Huck

by Prizeman, Steven

  “Next thing anyone knows of Injun Joe he’s in Missouri, working as a bounty hunter – tracking down criminals for reward. They say he always got his man… only he didn’t ever bring ’em back alive – only corpses, sometimes just ears or heads or scalps. Sometimes he didn’t bring back nothing but a hat or a waistcoat or a watch. No one’d work with him, though – a few fellers did early on, but they was never heard of again. Well, I guess the bounty hunting dried up over the years and Injun Joe become a bandit hisself – though he’s so cunning there ain’t never been no proof nor witnesses found their way to a courtroom. Now, every dirty job that decent folks’d turn their noses up at, Injun Joe seems to be in line for it, ’long with the drunkards and busted gamblers.”

  That chicken gets a few more goes with the cleaver, making the table groan; Mother Hopkins picks up the knife agin and starts picking out little bits of chicken innards, all careful and dainty now. Some go in the bowl, others in little glass bottles.

  “But that ain’t why you’ve got to fear Injun Joe,” says she. “Though when I tell you why you do, it’ll cast a new light on what I’ve just told you, maybe.”

  “Oh, Lord,” mutters Tom (knowing something bad’s coming down the pike).

  “You boys ever hear tell of a wendigo?”

  “Oh, Lord!” says Jim (knowing it’s got here). “Now don’t go an’ tell us he’s no wendigo, Mother!”

  “What’s a wendigo, Mother Hopkins?” Tom asks it kind of quiet ’cause he knows he ain’t going to like the answer, but he’s just got to know anyhow. Curious, I guess.

  “Wendigo? ’Bout the worst kind of manitou there is. Know what a manitou is, boys?”

  Tom and me share a glance before shaking our heads.

  Mother Hopkins rests hers hands on her hips and gapes at us, kind of ’zasperated. “Don’t know what a manitou is! Well, I don’t blame you, Huck Finn – you’re just ignorant and it ain’t your fault. But you, Tom Sawyer! Smart boy like you oughter know ’bout more’n his books and his fancies. All that time you spend reading ’bout knights an’ armour and Robin Hood and King Arthur and pirates and Sinbad sailor and all that carry on! You know ’nuff ’bout them, I reckon. If I was telling of Roman emperors or Greek gods or such you’d know it all, I’ll allow. But don’t know near ’nuff ’bout the place you live in!” And she sighs at us the way the Reverend Sprague does whenever he catches us and puts a Bible question to us before we can get away – never does like our answers.

  “A manitou,” says Mother Hopkins, “is a spirit – the kind of spirit the injuns hereabouts believes in. Most things got a manitou inside of ’em – trees, rocks, deer, fish, birds, rivers. Everything just about. But there’s some manitous ain’t got no fixed home – just floats round; and there’s others gets shifted out of what they was in to start with, moves into something else. Or someone else.” I see how this story is going and feel the back of my neck start to quiver. “Well, the worst of these spirits is the wendigo. Wendigo’s hungry like a wolf, can’t never be satisfied – when he catches the scent of a greedy man, man who’ll do anything to get what he wants, wendigo thinks he’ll be right at home. He moves in, takes over that feller: he’s a wendigo from then on, filled with a wendigo’s hunger. Hunger for flesh! Human flesh! Wendigo’s a cannibal, boys – that’s ’bout the size of it. And however much he eats, he wants more.”

  “Oh, Lord!” We all say it. Tom’s shaking bad as me; Jim’s leaning ’gainst the wall looking kind of pale (which is mighty unusual for Jim).

  “How do we fight a wendigo, Mother Hopkins?” asks Tom.

  “Can’t!” She buries that cleaver in her table and our hopes ’long with it. “Couple of boys! Even with Jim here and all his knowhow – which is pretty good, I’ll allow – t’ain’t likely you could bring down a wendigo. Shoot him? It’ll heal; wound’ll spit out that bullet like an apple pip! Stab him? Cut him with a knife? Cut’ll seal up like a stitched dress! Burn him? He’ll just blister over and fix hisself before your eyes. Drown him? He won’t mind that none – just cough up that water and get back to work.”

  “What if he gets arrested for murdering Doc Robinson?” says Tom.

