The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Greg Matthews

  “I have the symptoms. Please do not argue. Now I wish to be alone.”

  She stepped back into the wagon and pulled the flaps closed, and we went back to the fire and smoked awhile as the sun crawled higher.

  “She’s right,” says Randolph. “You’d best be moving if you want to stay free.”

  “I ain’t going,” says I.

  I never planned on saying it, the words just come out of me in a rush, but I knowed they was the right ones. Even if there ain’t a way to save Lydia I can’t just leave the way Bob and Jesse done, not if I aim to hold my head up the rest of my life.

  “I ain’t goin’ neither,” says Jim.

  Randolph stared at the fire till his cigar was just a stub then throwed it in and stood up. He turned to the wagon and took off his hat again and says:

  “I salute a queen among women. We will not meet her like again.”

  Then he went and drawed his fair portion of supplies and loaded up one of the pack horses and saddled his own horse and one of the others for a spare, then says:

  “May God or the devil be with you, boy, and you too, nigger. You’ll be needing help from one or the other.”

  And he rode off slow and never looked back.

  Me and Jim never spoke much all morning, just fed and watered the horses and ourselfs. I warn’t bothered about the bulldog. I never felt nothing except sad and puzzled. Here’s two of the finest people you could find ever, and they both was in love and looking for adventure together and now Andrew is dead and Lydia ain’t far behind. What does anything mean if people like that can die and simple-minded trash like Bob and Jesse can ride away without no harm? After I got accused of murdering the judge I wondered if there’s natural balance and justice in the world, but that’s personal, and a body can’t trust his own feelings when it comes to figuring his own situation. Then I turned Injun and seen how the color you are makes injustice get heaped on you even if you done nothing wrong, and now my friends is dead and dying right over there in the wagon and they never deserved it.

  So now I know for sure there ain’t no justice or balance to things, and that the world is topsy-turvy and jumbled and confused, which is the natural way it’s meant to be. Them that says God is watching and listening and knows all that’s happening down here is talking the sorriest kind of excuses for the way things is, just turning their backs on the confusion and injustice like a man that looks at a tornado tearing toward him and says it’s a tree, because a tree is something that don’t bother him, and a tornado is too wild and huge and cruel to feel easy about, so it’s a tree. Only it comes along and kills him anyway. It give me a calm feeling to know the sky is empty and there ain’t no one watching and scribbling down everything with a golden pen. It’s like I’m in a house full of people and I’m the only one that sees the roof ain’t there, but all the rest says it is and draws comfort from knowing the roof that ain’t there is going to keep the cold rain off them. They keep on thinking the same even when the rain comes down and soaks them, and they chatter to each other about how nice and dry things is under the roof, and after awhile I stop worrying about them because they’re happy that way, and I ask myself why should I worry about being the only one that sees there ain’t a roof? Why should there be a roof? There ain’t no law that says a house has got to have one, it’s just that you expect to see a roof there to finish things off. Well, there ain’t one, and that suits me fine.

  Around noon Lydia looked out and seen we’re still there and called us over. Her face looks like a shiny skull with her eyes darkened all around and her cheekbones and forehead wet with sweat.

  “Huckleberry, why have you and Jim not gone with Mr. Squires?”

  “I reckon we felt like staying here, Mrs. Beckwith.”

  “Please … you must both leave.”

  “No, ma’am, we’re staying put.”

  “You’re being foolish.…”

  “Yes, ma’am. We both of us been called idiots in our time, but it don’t bother us none so we’re staying.”

  She give us a weak smile and says:

  “Huckleberry … Jim … Whatever happens … you must not touch the wagon or enter it. When the time comes you must set it alight. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll do it. Can we fetch you some more water?”

  “I am beyond any further needs, thank you. Huckleberry, in my saddle bags there are some trinkets I have kept for some time. They have no great value, but they may be of some use to you.”

  “Thank you. I’m obliged.”

