Race for Freedom

by Lois Walfrid Johnson

With one quick movement, Jordan was off the crate and racing down the street.

  Shortly before Libby reached the waterfront, she found another notice. Ripping it down, she stuffed the paper into a pocket and kept walking.

  Ahead of her she saw Jordan. When he drew close to the Christina, he picked up a barrel. Balancing it on his shoulder, he tipped his head to hide his face and walked up the gangplank. A moment later he disappeared.

  As Libby started up the gangplank, Caleb caught up. “Meet us in the captain’s cabin,” he said in a low voice. Then he, too, disappeared.

  CHAPTER 9

  Free Eyes

  Ten minutes later Libby entered Pa’s cabin at the front of the texas deck. When the two boys came in, Libby pulled out the notice she had ripped down. “Here’s what caused all the trouble!” When she laid the paper on the table, Jordan glanced at it, then turned away.

  “Look at it!” Libby said.

  “I did.” Jordan was gazing at the floor.

  “Read it!” Libby pointed to the words.

  Again Jordan stared at the paper. Pain stole over his face. Once more he looked away.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Sure, you can,” Libby answered.

  “Libby,” Caleb said softly. “Jordan is trying to tell you something.”

  But Libby pushed the paper closer to Jordan. “They’re still offering two hundred dollars to whoever catches you.”

  “Stop it, Libby,” Caleb said, as though trying to warn her.

  Libby paid no attention. “See, Jordan? Read for yourself.”

  “I can’t, Libby,” Jordan said again. “I can’t read for myself.”

  This time his quiet words got through. “But Jordan,” Libby stumbled over her words. “Everyone your age knows how to read.”

  “Everyone but us colored folks.” Jordan’s head was bowed again, his voice filled with pain. “We ain’t allowed to read.”

  “You aren’t allowed to read?” Libby couldn’t imagine a life without books.

  “And we can’t learn to write.” Suddenly Jordan lifted his head. “If we knows how, we could write our own passes.”

  “Passes?” Again Libby felt lost.

  “Both slaves and free colored people have to carry a pass,” Caleb explained. “Without that piece of paper, they can’t travel around alone.”

  “But I thought—” Libby remembered back. “That time in Pa’s cabin when Jordan bent over the map as though reading. And before that, in St. Louis.”

  She stared at Caleb. “The first time we saw Jordan, you wrote in the dirt. You started writing the Christina’s name. When I asked you about it, you said—”

  “That I hoped Jordan would remember the letters, and it would help him find the boat.”

  Finally Libby understood. “Because he couldn’t hear the name and know how it would look in writing.”

  Libby felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I didn’t know.”

  “I wants to read, Libby,” he said. “With all my heart I wants to read the Good Book.”

  “The Good Book?” Again Libby felt puzzled.

  “The Bible,” Caleb explained.

  “And I wants to read the newspaper like Captain Norstad. I wants to read any book I set my hand on.”

  Jordan looked from Libby to Caleb. “If I knows how to write my own pass, it be easy to go where my momma is. But I ain’t never had no teacher.”

  “Caleb and I will teach you!” Libby glanced toward Caleb and saw him nod. Turning back to Jordan, Libby saw that a light had come into his face—a light that shone as brightly as the sun.

  He pointed out a window. “Look!”

  Without their noticing, the Christina had put out from Keokuk. In a town a few miles above Keokuk, a small log school stood high on the riverbank. As though on recess, children played in the school yard.

  “I could learn like them?” Jordan asked, his voice filled with awe. “I could learn to read a book?”

  “You can learn to read like them,” Caleb said.

  Jordan straightened. Drawing back his shoulders, he held his head high. “I can learn to write?”

  “You can learn to write. I promise you,” Caleb said. “We’ll ask Libby’s pa what to do—what books to use.”

  Libby sat down at the table. “Let’s start with the alphabet right now. When you know the letters, you can put them together into words.”

  Taking up a slate, she wrote a letter. “A,” she said, printing it as she spoke. “A is for apple.”

  Caleb handed Jordan another slate. “Make the letter after Libby.”

  When she reached the letter L, Libby stopped. “That’s enough for today.”

