“Oh, Missouri, certain!” Pap’d like that – he never did like Illinois, ’cause they didn’t have no slavery there and Pap didn’t think much of that. Didn’t see no point in being a white man if you couldn’t look down on a black one and strut a little.
“Before the next steamboat halt or after it?”
“Well, I can’t swear to it,” says I. “But after, I reckon.” Farther I could get Pap from Petersburg, the better.
“Naw…” Pap shakes his head, he ain’t going for that one. He scratches his chin with a brown thumbnail and I hear the bristles rustling. “Can’t be that far – else why’d he work out o’ Petersburg? Don’t make sense. Gotta be within easy walkin’ distance o’ the shore too. Somewhere no more’n a couple mile inland o’ somewheres quiet where he can beach a skiff easy. That’s what we got to look out fer!” He looks up at Sandy, standing there trembling, his arms still full of rope. “Reckon we’re done, boy.” Sandy moves away a pace, but Pap lays his hand on his shoulder and steadies him. “Don’t go nowhere,” he says low. “Still need you for a time, I reckon.”
Then he stands up straight and stretches and arches his back till his spine clicks. Then he steps into the parlour and stands in the middle of the room, casting his eye ’bout the place; they had some nice things, Tom’s folks. There’d been some pretty fierce words from Tom’s Aunt Polly all this time – which it was just as well we couldn’t make out, I guess – and some whimpering and tears from Sid and Mary. It was hard to see them like that, just awful. Pap stands there, middle of the room, and just purses his lips and frowns a bit till they all hushes up.
“Now…,” says he, kind of to the room. “…if I’m any judge o’ these things – an’ I reckon I am – you’ve got no more’n quarter’n hour before Injun Joe or one o’ his a-so-syats fetches up here to see what’s what. Now I don’t want to be here for that, an’ I don’t reckon you do neither; but I want to leave town quiet too – an’ I see you ain’t the quiet type. So this is what’s gonna happen: me an’ Huck is gonna go now an’ take your boy with us…” He pats Sandy on the shoulder. “Five minutes time or so, if I’ve got far ’nuff, I’ll send him back. If he’s quick he’ll get you untied ’fore anyone shows – then you can go fetch the sheriff or tell the neighbours, just as you please. All right?”
No one said nothing against it – best we could tell.
“’N’other thing,” says Pap. “I’ve a mind fer you to keep my name out o’ this. Your guest here didn’t see me, so let’s keep mum ’bout my visit. All right?”
There was some nodding and murmuring.
“But if my name does get mentioned,” says Pap, flicking the barrel of that revolver round the room, kind of casual, “by someone that don’t know how to keep their mouth shut or ain’t got the sense they was born with…” And he casts a mean eye down on Sandy, then ’cross the room at little Sid, all tied up, as being the parties most likely. “…least make sure you tell it right: how I come bustin’ in like a hero an’ overpowered that feller like it warn’t nothing an’ rescued you all. Rescued you! Right?”
There was some mumbling.
“Well, all right.” Pap turns to go, but pauses. “And didn’t even take nothing for my trouble – though I could’ve – not even a drop o’ whisky to quench my thirst, havin’ worked so hard an’ bein’ parched as a desert, near ’nuff. Not a thing, not one red cent – ceptin’ off o’ this here feller who don’t deserve no better…” Pap casts a look back at him, like a dog taking another look at a bone it’s already chewed on. “…like that shotgun – best if I take that with me. He’d only do mischief with it. An’ that’s a mighty fine hat too.” Pap stoops to fetch hold of them. “If anybody does ask, you can tell folks I was headed upriver – in a skiff… to Davenport, say. Ma’am!”
And after a nod over his shoulder toward Tom’s Aunt Polly, Pap shoos Sandy and me back down the hallway with his revolver and shotgun, toward the kitchen. Soon as we’re in the room he sidles up to the window and takes a squint out into the yard, shifty and careful.
“All right,” says he, keeping his voice low. “You said that box was outside?”
“Yessir,” says I.
Pap tucks that revolver into his waistband, checks the shotgun and stands ready.
“Lead me to it!”
I open the door and step out, Sandy behind me, Pap behind Sandy.
“It’s over here, Pap,” says I.
“Where?”
“Right in front of the…”
I was right outside the woodshed; but the box warn’t.
Chapter 9: Varmints
“Where’s it at?” says Pap, raising his voice more’n’s wise. He grabs me by the collar – shirt and skin both – and hauls me to him. “You lie to me an’ you’ll get a whaling you’ll never forget!”
“It was right here, Pap,” says I. “Honest, right here. Look, look – you can see the shape of it in the dirt still.”
He looks and bleary-eyed though he is he can’t deny them traces on the ground.
“Well, where’s it now? That’s what I want to know.” Now his hand’s on Sandy, ’most lifting him off of the ground. “You move it, boy? I’ll skin you if you lie!”
“Please, Marse Finn,” says Sandy, ’most scared to death. “I didn’t see no box, didn’t touch no box – I swear.”
Pap lets him down, then goes pacing hither and yon, half distracted, like a hound trying to pick up a scent. Me, I’m too scared and dumbstruck to do more’n peer round me in the gloom, wondering what’s happened to that box – it’s too many for me. “That’s Tom’s and Jim’s souls I’ve gone and lost,” says I, to myself. “They’ll be damned certain, sooner or later, if I don’t find ’em.”
I lean close to Sandy and whisper.
“You’d tell me if you’d moved that box, wouldn’t you, Sandy? I need it real bad – it’s important.”
“Didn’t see it, didn’t touch it,” says Sandy. “Honest injun!”
“Only one feller knows what that box’s worth,” says Pap, sudden, straightening up and standing ready with the shotgun. “Injun Joe! That bandit must’ve come creeping round sooner’n I thought. Well, I’ll just have to find his treasure without them clues, that’s all. You two – move!” And Pap waves us to his side and we all head off in a running crouch, out the yard and back down the nearest alleyway.
We keep going like that for a few minutes, keeping low, pausing and crouching every time we come to a corner or have to cross somewheres open, weaving round the edge of town toward the steamboat jetty. We hear folks in the centre of town still, milling round and talking – itching to lynch someone, I reckon, but afeard too, waiting to hear back from those riders that was sent out. When we get round back of the bakery (they was still working, and, my, it was a scent – reminded me I hadn’t eaten in an age), I pull at Pap’s sleeve.
“What?” says Pap.
“Can Sandy go back now, Pap? Untie Tom’s folks?”
“What? Oh… I guess.” He stares at Sandy then gives a sharp nod back the way we come. “Off you go, then, boy. Mind what I said ’bout not talking needless, though.”
“No, sir, Marse Finn,” says Sandy. He don’t need to be told twice – he’s off like a rabbit ’fore I’m through saying so long. Moment later, Pap nods to me and we’re off agin.
We carry on for a few more minutes, creeping alongside fences and round the back of houses, but with Sandy safe out of the way, and the box of talismans gone, there ain’t no more need for me to stick with Pap – least there wouldn’t’ve been if it hadn’ter been for that counterfeit of mine in his pocket with my soul stuck inside of it. I didn’t like the thought of that going astray, and that’s a fact – I’d’ve been in a fix worser’n Doc Robinson in the graveyard if anything happened to me ’fore I got my hands on that. Being a river ghost for Lady Miz along with Joe Harper would be better, I reckon; didn’t rightly know what being damned would be like, but it’d be horrible, certain – worser’n anything else that
might occur. Don’t make no sense otherwise. But then I got to thinking: “Well, Tom and Jim don’t deserve to get damned, do they? Specially not Jim, who’s like to get lynched before the morning, way things is going. If you find that box, Huck, then you might lose your soul, but least you’ll save theirs. And that’s two for one, so that’s got to be a better bargain.” I didn’t feel so bad ’bout being damned if it meant I could save Tom and Jim first (though I still warn’t sold on it). Soon as I thought of it like that I knew what I had to do: ditch Pap, light out back to Tom’s Aunt Polly’s place and get on the trail of that box ’fore it went too far. I didn’t believe Injun Joe had it. Why would he? Warn’t nothing to him but a box with some old rubbage in. We was crouched by a fence post, just along from the corner of Water Street – and that was a straight run to the jetty and Big Missouri. I was braced; my legs was ready, I can feel the muscles all tight inside of ’em. I’m ’bout to spring up and run for it when I hears a sound. Pap hears it too.
“What’s that?” says Pap, getting more alert now, trying to place what it is and where it’s coming from.
It comes agin. It’s a high sound, long and drawn out and kind of whiney and mournful. Sounds to me like it’s somewheres behind us, in the garden t’other side of the fence.
“Just a cat,” says Pap. “Come on, now. Keep close. Follow me round the corner once I’ve checked it’s clear.”
“Sure, Pap,” says I.
Pap straightens up till he’s most like a fence post hisself, holding the shotgun pointing upwards in front of him, then peers round that corner quick.
“Path’s clear,” he mutters. “Hardly anyone ’twixt us and the jetty – lot o’ people down there and just a few others outside the tavern, like always. Don’t see no sign o’ Injun Joe or his… Huckleberry?”
But I’m gone. Pap needed both his hands for that shotgun and all his wits for the sneaking – soon as he looked away I was backing towards the fence; by the time he realises I ain’t beside him no more I’m scrambling up it. I leap for the ground on t’other side; soon as I hit it I hear a hiss from the shadows beside the fence.
“Huck,” it says.
“Tom!” I knowed it was Tom soon as I heard him miaow for me – would’ve knowed that sound anywhere. We knew better’n to sit still, though – Pap’d be close behind. Couple of seconds later we’re ’cross that garden, over a fence and into a yard; few more’n we’re over another fence and into an alley running back into town from Water Street. I can hear Pap at the back of us, cussing and scrabbling at one of them fences. He was coming after us all right, but Pap was old and drunk and gone to seed – he couldn’t touch Tom and me for fence-climbing. Tom seems to know where he’s going, so I run along with him; we feel safe ’nuff to talk low while we’re ’bout it.
“Lordy, Tom,” says I. “I’m glad you’re alive – but I knowed you’d give the sheriff and Injun Joe the slip somehow.”
“Saw his partner follow you out the crowd,” says Tom. “Knew I’d be able to get away then – it was just a matter of time. Well, not more’n five minutes later Ben Rogers’ pa come into town flustered – he was on foot – said he’d seen ‘Jim’ and the two swaddled-up fellers earlier and didn’t like the look of things – them being armed to the teeth and the flames from Cardiff Hill on the horizon. Once he got back to Petersburg and found out what was going on he come and told the sheriff – and he said one of them fellers had let his scarf slip and he saw ’nuff of his face to see he was a white man. Well, that started everybody off on some new lines all right – some saying he must’ve been an abolitionist over from Illinois, or out east, come to stir things up; another feller kept saying he reckoned it was Mormons down from Nauvoo and they was just using the slaves. Why, everything was Mormons with that feller! Just ’bout every idea ’cept sense got floated. Well, the sheriff and t’other folks was coming at Injun Joe with questions from all sides, then. Wish those questions had been cudgels! Anyway, he just had to stick in that crowd and put up with it – though I reckon he’s packed ’em all off on some wild goose chase by now.”
“And how d’you find me, Tom?”
“Ran into Sandy and he pointed me the right way. I went straight home soon as I got away, of course. You know what was happening there, I reckon! Well, I sneaked under the parlour window and heard talking inside; when I heard you was in there I stole a look through the bottom of the pane, where the curtain’d got rucked up. Then I saw it was your pap you was talking to and not Injun Joe’s pal – but my folks was all still tied up, so I didn’t reckon I wanted to trust things to your pap, Hucky.”
“Only a fool would, Tom,” says I. “You don’t need to spare my feelings none when talking ’bout him, I’ll lay.”
“Well, anyways,” says Tom, “I went straight round the back then, fixing to let myself in through the kitchen. And what do you think I found just sitting out there in the yard, front of the woodshed?” Tom stops sudden with a frown on his face and I ’most run into him.
“What?” says I.
“Why, only a box full of our souls, Huckleberry Finn, only that, that’s all. Ain’t that something to be a mite careful with?”
“Sorry, Tom,” says I. “But I had to set it down somewheres. I had things to do – things like, oh, I don’t know: saving your folks, that’s all.”
Tom looks a little more humble when he hears that.
“Say,” says I, “did you shift that box? You ’most scared me half to death doing that, Tom.” I don’t know if I’m more angry Tom moved that box or glad it was him that got his hands on it rather’n someone else. “Where’s it at now?”
“Back home, sitting on the kitchen table.”
“Your folks is watching it?”
“No – I told them there warn’t no rebel slaves to worry about, just folks in town like Injun Joe and that no-good who tied them up. Said they should get themselves over to Mother Hopkins’ place – reckon she’ll be able to keep ’em safe till things calm down. I knew Aunt Polly wouldn’t like that much, and would’ve had more questions than I wanted to answer, so I untied Mary first – Aunt Polly was still gagged. Reckon I’ll take a switching for it some time, but it’s a small price.”
“Well, I hope you’re right, Tom,” says I. “But even Pap managed to get the drop on Mother Hopkins earlier – and he’s just an old drunk. That’s how me and the box come to be at your place. But who’s guarding it then?”
“Why, no one, Hucky – lessen you count that bandit trussed up on the floor.”
“Why, dern, Tom! Ain’t that reckless? What if Injun Joe and t’other feller turn up?”
“Then they can have that box and welcome,” says Tom, and he reaches into his pockets and pulls his doorknob out of one and Jim’s ox hairball out of another. “Rather have my soul on me than anywhere else, if I can’t be sure it’s safe. I know you think so too – you’ve already took your counterfeit out, I saw.”
I shake my head.
“No, Tom, wish it was so. Pap hooked that soon as he saw it – anything resembles money is bully to him, even the worst counterfeit in Missouri.”
“Well, that’s bad, Hucky,” says Tom. “You’d better get that off of him ’fore he spends it.”
“I should say so,” says I. “But I ain’t hardly had a chance yet – and it’s in his britches pocket too, so it’s harder to get at.”
“Want to go back and stay with him till he gets drunk again? You can hook it then, easy.”
“Guess I’ll have to – though I reckon there’s an hour or two yet before the thirst comes on him strong. Where we going?”
“Why, to give this to Jim.” Tom jiggles the ox hairball before stuffing it back into his pocket. “Then he can escape without getting damned – even if he does get lynched downriver.”
“Jim! My! I wonder if he’s still waiting. Reckon I’d’ve cleared out of Petersburg by now if I was him – I’ve kept him waiting a sight too long.”
“Well, we can be with him in no more’n te
n minutes if we run a touch faster,” says Tom.
“Let’s do that, then!” says I.
So off we go, Tom and me, out past the edge of Petersburg to where the creek flowed down to the Miz, where Jim’d be waiting (if he was waiting still). We felt better ’bout things once we’d got some trees and bushes and long grass ’twixt us and Petersburg – keep us shrouded from Pap and the no-goods both. We was still talking low, though, when we was talking at all; we was close ’nuff to town to be heard by someone listening careful, and voices carry farther at night, you know. I didn’t rightly know what our plan was for when we’d got Jim away, and I warn’t going to pester Tom ’bout it now, but we’d landed Jim in a pretty nasty mess, no doubting, and I knew I’d feel better once I’d helped him out of it. Guess that’s life, ain’t it – if you can do things make you feel better, probly should.
The land slopes down kind of gentle where the creek runs into the Miz. When we start coming down that slope, and see the river getting larger and larger in front of us, we crouch down and slow up and hush too – it’s time for sneaking agin. We still don’t want to get too close to that river if we can help it – that’s how the trouble begun. Tom squats down, and me alongside him, and we peer into the gloom, scanning the riverbank and the river and the creek. But there’s nothing.
“Can you see him?” says Tom, whispering.
“No,” says I. “Can you hear anything?”
We both listen, but the only sound we can make out beyond the running of the water and the crickets and an owl is a whistle and paddles starting to turn a little way up river: Big Missouri was back in business.
“He’s gone,” says Tom. “He couldn’t wait and he’s split for Illinois.”
“Why, Illinois ain’t half far ’nuff away to get clear o’ this business Marse Tom – but it’ll be a start!” It’s Jim – rising up out of the shadows under some low-hanging trees. River’d carved out the underside of the bank and Jim’d got hisself in there; it was a good hiding place – now I could just see the outline of a skiff bobbing behind him. We hurry toward each other.
Huck Page 16