  She let the flap down and we shuffled back to the fire. Any time now she’d start to get pain like Andrew done and I warn’t looking forward to hearing her cry out, but maybe she’s so brave she won’t make a sound. It give me the trembles to consider the way she’s suffering and going to suffer even worse another day at least. But Lydia had another kind of bravery. A little later there come a shot from inside the wagon and me and Jim just looked at each other kind of shocked, then Jim says:

  “She ain’t in torment no mo’, Huck, an’ I reckon she done what she done for two reasons. De firs’ one on accounter de pain she be gettin’, but de secon’ to set us free. She don’ want us waitin’ aroun’ for de bulldog to show up, so she up an’ took away de onliest reason we stayin’ here for. Das some kinder woman in dere, Huck, jest de fines’.”

  There warn’t nothing I could of added to what he says, so we got busy piling brush and dead wood under the wagon and set alight to it and stood back to watch it burn. The flames catched fast and pretty soon was licking up around the wheels and frame. The canvas went up with a whoosh and left the hoops behind all blackened and charred, then the fire got a true hold and burned fierce till every part of the wagon was ablaze and the hotness made us stand off further, watching the smoke roll into the sky. When the spokes burned through the wagon bed dropped but kept on burning, and there warn’t a need to stay around.

  I looked inside Jupiter’s saddlebags and there’s the trinkets, a couple necklaces, one silver and one gold, and some ear-rings and a brooch and a ring or three all in a little velvet bag. I would of handed over a mountain of gold and a lake of pearls if the lovebirds could be brung back, but it’s childish thinking, and I ain’t a child no more. I whistled Remus and we mounted and rode away, and I never needed to see the smoke still curling up behind us to know a part of me is burned away forever, and good riddance too. Whatever part it was I can get along without it.

  22

  City in the Wilderness—A Bargain Struck—The Rewards of Enterprise—Castles and Kings—A Chance Reunion

  We had Jupiter and the bulldog’s horse and two others besides for spare, and we swapped around so none of them got overworked in the days that followed. We never done much talking. Maybe Jim had the same kind of things running through his head as me, I can’t tell. We slept and et and rode on through rough country with sometimes a grave beside the wagon trail with a sorry little cross stuck in it, but we never catched up with no trains or with Randolph, and the bulldog never showed. Near dusk one day we come through a pass and seen a city laid out below on a wide flat plain with mountains all around like it’s been picked up out of the east and hauled across the sky and set down gentle in the middle of noplace. There was hundreds of houses and wide streets laid out square and fields outside town with crops growing. Lydia’s map says it’s Salt Lake City, and the big lake northwest of it says so too.

  “Das a mighty fine sight way out here,” says Jim.

  “The Mormons built it, Jim. They’re real industrious I heard tell, and work like beavers from dawn till dusk except on Sundays, which is when they throw their muscle into prayer.”

  “What kinder folks is Mormons, Huck?”

  “It’s a religion far as I can make out, kind of like regular Christianism only more serious minded. Most folks don’t get along with Mormons on account of they reckon they’re God’s chosen people like the Israelites used to say about theirselfs.”

  “You don’t re
ckon dey’s God’s chosen?”

  “I reckon we best treat ’em polite and not get talking about religion so’s we don’t give no offense. See them trees over yonder laid out neat? I bet it’s a fruit orchard, and I’d purely love to bite an apple after all this time.”

  “I knows how you feel, Huck. If’n I hafter chew jest one more hunker sourdough wid jerked meat I’se goin’ to heave it up.”

  We started along the last stretch of trail that winds down to the valley floor, thinking on apples and oranges, maybe even grapes, just drooling for fruit to sink our fangs in. By the time we come to the outskirts of town it’s dark and there’s lights in the windows and mothers was calling children indoors for supper. A dog come yapping around the horses’ hoofs but Remus run him off right quick. Riding slow along a street made me feel humble and afraid, like we’re beggars, and maybe it’s so seeing as we ain’t got no money. Jim and me planned on selling the spare horses along with their saddles for cash to get fresh supplies, only it’s too dark now and the city too big to go finding stockyards or livery stables. I done the only thing we could of done and that’s knock on the door of a brick house like the rest with a garden out front. It got opened by a woman around forty and she’s kind of startled to see an Injun on her doorstep.

  “Yes?” she says.

