Soon Be Free by Lois Ruby Page B

folks!”
    James and Solomon carried their trunk between them, and Solomon also dragged the lady’s trunk while she showed fat limbs by lifting her skirts out of the mud and thistle.
    Will outdistanced them quickly and reported back. “Look yonder, the flatboat.”
    The flatboat was tied to a cottonwood tree on the north bank of the Kansas River, and to another tree on the south bank. A system of pulleys and winches got that contraption across, helped along by the force of the river current.
    The flatboat owner gladly took their money and loaded the four of them on the boat.
    â€œHe expects me to sit right out here under God and the sun?” Miss Farrell asked. She pulled the rim of her hat over her face, as though her hide would molt if it got a little sun. But at least she wasn’t upset anymore to be riding with Solomon, for she gladly clung to his arm as the pulleys cranked and the boat started moving.
    Suddenly a man streaked through the redbuds and cottonwoods and grabbed the rope that anchored the boat. He waved a bowie knife; sunlight gleamed off of it in blinding flickers. “The Frenchman, he ain’t got no charter to ferry people crost this river. I do, two miles down.”
    His throat just inches from the knife, the Frenchman yelled in his own language. He was probably cussing, but his English was better thanthe ferryman’s. “My wife’s people are the Delaware, and they own the land this side of the river, friend.”
    â€œYa ain’t own the south bank,” the ferryman said, using that knife as a pointer.
    â€œNo, sir,” the Frenchman said, calm as could be. “Not anymore. But if you have a right to Delaware Trust Land on the north bank of the river, then the Delaware have a right to white man’s land on the south. Fair play?”
    â€œListen, mister, I got the charter from the U.S. government, and you ain’t even a citizen or a red man. You four on that boat, I’m warning you, load off or I’m cutting the rope that ties this piece of cork you’re floating on, and y’all will drift downstream, want to or not.” He raised the knife to the rope, and Miss Farrell screamed.
    â€œThrow down that knife!” An Indian woman came into the clearing, aiming a shotgun right at the ferryman.
    â€œWhoa,” he yelled, backing into the trees.
    â€œNice to see you, darlin’,” the Frenchman said as his wife climbed aboard and tucked her shotgun under a blanket. The Frenchman yanked on the rope and sent them all floating across the Kansas River to the grinding sound of the pulleys. Not twenty minutes later, he and his wife were smooching on the north bank.
    â€œLook at those two,” Will grumbled. “Kinda makes you sick at your stomach.”
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    Hundreds of people waited with James and Will to board steamboats and to see travelers off on their journey along the Missouri River, which was nicknamed “the Big Muddy.” Solomon stood away from the crowd, even apart from the other Negro passengers, and a quick glance told James he was plumb scared to venture out of Kansas Territory. James had never known Solomon to be scared, even that time he’d been dragged off by a slave catcher, and it pained James sorely now. Why, Solomon was just about the best friend he had.
    Miss Farrell entertained the crowd with a tale about her French poodle, demonstrating how Pierre pranced on his spindly legs; her hoops and skirts swayed like wheat in a storm. James watched Solomon relax a bit with Miss Farrell’s silly prattling.
    The steamboat would be heading for St. Louis, where the Missouri joined the Mississippi and flowed from there to exotic southern ports James had only heard of, like Natchez and New Orleans.
    James hooked his coat on his thumb over his shoulder, as the day had grown warm and humid for March. He watched passengers from the Western Star languidly disembark on the Missouri