After my pa and Uncle Josiah carried the trunk and bags to the staterooms, a deckhand shoved us down steep stairs and pushed us into a pen. He locked a heavy wooden door behind us. The pen was full of slaves, and many of the men were chained to posts. I gagged at the stench of hot, crowded bodies.
The heat was stifling. A boiler sat above a huge fire that burned in a metal box. An overseer yelled at the slaves, ordering them to throw more logs onto the fire. An old woman saw that I was frightened and explained that the fire made steam to turn the paddlewheel. “That’s why it’s called a steamboat,” she said. “The steam rising out of the boiler turns the paddlewheel at the back of the boat. We’ll be hot all the way to St. Louis.”
Moses said to us, “Find yourselves a seat because we’re going to be here for some time.” Then Moses put her arm around my shoulders and whispered, “Honey, I’ve been in worse places, but it sure is hot down here!”
That night a deckhand came down to the pen and shouted, “Who’s Rebecca? Miss Ross, she wants Rebecca to take care of her. Hurry up, girl, don’t waste my time.”
I looked at Moses who smiled and nodded her head. Then I understood that Delilah was helping me. I was scared to leave my family, but I had to obey; I had to obey because I was living as a slave again. The deckhand dragged me out of the pen, locked the door and took me to Delilah’s stateroom. When he knocked on the door, Delilah opened it and waved me inside, shouting, “You lazy girl, you! Who was going to take care of me while you sat down below? There’s work to be done.” She thanked the deckhand and closed the door.
Delilah put her arms around me and whispered, “I’m sorry. I had to pretend to be your mistress. I figured the stateroom would be much nicer for you than the slave pen. Am I right?”
I nodded. “Yes, much nicer. I wish my family and Moses weren’t in that pen.” Tears came to my eyes.
Delilah pointed to a small, round window. “Look, Rebecca, look out the porthole. See that steamboat passing by? That must be what our boat looks like.” Lanterns lit the windows of the passing steamboat. At the back, sparks flew up from a smokestack and a wooden paddle-wheel churned through the water.
I looked around the stateroom itself. The room was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was much fancier than any room at Grower Brown’s with a mirror set in a gold frame, wallpaper printed with pink roses and a bed heaped high with pillows and blankets.
Delilah invited me to sit down beside her on a small settee. “How old are you, Rebecca?”
“I’m twelve.”
Delilah smiled. “How old do you think I am?”
I looked at her. “You’re a woman.”
There seemed to be sadness in her voice as Delilah said, “Yes, I’m eighteen. It was time for me to run away because the master was looking at me in a bad way.”
I knew that the growers favoured pretty slave girls, and Delilah was more than pretty, she was beautiful. She looked at me and frowned. “Now, if you’re going to pretend to be my stateroom slave and walk out on the deck behind the Birdman and me, you have to have a bath. Right now you’re filthy from all that time in the coffin, but we’ll get you clean. First, you’ll have to get pails of hot water from the kitchen.”
I walked along the deck with an empty pail in each hand. The steamboat blew its whistle, and I jumped with fright. We were passing another boat, a boat going down the river to Memphis. I wondered whether there were slaves on that boat. Were they stoking a fire to make the paddlewheel turn, just like the slaves on our boat?
I found the kitchen but waited outside, jumping out of the way as the doors swung open and shut. I was scared to go in. Men in white shirts and white pants came in and out, carrying trays full of food. Then I got a glimpse of the cook, a woman who looked like Ada. I pushed the door open and walked in. The cook was stirring huge pots of food, but when she saw the pails I was carrying, she said, “Child, come to the stove and I’ll give you hot water for your missus.”
She poured steaming water into the pails and I thanked her. I tried to carry the pails so their heat didn’t burn my legs as I hurried back to the stateroom. When I knocked on the door, Delilah quickly opened it. “Rebecca, you took so long, I was scared.” She took the heavy pails and poured the water into a metal tub.
“I’ll get into the bath first,” Delilah said. “I’m dirty but not as dirty as you!”
