“What are they about, Tom?” says I. Why, as soon as I ask, I know the answer. We both look at each other.
“They know somebody’s drownded,” says Tom. “Reckon someone must’ve found the raft. Maybe they’ve even found Joe.”
“Do you reckon?”
“Well, if somebody ain’t found him yet downstream, then these fellers will be a long time doing it. Didn’t we see him get swept past the island? If he came aground, it must be miles below here.”
“You’re right,” says I. “Ain’t nobody for that cannon to shake loose up there, lessen someone else’s drownded.”
“Do you think…?” says Tom. “Do you think they reckon we’re drownded too? That it’s us they’re looking for?”
“Reckon they think you’re drownded,” says I. “Why, your Aunt Polly probly missed you first thing this morning. Joe’s ma probly missed him too. If they found the raft gone it wouldn’t take them long to figure the two of you was out on it. But me? Ain’t nobody knows I’m gone. Ain’t nobody going to miss me, neither – Pap’s been out of town a month or more, and anyone can guess when he’ll be back.”
We watch them come closer ’n’ closer, the booms off of that cannon ringing louder ’n’ louder. And that ain’t all the business that crowd is about, neither. Some men on the ferry-boat are doing the old trick of cutting a plug out of a loaf of bread, pouring quicksilver in, sealing the hole up agin and then casting that bread upon the waters. That’s a sure-fire charm for finding the drownded, everybody knows. That loaf just floats itself about till it finds the patch of water the corpse is under, then just sits there till folks can drag him out. There’s fellers on the ferry-boat deck, and in some of the skiffs too, ready with grapple hooks and mighty long ropes in case any dragging for corpses is needed.
“Tom,” says I. “Do quicksilver loaves always work?”
“Yes, always do, Hucky,” says he. “Unless the folks casting the bread overboard don’t say the words right – though I’ll allow bad weather might blow a loaf off from where it ought to be, and they sometimes get waterlogged and sink ahead of time, or get eaten by fish.”
“Well, then, these fellers here must think they’re mixed up ’bout their words,” says I.
First one loaf, then another, then a third floats into the main channel, gets caught by it and shoots off downstream fast as anything. Tom and me know they’re going the right way, but nobody else seems to – they just keep moving slow down the river, firing the cannon and craning their necks over the side, seeing what’s being stirred up.
“Let’s have a look later, Tom,” says I. “See if any of them loaves got snagged going past the island. We could do with some bread.”
Loaves warn’t all they was using. We seed a yaller man sitting in a row-boat, holding a chicken over the side (maybe a rooster – some folks does it different) while another feller rowed them ’round. The idea, of course, is that when the chicken (or rooster) passes over the drownded body it clucks (or crows). Tom and me had a real good argumentation ’bout whether this was a better way than the loaves – he said it was, I reckoned it warn’t – and dern me if I didn’t talk him round to seeing it my way! Thing like that don’t hardly happen – not with Tom Sawyer, it don’t. The way it played was this: Tom says the chickens is smart and don’t need no telling what to do, but the loaves can only do what they’re told – can’t help themselves. I say loaves are better for the self-same reason. Long as it’s enchanted proper and launched right, a loaf ain’t going to fail you – hain’t got no reason to – it’s just going to search out that drownded body and mark it. A chicken, though, it’s got to be rowed about, and held over the side, and who’s to say it’s even going to pass over where that body is? It’s a mighty big passel of water, the Mississippi, and that chicken could miss the body easy as anything. And suppose that chicken does pass over the very spot where the body is? Who says the chicken’s going to cluck (or the rooster crow)? The chicken knows when it’s over the body – I hain’t disputing that – but that don’t mean it feels bound to sing out. You’ve got to rest on its goodwill – and chickens got their own reasons. I was mighty pleased with myself when Tom agreed and called uncle on that one.
“I mean, Tom,” says I, “warn’t no chicken found Bill Turner last summer, was it? Just plain cannoning brung him up.”
“They said it was Bill Turner,” says Tom. “But I don’t see how nobody could say for sure who it was, him having no face and all by the time they found him.”
