Tom, Jim and me take a look at each other, muddied all over and beat.
“He’s running through the rain! Ain’t no one can catch him,” says Tom. “What are we going to do, Jim?” It’s a while before Jim answers – whether that’s ’cause he’s too choked to talk or ’cause he’s thinking on it I don’t know. When the answer comes, I guess it sounds like sense.
“If Injun Joe knows we know he killed Doc Robinson he’s least as big a trouble as Joseph Harper. The boy warn’t stretchin’ it none – Injun Joe won’t waste a secon’ gettin’ rid of us if we could put a noose roun’ his neck by goin’ to the law – but that’s ’zactly what we’ve got to do, boys, go to the law. Get to the sheriff ’fore Injun Joe gets to us. Once ever’body knows, Injun Joe won’t have no reason to come after us no more.”
“’Cepting revenge,” says I. “And if Injun Joe ain’t the revenging type then I ain’t never seen no one who is.”
“Well, it’s better’n nothin’, ain’t it?” says Jim, a little sharp. “What else we gonna do? Least the law’ll be on our side and folks’ll be on the lookout and maybe Petersburg will be too hot for him. Maybe he’ll just take off and leave us be.”
“Well, all right,” says Tom. “Let’s go tell the sheriff.”
Jim lays a hand on his shoulder and holds him fast.
“We can’t do it jus’ like that, Marse Tom. Didn’t you hear what the Harper chile said? Said the Miz can find us whenever she likes an’ point us out to him – if Joe Harper’s talkin’ to Injun Joe, then he can tell that bandit where we is. Then he can bushwhack us ’fore we even reach the sheriff. Speed that boy was goin’ he’s ’most back in town by now. No, we’ve gotta make ourselves unvisible to spirits an’ such – then we can sneak back to Petersburg the reg’lar way without gettin’ our throats slit.”
“That’s good, Jim,” says Tom. “Can you do that?”
“No,” says Jim. “’Fraid I can’t.”
“What ’bout your ox hairball, Jim?” says I, clinging to that hope ’fore it blows away. “That can tell us what to do, can’t it?”
“Don’t need no hairball spirit to tell me what we’ve gotta do,” says Jim. “Ain’t but one person hereabouts can help us now…” His voice is all thick and rough and cracked. “Mother Hopkins!”
Tom and me look at each other – and our fear freshens itself up agin.
Well, Mother Hopkins was Petersburg’s witch – ain’t no nicer way of saying it than that, ain’t no truthfuller way neither. That’s what she was: a regular old witch. Lived in a cabin ’bout three mile out of town, just under. On the inland side, fortunately, well away from the Miz. The creek ran nearby, but we didn’t need to cross it, which was good, I reckon; I was coming distrustful of water.
It was a tumbledown kind of place, one storey, homemade-looking – though not by Mother Hopkins, I’ll bet. Looked older’n her, its timbers all green and shingles a dusty greeny-yellow. Out in the woods it was, and off of the road, though there was a footpath leading to it plain; Mother Hopkins warn’t respectable, that’s a fact, but there was always plenty of folks wanting her help. If you needed something happening, or stopping, or heading off before it could get started – something you wouldn’t want to speak ’bout in town; if you needed a spell or a charm or somesuch and didn’t have the knowhow – well, Mother Hopkins’ place was where you fetched up. Don’t know what she charged folks; witching didn’t seem to pay too good if the state of her place was anything to go by. Would’ve thought she could’ve stretched to a big house on Cardiff Hill or ’longside of the lawyer Thatcher’s place, but no, didn’t seem so.
Hadn’t been inside her place before – warn’t too keen on heading in now – but I’d seen it, of course. Me and Tom and t’other boys had spied it out on occasion, looking from behind the trees, trying to see what she was about. Looked ’most like an old lady just seeing to her business regular – I guess witches is crafty that way. Sometimes she’d stop and look up and about as if she knew folks was around, but she never said nothing, just smiled a little. Spent her time picking flowers and mushrooms and suchlike.
I’d spoke to her several times before, when I’d run into her sudden in town or out in the woods. Had to say something, rude not to – and I warn’t fool ’nuff to go and be rude to a witch. Last time I seen her she was coming out a meadow mumbling to herself, a bunch of buttercuppy-looking things in her hand; she was hid by the hedge till she stepped out into the road where I was walking.
