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| About the Book |
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| read an excerpt |
Our journey began by flatboat, crossing the Mississippi from St. Louis to docks near Cahokia. From there, we’d head toward Louisville, where we’d enjoy sweet respite with Jonathan, Sarah, and family.
Built for carrying people and freight,
flatboats offered reliable transport down the Ohio in spring and summer and
back and forth on the Mississippi and downriver from St. Louis to New Orleans.
Still, I always eyed them with a certain trepidation, making sure I was safe in
the central part of the boat since they had no guardrails.
Halfway across the river, a cold crosswind blew up, so Chloe and I stayed inside the wagon, wrapped up tight together in a blanket while the men readied the mules and horses for debarking. Once off the boats, they’d be hitched to the wagons again.
As we approached Illinois, people gathered on the port side, their weight causing the craft to scour the river bottom along shoals near the docks. Chloe and I laughed, feeling the slight bumps accompanied by a scraping sound emanating from the shallow bottom.
Suddenly, a male voice from the top of the small shelter bellowed, “Slave overboard!”
Next came Scott’s voice, shouting to Chloe, “Mama, you got Rachel?”
Chloe’s mouth dropped as she tossed aside our blanket and leaped from the buckboard. “No!” she cried, her voice wavering. “I figured she was with you . . .”
I jumped down from the wagon too. Even more passengers had gathered portside, eager to get off, with yet more folk queued up on the Illinois dock, standing at the edge of the waterfront, some of them pointing down into the water.
Dread gripped me.
The same crewman who had first sounded the alarm shouted again, “Who’s missing a slave girl?”
Scott and Chloe were fighting their way through the crowd, not making much headway. Most of the flatboat passengers saw that they were slaves and pushed them back, ignoring their distress.
Chloe shrieked, out of her mind with terror, “Where is she? Rachel, where you at?”
To my horror, I saw Will near the edge of the boat, lifting his arm in the midst of all the people, calling, “She’s mine, sir.” Gradually, the crowd parted, allowing him through.
Scott and Chloe were still caught up behind crowds of passengers, who were only now surging forward toward the gangplank. Bless Chloe, she was panicked, screaming and keening. “Master Clark, is it Rachel? Please, Lord Jesus, don’t let it be Rachel!” She glanced back, searching for me, eyes brimming with tears. “Our girl don’t swim none, Missus Julia…”
Little Lewis was alone in the wagon, but he’d been asleep, so I sprang forward to comfort my friend. A fear I’d never known gripped my heart with steely fingers, making my breath shallow: a mother’s distress at the thought of losing a child, especially in such a chilling and unforeseen manner. My heart beat in rhythm with Chloe’s—both of us mothers and facing a terror for which no parent was ever prepared.
Scott was finally at the edge of the flatboat with Will, and the sound that emanated from his throat was something from a nightmare. A moan, long and loud, pierced like that of a banshee over the confusion, carrying over people talking, stepping off the boat, greeting loved ones, calling for their bags, going about their business…
How was it that life was carrying on in such normalcy when a little child was lost?
As tall as he was, I saw Will’s red head bobbing through the crowd toward us. Oh God—he was carrying her—Rachel! Drenched and dripping from her watery fate, she was limp as the cotton rag doll I remember Harriet losing as a child, left outside during a summer storm and hanging over the wrought-iron rail on our back stairwell, soaked and drooping.
She was also still as stone, blood dripping from her head, staining Will’s cotton shirt. I willed her to lift her head and say something—anything. Still holding Chloe, I shielded her as long as I could, but when she finally saw her daughter, her scream clawed its way up my spine. She ran to Will, and I stood helpless, my emotion spilling its way down my face.
Chloe snatched Rachel from Will, lowering her to the deck and holding the girl’s bloody head in her hands, swaying from side to side.
Will crossed over to where I stood. “She must have gotten too near the edge. My best guess is that she lost her balance when we hit ground back there.”
“She couldn’t swim,” I murmured. “Will—is she—”
My answer came when arms encircled me, and it wasn’t the one I wanted. “I need to know. Did she drown?”
His arms gripped me tighter as he spoke softly in my ear. “The boat was docking and crushed her head when she was flailing about. Let’s pray she went quickly.”
Oh, Sweet Lord…
“Nooo—” Chloe was on her knees, rocking Rachel’s lifeless form in her arms, her protest a guttural screech at the top of her lungs. Scott stood sobbing behind her, wiping both eyes with his worn, patched shirtsleeves and shaking his head in disbelief.
At the sound of their grief, other travelers crossing the gangplank to Illinois stared back at our group, heading on their way and leaving us in our shock.
Will released me, turning and walking slowly toward the wagon.
“Where are you going?” I cried, balling my fists. My tone turned accusatory and bitter. “How can you just leave us to hitch the mules when this has just happened?”
He stopped in his tracks and turned about to face me, patiently and quietly answering, “Julia, I’m going to the wagon to find something to wrap her in.”
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