Chapter

The Road to Independence

This port was just as busy as New Orleans. There must have been hundreds of other boats just like theirs in the levee. After almost a month of being on the boat, they lined up with the other passengers and departed when they opened the gates.

Though this port was just as bustling, the city was unique in its own right. The levee was made of a well-structured cobblestone. As they came out onto the city streets, made of the same fine cobblestone, he had to get his land legs again. The streets were lined with warehouses of brick and cast iron.

There were many coaches all lined up and waiting to be used. His companion directed him to one although he didn't seem too particular on which one. The driver helped load his companion's things on top. Prince's suitcase went in the cab.

"Barks Hotel." His companion said to the driver.

The coach took them through the city streets. Prince had almost forgotten what it was like to be in one of these. Only ever having been but twice before and that was months ago now. The architecture of these other buildings were a mix of Victorian and Federal style.

They stopped in front of a three-story building. His companion paid the coachman. Taking their things, they went inside.

"Take a seat here." He ordered the boy. Prince waited among some chairs for his companion to order a room. He remained at the desk while his companion asked about wagons and travelling west. He was told of another ferry that would take him to Independence. They'd start their journey from there. "Thanks." He finally said when the detailed conversation had ended. "Come on." He extended a hand for Prince. They went up a flight of stairs and down a dark wooden hallway.

The room was about twice or three times than that of the ferry. It was dark too. Whereas the walls of the ferry were made of light grey metal, this room was entirely of dark wood. A heavy curtain at the head of a bed. The bed, twice as big as the one on the ferry. Prince thought he could stretch out in here.

The next morning his companion took the boy around the town. First hitting the bank. Tellers behind iron bars. Money going in. In the case of his companion, money coming out.

"Thank you." His companion was very polite to everyone he did business with.

He took that money to a depot office and bought a couple of tickets to this other ferry. Prince silently groaned. He didn't want to go on anymore boat rides but was in no position to debate.

"What's the matter? You still sick or something?" His companion asked at the look on his face. "I'd of thought you'd feel better once we hit land." Prince didn't know he even had a look to him anymore. He didn't think he felt as bad as being on the ferry. "Come on." He took the boy to a small market where he bought a few provisions. "Give me a handful of those too." He asked of the clerk pointing to a jar behind him that contained black things individually wrapped up in wax paper.

"Here take some."

The jar had been among others where bright colored, bite sized, individually wrapped food was. These types of food were usually favored among others. His companion bought the lemon drops from a counter like this one. Though what he was offering this time weren't as brightly colored as the others and it had a sharp smell to it, it had to be promising, just by association.

Nope

Its taste was almost putrid, almost like hard medicine. It was very chewy like he was chewing on wet bark. His companion only laughed at his struggles.

"Eat it up boy. It's good for you."

Prince didn't know how something so bad could be good for you, but he went back in for another. This time he was prepared for the flavor and this bite wasn't as bad as the first. He guessed it was okay. Tolerable. Of course, now he learned not to trust everything that came from those jars.

"Looks like this one's ours."

The ferry this time was one of those side paddle ones. But otherwise had a similar setup. It was two tiers high like their last boats. The ferry took a branch that led off of the Mississippi River. The journey this time took approximately a week.

They docked at the Old Independence landing where they departed for the final time.

~.~

There were three hotels in this town. Simon seemed to know exactly which one he wanted as he bypassed the first two. His welcome was cut off by an abrupt manager as they walked in.

"Sorry we're all booked up." His companion set his things down and came forward anyways.

"This is impossible. I have a room waiting for me. It had been reserved for some time now." The manager nodded to the clerk next to him.

"Under what name?"

"Leroche. Simon Leroche."

"The attendant checked the records. "My apologies Mr. Leroche. We have the reservation right here. Let me get your key. I can have an attendant show you to your room."

"That won't be necessary. We can find it. If you could have them bring up our things though."

"Right away Mr. Leroche." Leroche took the boy's hand. They found their room on the second landing. Their belongings were brought up some few minutes after. Leroche was eager to take the bed and lay out upon it. Prince was tired too, but his attention couldn't help but to go to the window to look out at the motion of people outside.

The center of activity in this small town was its bustling square which could be seen from their window. People busying about from this store to that with arm loads to wagon loads of supplies. Merchants doing all within their power to affect the sales to these busying people.

