The Fiddler's Secret

by Lois Walfrid Johnson

  Soon large masses of limestone broke through the soil. Climbing between boulders, they grabbed small trees and branches to pull themselves up. At last they came out at the top of the bluff.

  As if offering a big gift, Caleb led Libby and Peter to a ledge overlooking the river. Far below them the river widened, stretching out to the western horizon. Both upstream and down Libby could see for miles. Best of all, she could see the Christina.

  “Oh, look!” Peter exclaimed when he peered down on the steamboat. “See how long it is? How it shines in the sun? It’s like a toy boat I used to have!”

  Even from here Libby could see the tall smokestacks, the white railings, the pilothouse perched on top. Peter was right. It did look like a toy small enough to push around in a springtime puddle. Instead, the Christina was surrounded by blue water sparkling in the sun.

  Forgetting her fear of heights, Libby caught her breath at the beauty of it.

  Peter was even more excited. “I feel like Lewis and Clark or Zebulon Pike, or one of the other explorers I learned about in school! We need to plant a flag up here!”

  Far overhead, the sun had edged past its midpoint. Caleb took out sandwiches, and they sat down on the warm rock ledges to eat. Libby felt good. She had climbed to the top. She hadn’t shamed herself by showing panic about the heights. Best of all, they had given Peter a good time.

  When they started off again, Caleb led them with Peter not far behind. As the heels of Libby’s shoes dug into the steep slope, limestone crumbled into small pieces. A rock broke away and tumbled down the bluff.

  Caleb stopped. “Careful,” he warned. “Walk where I walk.”

  When Caleb pointed to Peter’s feet, then his own, Peter got the message. His grin told Libby this was the greatest adventure he’d ever had.

  Farther on, the going was steep. Peter followed Caleb from one rock ledge to the next. Between the shelves, water had raced down the bluff, creating a path.

  They had walked for a time when Caleb dropped behind a boulder. When he came into view farther on, Peter started taking a different way.

  “Peter!” Libby called out. “Stay in Caleb’s path!” Then Libby remembered Peter couldn’t hear, and she hurried to warn him. Before she could catch up, Libby heard a sound.

  At first she thought it was steam escaping. How can I hear the Christina so far away?

  Like dry leaves blown before a wind, the sound came again. In that moment Libby knew. The whirring sound of a rattle.

  “Peterrrr!” Libby screamed.

  Caleb whirled around, his face white. Leaping from ledge to ledge, he raced back up the bluff.

  Sliding on the loose stones of the washouts, Libby took the shortest way down. She had nearly caught up to Peter when she saw the wide ledge just below him. A large snake with black rings lay coiled, ready to spring. Tail up, it rattled again.

  As Peter’s foot came down on the ledge, the snake’s head leaped out. Its fangs sank deep in Peter’s leg.

  Peter screamed. Looking down, he froze. Libby grabbed his arm and yanked him back. The snake slithered away. Moments later it disappeared beneath a rock ledge.

  Caleb took one look at Peter’s leg and caught him up in his arms. When Caleb laid him down in an open space, Peter moaned. “It stings! It stings!”

  Kneeling on the ground beside him, Libby stared at Peter’s leg. Puncture marks showed where the fangs of the rattlesnake had sunk into his flesh.

  Caleb tore open his knapsack, pulled out strips of cloth, and layered them one on top of another. With quick, sure movements he tied the tourniquet around Peter’s leg above the wound. Then he yanked the knife from his belt.

  Lighting a match, Caleb ran the flame along the edges of the blade. A second and third time he lit matches, making sure the blade was clean.

  “Hold his legs for me,” Caleb ordered as he knelt down opposite Libby. “You better pray at the same time.”

  Already the flesh around the wound had started to swell and change color. As though to say, “Okay, Peter, get ready,” Caleb clasped his shoulder.

  For an instant Caleb held the knife above the wound. Then he cut through the fang mark, opening the flesh.

  Peter jerked. Libby’s stomach turned over.

  “Hold him again.” When Caleb cut open the second fang mark, Peter moaned. Paying no attention, Caleb bent over the wounds.

