Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians

by Twain, Mark

  “I don’t know,” says I. “Who did give it to you?”

  “Brace.” Then she laughed, gay and happy, and says, “You’ll never guess what it’s for.”

  “Well, what is it for?” says I.

  “To kill myself with!”

  “O, good land!” says I, “how you talk.”

  “Yes,” she says, “it’s the truth. Brace told me that if I ever fell into the hands of the savages, I mustn’t stop to think about him, or the family, or anything, or wait an hour to see if I mightn’t be rescued; I mustn’t waste any time, I mustn’t take any chances, I must kill myself right away.”

  “Goodness,” I says, “and for why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you ask him why?”

  “Of course; and teased him to tell me, but he wouldn’t. He kept trying to get me to promise, but I laughed him off, every time, and told him if he was so anxious to get rid of me he must tell me why I must kill myself, and then maybe I would promise. At last he said he couldn’t tell me. So I said, very well, then, I wouldn’t promise; and laughed again, but he didn’t laugh. By and by he said, very serious and troubled, ‘You know I wouldn’t ask you to do that or any other thing that wasn’t the best for you—you can trust me for that, can’t you?’ That made me serious, too, because that was true; but I couldn’t promise such a thing, you know, it made me just shudder to think of it. So then he asked me if I would keep the dirk, as his gift and keepsake; and when I said I would, he said that would do, it was all he wanted.”

  One of the Injuns, named Blue Fox, come up, just then, and the minute he see the dirk he begun to beg for it; it was their style—they begged for everything that come in their way. But Peggy wouldn’t let him have it. Next day and the next he come teasing around her, wanting to take it to his camp and make a nice new sheath and a belt for her to wear it in, and so she got tired at last and he took it away. But she never let him have it till he promised he would take good care of it and never let it get out of his hands. He was that pleased, that he up and give her a necklace made out of bears’ claws; and as she had to give him something back, of course, she give him a Bible, and tried to learn him some religion, but he couldn’t understand, and so it didn’t do him no particular good—that is, it didn’t just then, but it did after a little, because when the Injuns got to gambling, same as they done every day, he put up his Bible against a tomahawk and won it.

  They was a sociable lot. They wrastled with Buck and Bill and Sam, and learned them some new holts and throws that they didn’t know before; and we all run foot races and horse races with them, and it was prime to see the way their ornery little ponies would split along when their pluck was up.

  And they danced dances for us. Two or three times they put on all their fuss and feathers and war paint and danced the war dance, and whooped and jumped and howled and yelled, and it was lovely and horrible. But the one with the gun, named Man-afraid-of-his-Mother-in-law, didn’t ever put on any paint and finery, and didn’t dance in the war dances, and mostly he didn’t come around when they had them, and when he did he looked sour and glum and didn’t stay.

  Yes, we was all stuck after the Injuns, kind of in love with them, as you may say, and I reckon I never had better times than I had then. Peggy was as good to them as if she was their sister or their child, and they was very fond of her. She was sorry for the one with the gun, and tried to encourage him to put on his war paint and dance the war dance with the others and be happy and not glum; and it pleased him to have her be so friendly, but he never done it. But pretty soon it struck her what maybe the matter was, and she says to me:

  “He’s in mourning—that’s what it is; he has lost a friend. And to think, here I have been hurting him, and making him remember his sorrows, when I wouldn’t have done such a thing for the whole world if I had known.”

  So after that, she couldn’t do too much for him, nor be sorry enough for him. And she wished more than ever that Brace was here, so he could see that Injuns was just like other people, after all, and had their sorrows and troubles, and knowed how to love a friend and grieve for him when he was gone.

