Daniel Webster Jackson & The Wrongway Railroad

by Robert Walker

  "All right?" stormed the sheriff. "It won't go well for us if we put into St. Louis with smallpox aboard. And if we sell them Blacks knowing what we know, they'd skin us alive if it ever come out. I'm not talking about being skinned by the law, Lem. I'm talking about them traders in St. Louis. They can be a mean lot if they think they've been swindled."

  "Maybe we should go farther down, maybe to Vicksburg? We could get eighteen hundred for a big fellow, a good sugarcane cutter."

  "You mean like the one you shot?" said the sheriff angrily.

  "That wasn't my fault, Henry."

  "Fool," sheriff Brisbane answered, leaving Daniel unsure who was the fool, Lem or the man he'd shot. "Can't go to Vicksburg. We got to unload as soon as possible. If there's sickness on board, I don't want to go another mile with it than I have to. We sell 'em in St. Louis and we light out, for good. This game's getting too old, anyway. Nothing to keep me in Hannibal anymore. I won't be sheriff long, now that Colonel Halverston's been voted in as judge."

  Daniel grinned at this new information.

  "What'll we do?"

  "I got a scheme hatching," said the sheriff, who began telling Lem about some place in New Orleans he wanted to visit first.

  From Daniel's crouched position at the window, he could see the key ring and key to the slaves, cabin on the table between the men. Somehow, he told himself, I must get the keys.

  Sheriff Brisbane was now holding up George's tan buckskin pouch over his head, waving it. His eyes were red from the whiskey. "We can live off these for some time, Lem. black man with enough money'd pay a hundred dollars for a set of freeman's papers."

  "A hundred dollars?"

  "Sure."

  "No slave's got that much."

  "I ain't never met a slave who didn't have something. Maybe it's a piece of jewelry, a watch or a ring, but they'll always have something. Enough of 'em get together to help one get free, and they'll come up with more than you'd believe."

  Lem nodded.

  The sheriff's talk jumped from the freedom papers to the Missouri Compromise, and the next minute he spoke about the Fugitive Slave Law, saying that it helped out his business a great deal. He said, "One day, I'm gonna write a letter to Congress and tell them it was a good law." As he talked, both men drank more. Lem looked as if he'd soon fall asleep. Listening to Sheriff Brisbane, Daniel also began to doze.

  Dawn had yet to break when a terrible noise, coupled with a frightening and powerful jolt, rocked the flatboat. As he toppled over and rolled forward toward the bow, Daniel heard the people in the cabin shouting. So did Sheriff Brisbane and Lem. They'd run aground. The rudder had done it's job.

  Lem and Sheriff Brisbane ran to the port side, and were leaning way over, inspecting the damage; the sheriff was swearing at Lem.

  Daniel climbed quickly through the window of the sheriff's cabin and grabbed both the keys and the freedom papers. He could hear the sheriff shouting "Get to the rudder. See if there's any damage aft!"

  In a second, Daniel heard Lem's report. "My rifle's been taken, sheriff! And someone's set the rudder hard to port! We've been taken!"

  The sheriff peered into the trees. Everything echoed stillness. "Who?" he shouted. "How?"

  "One of them smart Blacks!" Lem answered. Had to be one of them!"

  "How? How, Lem?"

  "I don't know how! Climbed up the chimney stack, I reckon."

  "One of them's got your gun, then."

  The two men looked at one another.

  Daniel felt worried. It wasn't going right. The sheriff and Lem wandered back for their extra guns, and the keys. Then they'd open the slaves' cabin door and start shooting. He tried to think. The sheriff and Lem were now hotly arguing.

  "Daft! Fool!" The sheriff shouted. "Wait till I tell the boys back in Hannibal how you run a barge up onto an island!"

  "It's a sandbar, sheriff."

  "You got eyes! This here's Forgotten Landing! We aren't no more'n a hundred miles south of Hannibal when we should be outside of St. Louis by now! And here we sit!"

  "Somebody tied her hard to port, I tell you."

  Forgotten Landing! Daniel was amazed. They hadn't come as far as it had felt the last two days. They must have drifted in circles most of the night. Daniel tossed the papers and the keys through the window and climbed through himself, just in time. Sam. sitting below the window outside, took the keys in his teeth and ran around to the other side of the flatboat. Daniel, holding tightly to the freedom papers, followed the dog. I must unlock the door and get help as soon as possible, Daniel thought. But just as they arrived at the door and Daniel tugged the keys out of Sam's mouth, Lem and the sheriff came rushing up after them.

  "It's that boy! That boy of the judge's!" shouted the sheriff.

  Lem leveled his pistol, readying to take a careful shot at Daniel, who stared wide-eyed at him for only an instant. Samuel lunged at Lem, knocking him overboard. Both man and dog went under.

  "You!" shouted Sheriff Brisbane, stepping closer. Daniel saw that Brisbane had no gun. "Been you all along, hasn't it? Always had bad luck, but never like I've had since the day the judge made you a spy! Judge was smarter than I give him credit for. He was onto me, wasn't he? He was being clever, telling me you would be spying on Halverston when all the time you colored yourself up like a slave to spy on me! It was you I threw overboard last night! It was you with the smallpox! I'll kill you for this!"

  Brisbane lunged at Daniel, who turned and raced around the flatboat. He easily stayed ahead of the sheriff, until he ran full circle, back before the locked cabin door again. As he turned the keys, he saw the sheriff point a revolver at him. He heard the revolver being cocked just as he opened the door. As he dived inside the cabin, he heard the report of the revolver, and the squawking of a frightened flock of birds.

  Daniel felt himself being lifted up by Daisy's strong hands. Sissy and others were crying. Over Daisy's asking him if he were all right, Daniel heard George shout, "Quick, Daniel! Get these chains off me! Ichabod, you give me that long gun, now!" The command in his voice was so strong, no one dared object.

  Daniel scrambled to his feet, fumbling for the key that might unlock George from his chains, while Ichabod rushed the rifle to George. At the same time, they all heard the sheriff just outside the door, angry and bellowing for his single deputy. "Lem! Lem! Where in tarnation you got off to?"

  Daniel's eyes fell on Eben's dead body lying in one corner. Grady and his other friends were holding silent vigil. But Daniel was too busy fussing with the keys to think about this tragedy now; instead, he located the skeleton key that set George's hands free, and the big man's hands went directly to the long gun Ichabod held out to him. The chains, still locked to one wrist, clanged against the cabin walls as George stood and grabbed hold of the gun. At the same time, Ichabod warned, "I ain't so sure this the right step, George. You kill a white man, any white man, no matter what he's done, and they'll hang you for sure, freedom papers or not."

  "You want to tell that to Eben over there, Mr. Ichabod?" replied George.

  Sheriff Brisbane burst through the door, his revolver pointed straight at George, cocked and threatening. Meanwhile, George had drawn a bead on the sheriff as well. Now the two men held one another at bay, while everyone else flattened against the walls, praying the gunfire would not richochet.

  A little smile curled across the sheriff s face as he said, "Looks like we got ourselves a Mexican standoff, Mr. Freedom Papers man."

  "Don't bet on a no-account black man knowing what you mean, Massa Brisbane, sir!" George mocked. "Seeing as how I ain't never been to Mexico, I might just pull this trigger anytime. Like now!"

  A shot rang out and the sheriff screamed in pain, his gun now sailing through the air. George's bullet had shattered a bone in his leg. The pain sent Brisbane to the floor, agony coursing through him. When Brisbane fell, Daniel, Grady and several of the other slaves sat on him.

  George cried out, "Now, let's find out what become of the other o
ne."

  "And Sam," Daniel added.

  "My dog's out there? I thought I heard Sam," replied George.

  "Sam's the one knocked Lem over the side, but he fell in with him. Sam saved my life."

  Daisy had rushed to Daniel. "Are you all right, child? You hurt anywhere? We thought you'd done drowned for sure last night. I become so angry with George, I saw red, taking such a fool chance with your life, but he only did what he did trying to keep Eben from getting himself killed."

  Ichabod had grabbed up Brisbane's revolver from where it had fallen, and he tore a second gun, a derringer, from Brisbane's inside coat pocket. Ichabod looked ill-at-ease with a gun in his hand, and having two now, the old man appeared downright queasy. Grady and another of his band, Tom, happily took the guns from the old man.