  “Pardon me, ma’am. I’m wondering where I can sell a couple of horses.”

  “You’re selling horses?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I mean I ain’t no horse trader by profession, just a mite short of cash momentarily.”

  “Are you an Injun?”

  “No, ma’am, I got captured by the Sioux and then escaped. I’m white as flour.”

  “Who’s that by the gate?”

  “That’s Ben, ma’am. He’s a real nigger.”

  “Well come inside the both of you. Just leave your horses tied to the fence.”

  “Both of us, ma’am?”

  “Of course both of you. Ben’s hungry as you I’ll bet.”

  “I reckon so, ma’am. Thank you kindly.”

  “Who is it, Hester?” calls a man’s voice from inside.

  “A white Injun boy and a black negro man,” she says.

  Jim tied the horses and come up the garden walk and she stood aside to let us through. The house never had wallpaper or nothing inside, just brick painted over with whitewash and hung with pictures and shelfs and such, but no mirrors, all of it clean as clean. She led us into a room and there must of been twelve or thirteen people sat around a big table with carved legs, all of them looking our way. There’s a man with bushy hair and a beard and a watch chain across his vest at the head of the table and he never looked too pleased to see us.

  “Who are you?” he says direct.

  “Newton Boggs, sir, and this here’s Ben.”

  “Are you traveling to California?”

  “Yessir, we are.”

  “Welcome to my home,” he says, still sounding peeved. “Agatha, Millicent, fetch chairs for our guests.”

  Two girls went out to another room and brung back chairs and me and Jim fronted up to the table with the rest. It’s the first time ever that Jim sat with white folks at mealtime in his whole life, and he never looked at ease and never spoke a word. The bushy man says:

  “I am Nathaniel Weber. This is my family.”

  He spun off their names so fast I never catched most of them till he come to the end and says:

  “And these are my wives, Hester, Judith and Bathsheba.”

  I reckoned I must of misheard, but he seen my face and says:

  “Yes, young man. Three. We Mormons believe the Lord intended man as well as the beasts to go forth and multiply.”

  “I can’t think of no faster way, Mr. Weber, sir.”

  Food got dished up and plenty of it too, and after we finished they started in with questions about how we come to be there, and I lied myself empty. There was four boys and they was real interested in life among the Injuns so I give them a heaped helping of the biggest lies in creation, which they just lapped up and wanted more. The five girls never took their eyes off me in my Injun clothes and loved the parts where I told about brave deeds and adventures. They kept on filling my cup with coffee and I churned out words like a printing press for close on two hours without saying nothing twice, and at the end Mr. Weber says:

  “Son, you have journeyed far and suffered great privation, as did we on our flight from the Gentiles in eighteen forty-six. Your lust for gold is misconceived, that substance being fit only for paving streets, but if there is any way in which we may assist you speak it now.”

  So I told about wanting to sell the horses, but he says the Mormons has got all the horses they need and sells them and cattle as well to forty-niners passing through with broken-down teams and no fresh meat, so they ain’t in the market for no more. Also he says we should keep them for carrying extra water across the desert west of here which is a terrible place where there ain’t nothing living nor growing. It’s good advice but it don’t help us none seeing as we can’t pay for no water barrels.

  “Do you have nothing other than horses with which to trade?” he says.

  That’s when I recollected Lydia’s jewels and went and fetched them in. The women give them the big eye when I laid the stuff on the table, but Mr. Weber just barely looked and says:

  “We have no need of trinkets and gee-gaws. Our women do not decorate their persons with symbols of vanity.”

  “There ain’t nothing else we got,” says I, “excepting a dog.”

  “A dog!” squeals Millicent. “Oh, Papa, mayn’t we have a dog”

  “Oh, please, Papa,” puts in Christobel or Agatha or one of them. “We haven’t had a dog since we left Missouri. Oh, mayn’t we please?”

  All the other girls joined in and the two youngest boys till you couldn’t of heard a bugle blowed in there, and Papa raised up his hands and slammed them down hard on the table, which made the cutlery jump and everyone hush.