  Tom he was set on having the Injuns take me and him and Jim into their band and let us travel to their country and live in their tribe a week or two; and so, the fourth day, we went over to their camp, me and Tom did, to ask them. But they was fixing for a buffalo hunt next morning, to be gone all day, and maybe longer, and that filled Tom so full of excitement, he couldn’t think about anything else, for we hadn’t ever seen a buffalo yet. They had a plan for me and Jim and Tom to start before daylight with one Injun and go in one direction, and Buck in another with another Injun, and Bill with another and Sam with another, and leave the other Injun in their camp because he was so lame with his sore leg, and whichever gang found the buffaloes first was to signal the others. So it was all fixed.

  Then we see Peggy off there on one of them grass-waves, with Flaxy, looking out over the country with her hand over her eyes, and all the Injuns noticed her at once and asked us what she was looking for. I said she was expecting a lot of friends. The Injun that spoke a little English asked me how many. It’s always my disposition to stretch, so I said seven. Tom he kind of smiled, but let it go at that. Man-afraid-of-his-Mother-in-law says:

  “Little child (meaning Flaxy, you know,) say only one.”

  I see I was ketched, but in my opinion a body don’t ever gain anything by weakening, in them circumstances, so I says:

  “Seven,” and said it firm, and stuck to it.

  The Injuns talked amongst themselves a while, then they told us to go over and ask Bill and Buck and Sam to come and talk about the hunt. We done it, and they went over, and we all set down to wait supper till they come back; they said they reckoned they would be back inside of a half an hour. In a little while four of the Injuns come and said the boys was staying behind to eat supper with Hog Face in their camp. So then we asked the Injuns to eat supper with us, and Peggy she passed around the tin plates and things, and dished out the vittles, and we all begun. They had put their war paint and feathers and fixings on since we left their camp,—all but the one with the gun—so I judged we would have another good time. We eat, and eat, and talked, and laughed, till by and by we was all done, and then still we set there talking.

  By and by Tom shoved his elbow into my side, soft and easy, and then got up and took a bucket and said he would fetch some water for Peggy, and went santering off. I said I would help; so I took a bucket and followed along. As soon as we was behind some trees, Tom says:

  “Somehow everything don’t seem right, Huck. They don’t smoke; they’ve always smoked, before. There’s only one gun outside the wagon, and a minute or two ago one of them was meddling with it. I never thought anything of it at the time, but I do now, because I happened to notice it just a minute ago, and by George the flint’s gone! There’s something up, Huck—I’m going to fetch the boys.”

  Away he went, and what to do I didn’t know. I started back, keeping behind the trees, and when I got pretty close, I judged I would watch what was going on, and wait for Tom and the boys. The Injuns was up, and sidling around, the rest was chatting, same as before, and Peggy was gathering up the plates and things. I heard a trampling like a lot of horses, and when it got pretty near, I see that other Injun coming on a pony, and driving the other ponies and all our mules and horses ahead of him, and he let off a long wild whoop, and the minute he done that, the Injun that had a gun, the one that Peggy fixed, shot her father through the head with it and scalped him, another one tomahawked her mother and scalped her, and then these two grabbed Jim and tied his hands together, and the other two grabbed Peggy, who was screaming and crying, and all of them rushed off with her and Jim and Flaxy, and as fast as I run, and as far as I run, I could still hear her, till I was a long, long ways off.

  Soon it got dark, and I had to stop, I was so tired. It was an awful long night, and I didn’t sleep, but was watching and listening al
l the time, and scared at every little sound, and miserable. I never see such a night for hanging on, and stringing out, and dismalness.

  When daylight come, I didn’t dast to stir, at first, being afraid; but I got so hungry I had to. And besides, I wanted to find out about Tom; so I went sneaking for the camp, which was away off across the country, I could tell it by the trees. I struck the line of trees as far up as I could, and slipped along down behind them. There was a smoke, but by and by I see it warn’t the camp fire, it was the wagon; the Injuns had robbed it and burnt it. When I got down pretty close, I see Tom there, walking around and looking. I was desperate glad; for I didn’t know but the other Injun had got him.