  As Libby realized what he was going to do, she cried out, “Oh no! You’ll die too!”

  “Don’t let go!” Caleb answered. “Hang on to him!” With his mouth on the first wound, Caleb sucked at the opening, turned his head, and spit out the blood.

  Libby gagged. But Caleb bent down again, sucked at the second wound, and spit out the blood.

  Again Libby gagged. Then the horror of it struck her. Caleb is giving his life! I can’t throw up. I can’t!

  Looking away, she stared at Peter’s face. His eyes wide with fear, Peter stared back at her. In that instant Libby’s nausea vanished.

  Letting go of his legs, Libby squeezed Peter’s hand. Peter blinked, caught for one moment by something greater than fear. Crossing her arms across her chest, Libby signed, “I love you.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed Peter’s face. Then he squeezed his eyes tight and balled his fists into knots, trying to close out the pain.

  After sucking the wounds again, Caleb loosened the tourniquet. A minute later he tightened the band. “Water, Libby. Give him a little water.”

  With shaking hands, Libby opened a canteen. As she held it to Peter’s lips and lifted his head, one thought filled her mind. What if both of them die up here?

  “We’ve got to get Peter down the bluff.” Caleb’s voice was strained. “We’ve got to keep his head higher than his leg. He can’t walk or the poison will spread even more.”

  Standing up, Caleb looked down the rest of the bluff. They had nearly reached the end of the rocks, but the way was still steep and long.

  Peter’s face was pale now, his eyes frightened again. When Libby tried to comfort him, she found his hand cold and clammy. Opening the knapsack, she pulled out her sweater.

  As she helped Peter into it, he asked, “Libby, am I going to die?”

  Libby shook her head and kept shaking it till she thought it would fall off.

  “Libby, are you telling the truth?”

  Libby nodded her head several times.

  “That’s good,” Peter said. “But if I do die, will you take care of Wellington?”

  Libby groaned. After all her impatience with the dog, now he was the one Peter thought about?

  Then Libby felt ashamed. “Yes, Peter.” Making the sign for Wellington’s name, she nodded her head. To make sure Peter believed her, she held up her hand and signed, “I promise.”

  Locking their arms and hands together, Libby and Caleb made a chair between them. With Peter’s arms around their necks, they set out.

  At the steepest place Caleb stopped, loosened and then tightened the tourniquet, and prayed for Peter. When they went on again, Libby kept repeating the name of Jesus. At last the Christina came into sight.

  Afterward Libby never knew how they got down the bluff. She only remembered her terrible fear that she would drop Peter. That he would land on his bad leg. That he would die before they reached the Christina. And through it all came a nagging fear. What will happen to Caleb?

  The minute Pa saw them on the cut-over area of the bluff, he gave the order to get the steam up. Then he and three other men hurried to meet them. As they carried Peter up the gangplank, the crew was already untying the lines. Moments later the Christina put out into the river.

  With the engineer pouring on steam, they headed up the Mississippi. “There’s a marine hospital in Galena,” Pa explained. “A hospital owned by the Public Health Service to take care of people working on boats. If we can get there in time—” Pa broke off. “Caleb, you did all the right things.” His eyes filling with tears, Pa started to shake his hand. Instead, Pa’s arms went around Cal
eb in a big bear hug.

  For the first time since the rattlesnake struck, Caleb crumpled. Like a little boy needing comfort, Caleb stood within Pa’s arms and cried.

  Again Libby felt ashamed. Caleb, I wondered if you were real. You’ve had to be real so many times, you don’t even know you’re a hero.

  The rest of the way up the river, Libby, Pa, Caleb, and Gran took turns sitting beside Peter. In the few minutes she and her father were alone without Peter, Libby told Pa her terrible fear.

  “Caleb sucked out the blood and poison. Can he die too?”

  “I asked Caleb if he had any cuts in his mouth,” Pa said quietly. “He doesn’t think so.”

  “That’s what would make the difference?”

  “There’s a lot we don’t know, but I think so.” Pa sighed. “I love Caleb like a son, and I love Peter the same way.”