“He was wearing Bill Turner’s clothes.”
“They said he was wearing Bill Turner’s clothes.”
Tom has a great liking for fancying all manner of dark deeds where other folks is happy just to take things as they seem. Reckon some folks has so much imagination stuffed in their heads they’ve just got to spread it out into the world a little. Me, I don’t go in for that so much; I think about things as they are, and as they were, and as I spect them to be, or want them to be (or don’t want them to be). Don’t do no more’n that. What’d the point be?
There’s a great holler goes up and just rolls its way through the crowd on the ferry-boat; right away all the skiffs start turning themselves about and heading back upstream. Few moments later a great gust of steam comes up of the ferry-boat’s chimney and it starts turning back itself.
“They must’ve dragged up some of our truck from where the raft overturned,” says Tom. “Maybe they think we’re nearby.”
“Then they’re going to be farther away from finding Joe than they was just now,” says I, kind of disgusted. Whoever the feller was called them all back upstream, I reckon he had a chicken with him.
Tom and I stand there silent for a few minutes, watching the boats turn themselves about and move north. They must be pretty sure they’ve found all they’re going to get, ’cause that cannon ain’t firing no more. Reckon it is all they’re going to get too, leastways today – the sun’s setting now, hanging real low in the west (same as usual), big and red, and the Mississip all lit up rosy and fiery and kind of jolly. I’ve been thinking on something all this time and decide I’d best ask Tom ’bout it.
“Tom?” says I. “Why are we hiding? Why don’t we just sing out and get a ride back to town?”
“We’re pirates, ain’t we, Huck?” says Tom. “Why’d a pirate give himself up to be clapped in irons and keelhauled and hung from a yardarm?”
I pondered this some.
“I don’t reckon they’re going to do none of those things to us, Tom,” says I. “Your Aunt Polly would have something to say about it – can’t see no more than the irons being on the cards, and that ain’t no hardship. I mean, we’ve got no raft, no food hardly, and Joe’s drownded. Let’s face it, things ain’t gone so well as we’d hoped.”
But Tom just mutters: “Keelhauled… Hanged…”
Truth is, Tom ain’t looking none too good. He’s kind of pale (yellow in the sunlight, but pale underneath it; I can tell), and there’s this sweat speckled all over him (a cold sweat, ’cause the day’s cooling off now and we’ve just been standing restful for ages), and he’s shaking too.
“You all right, Tom?” says I.
I have to say it agin, and even then he’s quiet for a long time (that’s how it feels) as though it’s too many for him to understand what I’m asking.
At last, he says: “I guess maybe those berries warn’t so ripe, Huck.”
He seems as dopey as I was the time Pap lammed me for sassing him when he bought a new hat with a five dollar bill and was so drunk he took all the change in counterfeits.
I holler out to the skiffs and the ferry-boat a couple of times, but they’re all too far off now. So I put my hand on Tom’s shoulder and guide him back to the campfire. He’s unsteady and don’t say nothing I can make out, but he goes where I steer him without falling down, which is ’bout as much as I want. The fire’s still smouldering, so I stoke it up good (I guess I’m hoping someone might see the smoke), and Tom just sinks to the g
round and curls hisself up beside it. I don’t reckon he wants nothing else to eat – couldn’t eat it anyhow, ’cause he’s asleep in ’bout a minute and I ain’t going to wake him. My clothes was dry now, so I get dressed, light me a pipe and sit down a little ways off – just kind of keeping an eye on things.
Well, I fell asleep. I guess I must have had the very same dream as the night before, ’cause I heard that voice agin – kind of familiar, kind of strange – saying: “Redhanded… Black Avenger… Terror of the Seas.” That wakes me up with a kick, I should say. I’m kind of startled for a moment, like you always are after a dream. When I get my bearings, and can see which way’s up, I hear another voice: Tom’s. He’s still laying by the fire, still asleep, but he’s uncurled hisself and is a-twitching and a-shaking like some preacher had him all drunk and crazy on the Holy Spirit and speaking with the tongues of angels and all that carry-on they go in for. Indeed, Tom is speaking, asleep though he is, though it ain’t no tongue of angels – just regular talk like folks use in Missouri. He’s running a real fever – drenched all over with sweat as if he’d just been dipped in the river. He’s having a vision, ain’t no doubt ’bout that, ’cause he’s saying what he sees as he sees it. And I ain’t being no eavesdropper, neither – he ain’t being quiet, he’s closer to hollering than whispering.
