American Challenge

by Susan Martins Miller

  “Right on target. See those willow branches in the middle of the river?” He pointed. “Look to the left.”

  “Oh, yes, I see them.”

  “That’s all you’ll be seeing of Dead Man’s Island. The water’s still too high to show the land. But we know it’s there, so the good Lord willing, we won’t be caught unawares.” He turned toward Father. “Get ready to move her to the right.” He shouted orders to Uncle Paul, who stood atop the roof with a tight grip on the sweep.

  George came back around the little house with Jefferson on his heels.

  “Did you say Dead Man’s Island? How many men have been killed there?”

  Trust George to want gory details, Betsy thought.

  “Too many to count,” Marley said. “In flood times there’s not even a leaf to warn travelers about the trees underneath the water. Many a flatboat has been stove in and sunk in a minute’s time. Now, bear hard to the right,” he shouted to Uncle Paul.

  Within a few minutes they had successfully passed the ripples above Dead Man’s Island and swept to the right of it.

  “I like the fast water,” George said. He fashioned a chair out of a crate and stuck his fishing line in the river.

  “Do you have any bait?” Betsy asked.

  “No. But I’m going to dig for worms when we land for the night. Then we’ll have fish for supper tomorrow.”

  Betsy doubted it. She hadn’t known George to be much of a fisherman, even in Boston. He was too impatient to sit still for long.

  At noon the women served a lunch of beans that had cooked all morning over the fire in the little house. The fire kept the shelter warm, and from time to time Betsy disappeared inside to stand by the fireplace. She checked on Silverstreak, who was tied at the stern and who seemed to be taking the riverboat ride in stride.

  The afternoon passed pleasantly enough with the same atmosphere of peace and tranquility. The silence was only broken by the low murmuring of voices on the boat, birds chirping, and an occasional fish near the bank, jumping and splashing. They met three keelboats working their way up the river and called to each one. Betsy never tired of watching the landscape pass by. There were hills, long forest slopes, and meadows. Trees had budded green, and occasionally a redbud and white dogwood brightened the underforest.

  “We’re going to be looking for a place to tie up for the night,” Marley told Betsy late that afternoon. “We’ll be wanting daylight to get our cable secured to shore and not be landing on any sandbars in the process.”

  Was he asking for her opinion? Surely not, but he looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  “See any place on your map that looks good?”

  Betsy consulted her well-thumbed copy of the Navigator.

  “The book says that if we land, we’ll have considerable loss of time and some hazard,” she said.

  “But we’ll all be needing sleep, and if we keep going, we’ll have to keep a good lookout to stay in the current. Your father’s plan is to tie up at night and move on at first light.”

  Betsy bent over her maps. “After we clear the next bend, there’s a little cove.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Marley said. In a louder voice he announced to the others that they were planning to land.

  Around the next curve, there appeared to be a fork in the river, but Betsy knew it was deceptive. A peninsula stuck out far enough that travelers couldn’t see around it as they could see around most islands. The Navigator warned that it had fooled many travelers who thought it was a shortcut to straighten out the river.

  “We can’t go too far in the cove, or it’ll be hard to get out tomorrow,” Marley said. “But we want our cable to reach both shores. If my memory serves me right, there’s a tie-up tree on the left. Look there.”

  So Marley knew all along that this is where we would stay the night, Betsy mused. But he had been nice enough to ask her advice, because she had worked hard on her maps.

  Uncle Paul rowed in the skiff to the shore and secured one cable from the left side of the flatboat. Then he rowed to the shore of the peninsula and secured a cable from the right side of the flatboat.

  “Can I go on the land?” George asked, once the boat was secured for the night. “I need to dig for some worms.”

  “I’ll take George and Betsy ashore,” Marley said. “There’s a creek where we can fill the water buckets with cleaner water than we can pull out of the Ohio.”

  Although she wasn’t keen on being in the skiff with George, Betsy longed to stretch her legs and explore a bit.