  As if Pa was trying to shake all the weight off his shoulders, he smiled. “We’re getting to be more and more of a family, aren’t we, Libby?”

  “A never-give-up family.” Libby tried to smile, too, but she didn’t quite make it.

  In Galena they took Peter to the marine hospital set on the hill across the river from the business area. Standing outside, Libby looked up at the beautiful brick building. Wide verandas, or porches, wrapped around both floors. On the top of the roof was a white cupola. The scared feeling at the pit of Libby’s stomach wouldn’t go away.

  Dr. Newhall echoed Pa’s words to Caleb. “If you had a doctor’s training, you couldn’t have done better.”

  Pa told Libby more about Horatio Newhall. Long ago he had started the first store for selling medicine in the state of Illinois. He also started the first newspaper in Galena, the Miners’ Journal. Listening to Pa, Libby felt hopeful. Then she learned that if someone didn’t die of snakebite right away, he could still die later—weeks later.

  It was as though Peter had a case of blood poisoning. Day after day Libby, Caleb, Pa, and Gran visited him in the brick hospital at the top of the hill. Day after day Jordan and Serena came to see him. Everyone who knew Peter prayed for him. Yet six weeks after the rattlesnake’s bite, he seemed no better, only worse.

  “Will you write to my school?” Peter asked Libby one day. “My friends will wonder why I didn’t come when school started after harvest.”

  Libby did as he asked and wrote to the school for the deaf in Jacksonville, Illinois. Halfway through the letter she started crying. Will Peter ever see his friends again?

  As one week slipped into another, Pa seemed thinner every day. Finally Libby asked him, “You’re worried about Peter, aren’t you?”

  “Abscesses have formed,” Pa told her. “Pockets of infection near the fang marks, but also in other parts of his body.”

  “And you’re worried about Annika too?” Libby knew Pa wouldn’t leave for a city as far away as St. Paul when Peter was so ill.

  “Not worried,” Pa said. “Concerned. I feel more peaceful about her now. But I wish I knew what was happening to Annika. I’ve sent at least five letters upriver. Why doesn’t she answer? With each letter I told her how to reach me in Galena.”

  Pa sighed. “If only I could telegraph, or hear from her, or find someone who has seen her—”

  “You’ve never heard a word from steamboat captains?” Libby asked, though she felt she knew the answer.

  Pa shook his head. “If Annika is in St. Paul, she must wonder why I haven’t returned. She might even wonder if I keep my word.”

  “Annika knows you keep your promises,” Libby said. But then she wondered, What were Pa’s promises? As far as she knew, a promise of marriage had never been made between them.

  With dread Libby remembered Annika’s last words to Aunt Vi: “Tell the good captain and his Libby goodbye from me.” Worse still, Libby remembered her aunt’s terrible words. What if Annika really believes she’d be second best?

  Now and then Pa slipped away on a short run to a nearby port. Always he hurried right back. In those times Libby, Caleb, and Gran stayed with the riverboat captain for whom Jordan’s family worked.

  One day when Pa was gone, Libby was at the hospital when Peter took a sudden turn for the worse. Seeing the doctor and nurses hurry in and out of the room shook Libby as deeply as that moment on the bluff.

  With that strong sense of taking care of himself that he always had, Peter knew he was in trouble. Yet he was the one who comforted Libby. “I’m so tired, Libby,” he said. “But I like having you here.”

  Slate in hand, she stayed by his bed, ready to talk whenever he opened his eyes.

  “Wellington?” Peter asked one of those times. “You really are taking care of him?”

  Libby nodded. “But he misses you.”

  “Where’s Pa?” Peter wanted to know. Not your pa, but Pa, for Peter had begun calling him that.

  “He’ll be back tonight,” Libby said. “Maybe even by supper. He tries to not leave at all. He thought you were doing better.”

  “If I die before he comes, will you say goodbye to him?”

  Quick tears welled up in Libby’s eyes. Holding her finger in front of her lips, she shook her head to tell him, “Don’t say that!”

  But Peter went on. “Pa is my father now, but my first papa and mama are in heaven. If I die, I’ll go home to them. I’ll see them again.”