“Aunt Polly,” says Tom. “Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly…” That’s his Aunt Polly he’s talking ’bout – she raised him after his ma and pa died. I reckon it must be fine to have aunts or uncles to look after you if your parents get took off – kind of like having one suit for everyday and one for Sundays (and that must be mighty fine too, I’ve often thought). “…Sid, Mary…” That would be his little brother, Sid, and his cousin, Mary. I can’t say as I know them well: Sid’s nothing like Tom, he ain’t no fun; Mary’s a girl, so naturally we ain’t got nothing in common. But she’s kind of pretty and sweet-natured, I’ll allow. If I had a girl cousin, I reckon I’d want one like her; in fact, if I had to know a girl for any reason, I’d want her to be like Mary, I guess. “…I ain’t dead. Don’t let them bury me. I ain’t dead. Don’t let the candle blow out! I can see it! I’ll follow it home…” That’s too many for me. “…Cry, Sereny Harper, your son is dead. He cannot return…” I guess “Sereny” is Joe’s ma’s name. I’ll bet Tom never called her nothing but “Mrs Harper” before; people who has visions takes some liberties, I reckon. He’s starting to get mighty fretful now, loud too. “Who opened the door? Who’s at the threshold? Who blew out the candle? No! He can’t! He just can’t! No! We’re alive, me and Huck…” That jolts me; I’m in there too. “Look! Coming through the door, across the floor, under the bed. They’re after us! Rats! Rats everywhere! We’ve got to run. We’ve got to!”
Tom gives an almighty shout and sits straight up. He scoots hisself backwards across the ground ’bout six feet till he comes to a halt with his back against a tree. His eyes is darting all around with a hunted look in them and his hands is scrabbling in the dirt as if he’s trying to knock away them rats he told of. I try to calm him. I say: “Calm yourself, Tom” and “Now, now” and a couple of other things like that, but it don’t seem to help none. (But I don’t reckon it hurt, so I’m glad I tried it. I’d have felt bad doing nothing.) Anyhow, once Tom wakes up a bit and sees where he is, and that he’s still on the island with me, he does calm some. He’s still sweating and trembling, though.
“I had a nightmare, Hucky,” says he.
“You sure did,” says I. “You was talking in your sleep. All about your Aunt Polly and Mrs Harper and…”
“But it wasn’t just a nightmare,” says Tom. “It was a vision, Huck – a regular vision!” Just like I said – though I hoped I was wrong. “I was there, back in Petersburg; I heard them. They think we’re all dead! Funeral’s this Sunday. In less than four days we’ll be officially dead – prayed over and everything. What do you reckon happens to a person’s soul then, Hucky, with a body still walking around? Soul wouldn’t know which way to turn. It might go up to Heaven, down to Hell or get itself stuck any which way between. We’ve got to get back! We’ve just got to. Get back and tell them we ain’t dead. Otherwise, otherwise… if the Reverend and a whole churchful of people tells God we’re dead, why – I don’t reckon He’s going to make them into liars.”
I admit it sounds none too good, but I don’t want to get into chewing it over. Like I said before, Tom’s the one with the Sunday school knowhow. I ain’t going to tread on his toes.
“Well, if you’re feeling better in the morning, we’ll go,” says I. “You’d best get back to sleep, Tom. But ’fore you do: them rats you dreamed of – was they fighting?”
Tom’s face sinks.
“Oh Lordy, Huck! Some of them was tearing into each other like they was in a bag of cats. What did I have to go and dream about that for? You know what that means?”
“I know what that means,” says I, spitting out a chaw and watching it sizzle in the fire. “There’s a whole lot more bad luck blowing our way.”
