Centennial

by James A. Michener

  Levi looked about the waterfront for Finnerty, but he was gone, shipped aboard a steamer back to Pittsburgh. “I’ve got to admit he built a good boat,” Levi muttered grudgingly as they led the horses to the Ozark Maid. “Knew how to handle it, too.”

  At eight o’clock in the morning of May 1, 1844, the Negro in the prow of the Ozark Maid curled a rope to the shore at St. Louis, where a waiting Negro caught it, passing the end through a large ring embedded in the levee. As soon as possible, Levi leaped from his boat to the one ahead, and from it, to the steamboat and thence to the shore. Leaving the job of unloading the horses to Elly, he dashed along the levee, asking everyone, “Where’s the Robert Q. Fell?”

  Toward the northern end of the mile-long line of steamboats, and well beyond the range of the trim packets that made regular trips to places like Keokuk and Hannibal, waited a filthy, low-slung, two-deck, stem-paddle steamer with a very shallow draft for clearing mud flats. Twenty years ago it had been built for travel up the Missouri River,, and two decades of heavy work on that swift and muddy stream had banged it about.

  Few men would willingly embark upon such a leaky craft, except that no other was available for the long trip north, so as various steamers from Mississippi ports docked, other travelers like Zendt ran to the waiting vessel to buy passage. They were met at the stern by a small thin man, Captain Frake, who held a megaphone to his lips: “If you want passage up the Missouri, get your gear aboard by twelve noon, because sure as hell, that’s when we sail.”

  “I have a Conestoga and six horses,” Zendt shouted across the dirty water.

  “We’ll have gangplanks over the side at fifteen minutes to twelve,” Frake replied. “But, son, you better get her aboard pronto, because at twelve sharp we sail, team or no team.”

  “How much?” Zendt shouted.

  “How far?” Frake asked.

  “Blacksnake Hills.”

  “Any kinfolk?”

  “Wife.”

  Captain Frake calculated how much this traveler could afford to pay, and replied through his megaphone, “Wagon and horses, thirty-two dollars. Two people, twenty-one dollars. You’ll find no better.”

  “Agreed,” Zendt called, whereupon Captain Frake ordered a Negro to lower a gangplank to the levee, and Levi climbed aboard, delivering the fifty-three dollars. “Receipt?” he asked. The dour little captain extended a hand, saying, “My word’s my bond. Get your gear aboard.”

  Zendt had three hours to get his wagon ashore and deliver it to the Robert Q. Fell. Breathless, he dashed back to the Ozark Maid, finding to his dismay that whereas the steamboat itself was neatly tied up, the trailing flatboats were not close to any spot from which they could be unloaded. Later in the day they would be detached and poled to other spots.

  “The wagon!” Levi began shouting from shore. “We have to have that wagon by eleven.”

  “Nothing I can do,” Elly called back. Until the men started seriously to shift the flatboats, she was helpless.

  “Hey there!” Levi shouted to disinterested men aboard the Ozark Maid, “how do I get my wagon?”

  “They’ll unload it,” the man said carelessly, waving his arm in no particular direction.

  Back and forth Zendt ran, a short-legged Dutchman in a flat-brimmed hat, trying to urge rivermen to work faster than their custom. Ten o’clock came and nothing happened. Eleven o’clock approached and the flatboat was still well offshore. He became desperate and ran the long distance back to the Robert Q. Fell, where Captain Frake shouted through his megaphone, “It’s not my concern. This here boat sails at twelve sharp, and you better be aboard.”

  “What about my money?”

  “You paid your money, and I offer you accommodation in return. It’s here waitin’, but you better move yourself and get that team aboard.”

  Levi ran back to the flatboat and in desperation shouted at Elly, “Do something!”

  “What can I do?” she asked pathetically.

  The precious hour passed, the one worth fifty-three dollars to the Zendts, and the flatboat remained stationary. With a burst of speed, Zendt dashed back to the Robert Q. Fell and pleaded, “Captain Frake, wait just a few minutes! We’re comin’.”

  The captain looked up and down the levee, then back at his steamboat innards and called, “We’ll hold her a couple of minutes.” With a sense of salvation, Levi ran back to the flatboats and saw with joy that the one containing his team was being shifted. “I offered them two dollars,” Elly called ashore.

  “Great idea!” Levi shouted back. He had demanded that she do something, and she had done it. “How long to unload?” he yelled. Elly consulted with the men and replied, “About an hour.”

  “Oh, my God!” Levi groaned, and back he ran to the Robert Q. Fell. “It’ll take fifty more minutes,” he called up to the captain.

  “Can’t wait more than thirty,” Captain Frake replied, so back Levi galloped to where the flatboat was pulling in to shore. The men operating the craft had no intention of working at extra speed, but they had no objection if Levi and Elly routed out the gangplanks, fastened them in position, led four of the horses ashore, harnessed the other two to the wagon and slowly edged it off the scow.

  No sooner did the iron wheels touch cobblestone than Elly backed the other four horses into position, where Levi harnessed them. With Elly walking behind, he whipped up the team, leading his six handsome grays along the levee.