  Suddenly Libby could handle no more. “Don’t talk that way!” she wrote on the slate. “I can’t stand it! You are going to live!”

  Leaving the slate on the bed, Libby fled from the room. Going out on the wide porch on the upper floor, Libby looked toward the Galena River and began to pray. “Oh, God, what can I do? Peter is tired of fighting. He’s giving up. How can I give him hope?”

  In that still small voice that Libby was learning to recognize, she heard the answer: Get Wellington.

  CHAPTER 17

  Where’s Annika?

  Off the porch, through the hall, down the steps to the bridge across the river, Libby ran. Partway up the steep hill on the other side, she had to stop. When she caught her breath, she hurried on again.

  At the captain’s house, she found a large basket and two towels and hurried back outside. The terrier leaped up, trying to get her attention.

  “C’mon, Wellington,” she said. “We’re going to see Peter.”

  The little dog seemed to understand, for his spindly legs churned along beside her. Back across the river they went, up the hill on that side. Behind a tree outside the hospital, Libby stopped.

  Putting down the basket, she lined it with one towel, then set Wellington inside. “You have to be quiet.” Gently she pushed his back so he lay down. The dog whimpered.

  “Be quiet, Wellington, or you won’t see Peter,” Libby said in her sternest voice.

  The dog buried his muzzle between his paws. Libby put the second towel over him. “Quiet now. Be very quiet.”

  Carrying the basket, Libby set out again. Up the steps, through the hallways, up the stairs to the second floor, she hurried. For the first time in his life, Wellington did not make a sound.

  At Peter’s room Libby stepped inside and closed the door. One look told her that Peter’s eyes were closed. His face was so still and white that Libby wondered if he had died.

  Then Wellington poked his head from under the towel. Suddenly he leaped from the basket onto the bed. When he nudged Peter with his nose, the boy’s eyes flew open.

  Gathering the dog in his arms, Peter hugged him. As though Wellington understood how sick Peter was, he wiggled once, then lay still.

  From that moment on, Peter started getting well. When Pa visited Peter two hours later, he saw the difference. He also held up a piece of paper for Peter to read.

  “My adoption?” Peter asked, his voice filled with awe. “I’m really your boy?”

  Pa signed the words. “You’re really my boy.”

  Peter looked at Libby. “And you’re really my sister.”

  In the second week of November, Peter was well enough to leav
e the hospital. As the Christina headed upriver again, Pa’s face was eager, his eyes lit with the hope of seeing Annika.

  On this trip to St. Paul, Jordan’s family went along. Jordan took all of them up to Pa’s cabin and proudly showed them everything. “This is where I started learnin’ to read and write!”

  Jordan’s momma and daddy looked around the room as if it was filled with glory.

  After they left, Jordan’s sister Serena and his brother Zack sat on the top deck with Libby, Caleb, and Jordan. Leaning back against the wall of the texas, they let the sun beat down on them and watched the shoreline slide past.

  Listening to them talk, Libby wondered if the others felt the way she did. I don’t want to say goodbye.

  During Peter’s time in the hospital, Serena had become the friend Libby hoped for. More than once they had giggled together, sharing their secrets. In the most frightening moments of Peter’s illness, Serena had offered encouragement. Libby hoped that she, too, had been a good friend to Serena.

  At first the sun felt warm in spite of the lateness of the year. Peter still looked pale. But he sat with them, and his smile was stronger than ever. These days he always held Wellington in his arms. Usually the dog was content to stay there.

  The farther north they traveled, the colder it became. All of them needed to take refuge in Pa’s cabin. Serena wanted to see everything and spent most of her time at the windows. During their second night, the Christina passed through Lake Pepin, the widening in the Mississippi River.

  Shortly after sunrise on their last morning together, Caleb called them to the railing. “Pan ice,” he said, pointing at the river.

  The ice looked like giant lily pads floating downstream. Roughly circular, each piece had a lacy fringe around the edge. The ice had a fragile look, as if it had just formed.

  “It’s beautiful!” Libby exclaimed.

  Caleb didn’t think so. “It’s a bad sign. A sign of things to come. So far the ice isn’t dangerous. See how the Christina plows through?”