The River Between Us

by Richard Peck

  I don’t know how long we all danced until, like the crack of doom, a steamboat whistle split the air. The bow bounced off the fiddle, and everybody stomped to a sudden stop.

  Right quick we heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. T. W. Jenkins burst upon us. “It’s a Southern boat! It’s the Rob Roy from out of New Orleans!”

  A whoop went up from the Southerners and Northerners alike. “Where’s my boys?” cried T. W. Jenkins. He ran the freight landing and the store that went with it, the only other store we had.

  There was unloading to be done, of whatever was coming off the boat. Noah and Curry Marshall and three or four others who worked at the freight landing darted forward. Noah brought home the only ready money we had, though Mama thought he worked too close to the river.

  Everybody ganged down the stairs. We met every boat, and this was a special case. The clammy night air hit us full in the face as all the town made for the landing. The Rob Roy blazed with lamplight that lit the water around it. The paddle wheel churned in reverse. The gangplank was already down. I’d never set foot on a big boat. To me a riverboat was a palace. The pair of flaring gold chimney stacks belched flame-colored smoke into the night. Below them the decks glowed like a gingerbread wedding cake.

  The Rob Roy was full to the gills with passengers. They must have been Yankees hurrying home in case war trapped them. And there were those people who seemed always on the river, restless travelers. The railings were jammed tight with dark figures. I saw the firefly glow of the gentlemen’s seegars. I imagined I saw diamonds within the ladies’ flowing cloaks, and emeralds in their hair.

  I couldn’t picture where they’d come from, where they were going. Did I know enough to wonder?

  We worked our way forward to see Noah and Curry and the other boys running up the gangplank for the freight. We all waved and waved till the pilot up on the Texas deck bothered to wave back. What a sight it all was, this brilliance in the velvet night.

  People were crazy to hear the news. They called up to the passengers leaning on the rails. “What’s it like down yonder? What’s conditions at New Orleans?”

  “Port’s open!” someone called back. “Business as usual. Still shippin’ cotton. But we was boarded and searched at Cairo.”

  We drank it all in and turned over every word. Then lo and behold, two figures were coming down the plank. Will I ever forget that first sight of them? Two figures, backlit by the boat, come down to us by lantern light.

  A young lady was in the lead, in ballooning crinolines. Heavens, I’d never seen such skirts—rustling taffeta stretched wide over hoops. Her top part was encased in a cut-plush cape, with tassels. And her bonnet. My stars, I pushed people aside to get a look at it. A bonnet too dark to make out except for the ice-blue satin it was lined with, and a whole corsage of artificial violets planted inside next to her face. An enormous satin bow tied beneath her chin.

  And then her face, framed with long dark curls beside the violets. Her eyes were large and darkly fringed. Her Cupid’s bow of a mouth too dark to be as nature intended. She must be from New Orleans. No town between here and there could have produced her.

  The slant of the gangplank all but upturned her. She clung to the rope with one gloved hand. From the other hung a round hatbox covered in elegant wallpaper.

  She turned back to the young woman behind her. I saw this other one only in silhouette at first. She was narrower, darker, shrouded in a long plain cloak. In place of a bonnet or a traveling hat, her head was tied up in a bandanna. It was of some fine silken material, and the tails of the knot were artfully arranged. Her hands were full of various boxes and reticules. The two of them murmured together.

  Behind them a deckhand staggered under a humpbacked Saratoga trunk. At the end of the plank he very nearly stepped through the young lady’s hoops. When he swung the trunk off his back, it lit in the mud.

  By then, I was standing as close to the young lady as I am to you. She turned right to me. “Il est saoul!” she said. Her great fringed eyes grew wider.

  “Come again?” I said, in a trance.

  “He’s drunk, that one. All men are drunkards! And the men on this boat, all of them spit, spit, spit.” She pointed back to the Rob Roy in case I’d missed seeing it.

  I stared at her, and all the crowd around us stood silent, listening in.

  Drunk or sober, the deckhand was back up the plank. Now here he came again with yet another trunk. I’d never known anybody with two trunkloads of anything.

