Excerpt #1:

The Rain and the River~

The rain poured all night and the river started to swell. Toby sat huddled, on a barrel, slouched over the rudder of the barge. He watched the front and rear towlines, both lit with lanterns and steered to keep the lines straight –ahead and behind. Without seeing them, there was another barge in front, and one in tow. He could barely see the light of the lamps in the rain, but the light gleamed on the wet surface of the towlines and helped him navigate.

On his barge were several large barrels of whiskey, some large canvass bags of dyed wool, lumber shorts, grain sacks, and the cart –with its wheels removed.

Inside the covered cart was Gina, Jaynee and little Robin –the two half breed Indians, and their dog. He wasn’t sure if the wetness on his cheeks didn’t share rain and tears as he was still saddened by the loss of Bea -the mule. He knew it would pass, as had the recent loss of his father.

Gina crawled out from the dry cover of the cart to talk to him twice during the long night and had given him her drier coat to wear. She rubbed his arms and shoulders briskly to help warm him but that was quickly fading.

He was cold to the bone, and doubted if he would be warm even into the next day’s sunlight –if there were any!

Looking around he tried to imagine how much rainwater was pouring into the funnel-shaped river valley and thought of all the miles behind them that were also gathering water to chase them downriver to Pittsburgh. He guessed that the twenty miles behind him were probably swelling to dangerous levels and would require them to travel a much faster river than he and the others had wanted -especially in the dark! He knew that Ernie and Ella, the couple that owned the three barges, and the supplies onboard, were old hands at floating the river and he felt safe to be tied to their barge.

Pete and Eula rode in the last barge, and as Toby had begun to realize, they were equally as proficient at “barge running” as anybody could be. They all were such nice folk, and Toby felt it was ‘the pure Hand of God’ that had put him with them and had in fact been with him the entire trip.

He doubted that he would have made it through the ordeal of this trip without the help from everybody that currently rode the barges, including the three girls, in the wagon. He could just make out their silhouettes from the lantern inside the covered cart.

He was beginning to understand the true value of friendship, because he realized that any one of the people, he was now with, would put their life before his –to save him, and it had taken some ordeals to prove it!

He like this bunch of people and knew that as a family, they could do anything – (as Ernie had put it).

Toby felt the front of the barge pull left and he quickly leaned hard into the rudder and steered again into the towline, then he felt it pull Pete’s barge into proper tow. Water was now sloshing across the floor of the barge and was ever deepening. He guessed that daylight –it there was to be any, -with the storm, it shouldn’t be too long in coming.

Again, the barge was pulled hard to the left, when he heard a shout. It was Ella’s voice, and she yelled, “Toby, hard left! Hard Left! Tell Pete!”

Toby pulled on the rudder and turned his head to shout behind him. “Hard.” Was all he got out when the barge crashed into something solid? He almost lost his balance as the front of the barge lifted and tilted the entire barge. It came to a grinding halt –until Pete’s barge plowed into them! This knocked him to his knees and he heard the girls scream.

The second barge slid up and onto Toby’s and he was just able to scramble ahead of it.

Everything came to a complete halt and he heard shouts in the dark.

Eula was first one to him, as she’d been on the front of the trailing barge –thirty feet in tow. And now stood as his side! Pete was approaching as the lantern dropped onto the deck and broke, spilling oil and flames onto to the deck of the barge!

The flaming oil floated across the deck and spread towards the barrels of whiskey. Toby knew they would explode if the fire got to the contents of the barrels. But as quickly as the fire washed over the deck it went out. The rain had scattered the fire –as did the water on the deck, and Toby figured that the lamp was probably pretty low on oil.

“Toby, are you all ok?” Eula now had a grip on the wet sleeve of his coat, and was leaning into his face.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and for him to see Eula by the last light of the other lantern.

“Yes…” Toby replied as he turned to the cart, it had slipped off the crates and now sat at the edge of the barge and at an angle not too healthy for its occupants!

“Gina, Gina!” Toby yelled, and went to the cart.

“We’re ok…” Gina was crawling out from under the cover of the cart and had Robin in tow. She had the look of a deep sleep but the cold rain cured that. Jaynee was behind the others and still stood under the oilskin –out of the rain. Their profiles were all that was visible in the rain, and Toby knew they were alright.

Eula went to the front of Toby’s barge and shouted to Ernie or Ella and that’s when she first noticed that the towrope was hanging loosely into the water. She yelled again and paused for a reply. None came…