  “That’s all the alphabet?” Jordan asked.

  “No,” Libby answered. “But I don’t want to mix you up by giving too much at once.”

  “I want to know all the alphabet,” Jordan said, unwilling to stop.

  Then Libby saw what Caleb was doing. With a pen he had written each letter on a paper Jordan could keep.

  “L is for Libby,” she said, and Jordan grinned.

  From one letter to the next she went, with Jordan carefully copying her printing.

  Before long, Libby wrote an R. “R is for Riggs,” she said, expecting another grin. Instead, Jordan’s hand started to tremble.

  “What’s the matter, Jordan?” Caleb asked.

  As though telling them to pay no attention, Jordan shook his head. But when Libby started an S, Jordan stopped her. “After we left St. Louis last night, I seen a man on this boat,” he said. “A man that looks a powerful lot like Riggs.”

  “Did he have a handlebar mustache?” Libby blurted out.

  “I only seen his back and the side of his head,” Jordan answered. “He were short and skinny just like Riggs. He gots a cane with gold on it.”

  “Libby thinks she saw Riggs come on board in St. Louis,” Caleb said. “If he did, his name isn’t on the passenger list. I haven’t been able to find out what room he’s in.”

  Jordan’s dark eyes widened with fear. “I ain’t got no likin’ for being near that man!”

  “If Riggs is a first-class passenger—and he must be—stay off the boiler deck,” Caleb warned. “That’s where he’d spend most of his time.”

  “But there’s something else,” Libby said. “You know those bullies who chased you, Jordan? I’ve seen them on the Christina.”

  “Are they deckers or first-class passengers?” Caleb asked.

  Libby thought about it. “Probably deckers.”

  Jordan groaned. “So what does I do?”

  “Could you stay in the engine room, like Pa said you should when we’re in port?” Libby asked.

  “But Captain Norstad, he give me a job! He pays me to take care of his clothes and run his errands. How can I do my work?”

  “I’ll help with Pa’s clothes,” Libby said quickly.

  Caleb shook his head. “Jordan, you should keep off both the boiler deck and the main deck. If you stay up here on the texas deck, you can do your work and have classes. I’ll bring you food.”

  Seeming to know that he had no choice, Jordan agreed to that. Yet they still had the problem of finding Riggs somewhere among the three hundred people on board. Libby knew they needed all the help they could get.

  “Jordan, you haven’t told me how you got away when Riggs was your master,” she said. “Would you mind telling me now? Maybe if we knew more about him, it would help us find Riggs.”

  “Where does I start?” Jordan asked.

  “With the auction,” Libby said.

  As though feeling the pain of that terrible day, Jordan’s eyes grew wet with tears. He turned to Caleb. “When you was at the auction, what you did gave me hope.”

  Jordan pointed to his chest. “In here I tells myself, ‘Jordan, if a white boy cares what happens to you, you better pay attention.’”

  Jordan swallowed hard. “Long time ago my daddy and my momma had a good master. One that treated them mighty
fine. Like members of the family they was. They work in the Big House just like they belong.

  “My momma were a mammy for the master’s children. But then the master fell on hard times. My momma and my daddy and my sisters and my brother and me was sold to Old Massa.”

  “An old master?” Libby asked, and Jordan nodded.

  “I was just so high.” Jordan put out his hand about three feet above the floor. “That’s when my daddy said to me, ‘Jordan, I hope you always gits a good master. But if you git a bad one, look up at the sky and follow the North Star. Before your master knows what’s in your head, run for your life. The longer you with a cruel master, the harder it be to git away.’

  “Once before I minded my daddy’s words. I run, but the slave catchers brung me back. When that slave trader Riggs put me in his wagon, I thinks, ‘Jordan, you gots yourself a cruel master again. But that white boy wants to help you. You gots to find him real fast.’

  “So I watched the road we take. I watched the way we go. As I watched I tell myself, ‘Jordan, you got this one licked. You know where you is.’”

  “You knew?” Libby asked.

  “Yes’m. After Old Massa sold my daddy away, he took me to the big city. Wanted to buy a new stove, he did, and took me along. Everywhere I went, I watched and I listened. One day my listenin’ paid off. Old Massa took me to a house where a free colored man sells stoves.

