American Challenge

by Susan Martins Miller

  Above her, she heard George’s halting footsteps. She had to act fast. What could she do to make an eerie sound? To her left were broken parts of a rocking chair. She picked up two wooden pieces that must have formed rungs and struck one with the other, making a knocking sound. The footsteps upstairs stopped, and Betsy smiled. She tapped on the wall three times, then repeated the code three more times.

  “Betsy,” George called from upstairs.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Betsy, is that you?” His voice was quavering now.

  She said nothing but instead pounded on the wall with her fist. That movement jarred jagged pieces of a large broken mirror that clung to a frame, and they fell to the floor. Betsy jumped, and the tinkling of breaking glass echoed through the house. A scream came from upstairs.

  “Good,” she whispered. She silently glided to the staircase and climbed, step by step. She didn’t try to mask the noise of the creaky stairs, and for good measure, she moaned as she climbed up and up.

  Running footsteps made for the back of the house. With her long legs, Betsy took two steps at a time and quickly reached the second floor. She could hear George scurrying toward the back of the house, and she ran to the first door across from the stairs. The room was empty except for trashed furniture. What had possessed someone to tear up such a grand bed? She started for the second door and knew this was where George was. She could hear whimpering sounds.

  She jumped into the second room and yelled, “Boo!”

  George was on the window ledge, ready to jump. Betsy watched him grab the trellis beside the window and swing out. She dashed to the window and peered out at the same time that she heard the sound of splintering wood. The trellis was pulling away from the house.

  “George!” she screamed.

  Her cousin yelled in terror.

  Betsy stretched out the window and grabbed the trellis, bringing George back toward the house. “Can you climb back in?”

  “No, there’s something in there!”

  “What’s going on?” Marley ran around the corner of the house and reached the base of the trellis.

  “Can you help George down?” Betsy called. Her arms ached from holding the trellis in place. She didn’t know how much longer she could retain her grip. With Marley’s guidance, George inched his way down the trellis, his weight pulling the trellis from the house as Betsy struggled to keep it close. Finally he was on the ground, and she let go.

  “Look out!” she cried as the wooden structure crashed to the ground.

  “Get out, Betsy,” George shouted. “There’s something up there.” He whirled toward Marley. “We have to get her out before it gets her.”

  Betsy didn’t wait to hear anymore. She ran for the stairs. If George had been hurt, it would have been her fault. And here he was wanting to come back in to save her. She bounded down the stairs and out the front door in time to see George and Marley come around the left wing of the house. She ran toward them.

  “Did you see anything?” George asked. “Did you hear anything?”

  “I heard a mirror break,” she said, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t admit that she’d accidentally broken it when she pounded on the wall.

  “I heard it, too. Let’s get back to the boat.” When she didn’t move, George added insistently, “Now! That house is haunted.”

  “There’s no such thing as a ghost,” Marley said. “There’s a logical explanation for whatever you heard.” He looked hard at Betsy. She looked away.

  “In any event,” Marley added, “we do need to get back to the boat. It’ll be dark in a few minutes.”

  “It moaned, too,” George said, “and it made a knocking sound in a rhythm, as if it was trying to say something.”

  “It was probably the wind,” Marley said, “making a branch tap against the wall of the house.” Again he looked at Betsy.

  “What about the orchard?” she asked.

  “It’s gone. The trees were too young to survive. The power of nature—the floodwaters were too much for them.” His voice trembled, and now it was Betsy’s turn to look searchingly at him.

  Once they were back on the boat, George recounted the excitement in the house.

  “There are no such things as ghosts,” Uncle Paul told his son.

  Father agreed with him. “It was your imagination playing tricks on you.”

  “But Betsy heard the mirror break, too,” George protested.

  “A mirror?” Marley said in a low voice that only Betsy could hear. “Not just a piece of glass?”

  Betsy turned away and stared at the water.

  After dinner while the others were inside the shelter, out of the cool wind that had sprung up, Betsy made her way to the back of the boat to check on Silverstreak.

  “Why?”

  Betsy jumped at the sound of Marley’s voice.

  “I didn’t hear you come out here,” she said in a husky voice.

  “Why did you scare George?” Marley asked.

  Betsy bit her lip then sighed. “I wanted to scare him as much as I was scared when I fell in the river.”

  “He didn’t mean to harm you, and you meant to scare him.”

  “I know. And if he’d been hurt it would have been my fault.” She felt tears slip down her cheeks. She should confess what she’d done, apologize to George. She knew that, but wasn’t it too late?

  “You were very scared in the water,” Marley said. “I know the power of the river. I know your fear.”

  “How could you know my fear?” Betsy lashed out. “It was so dark.”

  He didn’t answer for a long while.

  “My wife, my baby daughter, and I were caught in floodwaters.”

  Betsy stood up straighter. Some instinct told her what was coming next.

  “Our boat was stove in by trees hidden under the water. She went down in seconds.”

  “And your wife and daughter?”

  “Drowned, I guess—” His voice broke off. He sniffed then continued. “I never found them. I searched for months. Their bodies never washed ashore.”

