Race for Freedom (6 page)

“Certainly, certainly. My name’s Hutton. I’d be glad to help.” With a tip of his hat, the doctor passed up the gangplank.

In that moment Libby felt a hand drop on her shoulder.

CHAPTER 5

I
t looks like you two have done a good job,” Captain Norstad said.

“Thank you, sir,” Caleb answered respectfully.

Just then Libby noticed a man and a woman wearing the warm, heavy clothing of immigrants heading toward the
Christina
. A girl about Libby’s age trailed behind.

Not far from the steamboat, the man stopped to stare at the letters on the large wooden box surrounding the paddle wheel. “Yah. The
Christina
. That is what the man said.”

In front of young Martin, the immigrant set down his trunk. “Good day,” he told the clerk. “You go to Minnesota Territory?”

“We leave at four o’clock,” Martin answered.

Digging deep beneath layers of clothing, the man pulled out a money holder. “Franz Meyer,” he said as the clerk started to write. Mr. Meyer nodded toward his wife, then the girl with white-blond hair. “Frau Meyer. Our daughter Elsa.”

Before Mr. Meyer could pay his fare, Libby’s father stepped over to him. “I’m the captain,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we are full.”

“Please, Herr Captain,” Mr. Meyer answered. “Someone told me that you are an honorable man. That the
Christina
is good for—” He waved a hand toward his wife and daughter.

“We try to be good for families,” Captain Norstad answered.

“He said that if I took my family with you, we would be safe from the—” Mr. Meyer paused. As though struggling for the word, he held up his money holder.

Captain Norstad understood. “From the pickpockets and thieves who want to steal everything you have. If we know who they are, we keep them off the
Christina
.”

“Yah.” Mr. Meyer looked pleased that the captain understood. “We need to go to Minnesota Territory. To Red Wing we need to go.”

“I’m sorry,” Captain Norstad answered. “Every room is taken.”

“We want to be on deck,” Mr. Meyer answered. “In any small place we stay. Please, Herr Captain, I need to find good land before it is all gone.”

Captain Norstad sighed. “I want to help you, but we are already crowded.”

Suddenly Mrs. Meyer stepped forward. “Please, Herr Captain. We are not much room. Me.” She pointed to herself, then to the girl Libby’s age. “Elsa.”

Elsa looked thin enough to vanish at any moment. Beneath her blue eyes were light gray shadows, as if charcoal had smudged her pale skin. As Libby stared at the girl, their gaze met. When Elsa smiled, her face lit up.

“I don’t want to load the boat so it isn’t safe,” Captain Norstad said.

“We have not much luggage.” Mr. Meyer looked toward the trunk on the ground. His wife held out a large cloth suitcase with handles, and Elsa showed a smaller carpetbag.

Oh, take them, Pa
! Libby wanted to say. Just looking at Elsa, she felt sure they could be friends. But Libby knew better than to interfere with her father’s business.

For a moment Captain Norstad thought about it. Finally he nodded. “Welcome aboard, Herr Meyer. Frau Meyer. Elsa. We trust you will have a good trip with us.”

A grateful smile crossed Mr. Meyer’s face. As if to add his welcome, Samson edged forward. Palm up, Elsa held out her hand, and Samson sniffed it.

Afraid that he would jump up, Libby laid her hand on his neck and twisted her fingers in his long hair.

“He is your hound?” Elsa asked.

“My dog,” Libby answered. “His name is Samson.”

“Samson,” Elsa repeated, her accent strong. “Good dog.”

As Samson edged closer, Elsa petted his head. Samson’s great open mouth seemed to grin his approval.

Elsa laughed. “You want to be friends, yah?”

Samson’s soft woof seemed like a yes, and Elsa laughed again.

“I want to work for our passage,” Mr. Meyer told Captain Norstad.

Libby’s father nodded, and the clerk entered the names of the family on his list. When money changed hands, Libby knew it was less than the usual fare because Mr. Meyer would help with carrying wood whenever the steamboat took on fuel.

“
Danke
,” he said at last. His “thank you” sounded like
dunk-uh
. After shaking the captain’s hand, Mr. Meyer once more balanced his trunk on his shoulder.

As the Meyer family walked up the gangplank, Samson started after them. When Libby called to him, Samson stopped. Yet he followed them with his eyes until they disappeared around the cargo on deck.

“No more passengers,” the captain told the mud clerk. “Not another person. Not one more piece of freight.”

“There are still a few open spaces on deck, sir,” Martin answered. “Most captains take on everyone they can get.”

“And the immigrant families are so crowded that they lose their children overboard.”

“Not if their parents watch them, sir. If they—”

The captain’s look stopped him midsentence. “I’ve given my orders,” he said to the clerk. “Do you question them?”