It wasn't planned but the two almost slept in shifts. His companion dozed off right away. Prince continued to watch the window. His heart ached. For as similar as this city was to his own, it was not his own. He was only reminded of how far away he really was. If he could, if he had to, could he find his way back home? It was only a matter of following the river which he could still see in the distance from his window. Wasn't it? Of course, this was a tributary of the main body. But it led right to the main body and the main body led home, didn't it? Oh, his heart ached. He didn't know. With as much time as he had spent in his room on the ferry, when he should have been marking the journey, he didn't know. What was he to go home to anyways? Would he go home just to be locked up again? Was that really better than this? No. Never. At least he was experiencing life for the first time. Even if it was scary. This was what his heart had longed for, for so many years. Now he's here and he would never go back to being that boy in the attic.

He felt his lids heavy and his body leaden. He crawled into bed with his companion, the bustle of which stirred the man. His companion only stretched and crawled out. Prince stirred a bit to watch his companion re-don his shoes. He threw on his coat and left the room. Not that they hadn't had their fair share of sharing the same bed on this long journey of theirs but more often this would happen. Prince would crawl in, and his companion would crawl out. If his habit was the same as on the boat than Prince would imagine his plan was to partake in a good meal and a few drinks. Before he could walk out though, there was a knock at the door. A message was handed in to his companion. He read the short note and thanked the bellhop.

He seemed to think a bit first before turning back to Prince. "Come on. Get dressed." He encouraged the weary worn boy.

He took the boy downstairs where they had a hot meal in an adjacent restaurant.

When the meal had finished, his companion did not take the boy back to his room. Instead, he took him to yet another room, a bathe room.

"This will be the last chance for you in a while to get one of these. You should indulge while you've got it."

When he understood why he was there, as exhausted as he was, he gave in to this.

Getting into the bath, the warmth surrounded him. His companion was in an adjacent room, in his own indulgence.

The warmth softened his aching muscles. The weeks of travel melting away. He hasn't been in a bath since the mansion. Since Delphe and the upper floor. Charles would bring up warm water that he'd heated on the stove. This one had burning embers beneath it keeping the water warm. A girl or two would come in now and again to turn the embers or add warm water that they'd gotten from someplace else. None of these young girls were Delphe.

"Come on."

He snapped his eyes open to the voice. He must have drifted off. His companion was standing before him in a new set of linen. Wet hair combed, slicked back and hiding under a top hat. It looked like the same hat but almost new like it had gone through it's own cleaning.

When the boy was dressed, he took him back to the room. With the parting words, "Get some rest kid. Tomorrow's going to be a big day for you." His companion went back out to enjoy the night life.

Prince's mind swam with the possibilities of what his companion meant by that. He drifted off before coming up with every possible outcome.

He'd barely woken when his companion came back late that night. Prince had no way of knowing what time of night it was and didn't care. His long journey kept his mind wanting sleep and so sleep he did.

~.~

"Come on. Get up. It's time to go." For a moment he was taken back to Delphe waking him up on the night he left the house. Of course, it was not her, which his mind registered as soon as it came into itself. Prince groggily got dressed and packed his things.

He held his hand out for Prince to take. There was a man waiting for the two of them on the other side of the door.

"Ready?" The large man asked.

"Lead the way."

The two of them followed this man down the stairs.

They left the hotel and took a coach to a few miles outside of the main town. The town of Independence was a lot like New Orleans. It had its differences though. The most noticeable was, where New Orleans bordered the Ocean, Independence bordered the wilderness. The diversity in the faces he saw was the main similarity between the two cities. He saw these differences in the small towns and stops the ferry made along the river, but they were in small patches and each one of these characters played their separate roles. In this place and unlike New Orleans the roles interspersed. Men as dark as the men he met in the shack could be seen driving their own wagons and six-horse teams. Wagons were coming in and going out, driven by Spaniards, Indians, Negroes and Whites, and all variations and crosses between these various races. The same could be said of the merchants and businessmen or homesteaders standing on the porch of their houses looking out at the bustling of emigrants. Each showing in his dress as well as his face some distinctive characteristic of his blood and race.