  We scratched around for something to eat, but didn’t find it, everything being burnt; then we set down and I told Tom everything, and he told me everything. He said when he got to the Injun camp, the first thing he see was Buck and Sam and Bill laying dead—tomahawked and scalped, and stripped; and each of them had as much as twenty-five arrows sticking in him. And he told me how else they had served the bodies, which was horrible, but it would not do to put it in a book. Of course the boys’ knives and pistols was gone.

  Then Tom and me set there a considerable time, with our jaws in our hands, thinking, and not saying anything. At last I says:

  “Well?”

  He didn’t answer right off, but pretty soon he says:

  “I’ve thought it out, and my mind’s made up; but I’ll give you the first say, if you want it.”

  I says:

  “No, I don’t want it. I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to strike any plan. We’re here, and that’s all there is to it. We’re here, as much as a million miles from any place, I reckon; and we haven’t got anything to eat, nor anything to get it with, and no way to get anywhere but just to hoof it, and I reckon we’d play out and die before we got there that way. We’re in a fix. That’s all I know about it; we’re just in a fix, and you can’t call it by no lighter name. Whatever your plan is, it’ll suit me; I’ll do whatever you say. Go on. Talk.”

  Chapter 4

  SO HE says:

  “Well, this is my idea, Huck. I got Jim into this scrape, and so of course I ain’t going to turn back towards home till I’ve got him out of it again, or found out he’s dead; but you ain’t in fault, like me, and so if we can run across any trappers bound for the States—”

  “Never mind about that, Tom,” I says, “I’m agoing with you. I want to help save Jim, if I can, and I want to help save Peggy, too. She was good to us, and I couldn’t rest easy if I didn’t. I’ll go with you, Tom.”

  “All right,” he says, “I hoped you would, and I was certain you would; but I didn’t want to cramp you or influence you.”

  “But how are we going?” says I, “walk?”

  “No,” he says, “have you forgot about Brace Johnson?”

  I had. And it made the cold misery go through me to hear his name; for it was going to be sorrowful times for him when he come.

  So we was to wait there for him. And maybe two or three days, without anything to eat; because the folks warn’t expecting him for about a week from the time we camped. We went off a half a mile to the highest of them grass-waves, where there was a small tree, and took a long look over the country, to see if we could see Brace or anybody coming, but there wasn’t a living thing stirring, anywhere. It was the biggest, widest, levelest world—and all dead; dead and still; not a sound. The lonesomest place that ever was; enough to break a body’s heart, just to listen to the awful stillness of it. We talked a little sometimes—once an hour, maybe; but mostly we took up the time thinking, and looking, because it was hard to talk against such solemness. Once I said:

  “Tom, where did you learn about Injuns—how noble they was, and all that?”

  He give me a look that showed me I had hit him hard, very hard, and so I wished I hadn’t said the words. He turned away his head, and after about a minute he said “Cooper’s novels,” and didn’t say anything more, and I didn’t say anything more, and so that changed the subject. I see he didn’t want to talk about it, and was feeling bad, so I let it just rest there, not ever having any disposition to fret or worry any person.

  We had started a camp fire in a new place further along down the stream, with fire from the burnt wagon, because the Injuns had burnt the bodies of old Mr. Mills and his wife along with the wagon, and so that place seemed a kind of graveyard, you know, and we didn’t like to stay about it. We went to the new fire once in a while and kept it going, and we slept there that night, most starved.

  We turned out at dawn, and I jumped up brash and gay, for I had been dreaming I was at home; but I just looked around once over that million miles of gray dead level, and my soul sucked back that brashness and gayness again with just one suck, like a sponge, and then all the miserableness come back and was worse than yesterday.

  Just as it got to be light, we see some creatures away off on the prairie, going like the wind; and reckoned they was antelopes or Injuns, or both, but didn’t know; but it was good to see some life again, anyway; it didn’t seem so lonesome after that, for a while.