  “Well, it’d ruin all his human plans for sure,” says Mother Hopkins. “Having the whole town after him, the law and all, that’d be a big problem, even for a wendigo. Couldn’t fight them numbers. If a crowd took and killed him, he’d be in trouble. Not from the hanging – he’d wake up from that after a time – but from what comes next: the burying. Getting boxed up and stuck six feet under, covered over with earth – that’d be a prison Injun Joe couldn’t bust out of with all his muscles. And that’s where he’d die – not from lack of air, but from lack of food. ’Cause that’s the only way to kill a wendigo dead, boys: starve it! Even then, that manitou inside of Injun Joe would live on – and if anyone’d ever open up that grave, out it’d float, take over someone new. So, if I was you, I’d tell on him quick, rouse up a posse and get him hung – that’s ’bout your best chance, I reckon.”

  Tom, Jim and me exchange some glances, silent.

  “Oh, there’s another thing,” says Mother Hopkins sudden, looking up from her chicken pieces. “Injun Joe’s a shape-shifter – can make hisself look like any man under the sun, and most beasts too: wolf, bear, elk and such. Lordy, I caught a glimpse of him changing, once – it’s quite a sight, boys, his face twisting up and bulging and shaping like a ball of dough under a baker’s hand. That’s something all right, I should say!” She smiles at us. “’Most forgot ’bout that! Kind of worth knowing, I guess.”

  “Mother,” says Jim. “Reckon we’d like you to get us unvisible now, quick as you can.”

  Warn’t that the truth!

  “Well, all right, then!” Mother Hopkins wipes her hands on her apron. “Let’s get started. I’ll need something off of all of you. Something you care ’bout or’ve had in your keeping for a time.” She clears a space on the table, brushing her cut-up stuff aside with a bony hand. “Come on, now – turn out them pockets. Don’t make it nothing too valuable, though – choose something folks ain’t going to want to take off of you. ’Member that, it’s important – whatever you choose, you’re going to have to keep it safe. It’ll become the most important thing you ever owned – so don’t choose no breakables, neither.”

  Tom turns out a couple of handfuls of truck – marbles, his Barlow, that brass doorknob agin, some Sunday school tickets, a few cents, more besides. Mother Hopkins picks up the doorknob.

  “I ain’t gonna ask,” says she, rolling her eyes. “It’ll do. What ’bout you, Huckleberry?”

  I have some chaws, a corncob pipe, flint and steel, fishline and hook, Joe’s old Barlow and my counterfeit quarter. Mother Hopkins looks at the Barlow a moment, then switches to the counterfeit.

  “This is ’bout the worst forgery I’ve ever seen. Ain’t nobody but a fool’d bother stealing this. It’ll do! And you, Jim?”

  Jim pulls out a wad of little papers, torn from a notebook. Scrawled all over with writing I can’t read and odd little signs and symbols I ain’t seen the like of before. He seems kind of bashful of letting Mother Hopkins see ’em – but she ain’t worried none, just snatches ’em up and has a study while he turns out some other stuff: matches, a pretty good jackknife, a stub of charcoal, some chaws, a mix of pennies (real ones and counterfeits), and a lock of hair – black as his, but somehow I can tell it’s from a girl, tied up with a length of red cotton. Mother Hopkins’ hand hovers over the hair a moment, then the knife – then it shoots up sudden and grabs a length of twine Jim’s wearing round his neck. She pulls on it and out from under his shirt comes that hairball amulet he’s made.

  “That’s ’ready got a spirit inside of it, Mother,” says he.

  “Room for one more, I reckon,” says she with a wink. If it can stand an ox’s stomach it’s sturdy ’nuff for us.”

  “What you fixing to do, Mother Hopkins?” asks Tom.

  “Ain’t Jim told you?” She gives a quick, ha
rd laugh like a handclap. “Gonna take your souls out of you, that’s all. Take ’em out and put ’em in this rubbage. When you’ve had your soul took out, spirits can’t see you – and that’s the only way I know of that’ll keep Lady Miz from breathing down your neck. Ain’t something I’d ever do, boys – but then I ain’t in your kind of spot, am I?”

  “Take our souls out?” says Tom. “But that’ll kill us, won’t it?”

  “Land’s sake, no, boy! Don’t hardly need a soul when you’re ’live! When you’re dead, mind, that’s another matter entirely – need to have your soul inside of you when you die, else you’re damned, certain.”

  Tom and me share a look, see how pale and shaky we are.

  “It’s jus’ for a couple hours,” says Jim. “It’ll throw Lady Miz off of our scent, that’ll throw Joe Harper off, an’ that’ll throw Injun Joe off. We go into town without gettin’ bushwhacked, tell the sheriff, then pour our souls right back in where they belong.”