  “Fine team you have there,” a man called. “Care to sell?” Levi did not even reply. His eyes were fixed on the smokestacks of the Robert Q. Fell. He became so nervous that he whipped the six heavy horses into a trot, but they had gone only a short distance when a man accompanied by a policeman flagged them down.

  “I’m Curtis Wainwright,” the man told Levi. “I fancy good horseflesh and I’d be interested in that team of six.”

  “Not for sale,” Levi said in great agitation.

  “You’re headed for Oregon?”

  “Yes. Get out of the way.”

  “Wait a minute, mister,” the policeman said. “Mr. Wainwright wants to speak with you.”

  “My boat! It’s leaving without me.”

  “Which boat?” the policeman asked.

  “Robert Q. Fell.”

  The two men laughed, and Wainwright said, “I think you can rest assured that your boat will wait.”

  Levi saw that he was trapped, so he turned to Elly and said, “Run ahead and tell them we’re comin’.” The policeman tried good-naturedly to intercept her, but she was off and running, and when she got to the steamboat and Levi saw that she was engaging its captain in conversation, he felt relieved.

  “Point is,” Mr. Wainwright explained, “you really shouldn’t take a fine team like that onto the prairies. What you need for Oregon is not horses but oxen. Now, I’ll give you two hundred dollars each for those grays, and I’ll sell you six oxen for sixty dollars ... total. You’ll reach Oregon a rich man.”

  “These are my horses,” Levi said, and without further argument he drove the team along the levee to where Captain Frake’s men had lowered gangplanks up which the wagon trundled. As soon as it was aboard, the planks were hoisted and thrown back in a pile.

  “You can go now!” Levi called up to the captain, but nothing happened. Two o’clock came, and three and four, and still nothing happened. At five a two-wheeled carriage pulled onto the levee and out of it stepped an army officer in blue uniform with rows of brightly polished buttons. He was about thirty, handsome, with a clipped mustache and an easy manner.

  “Halloo, Captain Frake?” he called.

  One of the deckhands routed out the captain, who appeared on the upper deck with his megaphone. “Captain Mercy, how are you?”

  “There’s a dance tonight, Captain Frake. You won’t be leaving, will you?”

  “We’re leavin’ at twelve sharp tomorrow,” Frake replied.

  “Good!” the captain called back, and with that he climbed into his carriage, wheeled the horses abou
t and disappeared.

  The news that they were not sailing till next day distressed Levi. “Why did he make us hurry so?” he asked petulantly, and Elly explained that no doubt Captain Frake had intended sailing, as planned, but that something unforeseen had come up. “No,” Levi said slowly, “I think he just wanted our fifty-three dollars. He wanted to get us aboard so we couldn’t change our minds.” They were so tired they fell asleep without solving the problem or trying the evening meal.

  They ate a huge breakfast, then climbed down the gangplank to buy the gear they had failed to get the day before. At various shops along the waterfront they purchased rope and axes and buckets of grease for the wagon and replacements for broken harness and barrels of flour and bacon and all the last-minute things that storekeepers reminded them of. “You’ll want a second rifle,” everyone warned him, but he said, “I have the best rifle made.” However, a gunsmith showed him a fine used Hawken and assured him, “This is the best rifle in the world for the prairie,” so Levi bought it for eleven dollars.

  It was half past eleven when he and Elly got back to the boat, loaded with gear and guiding a Negro slave boy who trailed behind with the rifle and the buckets of grease. At noon one of the ship’s stewards passed along the decks ringing a bell and calling, “Dinner for all! It won’t wait.”

  Elly, of course, was hungry, but Levi said, “I’m going to stay on deck. I want to see them shove off.” A fellow passenger who heard this laughed and said, “We’re not sailing today.”

  “We aren’t?”

  “Not for days.”

  Levi found this hard to believe, but at this moment the two-wheeled carriage he had seen the previous night came onto the levee, bearing the same handsome young officer. “Captain Frake? There’s a big dinner tonight after church. All right?”

  “We’re leaving tomorrow, twelve sharp,” Frake responded, and the carriage disappeared.

  So that afternoon Levi and Elly explored the city, restricting themselves to the three oldest streets near the river. With apprehension they passed the large and ominous Catholic cathedral; they had never spoken to a Catholic so far as they knew, but they had heard various Mennonite and Lutheran ministers preach about them, and that taught them enough to be cautious.

  That evening at supper a passenger told them, “At seven I’m going up the hill to the Presbyterian church for worship. Care to come along?”

  Elly said she would like that: “We should give thanks that we’ve come so far in safety,” and in the pale light of evening they walked past the streets they had visited that afternoon and up to the third level of the city, where on Fourth Street they came to that handsome old church with the white steeple and the picket fence.

  From its portico they could look back down the hill and across the sleeping river to the quiet hills of Illinois. In that direction lay home, and never had it seemed so distant, so far beyond recovery.

  The service was appropriate. It dealt with Ruth, who had gone into the fields of Boaz, and the minister read those extraordinary lines regarding the trick whereby Naomi caught a husband for her daughter-in-law, Ruth:

  “And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do.

