Huck

by Prizeman, Steven

  There’s another almighty crack and a tree ahead of us goes up in flame, a crooked finger of lightning jabbing it then disapperaing back into those clouds boiling above us like steam. Straight off, a great thick bough breaks off, the whole thing on fire, and drops through the branches below, shivering them all to flinders, splinters and chunks of bark flying ’bout our heads like hail. Tom and I pull ourselves up short else we’d’ve run straight into that mess of burning (the rain warn’t dampening that any). We run round the edge of it and hurry ourselves on, jumping over the flames as they leap off of that bough like they was rabbits, starting new fires everywhere they land.

  Well, we just run, that’s ’bout as much as I can say. I drop my stick and I run, Tom slips over and I drag him back up and we run, I’m whaled across the shoulder by a hickory branch blowed by the wind, and I run. We run! (And I’ll bet I warn’t the only one of us wishing he’d had some shoes that night.) Last we notice the ground rising and we get out of the trees and we’re in another clearing – and there ain’t but one other clearing on the island. Right up ahead is that little hill with the cavern (just a dark, ugly little cave, maybe – but it seems good and homelike now, I reckon). Tom and I look at each other and spare time for a smile as we realise we’ve made it, then we both start scrambling up the slope, fast as if we’d spotted a silver dollar at the top. The grass is wet through, all slick and slippery, and I feel the earth beneath starting to get muddy and ooze up between my toes as I clamber up and, just as I get right up to the cavern entrance, couple of things happen at once. There’s a flash, and a sound like a cannon going off next my head, and a burning feeling like my legs has been set on fire and like there’s hot maggots wriggling their way all through my arms and back and pretty much everywhere, and I’m floating in the air, and Tom’s shouting something, and nothing much seems to matter any more, and then it’s all real peaceful.

  “Redhanded… Black Avenger… Terror of the Seas.” When I heard that agin I knew I warn’t dead, only dreaming. Now, you shouldn’t think I was laying there thinking “Looky Huck – you’re dead!” – warn’t like that. No, first there was nothing, then I was dreaming. And when I say nothing, you shouldn’t go picturing some big black empty space, all cold and echoey and you all alone in the middle of it feeling lonesome. No, sir! Ain’t none of that truck in nothing – ain’t nothing at all, and you ain’t even there to know there ain’t nothing. There’s nothing and then “pop” – you’re thinking agin and dreaming, and feeling sleepy and aching and kind of glad to be alive… but kind of sorry to have lost the nothing too. Leastways that’s how I felt.

  So I’m laying there dreaming (like I said), and one thought then another kind of shakes itself off and gets going agin. I’m laying on something kind of gritty and damp and there’s a musty smell and my feet ache and my throat’s dry and I’m starting to feel hungry. And now I know for sure I ain’t dead – hunger don’t square with Eternal Glory. Moving seems an awful lot of trouble to go to, but there don’t seem no other way. I sit up.

  I’m sitting against the wall of the cavern, near a fire, Tom sitting on the other side, his head resting on his arms, which are resting on his knees. It’s dark outside. It’s still: no wind, no rain. I don’t move no more than that, but suddenly Tom’s head jerks back and he’s awake too, looking straight at me.

  “Huck!” He says it loud, with a smile; it’s good to hear. “You’re alive, Hucky.”

  “Reckon.”

  “I knew you warn’t dead.”

  “You was right.”

  “Anything hurt? I don’t think you broke nothing.”

  It’s a good question. I begin moving my arms and legs and fingers and turning my head and what have you – watching out for all those muscles and such you never think on. I’m ready for some sort of pain to spring out and surprise me, but it never does. I stand up and walk about a little and that seems to go pretty well. At last I gap and say: “I’m good as wheat, I guess; just tired. And there’s a kind of tingle in my fingers and toes.”

  “Why, you know why that is Huck?” says Tom, itching to tell.

  “I’ll lay I don’t.”

  “You only got struck by lightning, that’s all.”

  “No! I never did.”

  “You did, near ’nuff. Saw it myself. Thunderbolt whaled into the ground right where your foot had been just as you stepped toward the cavern – blowed you clean in the air, turned you upsy-daisy and rolled you inside. Why, it was a fine sight, Huck – wish you could have seen it.”

  “No,” says I. “You’re stretching it, Tom.”