  “Easy as that?” says Tom.

  “Don’t you worry, child,” says Mother Hopkins. “Putting ’em back’s easy; it’s taking ’em out that’s difficult – going to take me a couple of hours.”

  “If Joe’s found Injun Joe then he’ll be here ’fore then,” says I.

  “That’s right,” says Mother Hopkins. “So you’ve gotta get while I work! I don’t want you bringing none of that kind of trouble down on me.”

  “And my soul’ll be in… this?” I pick up that no-good quarter and turn it in the light, watching it glint.

  “Yes, yes – ain’t you listning, Huckleberry? And Tom’s in the doorknob and Jim’s in the hairball. Now don’t drag it out – you’ve been here longer’n’s healthy as it is.” Mother Hopkins tosses the doorknob to Tom and slaps the hairball down on Jim’s palm. “Now repeat after me:

  ‘Soul, soul, I have no doubt: let Mother Hopkins pluck you out,

  Put you in this thing I hold; safe ’n’ secret, good as gold.

  There to stay, till I call you back, with these here words of magic black:

  “Come back, soul, from where you’re resting; I’m a-telling you, not requesting!

  Get inside bowels, heart and head – then stay there quiet, till I’m dead.’”

  Jim and me say it right off, but Tom stops halfway through.

  “‘Magic black’?” says he, a little tremble in his voice. “You sure we ought to…?”

  Mother Hopkins looks at him stern with that eye agin.

  “Young man,” says she. “You want your soul took out or not?”

  “I guess, but…”

  “Then say it right!”

  She says it over and Tom says it right this time. Might’ve known a Sunday schooler’d baulk at that. Soon as he’s done, Mother Hopkins waves us toward the door.

  “Now I’ve got your permission to take your souls out, don’t need you here no more. Get! Shoo! Go! Anywheres! Keep moving till you feel faint – that’ll be the soul leaving you – then sit down till it stops. Then hurry off to town whatever sneaky way you please – no ghost, no spirit, not even Lady Miz herself’ll know where you’re at. And remember, when you want your soul back, grab a-holt of your object, hold it tight – it’s gotta be touching your skin, so no gloves – and say them words I told you.”

  “Do we have to get ’em exact?” says I.

  “Course you do, Huckleberry,” says she. “Ain’t no telling what’ll happen if you go fooling with spell words. Might work, might do nothing, might do something awful!”

  “Wait, Mother,” says Jim. “How we going to get these here things back? Come for ’em once we’ve spoke to the sheriff?”

  “No, thank you,” says Mother Hopkins. “If Lady Miz has already pointed the Harper boy here, wouldn’t do to leave ’em where they might be found. She’ll guess what we’ve done soon as she finds she can’t sniff out your souls no more.”

  “Then how…?”

  “You know that half-ruined barn, far side of the woods, ’bout a mile away?”

  “I know it,” says I.

  “Well, I’ll leave them there, hidden under the straw in the north-west corner, in this…” Mother Hopkins snatches a little wooden box off of a shelf and tips out some mandrake root or such. Waves it in front of us so we know what it looks like.

  “What if we can’t find them?” says Tom. “Or lose them? Or they get stolen? Or broke?”

  “Then if you die afore you get ’em back, you’ll be damned. Damned, certain!” Tom always did have that curious side made him go asking questions he’d’ve been happier not knowing the answer to. “Now, so long, boys – and good luck!”

  “Thanks, Mother,” says Jim. “How can we…?”

  “Reckon I’ll need a favour some day, Jim,” says she. “Don’t everyone?”

  She closes the door ’fore Tom and me can thank her. Don’t stand on ceremony, I guess, witches – ’cept for the magic, of course.

  “Come on, now, chillen,” says Jim, hurrying down off of the stoop, walking as regular as ever. “Let’s do as the lady say – an’ get!”

  We just walked for the next hour or so, headed away from the river mostly, then curling back toward Cardiff Hill, taking a zigzaggy route all the way, make us hard to find or ambush. We was pretty quiet, for the most part, but it got kind of heavy on us, the silence. Gloomy. Made Tom and me speak up sometimes in whispers.

  “I’ll be glad when we’re unvisible, I’ll bet,” says I. “Not have to worry ’bout Joe or Injun Joe spotting us.”

  Jim halts sudden and we ’most bump into him.

  “That ain’t it, Hucky,” says he, kind of ’zasperated. “It ain’t even half that! Lissen: what’s Lady Miz? Spirit an’ river, that’s all. So when we’s unvisible, spirit side of her won’t be able to see us, an’ the rest? Why, that’s just river! River ain’t got no eyes – won’t be able to see us no more’n any other river. So she won’t be able to go pointin’ us out to Joseph Harper, which is good. But that Joe Harper, what’s he? He’s a boy! An’ a boy’s got eyes ain’t he? He’ll be able to spot us reg’lar if we cross his path, same as any other boy. An’ Injun Joe? He’s got a wendigo inside of him, Mother says – well, that wendigo an’ the injun part of him is locked together tight, like this.” Jim laces his fingers and clenches his hands; they was locked together all right. “Well an injun’s got eyes, ain’t he? Injun part of Injun Joe can do the seein’ jus’ fine an’ let the wendigo do the rest.”

  “So we’ve got to keep sneaking, even after we’re unvisible?” says I.

  “That’s so, Huck,” says Jim. “So hush now an’ let’s get movin’ agin – won’t be long now, I reckon.”

  “Reckon, it is now,” says Tom. His face is pale all over. “Don’t feel so good.”

  Tom sways a moment then sits down heavy, right there in the wet grass. He bends forward, ’most folded over, and groans some, quiet and mournful.

  “Easy, Marse Tom,” says Jim, squatting beside him and rubbing his back. “Take it easy now, chile! Don’t fight it none; Mother Hopkins knows what she’s ’bout.”

  I was ’bout to ask Tom if he was all right when my sight goes blurry for a moment then fades right out. My head feels light, like it ain’t got nothing to do with the rest of me and is kind of swimming in fog; realise I’d best sit down too before I fall. So that’s what I do. I want to tell Jim what’s happening, but when I speak it comes out: “Hrrm uh hrrm uh hrrm, hmm!” I know that’s wrong so I strain my eyes for Jim, blinking and unblinking – can’t hardly see nothing – then I see him laid on his back, knees bent, arms out to the side, head going from side to side like he’s in the midst of a nightmare. “Oh, well, Hucky,” think I, “Guess this is how it goes – best hold tight now.”

  So that’s what I do – put up with it like a regular Stook. (Tom’d been proud if he’d noticed me ’mid all his writhing and moaning.) Seems to take all night, that swirly-headed feeling, but don’t reckon it could’ve been more’n a minute or two ’cause when it stops –
sudden – Tom and Jim was lying right there alongside me like they hadn’t hardly moved. I sit up sharp, my head feeling as clear as if I’ve been slapped and had ice water thrown over me. Tom and me gape at each other.

  “That it?” says I.

  “Reckon,” says Tom, rubbing his head. “How d’you feel?”

  I ponder some.

  “All right, I guess,” says I. “I can feel something’s different, but only just. If I didn’t know I’d had my soul took out I’d never know it – just think I’d eaten some of them berries you had or somesuch.”

  Tom nods, so I guess this was how it was taking him too. Jim ain’t spending no time ’preciating the feeling, though.

  “Come on, chillen – don’t dally, now!” Up he jumps. “Hurry, Hucky, Marse Tom! If Lady Miz’s been watchin’ us, this is the last spot she’ll know we was at – so let’s get somewhere else quick so we only need worry ’bout being spotted by eyes.”

  Jim looks ’bout him, picks an unlikely direction and goes tearing off. Tom punches my arm and leaps up.

  “Shake yourself, Hucky! Guess he know’s what he’s doing.”

  Off runs Tom. Up I get and run after – don’t have no other plans.

  “We’ll all three of us go up to the Widder Douglas’s place,” says Jim over his shoulder. “Clean this mud off of us – look respectable. Then we’ll pick us a sneaky way back to town an’ go to the sheriff an’ set it out plain. We can sit it out in the jailhouse with one of the deputies till he’s got a-holt of Injun Joe. Then go get our souls back. Figure out what to do with Joe Harper ’nother time, I guess. Try get him exorcised by Rev Sprague, maybe – that might work. Stay ’way from the river till then’d be best, boys.”

  This was ’bout the hopefullest we’d felt since Joe’d ruined our plans earlier and made a long night of it for us. Pretty shaky hope, though, I was thinking – there was a whole lot of props keeping it in place. I was glad my legs still felt good for running with.