“’Scuse me, ma’am,” says I quick, touching my hat. She knowed who I was and I feared she might be mad at me on account of the time Pap flung a stone at her when he thought she was witching him (he broke an arm not long after, so I reckon he was right – and I didn’t want such handling). She fixes me with her eye a moment (which scared me some, ’cause that’s how it starts, the witching), then looks me up and down.
“Huckleberry Finn,” says she. “How are you, boy?”
“All right, I guess, ma’am,” says I.
“And how’s your pap?” says she.
“His usual self, I reckon,” says I.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” says she. “That’s a shame all right.” Then she grabbed my hands and pulled ’em up and turned ’em over and had a study of ’em.
“Ain’t hardly never seen so many warts ’cept on a toad,” says she. “You’re ’most as warty as Bob Tanner. What you been doing with these here hands? No, don’t tell me – I’d rather not know.” Then she sighs and huffs and thinks a little while. “Know how to get rid of warts, boy?”
“Reckon I do,” says I. “You take a bean and split it open, then you cut the wart till it bleeds, then you…”
“Child’s play!” And she laughs kind of prideful. “They’ll just keep coming back if that’s how you do it. Want to know how to really get rid of a wart? Get it gone for good with no coming back?”
I nodded.
“Why you’ve got to send that wart to Hell, boy. Hell! That’s the place for warts. Here’s what you do…”
Then she told me how if you took a dead cat to a graveyard the night after a wicked person’s been buried, then when the devils come at midnight to fetch his soul away, if you heave that cat after ’em and say ‘Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I’m done with ye!’ that’ll draw them off certain. I liked the thought of that. Not so much getting rid of the warts – they didn’t bother me much – but spying out devils at work. Hadn’t seen that before. Mother Hopkins said you couldn’t see the devils, only hear ’em, but I wanted to try it anyhow. And that talk was what I ’membered a couple of months later when Hoss Williams died – ’cause he was one of the evillest fellers in Petersburg. I hunted out a dead cat and told Tom what I was about, and of course he wanted to come too (’cause devils and charms and such was always nuts for Tom). And that’s what we was doing hiding up in the graveyard that night when Injun Joe and Muff Potter and Doc Robinson come along to dig up Hoss Williams, and why Tom and me were there to see them falling out and Injun Joe stab Doc Robinson dead.
Come to think on it now, it was all Mother Hopkins’ fault me and Tom was in the trouble we was – leastways the Injun Joe part of it. Hadn’t been for her wart lore I’d never been up there, I’d’ve been fast asleep in a hogshead round back of the slaughterhouse. Things’d been fine! That got me frowning and riled for a time as we was walking over to her place, till I figured it warn’t healthy to go picking a fight with a witch – nor letting her know you had ’cause to neither. I’d let it be.
I was glad Jim was with Tom and me – don’t reckon we’d’ve had the sand to march up to Mother Hopkins place at night otherwise. We warn’t making good time, though. Jim was shook up some and Joe had hurt his knee when he kicked it. Jim walked ’twixt Tom and me, leaning on our shoulders; took us ’most an hour to reach Mother Hopkins place from where we was. You know you’ve done some work when you’ve walked like that for an hour! We saw smoke climbing out of the chimley, and a l
ittle glimmer of light from the windows, though they was shuttered (and through cracks in the timbers), so we knowed she was in. ’Bout then my stomach shrunk up tight and everything south felt kind of loose. I warn’t happy and then some.
“Best let me do the talking, boys,” says Jim. “Reckon I knows how to talk to Mother Hopkins better’n you.”
“Sure thing, Jim,” says Tom.
“If that’s what you want, Jim,” says I.
We warn’t going to fight him over that.
We pause a moment, just staring at the shack, Jim breathing heavy, not a sound to be heard otherwise ’cepting a few crickets that hadn’t got rained off and the plashing of the branches ’bove us in the breeze and the raindrops trickling down.
“Well, all right then,” says Jim at last. To hisself it seems. He limps forward, dragging Tom and me with him and we clump up a low, rickety stoop toward the door, the planks groaning under us. I wince some at the noise; don’t know why – we warn’t fixing to surprise Mother Hopkins. That kind of trick ain’t healthy anyhow. Jim takes his big old right hand off of my shoulder, balls it up and reaches up to knock on the door.