  “Oh, am I?” Tom reaches behind him. “Then where did I get this, Mr Smarty?”

  Looks like a piece of broken tree root at first – ’bout a foot long, stem to stern, but with all of them twisty little branches and things coming off of it. Only it’s made of glass.

  “What’s that, Tom?” says I.

  “This is petrified lightning, Huck, that’s all!”

  “You’re fooling me, Tom Sawyer.”

  “I ain’t, Huck. Dug this out the ground where it struck. The heat fused the soil into glass – take a hold and have a look.”

  He hands it over careful – ’cause they look fragile, them rooty bits. It’s glass all right. I hold it over the fire and turn it. It glints kind of blue.

  “Petrified lightning!” I whistle. “I’ll be…”

  “I know,” says Tom. “Ain’t nobody in Petersburg got nothing like this.”

  “Why, you know what this is, Tom?” says I.

  “It’s a wonder of science,” says Tom.

  “No, sir,” says I. “It’s better’n that – it’s ’bout one of the powerfullest charms a body could lay his hands on, that’s all.”

  “You reckon?”

  “Reckon! Don’t zactly know how you’d use it, just yet – but a thing as rare as this? Why, it’s just got to be full of power. Don’t make no sense otherwise.”

  I make to hand it back, ’cause it’s Tom’s, but he says: “You can keep it if you want.”

  “Thanks, Tom. That’s mighty kind.”

  “T’ain’t nothing,” says Tom. But it is – we both know it.

  “Say!” says I as the thought strikes me. “How long I been out?”

  “Out cold since Thursday night. All through Friday. Must be almost Saturday morning now, I guess. I kind of lost track of time, where the moon is and all, when I fell asleep. I was kind of tired – I been busy all day, running ’bout trying to spot a skiff to hail and get us back to town (I reckoned you needed a doctor) – but I hain’t seen one all day.”

  Well, I know how Tom feels ’cause it’d been the same the day he was sick and I wanted someone to sail up and lend us a hand. He looks ’most better now, though – a little green around the gills, maybe.

  “How we going to get off this here island, Tom?” says I.

  “I been thinking about that,” says Tom, a bit of the old sparkle back in his eye. “I been working on a plan.” Them words done me good: a Tom Sawyer plan would sort things out, sure as eggs is eggs. “A raft ain’t no good: a raft’s for going downstream in – and we don’t want to end up no farther downstream than need be. We’re better off just finding us a good log (I spotted a couple of likely ones yesterday), making paddles, and paddling our way over. If we head upstream, I’m figuring the current won’t carry us more than a mile downstream – then we’ll only have four miles to walk back to town.”

  “What ’bout our luck, Tom? It’s been mighty bad – you come up with anything to level that out some?”

  “Spotted a couple of rattlesnakes earlier – brained them both with a rock. I’m figuring to chop off their rattles in the morning and make a new charm for my ankle – we can hunt up a couple more and make one for you too – least that’ll keep the cramp off if we have to swim for it.”

  “That’s good, Tom. Anything else?”

  “Well, it’s cutting it fine, but I don’t reckon we should try today – Saturday – we
should wait till Sunday.”

  “But ain’t that when they’re burying us? Funeraling us, anyways?” I ain’t too keen on the idea of my soul getting turned about on account of some fool telling the Lord I was dead.

  “Way I figure it,” says Tom. “If we wait until the service starts – and I’ve been to enough services to make a pretty good guess when that’ll be – then we’ll have a whole churchful of people praying for us right when we need it most. That’s got to wipe out a whole lot of bad luck – keep it at bay anyways – long enough for us to get back. Now, that’s where it’s cut fine: soon as we hit the shore we’ve got to run like our feet was on fire and get to church before Reverend Sprague Amens it all over.”

  “I’ll say that’s cutting it fine; finer’n a hog whisker sliced lengthways with a razor.”

