Betsy's River Adventure by Veda Boyd Jones

Author:Veda Boyd Jones [JONES, VEDA BOYD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-62836-188-9
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2004-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

The Graves

Betsy froze. The Indian, a boy about her age, stood beside his horse, which was drinking from the creek. He said something that she couldn’t understand.

He said it again.

Betsy finally found her voice and screamed, “Marley!”

“Marley?” the Indian repeated.

Betsy twirled when she heard running footsteps behind her.

Marley burst through the undergrowth with George on his heels. Marley looked at Betsy, then at the Indian. He said something in a different language to the boy, and the boy responded and grinned.

“It’s okay, Betsy. This is Running Fox. We’re friends.”

“You know this Indian?” George asked.

Marley took on a haunted look. His eyes narrowed and a frown line crossed his brow. He breathed out a sigh. “He’s from a settlement not far from here. I know it well.”

“Then he’s friendly?” Betsy asked.

“Very friendly,” Marley said. Again he spoke to the boy in his native language. The boy answered and motioned behind him.

“He’s been looking for a stray,” Marley said.

Betsy heard a distant mooing that seemed to come from upstream.

The Indian boy cocked his head as if he’d heard it, too, and immediately mounted his horse. He called something to Marley, and Marley held up a hand in farewell.

“How do you know him?” George asked as they filled their buckets with creek water.

Marley hesitated, then said, “At one time I lived with the Indians. Let’s get back to the boat. We need to settle in before dark.”

Whatever Marley knew about the Indian boy and the settlement, he didn’t want to talk about, Betsy quickly decided, as they made their way back through the undergrowth toward the boat.

George stopped to pick up a small bag, which Betsy figured held his worms and grubs for fishing. She moved to his other side as far from the bag as she could get.

They climbed back into the skiff, and Marley rowed them to the flatboat. The evening settled around them. Father offered a prayer of thanks for the safe start on their journey, and they ate with the light from the lantern making soft shadows on the boat.

After dinner Betsy played a few tunes on the violin until Jefferson howled in competition with her music. Then she put the instrument away and sat near the edge of the boat, listening to the night sounds of the river.

George plopped down beside her.

“Why do you think Marley lived with the Indians?” he asked.

Betsy had been wondering about the same question. “I don’t know. Did your father tell you anything about him?”

She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but Betsy could see by the way he tilted his head that he was trying to remember.

“He said they’d looked a long time to find someone like Marley to take us down the river. Most of the bargemen are rough, noisy men. They brag and fight each other a lot.” George sounded like that was something he’d have liked to have seen.

Betsy nodded. “I heard Father tell Mother that Marley was a good Christian man who would fit in with us.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.