  Marley rowed them the short distance to shore and pulled the skiff up on the bank so Betsy could get out without getting wet.

  “Creek’s right down that way, little lady.”

  While Marley showed George where grubs would be hiding under some downed limbs, Betsy carried one water bucket and wandered through the underbrush toward the creek that emptied into the Ohio. She gingerly watched her step on the uneven forest floor.

  She wasn’t fifty feet away from the creek when from the corner of her eye she caught a movement. She lifted her gaze to stare straight into the eyes of an Indian!

  CHAPTER 9

  The Graves

  Betsy froze. The Indian, a boy about her age, stood beside his horse, which was drinking from the creek. He said something that she couldn’t understand. He said it again.

  Betsy finally found her voice and screamed, “Marley!”

  “Marley?” the Indian repeated.

  Betsy twirled when she heard running footsteps behind her.

  Marley burst through the undergrowth with George on his heels. Marley looked at Betsy, then at the Indian. He said something in a different language to the boy, and the boy responded and grinned.

  “It’s okay, Betsy. This is Running Fox. We’re friends.”

  “You know this Indian?” George asked.

  Marley took on a haunted look. His eyes narrowed and a frown line crossed his brow. He breathed out a sigh. “He’s from a settlement not far from here. I know it well.”

  “Then he’s friendly?” Betsy asked.

  “Very friendly,” Marley said. Again he spoke to the boy in his native language. The boy answered and motioned behind him.

  “He’s been looking for a stray,” Marley said.

  Betsy heard a distant mooing that seemed to come from upstream.

  The Indian boy cocked his head as if he’d heard it, too, and immediately mounted his horse. He called something to Marley, and Marley held up a hand in farewell.

  “How do you know him?” George asked as they filled their buckets with creek water.

  Marley hesitated, then said, “At one time I lived with the Indians. Let’s get back to the boat. We need to settle in before dark.”

  Whatever Marley knew about the Indian boy and the settlement, he didn’t want to talk about, Betsy quickly decided, as they made their way back through the undergrowth toward the boat.

  George stopped to pick up a small bag, which Betsy figured held his worms and grubs for fishing. She moved to his other side as far from the bag as she could get.

  They climbed back into the skiff, and Marley rowed them to the flatboat. The evening settled around them. Father offered a prayer of thanks for the safe start on their journey, and they ate with the light from the lantern making soft shadows on the boat.

  After dinner Betsy played a few tunes on the violin until Jefferson howled in competition with her music. Then she put the instrument away and sat near the edge of the boat, listening to the night sounds of the river.

  George plopped down beside her.

  “Why do you think Marley lived with the Indians?” he asked.

  Betsy had been wondering about the same question. “I don’t know. Did your father tell you anything about him?”

  She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but Betsy could see by the way he tilted his head that he was trying to remember.

  “He said they’d looked a long time to find someone like Marley t
o take us down the river. Most of the bargemen are rough, noisy men. They brag and fight each other a lot.” George sounded like that was something he’d have liked to have seen.

  Betsy nodded. “I heard Father tell Mother that Marley was a good Christian man who would fit in with us. He told me that Marley had known tragedy, and I should be nice to him.”

  “You think his tragedy had something to do with the Indians?”

  Betsy shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “How are we going to find out?” George asked.

  “I suppose we have to wait for him to tell us. And we aren’t going to pester him, George. We may never know.”

  “I wonder if my father knows.”

  Again Betsy had been thinking along those same lines, and she wasn’t pleased that she and George had the same thoughts. Still, she would look for an opportunity to talk to Father tomorrow.

  The April night was chilly, and Betsy settled near the fireplace in the enclosed area to sleep. The others crowded in, and she didn’t have room to roll over.

  The next morning at dawn, the men untied the cables and shoved off with their long sweeping oars. They pushed off the river bottom for as long as their oars would reach, then rowed into the main channel of the wide Ohio.