  “When Old Massa turned his back, the stove man stepped real close. He spoke low in my ear. ‘You want your freedom?’

  “I nodded my head like it was going to shake off. ‘When you gits your chance you come here,’ the man said. ‘All you gots to say is “My massa needs a new stove.”’

  “Old Massa took me away then. When I gits home, I tell my momma what the stove man said. Momma said, ‘We is goin’ to run, Jordan. We gots to run before Old Massa pulls my children from my arms.’

  “While I tries to find a way, Old Massa sell Momma and my sisters and my brother. Sells them up north from where I was. Then Old Massa dies.”

  “And you were sold to Riggs?” Libby asked.

  “Yes’m. After the auction I sits in the back of the wagon and looks at Riggs. I thinks, ‘Jordan, your leg-irons keep your feets from running. But your eyes is free. You let those eyes tell you where you is.’

  “So I watch the streets and houses. I knows when we goes near that stove-buying place. I fix in my mind the way to go back.”

  “And then?” Libby asked as Jordan paused. “What happened next?”

  “Riggs, he stopped at a big house and climbed down. I thinks, ‘This is where he lives?’ But when he walks up to the door, a dog come rushing at him. A little bitty dog with legs like sticks and a bark as scary as a baby’s cry.”

  Jordan barked a timid little woof that made Libby giggle.

  “But that Riggs, he backs away, as scared as you please. Climbed into the wagon like he was going to lose a leg!”

  Again Libby giggled.

  “When we gits to his house, Riggs drove his wagon into his barn. My eyes is still workin’ to be free. I looks around for a way to escape. I sees a work bench and tools along one wall. Then Riggs drags me out of the wagon, tells me to stand up like a man, and takes out a whip.”

  “You don’t have to tell her,” Caleb said quickly. “Libby saw your back.”

  Libby remembered the torn flesh. The deep marks from a whip laid one way, then another. Jordan would wear those scars the rest of his life.

  Now his fingers tightened into fists. “‘I gots a cruel master,’ I thinks again as Riggs lays the whip down hard. When he done, Riggs throws me into the next room and lock the door.

  “As I lies there, I remembers my daddy again. ‘Jordan, if you git a cruel master, you escape fast.’ I thinks, ‘Soon it be night, and I can’t see.’ So I remembers the tools in the next room. I thinks, ‘I gots to git to ’em. That’s my only way out.’

  “My prison were a small room built so tight it look like a place for storing grain,” Jordan said. “Not a window there. Not even a crack big enough to let in a mouse.

  “So I thinks, ‘No window. Why is I seein’ anything at all?’ I looks up and, sure enough, I see light comin’ through a hole in the ceiling. It weren’t a big hole. Not big enough for a man to go through. But could I?

  “I see a ladder nailed to the wall going up to the hole. But Riggs, he took care of that ladder too. Halfway up the wall, that ladder be sawed off.

  “So I ask myself, ‘How you goin’ to reach that ladder, Jordan?’ And I think on it. I think, ‘If I put my hands behind my back at about my waist—’ He showed them. ‘And if I lean into the wall, real hard—’”

  “On your back?” Libby was horrified. “It was raw and bleeding!”

  “Yes’m. Tried not to touch my back, but I did. I pressed into the wall on one side. The room were so small I walked up the wall on the other side.”

  “Are you serious?” Libby couldn’t believe it. “You walked right up the wall? You had leg-irons on!”

  “Yes’m. I swung my legs this way and that and jiggled myself till I reached the ladder. Pulled myself through that little hole and dropped down into the room where the tools was kept.

  “It was gittin’ dark now, and I knows I has to hurry. Looked through all the tools till I found a cold chisel and a hammer.”

  Jordan grinned. “That were the easiest part of gittin’ away. One smack on that chain between my legs and it broke. Quick as a wink, I found an old rag, tore it in strips. Pulled up my pant legs and tied the rest of the chain to my legs.”

  “And your pant legs covered your leg-irons so no one could see you were wearing them,” Libby said.

  Jordan nodded. “By now it were dark. I goes to the door and takes a look. I slips through and shuts that door behind me.