  “Oh, Marley, I’m so sorry,” Betsy choked out. She laid her head against the horse’s neck and cried.

  “I wanted revenge,” Marley said. “I wanted God to tell me why I was alive and they were dead. I was thrown into a submerged treetop, and it held me above the water. I cursed the rain and the floodwaters. Why did God take my family from me?”

  “Do you know why?” Betsy asked on a sob.

  “No. They went to heaven, of that I’m sure.”

  Betsy cried quietly into the mare’s mane until she regained control. “So that’s the tragedy in your life,” she said.

  “Yes. Moon Silver and little Sarah are now memories to me, and I think of them every day.”

  “Moon Silver? She was an Indian?”

  “Yes. I lived in her settlement for two years. We were headed west when the boat sank. I returned to tell her family. And I started taking others down the river. I had to tame the river. Prove to myself that I could take families safely down. But I always wait until the spring flood has passed. I warn other families of the dangers of the floodwaters, but few listen to me.”

  “So that’s why you hadn’t already gone down the river when we needed a guide.”

  “Yes. Now I’ve told you my story. I understand how afraid you were of the water. But was scaring George the way to handle your fear?”

  Betsy looked out at the black night. The flickering light from the lantern inside the enclosure left deep shadows. She couldn’t see the water, but she could hear it rush by.

  “If I’d looked at my feet, I would have seen the string and not tripped. George shouldn’t have put it in the way, but it wasn’t exactly his fault. I should apologize?” She asked the question, but she knew the answer. They made their way back to the group inside the shelter. Betsy sat down beside George.

  “I made the sounds in the mansion. I’m sorry,” she said without preamble.

  “You we
re the ghost?” George said in a loud voice. The others stopped talking.

  “Betsy?” Mother said.

  “I–I wanted to get George back for making me fall in the river. I wanted to scare him, but I know that was wrong. I’m sorry.” She tried to hold back the tears, but the last few moments had been too emotional for her.

  “I forgive you,” George said. “I shouldn’t have put the string in the walkway.”

  Betsy waited for Mother to chastise her, but no one else spoke for a moment.

  “Now that that’s taken care of, I think I’ll turn in,” Marley said. His statement ended the evening, and Betsy cast him a grateful look.

  In the morning nothing more was said of the mansion or of Betsy’s trick, and she sighed with relief as she took up her post with the Navigator.

  The last few days had been unseasonably warm. For several days Betsy had sat on her crate seat without her cloak around her, but this day was different. By noon the wind came up, and the sky darkened with huge black clouds.

  “We’d best be finding a place to hole up,” Marley said. “The sooner the better.”

  Betsy consulted her maps and found several places that might work, but the first three were already taken by other flatboaters. They waved as they floated by, searching for the next place.

  They hadn’t seen much river traffic going downriver since they all seemed to be floating at the same rate. But now they discovered just how many other travelers shared the river with them.

  George and Betsy made a lean-to out of canvas to cover Silverstreak, and George insisted that Jefferson be allowed inside their little house.

  Rain was already pelting down by the time they found a cove where they could tie up for the night. The women fed the fire in the covered area while the men secured the boat. Rain fell hard and steadily throughout the night. By morning it hadn’t slackened any.

  “We’re staying put,” Father said. They sat inside the shelter, peering out when an adventurous flatboater would float past. Betsy read in the dim light from the fire and kept pushing Jefferson away. That smelly dog wanted to be close to the fire, too.

  Once Marley and Father rowed ashore and found more wood to keep the fire going. By nightfall the rain showed no sign of abating, but by morning it was a gentle rain, and Father and Uncle Paul and Marley rowed the flatboat out of its safe berth and into the current of the Ohio again.

  “We must keep a sharp eye,” Marley said. “The sand shifts after a heavy rain.” Although the men watched, and Betsy read aloud from the Navigator about where the sandbars were located, by late morning the flatboat caught on a newly formed sandbar.

  “Push off! Push off!” Marley yelled. The men strained against their sweeps. Betsy held her breath as they pushed to no avail.

  “Move these crates starboard,” Marley said. “The weight on that side should raise this side, and we can push it off again.”

  Betsy and the others hurried to do his bidding, and although the right side of the flatboat tipped dangerously close to water level, with lots of grunts and muscle power, the men were able to free the boat from the sand’s hold.

  George and Betsy and the women scurried to move the crates back to even out the load on the boat, and it once again found the river’s current and floated downstream.

  Everyone was wet, and once the rain stopped for good, the travelers changed into dry clothes.

  “We’ll make clotheslines out of these ropes,” George said, and Betsy helped him string rope across the boat.

  “We look like a Monday washing day back home,” Mother said once they hung all the clothes out for the sun to dry.

  Back home. It had been days since Betsy had wondered about Mary and the ships in Boston Harbor and if Richard had returned from the sea. A wave of intense homesickness washed over her. It was as dark as the waters of the Ohio River.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Holdup

  The next few days fell into a pattern. Good weather returned, and with it, traffic on the river increased. “Why didn’t we see other boats before?” Betsy asked. “It seems everyday we see more and more.”

