Midnight Rescue by Lois Walfrid Johnson Page B

where Momma is—on a farm in Clark County. Old Massa sold Momma up north from where I was. I ain’t never been where Momma and my sisters and my brother are.”
    Libby waited. Where was this all going to lead? She only knew that on their trip upriver Caleb had gone into Burlington, Iowa. For a while he and Gran had lived there, and Caleb had contacts with the Underground Railroad.
    “I talked to some people I know in Burlington.” Caleb’s voice sounded stiff, as if he really didn’t want to tell Libby what was going on. “I asked them to have a peddler’s wagon in Keokuk when we came back down the river.”
    But now Caleb and Jordan agreed that the risk was too great. Sam McGrady would find it a simple matter to follow the high square sides of a peddler’s wagon.
    “I got a new plan,” Jordan told Libby. “Me and Caleb needs to get off in Burlington.”
    “We’ll get horses to ride,” Caleb said. “If someone tries to follow us, it won’t be as hard to get away from him. We’ll travel on land while the
Christina
goes down the river.”
    Caleb spoke quickly now, and Libby knew they were running out of time. “On the other side of the Des Moines River, we’ll get a farm wagon and look like anybody traveling through.”
    But there Jordan disagreed. “I has to be your driver,” he said to Caleb. “You has to be my owner.”
    A quick flash of something Libby didn’t understand crossed Caleb’s face. But when he spoke, she heard the grieving in his voice.
    “I don’t want to even play the part,” Caleb said.
    “If someone thinks we is friends, you be in big trouble,”Jordan answered. “And I be unable to rescue my family.”
    A long look passed between them. Finally Caleb nodded.
    “But you can’t look proud,” he warned. “If you look proud, anyone who sees you will know it’s you. That’s how the reward poster described you.”
    As if he had thought through every detail of his plan, Jordan grinned. “I ain’t goin’ to look proud. You’ll see.”
    “So what am I supposed to do?” Libby asked.
    As Jordan’s gaze met Caleb’s, Libby again felt sure there had been a disagreement. But she also knew something else. A few weeks before, Caleb had made a surprising offer to Jordan.
“You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
    Jordan had leaped up, his eyes blazing with anger.
“You is foolin’ me, sure enough! There ain’t no slave boy who tells a white boy what to do!”
    But Caleb hadn’t been making fun of Jordan.
“I know what to do if I find a runaway slave,”
Caleb had said.
“I know how to hide a fugitive who comes near the
Christina.
What you need to do will be a whole lot harder.”
    From then on, whenever Libby asked if she could help in the rescue, Caleb had followed one rule. It was Jordan planning the trip. Though Libby felt sure that Caleb didn’t want her along, he had no choice but to stick to his own words.
    Now Libby repeated her question. “What do you want me to do?”
    “I wants you to go in that peddler wagon,” Jordan said. “I wants you and the peddler to drive right up to that farmhouse. While you does that, me and Caleb sneaks into that farm any way we can. We finds Momma and tells her we is leavin’ for the Promised Land.”
    “You want
me
to talk to the owners?” The memory of how she had failed still haunted Libby. “What if I do the wrong thing?”
    “Just because you done one thing wrong don’t mean you is goin’ to do everything wrong,” Jordan told her. “The Lord told me we is goin’ to need you.”
    “
You
need
me
?” Libby looked from one boy to the other. When Caleb did not meet her eyes, Libby knew she had been right. Caleb still did not want her along.
    “Why do you want two wagons?” Libby asked.
    “If something happens so me and Caleb don’t git there, Momma’s got another way to escape.”
    As though he could no longer sit still, Jordan started pacing up and down in the open space between baggage. “It be early