yet.”

“So what do we do?” Libby asked.

“We wait,” Caleb said. And wait they did.

At the Junction, the city also called North Bloomington, someone had planted thousands of trees. On that hot, sticky day Libby looked for trees large enough to offer shade. She and Peter stayed in a park-like area that surrounded a large house on a rise of land. From there they could see across the tracks to where Caleb sat with his back against the wall of the depot. Nearby was the high platform used for loading freight.

As Libby watched, she grew more and more uneasy. To her way of thinking, there were too many men milling around the depot. With no train in sight, why were they there? Could one or more of them be someone hoping to collect a big reward by capturing a runaway slave?

Then as Libby looked far down a dirt road, she saw a cloud of dust growing larger. When the wagon drew closer, she recognized the driver—the Underground Railroad conductor from Springfield.

At first Libby felt excited. Then she felt scared. Glancing toward Peter, she saw that he, too, was watching the driver.

As the free black man drew still closer, he glanced toward
the depot. Instead of coming straight on, he turned his horses at the next corner and disappeared.

“He’s worried too,” Libby wrote on the slate. “He sees the men near Caleb.”

As the afternoon stretched out, the hours grew long and the temperature kept rising. Finally the men seemed to grow tired of hanging around the depot and walked off in different directions. A long time later Libby saw the wagon from Springfield again.

The moment it appeared, Caleb stood up. At the edge of the platform he sat down and let his feet dangle over the edge. This time the Underground Railroad conductor drove up to the depot. There he directed his horses back toward the platform.

When the wagon stopped, the conductor jumped to the ground and walked around to the end. After a quick look around, he bent down. A moment later Jordan and Micah Parker slipped out from their hiding place in the false bottom beneath the bed of the wagon. As if helping the conductor, Micah started lifting boxes from the wagon to the platform.

Again Caleb stood up. When he walked away from the depot, Jordan and Micah followed at a distance. Libby and Peter also followed Caleb at a distance. Two blocks away, out of sight from the train depot, they all drew together.

Ah!
thought Libby.
Jordan and his daddy will get the money to Chicago after all!

But now they faced a new problem. Walking as if they all belonged together, Libby, Caleb, and Peter went first, with Jordan and Micah Parker behind them. They walked as if it didn’t matter that the daylight was still strong, as if it was all right for anyone to see them pass down the street.

“Where do we go?” Libby asked Caleb as he led them toward the neighboring city of Bloomington, where there were more houses than in the newer North Bloomington. Soon Caleb left the busy street on which they walked and cut off to the left. As all of them followed, Libby felt confused.

“Caleb,” she whispered finally. “What are we looking for?”

“A signal,” he answered.

In the five months Libby had known Caleb, he had never given her such a strange answer. Usually strong and fearless, with every move planned out, Caleb always seemed to know where he was going. As an Underground Railroad conductor, Caleb cared deeply about the well-being of every fugitive he helped. He did everything he could to help them pass safely to the next station.

Now Libby had an awful suspicion. “Caleb, do you know where you’re going?”

Caleb rolled his eyes as though he didn’t have the faintest idea, then shook his head.

“Did you ask at the train depot?”

“There wasn’t anyone to ask,” Caleb said. “Something strange was going on. Something I didn’t understand. But I suspect there were slave catchers around. The free blacks just melted off in different directions. The man in the freight room looked nervous, and I knew he was afraid to talk to me. So I just waited.”

Caleb turned to Jordan and his father. “The conductor in Springfield said to look for a signal. What did he mean?”

Jordan grinned. “Could mean most anything. A light. A statue with a rag on the hand.”

“Maybe a song,” Micah said. “A drawing of the North Star.
A signal with the hands. A safe quilt.”

A safe quilt
. Always Libby had thought of a quilt as something soft and warm, something to wrap up in when tired or cold.
What makes a quilt safe?

Not even Caleb seemed to know because he told Jordan and Micah, “Whatever the signal is, you need to find it. I can’t.”

“Keep walking,” Jordan said as if he had suddenly become the leader instead of Caleb.

A block farther on, Jordan left the street. At an opening in a hedge, he passed between houses and disappeared into a backyard.

Remembering Caleb’s words on the train, Libby felt uneasy.
“The more of us there are, the more noticeable we’ll be.” We’re too many people
.

The streets were nearly empty now, with people home eating their evening meal. Just the same, Libby couldn’t help but wonder how many people watched from their windows.
We’ve got to get help soon
.

Micah Parker seemed to feel the same way, for he strolled on, outwardly paying no attention to where his son had gone. Yet he clenched and unclenched his fists, as if growing more nervous by the minute.

Five houses later, he suddenly left them and passed along a short street. Soon he returned, only shaking his head and again walking with them.

With every minute that passed, Libby felt more nervous. It was bad enough to think about Dexter finding Peter, yet if that happened, people would believe Peter was innocent. It was another matter if Dexter or a slave catcher found Jordan and Micah. Lawfully they could be taken back to their owners.

“We’ve lost Jordan,” Caleb said softly, signing the letter
J
to Peter.

“I’ll go back,” Peter said. “If Jordan and I don’t catch up with you, come find us.”

Walking on with only Caleb and Micah Parker, Libby felt foolish.
Looking
, she thought.
Looking for what? Jordan and his daddy are looking for any kind of signal. I can at least spot a quilt
.

In the morning before making up a bed, a woman aired out whatever quilts had been used. Sometimes she hung a quilt over a clothesline, other times over a bush or railing. But now Libby wondered,
Is it too late in the day? Have all the women of Bloomington aired their quilts and put them back on their beds?
Jordan and his daddy still had at least two hours of daylight and no place to go.