Even miles away from the town's center, people bustled about. With the great number of wagons which clustered the area giving Prince new inclination that these people were preparing for something big. Like a big journey they were agreeing to go on. Not a water journey, like the one they'd just come from.

Not all of them carried a bright look of enthusiastic determination. Some appeared care-worn and many of them were sad. It could have been his own feelings manifested in their sullen look but if they felt anything like he did, he could guess that it was the memory of what they were leaving behind that weighed heavily on their hearts.

The large man had wiggled them through a thick cluster of carriages and stopped at one.

"Wait here." It was the large man who commanded of the boy to sit on some crates. The two men hadn't gone far from him.

"This is him." The large man introduced his companion to a thinner man up at the driver's seat whom jumped down to greet him. Prince listened in to the conversation.

"Thank you for meeting me. I would be of no condition to make my way west on my own. Some people are cut for it, some aren't. I am not."

"No worries. We took advantage of this trip. I just dropped off a load of furs and supplies to market. Picked some supplies up." They were talking to a younger man about the same age as his companion. The larger man whom they had followed was older but not old. "I pray your accommodations were well."

"Well enough. I can't wait to be getting back though."

"You and I both."

The boy's attention was drawn away from these men's platonic greeting to a group of gathered travelers. People had congregated in one area. A man with white hair feathered out at the neck and wearing a black dress stood before them, judging by the book in his hand, intending on reading them a story. He opened the book to a pre-marked page. He started. Men women and children were all there to listen. Prince watched from afar.

"I read to you from the book of Isaiah. 43:19. I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert."

So where is he?" He overheard from the men at the front of the wagon.

"Boy!" He called out and Prince snapped back. "Come here boy. This is him." He said when Prince was at his side.

Looking him up and down the young man remarked.

"He looks ill."

"Yeah, I think the steamboat didn't agree with him."

"Is he going to make it?"

"Take care. He'll make it."

"What's his name?"

"You can call him whatever you want."

"What did she call him?"

"Dirt." Prince snapped up staring at his companion. He hadn't expected him to say this. He assumed that when the stranger asked what 'she' had called him that he was speaking of Delphe, for that had been his 'she' for most of his life and 'she' had called him Prince. He liked that name better. It meant more to him. But it seems that this was not the 'she' these men spoke of. That 'she' was crueler and had thought very little of him.

This caught the large man's attention whose eyes had been set to wandering to the bustling around him during the course of the conversation but now looked back and down at the boy with a queer look. Prince did not like the way he looked down at him and smirked.

"He's all yours now. Madam's explicit wish was that she never know what becomes of the boy."

The boy's heart hit his stomach for that sounded as if those were parting words. Following his own cue, Simon, his companion, dipped his hat and stepped away.

"Wait. Where are you going?" He stopped him. Simon looked to the strangers expecting them to do their part. The larger man pried the boy away.

"Relax. You're not my responsibility anymore. You're theirs." He turned from the boy then, disappearing into the crowd. His heart was empty.

He would never see him again. For even though he didn't consider he and his companion particularly close he was all he had in this world and now even he was leaving. Leaving him alone. Leaving him with these new men. These strangers.

This new man who seemed to be young in age, got in front and nodded at his larger companion, bidding him to lessen his hold on the boy, who felt like he was a prisoner, and bent low.

"My name is Peter Morgan. This is Garret Ulrich. We'll be taking you the rest of the way."

"Where?" Prince still didn't know.

"You haven't been told?" There was moisture and fear and unsureness in the boy's eyes. "You're going to be living with us." Prince looked back at the man holding him, fear compounding. "We're taking you to Oregon boy." He withdrew his attention. "It's going to be a long journey. We're going to need you to be a good boy and do everything we tell you to do. It's dangerous country out there. A lot could happen to a boy who doesn't listen."

This man seemed to have a strange mixture of gruffness and sweet. One that opposed Simon's. He was gruff in the way as if he was born straight out of the ground, as if the earth itself reared him. But there was a gentle nature to him too. An innocence that seemed to have more to do with his inexperience of handling men than of the earth. It was the other way around regarding Simon.

There was a hole left in the boy at Simon's crude departure. He didn't know why but he had been handed over to these new men now and somehow even with the subtle light that drifted from the thinner one's eyes, he didn't feel like life would get better for him. Only worse.