  George immediately tossed out his fishing line. Betsy edged over to her father’s side of the boat.

  “We need to take Silverstreak off the boat tonight if possible and give her some exercise,” Father said.

  “How can we do that?” Betsy asked. “She can’t get in the skiff.”

  Father laughed. “You’re right. Only if there is a landing can we take her off. We’ll have to watch for a ferry landing or a wharf. It may be a day or two. Would you check the Navigator?”

  “Yes, Father. Oh, I’ve been wondering about Marley,” she said as if it were an afterthought. “He’s a very nice man. What tragic thing happened to him? Did it have to do with the Indians?”

  “Turn port side,” Marley called from his position high atop the roof. “Sandbar.”

  Father turned his attention to his long sweep and pushed hard against the bottom of the river. The boat moved toward the left and glided into the stronger current.

  Betsy thought she would have to repeat her question, but Father turned back to her just then.

  “Marley confided in me, and I cannot break his confidence. If you get to know him well, he may tell you of his past tragedy. He’s known sorrow, but he’s overcome it with God’s help. It’s his story to tell, not mine.”

  How could she get to know Marley? It wasn’t in her nature to jabber on like George did at times. It had taken her courage to ask Father about him, and she wasn’t really shy around Father. She knew he loved her, even though she still felt he wished she were a boy, and knowing that he loved her gave her courage to talk to him when she couldn’t talk to others.

  In Pittsburgh Father had told her to be kind to Marley. She could do that. He had charged forward to rescue her from the Indian, even though it turned out she didn’t need saving. He had been open to her few questions about their trip, and he had asked her about her maps. They were developing a solid friendship. She would treat him as she wanted to be treated, just as the Golden Rule said.

  With that decided, Betsy spent the rest of an uneventful day enjoying the spring sunshine and studying the maps to find a place to exercise Silverstreak.

  “Can we get to Steubenville by dark?” she asked Marley when he took a shift on the starboard side where she sat studying the guidebook.

  “We’ve been doing well today. We might make it. Need to go shopping?” he teased.

  Betsy laughed. “No. I need to take Silverstreak for a ride.”

  “Hey, Jefferson needs to run, too,” George piped up. Betsy was unaware he had moved over to her side of the boat.

  “Just keep him away from Silverstreak,” Betsy said.

  “There’s plenty of room for you two to keep a distance,” Marley said, and Betsy studied him. Did he know about her feud with George? They’d been getting along better, but she hadn’t forgotten how he’d embarrassed her when the Pittsburgh settlement travelers were pushing off.

  “There’s a new courthouse at Steubenville,” Marley said. “And a new jail, if we need to lock one of you up.”

  “Are there a lot of criminals there?” George asked.

  “No more than anywhere else, I reckon,” Marley said.

  “Are they Indians?” George asked, and from Marley’s expression, Betsy figured George had asked one too many questions.

  “No,” Marley said. “You have something against Indians?”

  “No. Just wondering,” George said, and he went back to where he had left his fishing line dangling in the water.

  They traveled longer that day, and by dusk they arrived at Steubenville and tied up for the night. Father and Betsy unloaded the mare, but it was Father who rode her through the streets and out into the country.

  “You’d better stay with the women,” Father had said, “since it’s near dark.”

  Although Betsy was allowed to walk the length of the main street with the others, she’d hoped for the freedom of a ride on the horse. The cramped quarters of the boat bothered her. She’d been used to the limitless feel of gazing at the ocean. The river, although wide, was bordered by forests and fields and hills. It was a closed-in feeling. How did people inland adapt to this? The sea called to her, and she wanted to answer.

  The sea reminded her of Richard, and she wondered where he was on this April evening when the first star could now be seen. Was he fighting on a British ship or was he back in Boston? Maybe once they were settled in Cincinnati they would hear from his folks.

  “Let’s get back on board,” Mother said. “We need to fry up those fish, and Father will be back soon.”