  "I wasn't hurt none. Just got wet and had to sleep cold. But Sam, he warmed me up good, sleeping against me all night."

  Led by George, the group of slaves began to inch out of the stuffy cabin. George took the pouch of freedom

  papers from Daniel, and attached them to the chain around his own neck. He looked for Sam and Lem. He saw only Sam barking and running amid the trees lining the riverbank, turning from sun to shadow as he sped along. In his teeth, he carried tattered cloth, ripped from Lem's pants, no doubt.

  George quickly surmised the craft's predicament. It had struck an oversized sandbar. Muddy sand held the flatboat in its trap. Now, George opened his arms to Samuel, the dog kicked up water as he raced through the shallows onto the sandbar and leapt onto George's chest. Everyone, save Ichabod, laughed.

  Ichabod waited for the laughter to die down, then he said, "Here we are, people, Daniel says maybe a hundred mile downriver from Hannibal, stuck on a sandbar, a shot- up sheriff tied up in there and howling, a deputy on the loose, and us without no food and no plan."

  Daisy came waltzing out of Sheriff Brisbane's cabin. "There's some food inside here, and if I soup it up, we can stretch it."

  Sissy, hanging on George's arm. asked him, "What're we going to do now?" Everyone looked to George.

  George swept them all in at a glance. "First thing, we're going to get down off this boat and push it back into the Mississippi. Second thing, we're going to turn it northward!"

  Daniel found himself joining in the cheer that rose around him.

  FIFTEEN

  THINK FREEDOM

  The keelboat only made fair time, going against a head wind and a strengthening current that wanted to turn them southward. Rather than fight their way against the rougher waters, they'd taken the boat clear around the sandbar and through the narrow straight, going right along the unused port of Forgotten Landing. The few people there, two old men, a few Indians and their children, waved, amazed to see any traffic on their appearing and disappearing channel. It was difficult to believe that the mainland and newly created island could be attached once more. "Where y'all headed for?" shouted a tall old man who leaned on a cane.

  Daniel climbed atop the cabin roof, cupped his hands, and hollered back, "Hannibal!"

  "Careful of snags! You're in shallow waters!" the other old man returned with a final wave. George's first order was for the women to tend to Brisbane's leg, and his second order was for the men to put the sheriff onto the sandbar. With the sheriff trapped there with a bad leg and no one to rescue him, George figured the keelboat would have a comfortable head start.

  They had moved upriver by hugging shore in the shallows, where the current did not run so much against them. Every able-bodied man and a few women took turns at the long poles and oars. Few grumbled at George's orders. They had all seen the leadership and courage he'd displayed. They had all seen Eben get himself killed.

  When Eben's friends wanted revenge, George had stood firm against killing the sheriff.

  Now Eben's shrouded body lay out on deck, George telling the others that as soon as they put some distance between themselves and Sheriff Brisbane, they'd put to and find a suitable place to bury Eben. They'd run all day, keeping close on the shoreline, often touching overhanging trees and snags in the shallow water. This made the work at the keels and the rudder more difficult. Some argued they ought to be moving out into deeper water, and so when darkness came with the second shift of keel boatmen, George chanced going out from shore into a stronger current. There they had remained safe from snags, sandbars and giant dead limbs.

  After a time, George had the men take the boat to an outcropping of land in the bend, where they tied to some willows. They buried Eben here, with a few psalms to mark his passing, and Ichabod said a prayer. The grave lay so close to the river, beneath a stand of sycamores, that most of the women and all the children who stayed aboard the boat could hear and see everything.

  "Eben woulda loved this place," Grady told the others. Tom agreed.

  "He'll be looking out over the water for every boat that passes now, for all eternity."

  Once again on the river, George called everyone not on a keel or at the rudder to a meeting in the big cabin, which had been opened up to the night air. At the gathering, everyone had a steaming cup of stew, served in a cup fashioned from a gourd. As the group ate vegetable stew with boiled chunks of fish caught from the river, George spoke. "I want you all to understand how proud I am of each and every one of you. You've all shown real grit getting this far on this here Freedom Train Boat."

  A cheer went up.