  “And she said unto her, All that thou sayest unto me I will do ...

  “And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down.

  “And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.

  “And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid …”

  He preached for some minutes on this theme, but Levi heard none of the message, for he was speculating, with Pennsylvania Dutch forthrightness, on that curious phrase “and she uncovered his feet,” and he whispered to Elly, “I bet she uncovered a lot more than his feet,” and Elly blushed and whispered back, “It’s the Bible way of explaining things,” and he replied, “I could explain it a lot clearer.”

  The minister now turned to his right, where in a special pew reserved for wealthy patrons sat the young captain Levi had seen at the levee. “One of our sons leaves shortly for the west to do our government’s work,” the preacher said, “and we join his distinguished family in wishing him Godspeed and safe return.” Levi looked at the captain and saw that he sat with a very handsome pair of women, a younger one who must be his wife, and an older woman with silvery hair who could be either his mother or his mother-in-law. They nodded sedately as the minister spoke of their captain, and he looked modestly at the floor. He was wearing a sword whose gold hilt projected at his chest, and now he transferred his right hand to the hilt, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles stood out. He was praying.

  Now the minister turned to another section of the church, where a variety of couples sat, men and women in rude dress, and he addressed himself to them: “These strangers from Vermont go forth to a marvelous destiny, to take civilization and the word of God to distant Oregon. God surely will protect them on their way so that storms and famine and the deadly Indian shall not prevail. To the men I say, ‘Be strong,’ and to the women, ‘Be faithful.’ And remember that it was Ruth, of whom we spoke this night in another context, who delivered the immortal words which guide all pilgrims:

  “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

  “Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”

  Levi slipped his hand into Elly’s, and whereas many of the women in the Vermont group wept, she looked straight ahead and gripped his hand as firmly as if she were a man.

  When the service ended the young captain left his pew and passed among the Vermont emigrants, wishing them well and assuring them that he and his sergeant would be accompanying them through the worst of the Indian country and that there was little to fear. As Levi Zendt strained to hear this reassuring news he felt his arm being taken, and turned to see Curtis Wainwright, the man who had tried to buy his horses that morning.

  “Hello!” Wainwright said amiably. “Glad to see you’re a churchman.”

  “It’s a long trip. We need blessing.”

  “Yesterday I was importunate,” Wainwright apologized. “Today I want you to meet our minister,” and he led Levi and Elly to the porch, where the minister was bidding his parishioners goodnight. “Reverend Oster,” Wainwright said, “I wish you’d inform these strangers that I’m a man of reasonably decent character. I’m afraid I frightened them yesterday.”

  Reverend Oster turned and smiled. Grasping the hands of Levi and Elly, he beamed on them and said, “This is Curtis Wainwright, responsible citizen and good friend of this church. You can trust him in anything except when he’s trying to buy your horse.”

  Elly laughed, and Wainwright said, “The wrong words, Reverend, the wrong words. I was trying to convince them they ought not take their fine horses onto the Oregon Trail. It’ll only kill them.”

  “In that he’s right,” Reverend Oster said. “Our experience is that you must take oxen, not horses or mules.”

  “What’s that about mules?” a new voice asked, and they turned to face Captain Mercy.

  “Captain Maxwell Mercy,” the minister said. “I don’t believe I caught your names.”

  “Levi and Elly Zendt, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

  “Are you the couple with the Conestoga?” Mercy asked.

  “That’s ours.”

  “We’re going west together.”

  “When?”

  Captain Mercy broke into a laugh. “With Captain Frake? Who knows! He was scheduled to sa
il on Wednesday. He may make it by Monday.”

  “Why did he make me rush so?”

  “He likes to get his freight aboard ... fare paid.”

  “But we’re eatin’ three meals a day.”

  “Cheaper to feed you than to lose you.” He bowed politely to Elly and said, “Tomorrow buy lots of cloth and three pairs of shoes that fit. And as for the horses, they do not do well on the trail. If you can make a profitable deal, consider it.”

  “I love those horses,” Levi said stubbornly, and the men knew that further argument was useless, for they were the kind of men who loved their horses too, and they appreciated his refusal to trade.

  “He’ll have trouble,” Captain Mercy said as the Zendts left. “I’m taking mules—army orders—and they’ll give trouble enough.”

  If Captain Frake had sailed on Friday noon, it is probable that Levi and Elly Zendt would have gone to Oregon without ever knowing that a place like Rattlesnake Buttes in Colorado existed, but the boat did not sail, so on Friday afternoon Levi and Elly strolled along the streets of downtown St. Louis, buying cloth and extra shoes, and as they turned a corner off what used to be Rue de l’Eglise they came upon a building unlike any they had seen before. It seemed to be a store but it was more like a theater. Its front was plastered with signs announcing Mr. L. Reed, Gastriloquist Extraordinary; Master Haskell, Wizzard of the Ages, Thaumaturgist and Metamorphosist; Madame Zelinah-Kah-Nourinha, Fair Lady of Turkey; and Last Time to See the Gigantic Elephant Discovered in These Regions by Dr. Albert C. Koch, now of London.