  “I know, Huck, but it can’t be helped if you want to be sure not to get drownded. Anyway, I know what Reverend Sprague’s like – he works just about everyone in the world into his prayers even when there ain’t anyone to bury; the poor, the sick, the starving, sailors, farmers, soldiers, slaves, the President, even injuns – he’s a regular demon ’bout wanting them to see the light. I’ve heard him pray for the Six Nations one by one before now. He’ll lard something on for you and me and Joe for sure, and I reckon we’ll all get a hymn each besides the usual ones (I’ll lay I get two on account of winning that Bible at Sunday school), and probably Aunt Polly will tell everyone what a good boy I was, and Mary will say what a good cousin I was, ’most like a brother to her, and they’ll probably make Sid say something too, in spite of himself, and Mr and Mrs Harper will speak up for Joe, and maybe Mr Walters from Sunday school will be called on to say something, and Mr Dobbins from the real school will most likely say a few words… By jingoes, Hucky, I’m starting to think they’ll be jawing so long we could just stroll back real easy, if we wanted, blame my cats if it ain’t so!”

  He told it mighty convincing. I was sold. (Though we agreed to run anyways, if only for style.)

  Tom went back to sleep near the fire, stayed that way till past dawn. I was more hungry than tired, so I cooked me the catfish Tom had stowed to one side for breakfast; when he woke up he finished it, then we went to see this log he’d told of. Tom had dragged it to near the landward end of the sandbar (he warn’t keeping up that “Sorrowful Cove” business and I didn’t say nothing) ’cause naturally the sandbar was the northern-most point of the island, so it made sense to launch from there, us having to head north once we reached the Missouri shore. We walked through our old campsite on the way and, Lordy, it was good we hadn’t stuck there during that storm. The big sycamore was torn down and the oak was uprooted too, and there was branches – big ones – snapped and scattered all over. It made me feel cold to see them trees just smashed into the ground where we’d been sleeping and all the likeliest sheltering spots broke up too. Only good thing was there was chunks of wood in all shapes and sizes lying about, so Tom and me hunted up a couple that was pretty much like paddles and whittled them into shape with our Barlows.

  After that, we tried to find some more rattlesnakes: took us hours scouring through those woods ’fore we found one. We knowed its mate wouldn’t be far off, so half-hour later we got another. That was a no-good island for snakes. Then we dug up some turtle eggs to eat later and took another fish off of the line. That was the last fish we was going to catch on that island – we was fixing on using the line in our rattler charms: Tom reckoned we needed something real tough that wouldn’t snap in rough water and I reckoned he was right. We took a drink at the spring then went back to the cavern to fix things up. (That was the only problem with the cavern – warn’t no spring up there and we didn’t have no bottles nor pans nor skins to take water up there with. Can’t have everything.)

  Spent the evening skinning those rattlers and making charms out of their rattles. We thought ’bout eating a few pieces of them snakes together with the turtle eggs but neither of us had enough sand in his craw to risk it, us not knowing what the poisonous parts was. So we just dried the rattles over the fire and strung them on the line and tied them on our ankles with our best knots. We both felt better then, I’ll bet. I asked Tom if we needed to say any words over the rattles to make them work right; he said no, warn’t necessary – they was naturally proof against the cramp. Some things just is. Rest of the snakes we gathered up and threw outside the cavern – warn’t no more use to us. I’ll tell you: if I knowed then what I know now ’bout the power of bad luck a body brings down on hisself when he touches snake skins with his bare hands – well, I’ll lay we’d have done without no charms and risked the cramp with smiles on our faces.

  It was near ’nuff dawn when we woke. I’d had that dream agin: “Redhanded… Black Avenger… Terror of the Seas.” Heard the whole thing, same as before, like somebody’s calling to me. I look up and Tom’s looking back at me from t’other side of the fire, waking up likewise.

  “That’s funny,” says Tom. “Just had the same dream as woke me last night.”

  “Not more rats, I hope,” says I.

  “No,” says Tom. “Just a voice saying: ‘Redhanded… Black Avenger…’”

  “‘…Terror of the Seas.’” Tom looks at me kind of odd as I finish the words; reckon I’m looking kind of odd too. “I’ve been having that dream since the first night on this island.”

  “If… if it is a dream,” says Tom.

  “Tom,” says I. “I reckon we’d better get off of this island – right now.”

  We don’t neither of us need no more telling. We just jump up and grab our paddles and hightail it down the slope, toward the sandbar. By the time we’ve dragged our log out to the last tip of land that’s fit to stand on, the sun’s come up and the day’s getting bright – but the sky ain’t blue, mind, it’s light gray all over: just flat and dull and heavy-looking.

  “We’ll wait here till closer to church hours, then we’ll go,” says Tom.

  “All right,” says I. “But something ain’t right round here and I don’t want to stay no longer than needful.”

  So we wait – and it ain’t much fun stuck out there on the end of the sandbar, one eye on the island, one on the river, just waiting. The sun seems awful slow rising this morning – it climbs up the sky ’bout as slow as a possum in winter. Don’t even have no more chaws nor smokes nor nothing to take my mind off of it neither. Couple of hours later we both hear it, soft but clear – ain’t no doubt – and the colour just drains right out of Tom’s face in a second (and I can feel it go from mine too).

  “Redhanded… Black Avenger… Terror of the Seas.”

  We look round us, thinking the same thing: who’s saying that? But there’s no one to be seen.

  “That’s it, Tom,” says I. “We’ve just got to go – church hours or not.”

  “You’re right,” says Tom. “I reckon it’s almost time anyhow.” And we was pushing that log out into the river and jumping astride it ’most before he’d finished speaking, him in front, me behind. We strike out with our paddles like we was in a canoe race and just keep going, stroke after stroke, fast as we can, till our arms is aching fit to drop off.

  We get halfway to the Missouri side without being forced too far downstream by the current. But then I see we don’t seem to be making much headway. I slow down and sit up and look round, then stop paddling altogether; Tom sees what I’m doing and stops too. We ain’t moving. Not with the current; not at all. We just sit there looking up and down the river, across to Missouri, back to the island, over toward Illinois; no one in sight and no sound but the river, flowing past us like we ain’t even there.

  “Are we snagged?” says I. “Run aground?” We peer into the river and feel all around underwater with our paddles.

  “No,” says Tom. “We ain’t snagged and we ain’t grounded. We just ain’t moving.”

  “How do you account for that, Tom?” says I. I don’t know why, but I said it real soft, ’most a whisper. Tom ponders a few moments; I ca
n only see the back of his head, but I can hear him sucking his teeth. At last he looks at me over his shoulder.

  “Bad luck, I guess, Hucky,” says he. “Just bad luck.”

  “What we going to do ’bout it?”

  “Well, that’s a poser,” says Tom. “You want to try swimming?”

  “No. Not no how.”

  “Me neither.” There’s a long silence. “Maybe…,” says Tom, “…maybe when the funeral service gets going and folks start praying for us something’ll happen.”

  Ain’t long before something does happen. It’s slow at first, like something slipping out of your grip, you know, kind of uncertain. Then Tom hollers: “The current, Huck, it’s moving us again. Paddle – hard as ever you can.”

  I don’t need telling twice. I lay into that water like all get go, Tom does the same, and the log shoots forward, then it slows down, then goes forward with a lurch, like something’s pushing agin us or holding us back. We lurch forward agin, then get stuck, and Tom and me are near ’nough straining ourselves fit to bust and something’s straining t’other way and something’s got to give. Well, that log just starts shaking to and fro (sideways, not back and forwards), and rolling itself round a quarter clockwise then back a half-turn, then back agin and back – all real fast and sharp. No way Tom and me can keep ourselves seated on that for long.

  “We’re going in, Huck, we’re going in,” shouts Tom – screams ’most.

  I have a bad feeling ’bout what’d happen then, but can’t think of nothing to do ’bout it – ’cepting one thing. I’d put that clump of petrified lightning inside my shirt, tucked it in, cold and diggy though it was. I reach in sharp and pull it out now, busting some buttons off and snapping some of its thin parts – don’t have no time to be careful. I hold it up and shout: “If you’ve got something to do, do it now!” And I thrust that hunk of lightning into the Miz like I’m hammering a nail in.

  Right at once there’s a crack like a thunderbolt hitting and the lightning shines blue in my hand and a circle of blue light spreads out from it under the water, moving fast, rippling through the river for a hundred yards in every direction. Soon as the lightning touches, though, that hot-maggots feeling comes back with a vengeance – shooting up my arm and up my feet that’s dangling in the water. Tom feels it too, I can see, slapping and swiping at his legs. We drop our paddles and I drop the lightning too – can’t hang onto nothing with pain like that going on. Only lasts a few seconds, mind, thank the Lord. Stings something awful. And while Tom and me are yelping like scalded dogs there comes another sound, like a woman shrieking far off (and a boy too, maybe). And then the river’s flowing regular agin, but in a mighty angry boil. In we both go.