  “Just then I hears someone coming. He was whistling as happy as a lark. But my heart was shivering. I knows it be Riggs, and I remembers what he said when he bought me. ‘No slave ever got away from me—alive, that is!’”

  CHAPTER 10

  Shivery Heart

  Libby’s heart shivered too. Just hearing about the evil slave trader scared her. “Go on, Jordan,” she said.

  “Fast as a cat on a hot tin roof I run for the bushes and gits down behind them. I knows that if Riggs finds me, I sure enough git another beating. When he comes round the corner, my heart pounds out of my chest.” As though feeling the fear again, Jordan’s eyes widened.

  “What did you do?” Libby asked.

  “I barked.”

  “You barked?”

  Jordan laughed. “Like this.” As though he were the most savage dog on earth, he growled and snarled.

  Just listening to him, Libby felt afraid. “If I didn’t see you right in front of me, I wouldn’t believe it was you.”

  Jordan grinned. “Riggs was so skeered of my bark that he didn’t go into the barn. When he goes back to the house, I runs away.

  “I ain’t got no pass, so I hides behind trees and bushes. I sneaks along in the dark till I finds the free colored man who sells stoves. He take one look at me and said, ‘You shore took a long time in comin’. I is mighty glad you’re here.’

  “When I told him my story, he said, ‘You trust that white boy?’

  “‘I trusts that boy,’ I said.

  “‘Then I need to deliver a stove up that way,’ he said. ‘I take you to him, and if he ain’t there, I know another way.’”

  “Through Alton, Illinois?” Caleb asked.

  Jordan nodded. “Next morning that stove man hide me in a crate in his wagon. Then he puts in another crate with a great big stove. On the way, men stop us. That stove man said, ‘Here my pass.’ They checked the crate closest to the back end of the wagon. Then they said, ‘Go on, boy. Guess we’re lookin’ for someone else.’

  “When no one there, that stove man talk to me. ‘We be goin’ on a ferry now,’ he said once. After we drive and drive and drive, he said, ‘Now we wait for dark.’

>   “When night comes, he opens my crate. I looks and waits. No houses there, just trees and bushes. The moon and stars shows me where I is. I sees a river so big I knows I is crossin’ into the Promised Land.”

  “Across the Mississippi and into the free state of Illinois,” Libby said.

  Jordan’s eyes shone with the memory. “When a cloud passes over the moon, a girl comes out of the bushes. ‘You ready?’ I hears her whisper. Then I see a rowboat and two boys. They show me how to lie down in the boat. They put a heavy cloth over me and cover up everything but my face.

  “While one boy rowed, another put out a line to fish. ‘We’ll bring you close to a tunnel,’ he said. ‘When we come to shore, you run straight ahead as fast as you can.’

  “‘I wants to find the Christina,’ I tells them.

  “‘The Christina?’ That boy sure was surprised. But the other boy said, ‘We’ll bring you where the steamboats take on wood.’

  “When we gits close to the shore, those boys cover my face. Soon I feels the boat bump against something. ‘This is Alton,’ one of them said. ‘We’re at a flat rock—a stone wharf. When we lift the cover, step out on the wharf as though you belong here. Walk straight ahead as though you know what you’re doing. When you see a woodpile, look for a tall man with a beard. He’ll tell you what to do.’

  “I found that tall man with a beard,” Jordan said simply, as though his story had come to a close. “When I said, ‘The Christina,’ he acted like he knew you, Caleb. He hide me between the piles of wood till it was time to go on board.”

  “We’re going to get your momma out,” Caleb promised as he had before. “There’s one thing we know from going into Keokuk. Your proud look gives you away.”

  “My proud look?” Jordan asked, as if he didn’t know what Caleb meant.

  Libby picked up the wanted poster she had torn down. “It’s right here.” Even when Jordan was being sold as a slave, he had reminded Libby of royalty. She read the words describing him:

  Strongly built, walks with head high and a proud air….

  “Either we have to travel at night, or you have to wear a disguise,” Caleb told Jordan.

  “You, too, Caleb,” Libby reminded him. “Slave catchers know you. If you’re recognized, you’ll give Jordan away.”