“Come on in, boys,” says a voice from inside. “T’ain’t locked!”
We look at Jim’s knuckles, paused in the air, not having touched the wood yet. He tries not to look phased and reaches for the doorknob. As he pushes the door open a smell of cooking comes out and gives us a slap; ain’t nowhere so bad as Jim’s kitchen was, but wakens us up some anyhow. It’s kind of herby and nettley; bit like a ’pothecary’s store. Room’s lit by candles and the fire; there’s a door on the far side of the room but the most of the shack seems to be in here – front parlour, kitchen and workroom in one. The walls is crowded with shelves and the shelves is crowded with jars. Can’t see what’s in ’em too clear – I don’t mind that. There’s lots of roots and bunches of flowers and corn dollies and such hanging from the rafters. Lots of tools for cooking and mixing and whatnot too. There’s a big old table smack in the middle – table you could build a barricade with; you could fix wheels on the legs and call it a wagon. It’s scored all over with knife cuts and is spread with chopped up vegetables and greens. Looks like Mother Hopkins was in the middle of something, I guess. But where is she? Jim leans in.
“Hel…”
Before he can get to “…lo” the door’s pulled open rest of the way. We jump and there she is.
“Hallo, Jim, boys. Come in if you’re coming; don’t let my heat out.” She’s got some thick wet square of cloth in her hand with strings hanging from it; it’s steaming, smelling of honey and vinegar. She slaps it into Jim’s hand before he knows what’s what. “Poultice. For your knee. Put it on afore it cools.” Jim gapes some. “Lessen you like limping.”
We go inside – the sound of that door shutting behind me don’t please me none – and Jim does as he’s told, rolling up his britches leg and tying the poultice on. While he’s at that, Mother Hopkins fixes me with her eye – which is how it starts, like I said. I can’t look away without seeming rude, so I just has to stand it, looking back up at her and trying not to show what I feel ’bout her wiry gray hair, hanging all snaky ’bout her shoulders, and her wrinkly, baked earth face and her gappy, gummy mouth. She warn’t no beauty, Mother Hopkins.
“So, Huckleberry Finn,” says she. “Come here with a problem, have you?” She closes one eye and the other seems to double in size to make up for it. “Two problems. Big ones!” She glances at Tom. “Same two as Thomas Sawyer. Folks out to get you, eh? Ain’t surprised you’re worried. Something preying on your minds too – something you’ve got to get off of your chests… Hallo, Thomas – Tom. First time you’ve been here, ain’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Tom, kind of quiet, shrinking under that eye. She turns it back on me.
“Warts gone, pretty well. You do as I say?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Something come up. They just fell off on their own.”
“Best way,” says she. “How’s your pap, Huckleberry?”
“Don’t rightly know, ma’am,” says I. “Ain’t seen him for months. Don’t know when he’ll be back in town.”
“He’ll find you when he wants you,” says she. “Try not to be found – he’s a flash-flood of trouble that feller.” I shrugged. I couldn’t say yes – pride, maybe – but she’d hit Pap’s nail on the head, certain. “And Jim…” Her eye moves on. “You here as Miss Watson’s Jim or Jim-in-your-own-right?”
Jim looks up from his knee and his eyes flash a little.
“Reckon I’se always been my own man, Mother,” says he. “Best I could manage it, anyways.”
“Still, why’re you here, I wonder?” She stares at Jim and Jim stares back. “Keeping me out, are you, Jim? All right – tell me regular! Keep it short though – I ain’t getting younger and you’re in a hurry, lessen I’m mistaken.”
“It’s like this, Mother,” says Jim. “Few weeks ago the boys here, they was in the graveyard an’ they…”
He told her what we saw – Doc Robinson, Injun Joe, Muff Potter. Then ’bout near getting drownded and Joe getting drownded and coming back. Then right up to Joe ’most killing Jim and setting Injun Joe on our trail. Sounded like even more of a fix set out like that. ‘Lord, what are these fellers going to do?’ I thought – then I ’membered it was us he was talking ’bout.