“Yes, sir,” Martin said quickly. “I mean, no, sir.”

“Then we understand each other.” When Captain Norstad started up the gangplank, even Libby stepped out of his way.

As though trying to make amends, the young clerk bowed toward Libby. Caleb stepped between them.

“I need to check the passenger list.” Reaching out, Caleb took the list as if there could be no doubt about his authority to see it. Quickly he turned the pages, scanning the long list of deck passengers.

If Riggs had come on board, Caleb gave no hint that he knew. Finally he returned the list. As he and Libby walked up the gangplank, Caleb spoke low in her ear. “I’ll take a look at the first-class passenger list too.”

“Then I’ll find Elsa.” Libby was eager to make friends.

The main deck was crowded with freight and the stacks of wood that fueled the steamboat. Deckhands had kept open a path for first-class passengers to reach the stairway to the deck above. Except for that path, there were only narrow spaces for moving around. As Libby searched out walkways, Samson followed close behind.

Suddenly one of the deckhands bumped into Libby. “Watch where you’re going!” he said roughly, then stopped. “Sorry, Miss,” he mumbled quickly, as if realizing she was the captain’s daughter.

Just then Samson passed Libby and squeezed through narrow places she barely saw. Following the dog, she watched for Elsa and her family.

Deck passengers had chosen their own living areas, settling down wherever they could find a few feet between barrels and crates. On most steamboats, deckers slept wherever they could. Wanting to provide a better place for them, Captain Norstad had taken the unusual step of building bunks in a small room on the main deck.

When Libby checked there, she found that all of the bunks had been taken by the first deckers on the
Christina
. Before long, Samson brought Libby to the Meyer family. Along one side, near the engine room and close to the edge of the deck, Mr. Meyer had made a place for his family.

Mrs. Meyer sat on top of the trunk with the frightened cow owned by another passenger directly behind her. As Libby watched, the cow swished her tail in Mrs. Meyer’s face.

Mr. Meyer had climbed onto a nearby pile of wood. Careful not to bump his head, he lay in the narrow space between the top of the wood and the underside of the deck above. As soon as the paddle wheels started, he would feel the vibration in every bone of his body.

Even worse, the family was close to the noise and danger of the steam engines and boilers. If the boilers exploded, it was usually the deckers who received terrible injuries or died.

But it was Elsa who worried Libby most. Sitting on the carpetbags, she was only a few feet from the edge of the deck and a foot or two above the river. No railing protected her.

Seeing Elsa, Libby gulped. It was exactly what Pa didn’t want. It would take only one jolt of the steamboat, and Elsa would tumble into the cold water, never to be seen again.

What if the
Christina
strikes a sand bar or hits a stump
?
Libby didn’t want to think about it. Yet there was something she knew.
If Pa hadn’t let them on, they would have found an even more crowded boat
.

Libby tried to push aside her scared feelings. “Please,” she said to Elsa. “When we start, come away from the edge.”

“The edge?” Clearly the other girl did not know what that meant.

“The water,” Libby said. She pointed down. “You fall in.”

This time Elsa understood. Picking up the carpetbags, she pointed to a narrow place on the trunk next to her mother.

“There it is safe?” she asked.

Libby nodded.

“Then you sit there,” Elsa said. “And I sit on the trunk when you go.”

As Libby squeezed onto the trunk, Elsa again sat down next to the water.

“Where are you from?” Libby asked, though she thought she knew.

Elsa smiled shyly, as if wanting Libby to become a friend. “My family and I, we come from Germany.”

“You speak English well,” Libby said.

Elsa nodded. “Before we come, we practice. Every day we have lessons on ship.”

As the girls talked together, Mrs. Meyer stood up. When she motioned to her, Libby also stood up.

Opening the trunk, Mrs. Meyer took out a plate, then a jar of herring. Like other families who were deckers, the Meyers had brought along their own food. Watching them, Libby wondered how they would make their food last long enough for the journey.

Using the trunk as a table, Mrs. Meyer forked four small pieces of herring onto the plate. When she and Libby took their places on the trunk again, Mr. Meyer slid down from the woodpile and stood next to Libby.

“We celebrate,” he said. “We are on the boat to Minnesota Territory. God has brought us this far.”

When he bowed his head to pray, the others did also. After blessing the food, Mr. Meyer offered the plate to Libby. “You like herring too?”

“Yes, I do,” Libby said. Then she drew back.
I can’t take what little food they have
.

“Thank you,” she answered quickly. “You are very kind, but I just ate my dinner.” Instead of taking a piece, she passed the plate to Mrs. Meyer.

As if enjoying every bite, each member of the family ate slowly. When they finished, the one small piece of herring that Libby did not eat remained on the plate. Carefully Mrs. Meyer forked it back into the jar.