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By Root 1615 0

behind me. We strolled up the plank to the Texas deck, and I took a moment to gaze around, arranging myself a bit and trying to spy out the captain. The Southern Joy wasn’t quite as new as it looked from a distance—the white and gold paint on the railings was dingy and cracked, and the decking had buckled in many places. My thoughts strayed to the boiler, but I pulled them back. A door to the saloon opened, and the captain, an extremely tall man in a dusty blue uniform, emerged. When he saw me, he smiled, but it was a closed-over sort of smile that didn’t give me much hope, and in fact, he said at once, "Now, ma’am, don’t be askin’ me about passage down to Saint Louis, because I cannot do a thing for you! I got me a boatload o’ women and children already, fit to sink where we sit, and them sandbars between here and there is goin’ to be a trial, so don’t ask me, unless you got you some lit- tle ones, because I am makin’ provision for mothers with little ones."

"How can you do that?"

"Well, I turn back the others who an’t got no little ones, don’t I? I hope I never see such a time of tribulation as this again! I did not learn this river in order that I might choose one over another, and once this time is over, I will again leave that privilege to the Lord in His heaven!"

I had seen so few women and children in Kansas City that I thought he must have all of them on board his boat. I said, "Thank you, anyway."

"Don’t thank me, ma’am, because I an’t worthy of thanks!" He walked on past me, shaking his head. Lorna whispered, "Offer ’im mo’ money!" but I shook my head. I led the way down the plank, and we went on to the Herald.

The Herald made no pretense at all of being luxurious, and I doubted the boiler even more profoundly, but it was right beside the Southern Joy. It did not bode well that there were only two men aboard, Negroes, one sweeping and the other doing some carpentry work. I said, "May I find your captain?"

"Nah, ma’am," said the carpenter. The sweeper didn’t even look up. "He done disappeared."

"Is the boat planning to go downriver?"

"Nah, ma’am. She ain’."

"Why not?"

Now the sweeper and the carpenter looked at one another and shrugged, then the carpenter said, "Don’ know, ma’am." Lorna took in a breath, and they both looked at her curiously, but I put my hand on her arm. The two men went back to work, and we made our way down the plank. Lorna was breathing heavily. I said, "There are two more!" But I, too, was more disheartened than I let on. Our endeavor had now taken on a feeling of futility.

The Jack Smith was a trim little craft, as neat and clean in reality as the owners of the Southern Joy would have liked their boat to be. I could see that she had a shallow draft, good for the Missouri, and that the windows of the saloon were shining and newly washed. Men and a few women passed up and down the plank, and the captain stood by the deck railing. I looked up at him from the levee below, immobile, until Lorna gave me a poke in the back. The captain watched us every step up the plank, then tipped his hat, but he didn’t say a word. Lorna dared not poke me again, but I felt her inner impatience. Finally, I said, "We’re looking for passage downriver."

"Are ya now?"

"To Saint Louis."

"Well, well, well."

"When are you leaving?"

"Could be anytime." He continued to inspect us, first me, then Lorna, at his leisure. His scrutiny gave me a heavy feeling of dread, but I smiled and kept my head up.

"I need passage for myself and my gal. We’ve been aban ..." But I let my voice trail off, unable to find the energy for that good lie. I coughed. "I have been abandoned here in this—"

"Have you now?"

There was something entirely sinister about his manner, and Lorna reacted to it, too, taking a small step back. This was his signal for removing his gaze once again from me to her. Folks passed us. I felt pinned to the spot, until finally I managed to say, "No doubt you are besieged with passengers."

"I got room. Gal got to go below, and you got to take another lady in with ya."

"I—"

"Gal kin do your business