Delilah lowered herself into the hot water and bathed quickly. When she stepped out of the bath, she said, “Now it’s your turn, Rebecca. The water is still warm.” She poured water over me and rubbed soap into my hair. When we were through, Delilah chose a lavender-coloured dress for herself and a simple brown dress for me, a plain dress a slave would wear. My dress was too big but Delilah tied a scarf around my waist to hold it up.
The Birdman knocked on the door and came in, carrying a plate of food for Delilah. “Rebecca, what are you doing here?”
Then Delilah laughed and said, “Well, a fine lady like me needs a slave girl to look after her, that’s how she got here.”
“That was a clever idea!” the Birdman said.
Delilah and I shared the fried chicken, okra and sweet potato pie, but I thought about my family and felt sad. They would not be eating like this. I looked out the window and saw the lights of other boats passing us on the river. The floor of the stateroom shook gently as the giant paddlewheel kept turning. I was a long way from Grower Brown’s plantation.
I asked the Birdman, “Will you take us out on the deck? I’ll walk behind you and Delilah and pretend to be her servant.” I wanted to walk on the deck, for no matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this night on the steamboat.
He smiled. “Yes, let’s all go out. It’s a fine night.”
Delilah found two shawls and put one over my shoulders. The night air was cool as we stepped onto the deck. There were bright stars in the sky and the Birdman pointed to the Big Dipper. I smiled, knowing that the North Star led to freedom; it seemed closer than it had been at the plantation.
As we walked to the front of the steamboat, we saw a man holding an enormous wooden wheel, with spokes like a wagon wheel. The Birdman said, “That’s the pilot. He stands on that raised platform, called the bridge, and steers, finding safe passage along the river.” Every few minutes, we heard the pilot call out, “Depth?” Another man stood on the deck below and took soundings with a long pole that measured the depth of the water. He shouted to the pilot, “Mark Twain.” The Birdman explained that sandbars were continually shifting from place to place in the Mississippi River. The boat needed to stay in deep water or it would run aground. “Mark Twain” meant two fathoms or twelve feet.
Another steamboat passed by. Sparks flew up from its smokestack and fell like rain on the river. Then the boat went around a bend and disappeared from sight. I thought of my family down below deck. I remembered the heat and the smell of that pen, and, despite the beauty of the river passage, I hoped it would end quickly.
We stayed on the deck for a long time. In the darkness, the fact that the Birdman and Delilah had white skin and I had black skin did not seem to make any difference. The Birdman walked us back to Delilah’s room and Delilah made a bed for me on the floor. I lay down on the soft blankets, resting my head on a feather pillow, and fell asleep thinking of the North Star.
When I woke up, the sun was shining through the small round window. Delilah was still sleeping so I stayed quiet and still until she awakened. That morning she put on a clean blue-coloured dress with white lace at the collar. I wore the same brown dress because a slave girl would have only one dress.
The Birdman knocked on the door and said, “I think it is safer for you to stay in the stateroom during the day, Delilah. There is no need for you to go on deck where other passengers, especially men, will want to make your acquaintance. Rebecca can bring you breakfast on a tray and you two can share the food.”
I asked the Birdman if I could go to see my family and Moses, but he shook his head sadly. “No, that would put all of you at risk. I’m sorry, Rebecca.”
The Birdman and I walked to the upper deck to get breakfast for Delilah. As we neared the dining room, I saw a man sitting beside a pretty white woman, talking and laughing. My heart stopped, and for a moment, I could not breathe.
I quickly turned my back to the man and woman and whispered to the Birdman, “It is Grower Brown’s son—Master Jeff—sitting on the deck.”
The Birdman was shocked. “Oh, no. Are you sure, Rebecca?”
I nodded. There was no doubt that I had seen Master Jeff. I kept my face down as I followed the Birdman back to Delilah’s stateroom. When we walked into the room, Delilah could see the fear on our faces. She asked, “What is it? What happened?”
“Rebecca saw Master Jeff, the son of the man who was her master, sitting on deck,” the Birdman said. “She is sure it is him. This was not what we planned, no, not at all. This is a very unwelcome complication.”
Delilah saw that I was trembling and took my hand in hers. I looked at her and said, “When I saw Master Jeff, I realized that our journey has not taken us very far from slavery.”