“Unvisible, eh?” says Mother Hopkins at last, pondering some and scratching a couple of goaty little hairs growing off of her chin. “Well, won’t get you all the way out of the fix you boys is in, but should be able to get you to the sheriff alive. Don’t go thinking that sheriff’s a match for Injun Joe, though – not less he calls out half the town in a posse.” She narrows her eyes some and fires a broadside of glances ’cross the room at Jim and Tom and me. “What you boys know ’bout Injun Joe?”
“Know he’s ’bout the black-heartedest murdering no-good ever set foot in Petersburg, that’s all,” says I.
“Uh-huh!” mutters Mother Hopkins, giving a nod like she ’grees with me. “What you know, Jim?”
“On’y what I hears, Mother,” says Jim. “Folks tell me he’s half white man, half red man, and mean all through. On’y time I seen him close was when they ’rested Muff Potter. He was standin’ there spoutin’ off ’bout how he saw Potter kill Doc Robinson – somethin’ ’bout the way he told it give me the chills – guess I know why now.”
“Uh-huh! Well, everything you’ve said is true, I reckon,” says Mother Hopkins. “But there’s a lot more to Injun Joe than most folks know.” She goes to her table and starts chopping at some of her weeds while she talks. “They say his mother was a white woman took captive; his father a medicine man of the Sauk over in Illinois. Think he belonged to Thunder clan…” She looks up at the ceiling for a moment, thoughtful. “…maybe it was Bear. But then some folks say his father weren’t a Sauk at all but a Ho-Chunk and kin to the prophet White Cloud hisself. Whichever way it was, he was big medicine and so was his son. Great things was ’spected of Injun Joe – Joe ain’t his injun name, of course. Maybe it’s what his ma called him, maybe it’s just a name he took for hisself when he come among white folks. Anyhow, Injun Joe was shaping up to be one of the fiercest braves they had – got the build for it too. You seen him; ain’t no weakling, whatever else he is. So Injun Joe growed up and was well regarded, I reckon, and come to be a man… and then what happened, eh? What happened then d’you reckon?” She pauses, wagging the point of her carving knife at us. We all of us shrug.
Mother Hopkins looks at me and Tom.
“You boys know ’bout the Black Hawk war?”
“A little, I guess,” says Tom.
“Some,” says I. I’d heard tell. Ended the year ’fore I was born if I recalled it straight.
“‘Some!’ ‘A little!’” Mother Hopkins sniffs and shakes her head, slicing into some raggy old greens. “Like I said, them Sauk lived over in Illinois – but by the time Injun Joe was growed they didn’t live there no mor
e, leastways not on the land their forefathers had lived on. They’d been run off by settlers and the government. Well, Black Hawk, he was a war chief, and by ’32 he thought it was time his people got that land back. So they did it the only way they could – by warring. Raised a war party fifteen hunnerd strong – though most of ’em was women and kids and old timers. Still, it was the best they could do.”
Mother Hopkins straightens up and waggles her knife at us.
“Well, that warband swept ’cross Illinois and tore through the militia like shears through lace. Whole state was terrified. Created quite a stir over here in Missouri.” Then she sighs, kind of wistful. “Maybe it’d’ve been better if they’d lost straight off – ’cause they was always going to in the end. It was a short war, but nasty – five months of little skirmishes and massacres. The government shipped more’n a thousand troops west to put down Black Hawk’s band. Well, after they set out, those troops start coming down with the cholera. Dropping down sicker’n dogs – by the time they reach Illinois there’s only a couple of hunnerd fit to fight. Coincidence?” She gives a sharp little laugh. “Warn’t ’nuff to save Black Hawk, though – fighting started to turn against him. But ’bout that time his warband expelled Injun Joe, chased him into the forest. He was marked for death if they ever saw him again, that was certain. Why? No one knows for sure; something he done, maybe. Anyhow…” Mother Hopkins sweeps her weedy cuttings into a bowl; sets down her knife and takes up a cleaver and a chicken (dead one). “…anyhow, a month later up he floats again – only now he’s a scout for the US Cavalry, working for the army that’s hunting down Black Hawk. Fighting’s over within a few weeks – the band defeated, Black Hawk captive.” Down comes that cleaver on the chicken’s neck. “War’s no sooner over than the Cavalry dismisses Joe. What’s he done this time? No one wants to talk ’bout it – wouldn’t reflect too well on the Cavalry, maybe. And they ain’t delicate flowers, them troopers, so you just know it’s something bad!
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