  George held up his hand to still the crowd. "But...but we still have a long way to go to be truly free."

  "We're on the Freedom Trail!" shouted one woman.

  "The Uner-ground Railroad for real!" shouted another.

  Grady lifted his gourd of soup in a toast, saying, "Eben was right all along. This boat is our ticket to freedom after all. Only wish he was here to see it."

  "We won't officially be free until we reach Mr. Fairfield's, and then you may relax some, 'cause he'll see every one of you on to Canada. Until then, we're still not free to just float past Hannibal tomorrow and right on up the Mississippi without someone's going to stop us."

  Everyone quieted on hearing this. They knew George was right.

  "Chances may be slim," said Tom, "but they be better than we had with the sheriff."

  "Are we going to hang for shooting the sheriff?" asked one woman.

  Ichabod answered her, saying, "No, but what George says is true. Someone, somewhere, be it in Hannibal or north of there, may want to trade with the massa of this here keelboat. Someone's going to want to board us."

  George stood and paced among them. "We've got to put more than our backs into this effort. We gotta use our heads."

  Ichabod agreed. "We need a good plan. George and I have talked it over, and we got to take a day to hold up."

  Grady and Tom came instantly to their feet, Grady asking, "What're you talking about? Hold up?"

  "We got to run north, fast as we can," said Tom.

  "Why we need to hold up?" asked Daisy.

  "You'll all need the time for sitting and thinking and learning," replied Ichabod.

  "Learning what?" asked Grady.

  "Learning exactly who you are, Mr. Ezeekiel Radcliff," replied George going straight to Grady and handing him a piece of paper.

  "My names Grady, sometimes Guthrie...Grady Guthrie Grimes after my massa's name."

  "No." said George, firmly pointing to the paper in his hands, "your name's Radcliff, Ezeekiel Radcliff. Says so on that paper in your hand."

  "That's your freedom papers. Mr. Radcliff," added Ichabod, "your ticket on the Underground Railroad."

  Grady turned to his friends. "Y'all hear that? I got a new name. Says so right here."

  "You still just Grady, Grady," replied Tom. "No piece of paper's going to change that."

  George waved his hands and shook his head, shouting, "No! He is no longer Grady Grimes, and can't think so, ever again. All of you must help one another to take on new names, new identities and a new way of thinking."

  "New way of thinking?" asked Tom
.

  "You got to think like a free man," said Ichabod.

  "You have to climb into the head of this here Ezeekiel Radcliff," George said to Grady, again pointing to the paper in his hand, "and you have to become him!"

  "You, Tom Grimes," shouted Ichabod, handing him a paper. "You ain't Tom Grimes no more. You're Charles Wileford the Third."

  "The Third? I likes that."

  Grady smiled wide, held up the paper and shouted, "Ezeekiel Radcliff, that'd be me, born a free man in Ohio, March 11, 1824."

  "That makes you twenty-nine years of age," George instructed Grady. George pointed to a line on the paper and added, "This is your mother's name, Mattie Lou Willoughby, and your pappy's name is Thaddeus, both residing freeborn in Ohio."

  Grady's face took on a glow of pride. "I got family in Ohio?"

  "You do now."

  Outside a rainstorm began, and the keel boatmen, on orders given them earlier by George, pulled in to shore and tied to. The sound of the rain increased with flashes of lightning and thunder.

  "You got to memorize it all so it come right off your tongue like you growed up with it, son," said Ichabod. "All of you have to take on a new name and history, if you want to make free."

  George added, "And along with your new names, you're going to learn how to act free. You can't think yourselves slaves no more; if'n you do, they'll know it from everything you say and do. You have to think like a free man, not a slave and not a runaway."

  Gady's face fell, and he said, "We still look like slaves, no matter how we change our names. Anybody can tell from the clothes on our backs."

  "You quit thinking yourself a slave, Grady, and your clothes'11 pass for just fine. It's not what's on your back, it's what's on your mind counts."

  "George and me," began Ichabod, "we been studying on the problem. Got some clothes left by the sheriff and some drapes the ladies can refashion, but we'll be needing some additional. Going to find a way. Meantime, you all get to studying on your new names and family histories. Can't have no slipups if anyone boards us."