The Fugitive Son (10 page)

Near St. Louis

The 200-mile trip upriver to change steamboats at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers went quickly. Elsie chatted comfortably with John and Mary as though they were longtime friends, yet knowing it would be a very short friendship.

Mary broke into her thoughts. “If only we were going to the same place! It seems my entire life is spent making friends, then having to leave them behind.”

Elsie patted her hand. “I’m not sure who is leaving whom behind – I’m going much farther west than you are!”

“We’re going to be plowing up prairie sod, and you’ll be tending a mercantile way out in the desert Southwest,” John noted. “Truly, the United States are on the move!”

“All I know is that I keep saying goodbye to friends,” Mary complained. “And it certainly isn’t fun!”

“John? John Montgomery? What in blazes are you doing this far from home?” A big voice boomed from a small, wiry man as he exited the pilot house and came toward them.

“Sam?” John whirled around in surprise. “I might ask the same of you! Last time I saw you was at the print shop in New York where we were both setting type. What brings you to the Mississippi?”

Sam twirled an amazing handlebar mustache, grinning broadly. “It’s been a couple of years since our days in the big city. I decided life should be more exciting than setting the alphabet into other people’s words and sentences every day, so I became a riverboat pilot.”

John glanced at his clothing, which was obviously not pilot’s attire.

“Not quite a pilot yet,” replied Sam, totally unabashed at his exaggeration. “Actually, I’m a cub – been up and down the Mississippi several times with Pilot Horace Bixby teachin’ me the ropes.”

Remembering his manners, John introduced his old friend to the ladies. “Mary and Elsie, this is my old partner in crime, Samuel Clemens. We were both printer’s interns back in ’53 in New York.”

“Those were the days!” Sam inserted. “Me and John were quite the ladies’ men and made plenty of memories.”

The frown on Mary’s face as she possessively clutched John’s elbow forced a quick change of subject. “Now Horace thinks I need to take a few runs on a smaller steamer up the Missouri before I get my license. Can’t wait to get my hands on my own rudder!” Sam held up a notebook, ruled like a ship’s ledger. “But I have to learn all these consarned notes first. Horace talks so fast, we call him ‘Race for short. Durn near wrote my fingers off trying to keep up with him!”

As Sam continued jawing with John, Elsie looked him over. He appeared to be in his early twenties, a few years younger than John – much too young for having done all the things he was bragging about. She summed him up as a man who liked to be the center of attention and enjoyed stretching the truth a bit for a laugh.

At the moment, he had drawn an audience of travelers around their little group, regaling them with a lampoon of a captain named Isaiah Sellers, “a self-important but rigid rooster who likes to think that, because he’s a senior riverboat captain and writes steamboat stories for the New Orleans newspaper, we should all offer him obeisance.” Sam strutted up and down the deck, mimicking the pompous captain. “Obeisance, my foot!” he mocked. “We all call him Starchy Boy!”

Elsie laughed along with the other river-weary travelers, thankful for the escape from the sad thoughts of leaving her new friends. Sam, who had taken on the role as a one-man show for his appreciative audience, chewed the end of his unlit cigar thoughtfully.

“Lessen you think your lives will be in danger with an unlearned pilot at the helm, let me reassure you,” Sam’s face took on an overly serious look. “Having endured six trips up the Missouri, I am now a bona fide licensed pilot, fully capable of keeping the
Polar Star
some of you will be boarding soon off the shoals and sandbars. I have this little piece of paper to prove that the government deems me safe and worthy.” He held up a license certifying his ability to pilot ships on the Missouri.

“By this time next year,” he continued, “the license will also include the mighty Mississippi and the beautiful Ohio!” He looked around the circle of travelers. “’Sides that, only two ships have sunk on the lower Missouri this year – the
T.L. Crawford
at Slaughterhouse Bend and the
New Lucy
at Diane Bend near Bocheport.” Sam pulled on his mustache dramatically. “And I’m happy to report that neither packet had the pleasure of my company in the wheelhouse.”

As the cocky fellow continued to hold center stage with his admiring audience, Elsie grew bored. She almost wished she had opted for the stagecoach journey across Missouri rather than the extended riverboat trip. She had heard travel by stage was quicker, but the river was much easier and less dangerous. She shuddered, thinking of the warnings of Indian attacks and the rough wagon roads that had to be endured by the stagecoach passengers. Her instincts told her travel via steamboat would be safer for Isaac, even if he did have to spend the trip on the cargo deck.

The only danger she had encountered aboard the steam packets so far was the night they ran aground on the sandbar on the Ohio River. That hadn’t been dangerous as much as it was a nuisance. Surely the Missouri River would be at least as tame as the Ohio. She did hope the privies on the
Polar Star
were safer. With a delicate shudder, she remembered the night she’d heard a loud crash, followed by a steward running up to the captain’s quarters yelling, “A plank caught in the paddle wheel, which hurled it right through the privy! Just missed a fella who was sittin’ in it! Six inches more and it would have run right through him!”

From then on, Elsie made her “necessary” visits as quickly as possible, trembling with anxiety each time she had to use the privy. But then again, where did one take care of such daily routines along a stagecoach route?