Chapter 3: Thunderstruck
Tom warn’t better next morning; he was worse. I couldn’t hardly wake him all day; it was like he was more’n half asleep all the time, but never properly asleep and getting some rest that might do him good. I tried splashing water over him and lighting grass between his toes and giving him a couple of kicks – but nothing seemed to do the trick. I wished we hadn’t fooled away our firecrackers the day before – they might have roused him some. So there warn’t nothing much I could do: I checked the fishline and took off another catfish. I set it agin and went and dug up turtle eggs from the sandbar – took me near an hour to find them, but I knew they’d be there. I took all that truck back to the fire, then I went and got some more water from the spring. I didn’t bother with no more berries. All the time I was doing this I was keeping an eye out for skiffs, ’cause I thought irons or no irons I’d better get some help for Tom if I could. But I didn’t see no boats nor hear no one on the river. That was mighty strange, but I knew we’d got a pile of bad luck landing on us, so I just reckoned that was part of it. If Tom had been any better, I’d have swum for the shore and walked up to town – even though I warn’t too eager to try the river alone with our luck running the way it was – but I’d have had to leave him for hours, and that didn’t seem too smart. He was real sick.
So I stoked up the fire pretty high – ’cause even though it was a hot day, Tom was shivering like he was froze – and cooked the food and tried to get Tom to eat a little, and give him some water now and then, and propped him up and helped him get to the bushes when he was sickening bad. Rest of the time I just sat smoking, watching him. Whole day went like that.
That evening there was a change in the air: it was hot and thick and still with a sharp breeze every now and then with a kind of an edge to it, you know. There was a storm coming, and I knowed it’d be a bad one. Well, I didn’t need to be Dr Robinson (God rest his soul, though it don’t hardly deserve it) to know that a soaking warn’t going to do Tom no favours.
“Tom,” says I, over and over, shaking his shoulder till he’s ’bout as awake as I can get him. “Storm’s brewing. We’d best get up to that cavern we found – ain’t going to be no picnic down here.”
“I can’t walk, Hucky,” says Tom. “I can’t climb all the way up there. Leave me be.”
Ain’t hardly finished talking when there’s a flash lights us both up and the whole clearing besides. Few seconds later there’s a whispering through the trees and the boughs all lean a-ways to the south at once and we feel the wind blow in our faces. Then there’s a growl of thunder, loud and mean like an ornery dog that’s slipped his chain. Then there’s another flash, and another clap of thunder that comes quicker and louder than before, and the wind blows harder as that storm just ups and rolls toward us out of the north.
“Tom,” says I. “It ain’t a question whether you can walk or not. It’s a question whether you can walk or run!” And I grab him under his arms and
drag him to his feet. Then the lightning’s flashing like teeth and the thunder’s barking clearer ’n closer all the time and the trees thrashing and lashing – and Tom sees there ain’t nothing for it, no matter how sick he feels. That storm means to chew us up. Already some of the high branches is splintering in the wind, chunks of them raining down through the leaves. Well, I guess it’s lucky we don’t have nothing worth taking else we might have stayed too long ’stead of hightailing it then and there. Only thing I snag is a big branch out of the fire, alight down half its length. I don’t take it to see where we’re going but so’s we can get another fire started once we get to the cavern. With my other arm I help Tom keep upright – he has to lean on me most of the way.
We no sooner scramble out of the clearing when that storm hits the island like a steamboat running aground – only difference being the ground don’t stop it none. It just charges inland like it’s fixing to chase us down. The rain’s coming too – coming at us flat, the wind’s blowing it so hard – biting the backs of our necks and stinging our faces if we turn our heads any. There’s another flash and a clap of thunder right after, like a bolt’s struck nearby, and we hear a cracking and a snapping from the trees behind us, like they’re being tore up by the roots. It ’most give me the fan-tods to hear it. Only good thing is it perks Tom up some – he adds a fair lick of speed as we ran through them trees, hardly knowing where we are and just hoping we’re going the right way. Long as that storm’s behind us we’re going the right way – that’s all I know. But it’s gaining on us. Fast as we run, that storm’s rain, wind and lightning – and ain’t no one can outrun that. It’s like bad luck itself.
Huck Page 3