  We was so hungry we couldn’t stay still; so we went loafing off, and run across a prairie-dog village—little low mounds with holes in them, and a sentinel, which was a prairie dog, and looked like a Norway rat, standing guard. We had long cottonwood sticks along, which we had cut off of the trees and was eating the bark for breakfast; and we dug into the village, and rousted out an owl or two and a couple of hatfuls of rattlesnakes, and hoped we was going to get a dog, but didn’t, nor an owl, either; but we hived as bully a rattlesnake as ever I see, and took him to camp and cut his head off and skinned him and roasted him in the hot embers, and he was prime; but Tom was afraid, and wouldn’t eat any, at first, but I knowed they was all right, because I had seen hogs and niggers eat them, and it warn’t no time to be proud when you are starving to death, I reckoned. Well, it made us feel a powerful sight better, and nearly cheerful again; and when we got done we had snake enough left for a Sunday School blowout, for he was a noble big one. He was middling dry, but if we’d a had some gravy or butter or something, it wouldn’t a been any slouch of a picnic.

  We put in the third day that we was alone talking, and laying around, and wandering about, and snaking, and found it more and more lonesomer and drearier than ever. Often, as we come to a high grass-wave, we went up and looked out over the country, but all we ever saw was buzzards or ravens or something wheeling round and round over where the Injun camp was—and knowed what brought them there. We hadn’t been there; and hadn’t even been near there.

  When we was coming home towards evening, with a pretty likely snake, we stopped and took another long look across country, and didn’t see anything at first, but pretty soon we thought we did; but it was away off yonder against the sky, ever so far, and so we warn’t certain. You can see an awful distance there, the air is so clear; so we calculated to have to wait a good while. And we did. In about a half an hour, I reckon, we could make out that it was horses or men or something, and coming our way. Then we laid down and kept close, because it might be Injuns, and we didn’t want no more Injun then, far from it. At last Tom says:

  “There’s three horses, sure.”

  And pretty soon he says:

  “There’s a man riding one. I don’t make out any more men.”

  And presently he says:

  “There’s only one man; he’s driving three pack mules ahead of him; and coming along mighty brisk. He’s got a wide slouch hat on, and I reckon he’s white. It’s Brace Johnson, I guess; I reckon he’s the only person expected this year. Come—let’s creep along behind the grass-waves and get nearer. If it’s him, we want to stop him before he gets to the old camp, and break it to him easy.”

  But we couldn’t. He was too fast for us. There he set, on his horse, staring. The minute we showed ourselves he had his gun leveled on us; then he noticed we warn’t Injuns, and dropped it, and told us to come on,
and we did.

  “Boys,” he says, “by the odds and ends that’s left, I see that this was the Mills’s camp. Was you with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s happened?”

  I never said nothing; and Tom he didn’t, at first; then he said:

  “Injuns.”

  “Yes,” he says, “I see that, myself, by the signs; but the folks got away, didn’t they?—along with you?—didn’t they?”

  We didn’t answer. He jumped off of his horse, and come up to us quick, looking anxious, and says:

  “Where are they?—quick, where are they? Where’s Peggy?”

  Well, we had to tell him—there warn’t no other way. And it was all he could do to stand it; just all he could do. And when we come to tell about Peggy, he couldn’t stand it; his face turned as white as milk, and the tears run down his cheeks, and he kept saying “Oh, my God, oh my God.” It was so dreadful to see him, that I wanted to get him away from that part of it, and so I worked around and got back onto the other details, and says:

  “The one with the gun, that didn’t have no war paint, he shot Mr. Mills, and scalped him; and he bloodied his hands, then, and made blood stripes across his face with his fingers, like war paint, and then begun to howl war-whoops like the Injuns does in the circus. And poor old Mrs. Mills, she was down on her knees, begging so pitiful when the tomahawk—”

  “I shall never never see her again—never never any more—my poor little darling, so young and sweet and beautiful—but thank God, she’s dead!”

  He warn’t listening to me.