The
Banner
’s twin smokestacks belched heavy black smoke, and the band ripped into a lively march, signaling the sidewheeler was approaching a landing. Elsie thought she’d never tire of the majestic sight of the American flag waving grandly in the breeze, framed by the smokestacks against the backdrop of a spectacular sunset.

She hurried to her cabin to collect her things and to say goodbye to the Montgomerys. She prayed her friends would have a safe journey to their new home in Illinois and that she and Isaac would have a safe and pleasant trip to Kansas City.
Please let Sam be right, Lord
, she pled.
Help him to be a safe riverboat pilot!

Isaac met her at the door of her cabin with all her baggage already piled on a transport cart. “Evenin’, Miss Elsie,” he said as he lowered his head. “You ready to board the
Polar Star
? It’s jist down the dock a few slips.”

Again, she wanted to hug her friend but knew it wouldn’t be seemly. She couldn’t do anything that might endanger him. She’d save her appreciation for all his help once they got to a safer location. They were so in tune with each other, however, that she caught the twinkle in his eye and the big grin just aching to spread across his face. She knew he understood. He was, after all, more like a dearly loved big brother.

Boarding the smaller boat for the trip across Missouri, Elsie noticed the difference between this riverboat and the elegant one she had just left. They had a few things in common – both carried freight – but the
Polar Star
seemed to be loaded with furnishings and household goods rather than bales of cotton or barrels of molasses headed to market. Its passengers appeared to be moving out West and taking all their belongings with them. There was an air of excitement among the travelers, an anticipation for the new life that lay ahead.

The
Polar Star
, despite its worn facade showing the ravages of time, still had all the amenities of the previous ship. Soft Brussels carpet covered the cabin and lounge floors. Staterooms boasted every imaginable convenience. Even a grand piano presided over the ladies’ cabin! The tables in the elegantly furnished dining room were covered in white linen cloths topped with amazing floral centerpieces. Wandering among the tables, Elsie picked up a menu and found it to be equal to any of the first-class hotels she had visited with her father. But the prices! She unconsciously patted one of the money folders she had pinned beneath her skirts. She had plenty of money, but she wondered how long it would last at this rate.

As the passengers continued to board, Elsie saw the wiry little pilot again, holding forth in the midst of a crowd. She had begun to think of Sam Clemens as a cocky little banty rooster. She smiled as she remembered her banties back home and how they strutted all over the chicken yard, crowing as if they owned the place. Likewise, this Sam looked like he owned the steamship as he spouted off his knowledge of the journey.

“Yessir, folks, you’ve chosen by far the better method of travel to the West,” he complimented his growing circle of admirers. “I’ve been on rough wagon roads all over Missouri in a first-class stagecoach, and believe me, it’s a trip you don’t want to take. It’s a much easier journey by steamboat, I can assure you.” He paused to catch his breath before launching into yet another tale.

“Why, I tell you that our coach was an imposing cradle on wheels, of the most sumptuous description,” he said. “Long about an hour or so before daylight, we bowled along so smoothly over the road that our cradle rocked in a gentle way, lulling us to sleep. Then something under the carriage gave way with a loud THUD! and woke us to the sad fate of spending the rest of the night out in the open while the drivers repaired something called a thoroughbrace.”

Sam continued his saga of the stagecoach ride with a hilarious tale of a portly woman who had spent the entire time swatting pesky mosquitoes. “Every time a mosquito came within her range, she’d launch a swat at him that would have jolted a cow,” he said, demonstrating her technique. “Once she slapped so hard, she like to swatted me right off the coach! She never missed, and after she got one, she’d sit and contemplate the corpse with an air of tranquil satisfaction. By George, I swear I watched her kill thirty or forty mosquitoes that night.”

By this time, Elsie was laughing along with the others at Sam’s antics. The blast of the boat whistle signaled it was time to leave, confirmed by the belches of steam rising from the smokestacks. Elsie headed for her cabin, thinking perhaps she had misjudged the cocky pilot. He wasn’t such a bad fellow, and he certainly had a droll sense of humor. Maybe this part of her journey would be interesting after all.

Great Salt Lake City

R
IDING INTO
the valley of the Great Salt Lake, Andy sensed something amiss. What was normally an area alive with bustle and hustle seemed eerily quiet. The closer he drew to the city, the quieter it became, without even the disturbance of birdsong or crickets. He looked around the deserted streets for some sign of life, but nothing stirred.

“How strange,” he thought. “There aren’t even any guards at Temple Square.” Normally, the ten-acre plot of ground in the center of the city was teeming with stone masons, hod carriers, and laborers bringing quarried sandstone in from Red Butte Canyon and laying the foundation and footings for a huge temple. Ever since the temple building had begun four years ago, Andy had gloried in the growth of the walls. He expected that by now there would have been a lot of progress on the House of the Lord. Instead, the foundation stones were buried and the entire area was plowed to resemble a farmer’s field.

He spurred the horse and galloped around Temple Square, stopping at Beehive House, the residence where the prophet housed his numerous wives and children. To his surprise, another huge mansion had been built on the property, a mansion with a large lion statue resting on a balcony above the entrance. An engraved sign read, “The Lion House, home of Prophet Brigham Young.”

Andy grimaced. “Got so many wives and children, one huge mansion isn’t big enough to house ‘em all,” he murmured aloud, then looked around to make sure no one had heard him. But who would have heard him? Not a soul appeared anywhere around the square or in the houses.