  Betsy couldn’t believe George had caught enough fish for supper, but he had, and he wasn’t letting her forget it, either.

  After the meal, Betsy laid down early for the night. Two days on the river, and the time ahead stretched out in front of her endlessly. What waited for them at journey’s end?

  At daybreak, the men pushed off again, and by midafternoon they tied up at Wheeling.

  “Betsy, it’s your turn to exercise Silverstreak,” Father said. “We will only stop for an hour at most, so take care to be back here soon.”

  Betsy glanced at the sun’s position, then rode the horse down Wheeling’s one street. Once they passed the last building, she let Silverstreak have her head and run wild. The wind whipped Betsy’s hair, and she celebrated her freedom by laughing aloud. All too soon she gauged the sun had drifted a half hour toward the western horizon, so she turned the horse back toward town.

  “Fried chicken tonight,” Mother announced once they were back on the river. “What luck that we landed here on market day.”

  Betsy groomed Silverstreak, then took up her usual position, sitting on a crate and studying her maps.

  “Where are we tying up for the night?” she asked Marley. “Near Little Grave Creek.”

  “The mounds,” Betsy said with awe. The Navigator had given a detailed account of the ancient big mound and the smaller ones near it. “Can we explore?”

  “I reckon if your folks say you can,” Marley answered.

  “What mounds?” George asked from the other side of the boat.

  That boy had hearing that would put a dog to shame.

  “Nothing really,” Betsy said. “Just some big hill.” There was no reason George needed to come along.

  “An ancient Indian burial ground,” Marley explained. “We’ll have to land quick so we have some daylight left.”

  Betsy sought Mother and asked permission to explore the big mound. Then she stood at the helm and waited for it to come into sight.

  “Look,” George said from right beside her. “It’s steep.”

  “‘It’s an eighty-degree angle,’” Betsy read from the Navigator. “‘It’s seventy-five feet tall and one hundred eighty yards around t
he base.’”

  “Can we climb it?”

  Should they climb a grave? Betsy had always been careful not to step on graves in the cemetery next to the churchyard back in Boston. It might be disrespectful to the Indians, and that might upset Marley. She didn’t want to risk that.

  As soon as the flatboat was secured for the night, Betsy, George, and Marley departed in the skiff and quickly reached ground.

  “I’m going to the top,” George shouted and took off. Betsy glanced at Marley.

  “Can’t stop him,” Marley said. “That’s one curious boy. You can go look it over, if you want.”

  The mound was covered in trees. Betsy hiked up her dress and began the long climb, holding onto low branches for balance. George was halfway up. Marley stayed at the foot of the mound.

  “It sounds hollow,” George called down from his lofty perch. He was beating on the slanted ground with a downed branch.

  The Navigator had said it sounded hollow, too, but Betsy couldn’t detect that from the sound she heard. She rested against a very tall oak and began the steep climb again. “It’s caved in on top,” George yelled back.

  By the time Betsy reached the peak, George was down in the sinkhole, which was about four feet deep. Only his head peeked out of the deep basin. “I’m looking for some Indian stuff,” he said, “but there’s nothing here but more brush.”

  Betsy walked around the perimeter of the sinkhole. He was right—nothing there but brush. She looked off in the distance, searching the plain below for the ghost town that was mentioned in the guidebook. There it was, an old town that never took root once Wheeling was established. Only some old tumbled-down buildings remained. Odd. White man had tried to put a town here and failed where the Indians had declared the land a cemetery. The old white oak near the basin was a good four feet in diameter. How old did that make this mound? A hundred years? Two hundred years?

  “Help me out, Betsy,” George ordered.

  Betsy’s thoughts were pulled to her cousin who was trying unsuccessfully to climb out of the sinkhole.

  “Now why would you climb in there if you didn’t have a way out?” she asked. Here was a golden opportunity to embarrass him, and there was no one around to notice it.