  But no, wait. It was Noah, bent under this second trunk. He sidestepped the young lady and almost fell off the plank for looking at her.

  She noticed him, I believe. But now she turned to address us all. Evidently, the world was her stage. “I am meant for St. Louis, but I cannot go on! It is too dangerous there,” she sang out, and in her mouth, the word dangerous took on quite a foreign sound.

  It was true there was unrest up there. On the day Lincoln took his oath of office, a Confederate flag was rung up over the Berthold mansion in St. Louis. Confederate flags rose above some of the best houses on Olive Street, according to word we’d had. People said the only safeguard to Federal authority in Missouri was the St. Louis arsenal. Soon, people said, there’d be blood in the streets.

  “I am, how do you say it?” the young lady declared. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire!”

  What must we all have looked like to her, listening openmouthed to her every word? It didn’t seem to displease her. “And I was insulted at Cairo!” She looked around at us with her great fringed eyes to see how we took this terrible news.

  Cairo was the last town at the bottom tip of Illinois, where the North points a long finger at the South.

  “Insulted,” she repeated. “Me!” She dealt her bosom a blow. “The Federals, they come on the boat in a swarm like bees. They want to see our papers. They want to count our money. They go through our things.” She pointed out her trunks and shook her hatbox at us. “I was so scare I poosh a scream!”

  Darker than the night, her eyes widened to fill her bonnet. “They look at things no man should see!”

  We stirred.

  “And would you believe! They take from me my pistol!” We caught our breaths. She’d been armed?

  “Hardly more than a toy! A lady’s pistol that live in my muff! I am desolated without it. How handy a pistol can be, and mine had a pearl handle!”

  Now we were struck dumber than before.

  “No, we cannot brave St. Louis.” She swept a tiny gloved hand back at the other young woman, the silent one. “I was meant to pay a visit to my aunt, Madame LeBlanc.” Again the young lady’s gaze swept us. “Madame Blanche LeBlanc. She is known to you?”

  We only gaped silently back, our tongues tied.

  Was this young lady an actress? I for one wondered. I’d heard about the playacting on the showboats. But surely no performance to beat this one.

  “We cannot go on. It is as if we are . . . naufrage . . . how do you say it? Shipwrecked! We stay here. Is there a hotel?”

  Transfixed though we were, we’d been watching the young woman behind her too. The darker one. She must be a servant. Was she a slave? A question murmured among us. Was she a slave standing now on the free soil of Illinois? My, how we wondered.

  “You won’t care much for the hotel,” old Aunt Madge Bledsoe called out. Leave it to Aunt Madge. And she wasn’t wrong. We had what we called a hotel for the salesmen and agents coming off the boats. It was even grandly named “the St. James.” But it was only four rooms over a saloon that sold ’shine and red-eye. And it was said that the bedroom walls didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling.

  “No, it wouldn’t do for you,” someone else said. I looked around, and it was Mama, with Cass in hand. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Mama rarely spoke out. “You-uns can come stay with me. It’s plain, but they’s room.”

  The young lady considered. “I can pay,” she said.

  Mama nodded while o
ur world listened.

  “Me, I am Delphine Duval,” the young lady said to Mama. “And here is Calinda.” She gestured at the figure behind her, in her shadow.

  “I’m Mrs. Pruitt,” Mama said.

  “Enchantée, madame,” said Delphine Duval. She put out her small hand, and Mama took it.

  “I’m Tilly Pruitt,” I said, speaking right up. “This here’s my sister, Cass.” I had to speak for Cass. She wouldn’t say boo to a goose, unless it had come back from the dead.

  Delphine Duval dropped a small curtsy my way, and I felt her eyes take me on. I looked past her to the other girl, to Calinda. “Tilly Pruitt,” I said to her, putting out my hand. But hers were full, and she didn’t nod. I couldn’t see her shadowed eyes.

  Noah was there by now, very red in the face, no doubt from hauling the freight.

  “That there is my twin brother, Noah,” I explained, because in the presence of Delphine Duval he was all eyes and no tongue. But he hefted her trunk back onto his shoulder. Cass and I managed the other trunk between us. As the boat began to move away, churning water behind us, the crowd parted, and off we went. Calinda was hung all over with parcels and valises. Delphine was only lightly burdened by her hatbox.

  Mama led the way because it was dark as a snake’s insides now. I watched the shape of Delphine’s swaying, sighing hoopskirts and saw that her slippers had heels, as we climbed the Devil’s Backbone, heading for home.

  I couldn’t see a moment ahead.

  Chapter Four

  Oh, that Delphine give me a hard night! I tossed and turned, still seeing her come down the plank in all her New Orleans finery, like a visitor from the moon.

  It wasn’t every day in the week that we had company in our spare room. They’d seemed to expect a candle, so we give them one. I thrashed in the bed, wondering if they’d burn down the house. I was so restless that even Cass, who slept in the trundle at the foot of my bed, reared up to see what ailed me. And Cass could sleep through earthquake, famine, and flood—another of her peculiarities.

  Just before dawn, Mama nearly scared me into a fit by coming in the room and looming over my bed. Her hair let down swept my face, just as I’d been dreaming of lace and gauzy silk.

  “Listen to me,” Mama whispered. “I don’t dare to talk out loud.” She jerked her head to the wall between our room and the room where Delphine and Calinda were. “I don’t know what to make of them two,” said Mama. “Be real careful what you say around them. Watch every word. I think that Calinda might be a slave, and I wonder if that Delphine knows which side of the river they’s on. Don’t explain a thing, even if asked.”

  She gave the corner of my quilt a twitch to make sure I attended every whispered word. I nodded in the night. A law on the books said that black people weren’t allowed into Illinois. We paid no attention to that, of course. There were plenty of black people in the state. And they were all free.

  Mama melted away. As quick as she was out in the hall, she let forth a shriek to wake the dead. Through the crack in the door, I saw she’d walked straight into Calinda. In the gloom, the tails of her bandanna stood up like perky ears. She was dressed for the day, evidently.

  Then I heard Mama say, “Oh, well, yes. They’s plenty of hot water for washing yourselves.” The two of them went off downstairs to the kitchen fire. Once more, Cass reared up in the trundle and blinked around in the dark. I may have dozed because the next thing I remember is daylight in the kitchen.

  Mama and I bustled. Today we had guests, and paying ones at that. Besides, Mama liked things done right, poor though we were. She’d come from up around Vandalia when it was the capital of the state. She knew how things ought to be, so we got out a cloth for the table, a blue-and-white checked, much darned and patched.

  I laid the table. Mama was frying scrapple and two eggs apiece for us all, like Christmas morning. We couldn’t afford coffee, but she brewed up a big pot of our sassafras tea. We dug the sassafras root out in the timber, and dried the bark.

  Mama had sent Cass upstairs to say that breakfast was about on the table. Cass was no sooner there than she was back again. She shot into the kitchen like a pack of hounds was on her tail. Her mouth was stretched in a wordless scream, and she was as gray-faced as the ghosts she often saw. She grabbed the edge of the table, then fetched up a breath and howled out, “The tall one’s killin’ the short one!”

  Mama dropped the spatula and spun around, supposing that Cass had finally lost all her reason. “I’m tellin’ you!” Cass yelled. “Calinda’s killin’ the little fancy one, and the little one’s hurtin’ bad!”

  Hearing Cass at the top of her lungs brought Noah out from the room he slept in down here behind the chimney. He was shaking off sleep and wondering who was being killed.

  “Cass, is this one of your visions,” I said, “or is it real?”

  She stamped a foot. “It’s happenin’, dadburn it!”

  Mama gave Cass a searching look. Then we all bolted out of the kitchen, along the hall, up the stairs. Cass was in the lead, and Noah brought up the rear. Mama stopped halfway up and turned on him. “Not you, boy. You go back. There might be nekkidness this early in the day.”

  The door to the spare room stood ajar. Of our three bedrooms upstairs, this was the best, looking out across to Tower Rock. We heard sighs and whimpers. Delphine was evidently still alive, if barely.

  Mama went forth, and we let her. She stalked into the spare room and pulled up short. “Oh for the land’s sake!” she said, whipping around to turn us back. I was naturally all eyes and saw everything.

  Delphine stood, feet planted, at the foot of the big old four-poster bed. Both her hands grabbed the poster tight. Mama had been right to forbid Noah this sight. Delphine wore not a stitch but white cotton stockings, her drawers, and corsets.

  Behind her was Calinda with one foot on the floor and the other foot in the small of Delphine’s back. With both hands Calinda was pulling tight the straining strings of the corsets, like the reins on a rearing horse. Straining and straining and just about cutting poor, gasping Delphine in two to draw her corsets tight enough so you could span her waist with two hands.

  Now we were out in the hall, making tracks. As a rule, Mama went easy on Cass. But today, she gave her ear a good wrenching. “Girl, I’d like to turn you every way but loose,” she said. “She wasn’t killing her. She was getting her into her corsets.”

  “Well, I never seen nothing like it,” Cass whined.

  Neither had I, and I’d sooner be murdered than to have to wear a pair of them corset things. “Mama,” I said, “did you ever wear them?”

  “Once on the day I was married, and that was plenty. I passed out twice before I got to the altar.”

  We were on the stairs now. Mercifully neither Calinda nor Delphine had made note of us in their room. We hadn’t lingered. Still, I was amazed at their clutter. Both trunks yawned, and the room was festooned with all manner of clothes and I don’t know what all.

  “They must have been calculating a long visit to St. Louis,” I said.

  “If you ask me,” Mama murmured, “them two don’t add up.”

  Noah stood by the kitchen fire with a mug of tea in his hand, as wide-eyed with wonder as he ever got.

  “No harm done,” said Mama, “and nothing to concern you.” Pointing him into Paw’s chair, she straightened her apron and went back to the skillet.

  We sat to our breakfast, not knowing how long the corset business would last. While short, Delphine was not small.

  “Heavens above,” I muttered, “does she go through that torture every morning of her life?” But Mama narrowed her eyes at me because Noah was sopping up every word.

  We’d set two places for our company. I don’t know if you could call Mama abolitionist or not. But she took a very dim view of slavery and slave owners, and didn’t care who knew it. In the state of Illinois, even this far south, Calinda would sit at the table like the rest of us. I wondered where she’d slept. There was
but one big bed in the room. Did slaves sleep on the floor? Seemed like there wasn’t room for a cat to nap with all their tangle strewn about.

  Then there they were at the door. Delphine was first. After my last glimpse of her, I couldn’t believe this one. That was no more her natural waist than it was mine. But, goodness, how tiny and dainty it was. Skirts flared below it, so wide she could hardly pass through the door.

  Above, she was hung with several fine shawls. She peered curiously into the room. We peered curiously back. Her skin was perfect, and there was powder on her face. You could see it. But she hadn’t chanced paint here in the cold light of dawn. Her lips were pale. There were patches of a naturally violet color below her dark eyes. We saw her full-face now, without her bonnet.

  How had Calinda managed her young lady’s hair? The black curls hung long to frame her face.

  “Bonjour, mes amis,” she remarked, and floated forth. Calinda followed. A white bandanna would have made her face darker. This one was of a color we used to call guinea blue. White scarves crossed the top of her dress. She was as narrow-faced as Delphine was round. But they had the same eyes, though Calinda’s trusted no one.

  Mama looked at Noah, and he was suddenly on his feet. The chair fell over behind him. Cass and I were at the fire, bringing breakfast. Calinda settled beside Mama as if she expected to be there. That put Delphine next to Noah. He hadn’t stood behind their chairs to seat them, as Mama pointed out to him later. Now he’d retrieved his chair. It was as well he was sitting again because he was weak in the knees.

  We slid the plates before them. Mama had made a name for herself with her scrapple. It was cornmeal and shredded pork off the neck bones. You gelled this mess in a long pan and kept it in a cool place. Then you sliced out slabs of it to fry in lard. Today Mama had used butter instead. I could eat my weight in scrapple. The eggs were done to a turn.