Soon Be Free by Lois Ruby

thought he’d spit. Doesn’t she ever have to blink? He glanced at Will, who was already dozing, and at the red velvet walls and the black leather seats, but there wasn’t much to study in this small coach since she took up most of it.
    â€œWhat’s happened to your friend’s leg?” she whispered.
    â€œLost it,” James said simply. No point in giving her the grisly details.
    â€œRather careless of him, wasn’t it? You seem like a nice enough boy. Going back to school in Philadelphia? One can’t possibly learn letters and numbers out here in the wilds.”
    â€œNo, ma’am. I’m headed for St. Louis to see a doctor. Him, too.”
    She looked at James sharply, a handkerchief pressed to her painted lips. “Surely you’re not sick. You look positively hale and ready to tame a stallion.”
    James took off his hat and tapped his temple. “It’s in here, ma’am.” He made his eyes wide and wild and pulled his hair into spikes like short wheat stalks. “I’m stark-raving mad!”
    â€œOooh,” she gasped. “Wouldn’t you just know it. I’m to ride all day to Kansas City, thirty-five countless miles, over these primitive pioneer ruts,with a lunatic, a cripple, and a darky. I ought never to have left Philadelphia. God preserve.”
    James bared his teeth, which were none too straight and were a little scary even on a good day. He watched her shrink into a corner of her bench, with her hoop standing straight up.
    Sure now that she wouldn’t talk him to death, he took out his sketchbook and one of those amazing eraser pencils and began to draw the countryside streaming past him. Will snored.

Chapter Fifteen
SAMUEL STRAIGHTFEATHER
    Odd little symbols like suture tracks dotted the blueprint of our house. I really wanted to slip that blueprint right out of the room. But they’d find out soon enough and have a fit, and I’d be in capital Trouble with my parents, so I put all the papers back and refastened the envelope. Sliding it under the clothes, I felt something that was fat and squishy—a small book packed in thick Bubble Wrap. Who could resist? I popped a couple of those bubbles while I argued with myself, but I lost the argument and ended up unwrapping an old book called Delaware: Land and People. Bits of sparkly brown dye from the binding came off in my hand as I opened the book. Its yellowed pages had hairline tears. The book had to be at least a hundred years old, although there was no copyright date on the title page.
    Now, why would the Berks be carrying an old book about Delaware? Did they plan to pawn it or sell it to an antique dealer? I carefully turned page after page, corners crumbling to powder in my fingers. If I wasn’t careful, the book would end up filling a mayonnaise jar. It fell open in the middle for aglossy picture of the author, Samuel Straightfeather, in full Indian dress. He was surrounded by a bevy of white men wearing old-fashioned business suits and bowlers. The caption read, S TRAIGHTFEATHER PLEADS FOR HIS PEOPLE’S LAND AMONG P RESIDENT B UCHANAN’S AGENTS. L AWRENCE , K ANSAS, M ARCH 1857.
    Not Delaware, the state; Delaware, the Indians! But what were they to the Berks—kin? I tried to reconstruct the Berks’ faces in my mind, scanning for signs of a square jaw or high-colored skin or sleek black hair. No, they seemed like they could be my relatives, not Samuel Straightfeather’s.
    But obviously this book was important to them. What did it have to do with their prowling around our house? Were they actually on Indian business and not James Weaver business? What kind?
    There was a key in the lock, and the doorknob was turning. I stuffed the book back into the suitcase, but there wasn’t time to slip it into the Bubble Wrap. Just as the door swung open, I yanked the sheets off the bed like one of those tricks where you whip off the tablecloth and leave all