  “At first we must have been traveling at about the same speed,” Marley answered. “So the only travelers we saw were the ones who were stranded or keelboats that were going upriver. Some of these boats are merchant boats. They stop fairly often so we can overtake them.”

  Not only did they overtake them, Mother bought goods from one merchant. He sold a bit of everything, and Mother even found a book to add to Betsy’s collection.

  They also started stopping at wharves when it wasn’t time to stop for the night. Father said Silverstreak would lose muscle tone if she wasn’t exercised each day, so they took the opportunity to unload the horse at least once a day.

  On the evenings when they tied up at a settlement’s wharf, there would be other boats tied there. Occasionally in the coves where they’d stay for the night there would be others, too. Once they all went ashore and shared dinner with another family. They sat around a campfire, and when Father suggested that Betsy get her violin, she complied.

  These were friendly folks, and she doubted that she would ever see them again, so she struck up a tune, and they sang along.

  Some days Betsy and George guessed how many boats they would see along the way. Keelboats counted, too.

  “At least we’ve never been passed by a flatboat,” George said. “We’ve got a pretty fast boat.”

  “Yes,” Marley said, “and a sturdy one. The extra time your father took working on this boat has made it hold up when a lesser boat would have sprung a leak.”

  “My father’s going to own his own boatyard soon,” George said proudly.

  “Yes, and it will be a quality outfit,” Marley replied.

  Jefferson barked, which usually meant he heard wildlife along the shore or more river traffic.

  Betsy heard the noise before they rounded the bend in the river and came upon two boats fastened together near the middle of the channel. The noise almost drowned out her words.

  “What is it?”

  “A sawmill,” Marley said. “That paddlewheel between the boats powers the saw.” He called directions to Father and Uncle Paul, and they steered the boat to the left of the floating sawmill.

  Late that afternoon they tied the boat at the rickety dock near the mouth of Salt Creek. The three men were busy applying oakum to the stern. Uncle Paul had noticed a place that might be a potential trouble spot.

  “Best to take care of it before we spring a leak,” he said.

  “What about Silverstreak?” Betsy asked her mother. “Can I take her for a ride without Marley? There are some fields on the other side of the trees, and there’s even a salt lick not far from here.” She had just read about it in the guide. “That must be why this dock is here.”

  Mother scanned the shoreline. “It looks all right, I guess. But take George and Jefferson, too.”

  Betsy hadn’t exactly avoided George since the episode at the Blennerhassett mansion, but she hadn’t sought him out, either. Now she called to him and asked if he wanted to go ashore. She knew what his response would be. Within a few minutes Betsy and George were ashore. They followed a narrow path, with George and Jefferson staying way behind Silverstreak.

  “I’m going to look for the salt lick,” George said when they came to a point where the wooded path forked. He tugged on the rope that was tied to Jefferson, and they headed west while Betsy turned Silverstreak in the opposite direction.

  “I’ll be back in a little while,” she said. “Stay out of trouble. We’ll go back to the boat together.” A little way past the woods that fronted the river, a wide field opened up. Betsy let Silverstreak canter. The mare threw her head up and raced through the new green grass. If she didn’t know better, Betsy would have said the horse grinned at having freedom of movement again.

  They’d been on the river for fifteen days. They were all tired, but Marley said they should reach Cincinnati in another four days on
the outside—three if everything went well. She didn’t know what lay in store for them in Cincinnati, but she was ready for a real home with a real address. Then she could write to Mary again and hope for a letter in return.

  April wildflowers dotted the pasture to her right, and she rode among the blues and the yellows and sweet scents of the early flowers. Perhaps she and Mother could put out flowers at their new home. She could transplant wildflowers, and there would be many more to choose from in May.

  To her left was a dogwood in full bloom. She rode under the tree, ducking so she wouldn’t get hit by the low branches, then she stopped Silverstreak and sat up straight. It was as if she were a part of the tree. To her left, to her right, below her, and above her were the fragrant white blossoms.

  She breathed in deeply and sat still a few moments until Silverstreak neighed. When the mare reared her head, she hit a branch, so Betsy carefully guided her out from under the tree.

  The sun was getting low, and she knew she should find George and return to the confinement of the boat. With a sigh she turned away from the lovely tree and headed back in the direction she had come.

  George was nowhere to be seen. She whistled, thinking Jefferson might respond with a bark, but heard nothing. Once she reached the fork in the wooded path, she rode west over a mile, toward where she suspected the salt lick was located, but she didn’t see George. He probably couldn’t have covered that much ground on foot in the time she’d been riding Silverstreak. Where could that boy and his dog have gotten to?

  Leave it to George to get lost the one time they were trusted enough to go ashore alone. She turned Silverstreak toward the river and slowly headed back through the woods toward the flatboat. Glancing left and right, she searched for George and Jefferson. She found him hiding behind a big tree about two hundred yards from the river.