  “We are a hardworking people,” he says, sternish. “We have no need of animals which do not contribute to the furtherance of our industry and farming, and we already have a sufficiency of such. A spaniel is the plaything of Gentiles, not Mormons. I will hear no more of it.”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Weber, sir, but Remus ain’t no lapdog. He’s so big I reckon you could hitch him to a plow and turn over ten acres before sundown.”

  They never believed me so I went out and whistled him and Remus come galloping up the street with a dead chicken from someone’s yard in his mouth. I made him give it to me and throwed it away and drug him inside to show off. You never heard such a gasping nor seen such gawping when I hauled him into the room. Even Mr. Weber was considerable impressed.

  “What kind of beast is it?” he asks.

  “Irish wolfhound, sir,” says I, which is what Lydia told me.

  “Is it a freakish product of mischance?” asks one of the wives, Bathsheba I reckon, or maybe it was Judith.

  “No, ma’am, he’s a special breed from Ireland. There used to be wolves running underfoot up and down the country and you couldn’t hardly step out the door without getting your leg bit off, then they bred these here wolfhounds and in no time at all there warn’t no more wolves left in Ireland. They still had snakes, but St. Patrick got called in to get rid of them.”

  “Oh, Husband,” says Hester, “remember the trouble last winter when wolves came down from the mountains and ran through the streets. Why, the little Wister girl got savaged in her own yard on the way to the outhouse and was never the same again, poor thing. It may even happen to your own children.”

  Husband hemmed and hawed and I kept a grip on Remus’s collar with both hands to keep him from jumping on the table or putting his nose between someone’s legs. He whipped up a breeze with his tail in the exciteration and noise and looked real friendly. Finally Husband says:

  “He’s a massive size, but seems too good-natured to be a guard dog.”

  I stepped on Remus’s
paw and he let out a snarl and the girls backed off squealing.

  “Oh, my,” says Bathsheba or Judith. “Mayn’t he be too savage to have around the place?”

  So I tickled his ears and Remus lolled his tongue and slitted his eyes and flopped on the floor to have his belly rubbed, which tipped over two chairs the girls rushed out of when he snarled. When they seen him like that with his paws brushing the ceiling they oohed and aahed like he’s a little lamb or something and started in pestering Papa again, and Amos and Jeremiah, or maybe it’s Joel and Nehemiah was brave enough to get down and rub him till he practickly purred, then they each give him a pat or a stroke, wives and all, and Papa would of been lynched if he told them no. He says:

  “The Lord has seen fit to deliver into our hands an answer to the four-legged predators which plague us in time of famine. So be it. I will accept this beast in exchange for a reasonable amount of whatever you require, but that can wait till tomorrow. We have lingered too long through the evening and must be up early to fulfill our appointed tasks. Amos, show our guests the stable and assist them in the foddering of their horses. The rest of you, to bed.”

  They all give us a goodnight, happy they got their way, and awhile later Jim and me was lying in warm hay with the horses chomping oats below. Jim says:

  “Mighty nice folks, dese Mormons, but how come dey got so many women? It parter de religion?”

  “Must be, Jim. I can’t see why a man would want to saddle himself with more than one wife without the church rules say he’s got to.”

  “It mus’ be awful hard on a man listenin’ to de wives complainin’ ’bout dis an’ dat all de time an’ gettin’ jealous over de lovin’ he parcels out. Dat kinder life got to be a worriment to him from mornin’ till night wid no let up. How do a man sleep wid all dem problermations on his min’, Huck?”

  “In a mighty big bed I reckon, Jim.”

  Next morning, Jeremiah or Nehemiah or one of them woke us up before the sun come over the mountains and Hester and Esther give us breakfast. Afterwards Mr. Weber took us to the middle of town where there’s a big open space with a brick foundation laid out and scaffolding and such and he says it’s going to be the Mormon Temple, the grandest church west of the Mississippi, then he hustled us along to the flour mill he’s in charge of and showed us how it’s all done with power from a water wheel that’s fed from a ditch dug all the way to the mountains so there’s always water running along it, which is how they can raise crops in the middle of a desert too. He was awful proud of the setup and we done the polite thing and praised it to the skies, then he took us to a store and got us the supplies we wanted, then says: