Pap’s a coward, but he ain’t a complete fool – hearing Injun Joe set out his plans like that gives him ’nuff grit to hang onto that gun. He knows there ain’t no chance of getting out of this fix alive without a fight.
“Guess it was you as killed the Widder and all,” says Pap, just ’bout piecing things together – which is some powerful thinking for Pap. “Doc Robinson too, I’ll lay – I knowed it couldn’ter been Muff. You’re a cold one, Joe. Though how you got the whole town thinking it was this here nigger’s too many for me.”
The feller Cooper comes forward slow, his revolver on Pap; Pap backs up a pace more, Injun Joe’s gun on him, and his own pointing halfway ’twixt Injun Joe and Langdon. If the shooting breaks out now they’ve got him cold.
“Don’t spose you’ve got a weapon on you, Tom, have you?” says I, giving him a hiss and a nudge.
“Only my Barlow,” says he.
“Well,” says I. “If they stand still for half an hour while we hack at ’em that might work, I guess. Not otherwise.” They warn’t the best knives in the world, Barlows.
Things was looking bad, when…
“Wait a second,” says Langdon, leaning forward sudden. “Don’t let this get shot up – it knows things.” And he makes to snatch the hairball out of Pap’s hand. For a moment his body shields Pap from Injun Joe and t’other no-good – and none of us is slow taking advantage of that. He’s no sooner hooked that hairball when…
“Why, watch yourself, Langdon, you darned fool,” shouts Cooper, but it’s too late: Jim’s leapt forward and grabbed him, dragged him up off of his feet and pulled him close with one hand, one of Langdon’s arms pinned to his side; with his other hand, Jim’s pulled his jackknife, got it open quick as you please, and has it at that bandit’s throat. Pap turns to get his gun on Injun Joe; Cooper twists to try and get his revolver on him, when…
“Damnation!” Cooper fires and his bullet whistles past Pap. Then he drops his gun and stumbles back, clutching his head – something’s bounced off of his skull and gone spinning into the night. Tom’s brass doorknob! He’s flung it with all his strength and, my, he’s fetched that outlaw a good ’un – he’s seeing some stars, I’ll bet.
“Dive for it, Hucky,” shouts Tom, and next second we’re laying face down in the grass, arms ’bove our heads, ’specting some lead to come along shortly.
“Your soul!” says I.
“Needs must, I reckon,” says Tom. “Search for it later.”
There’s a regular hullabaloo storming ’bove us now – though it’s still just voices rather’n guns, everyone talking at once.
“Don’t you move, Joe. Don’t you move,” says Pap.
“Help me Joe, he’s got me,” says Langdon.
“Hush up, you! Not a move, mister, or else,” says Jim.
“Oh, my head! Tarnation!” says Cooper.
“Why, you two are the worst couple of fools I could’ve picked,” says Injun Joe.
Just then we hear a thumping and a pounding from away behind us, out on the Mississippi: Big Missouri’s rounding the point, steam whistling through her gaugecocks, paddle wheels churning the water, a distant murmur of voices from her decks. I steal a look over my shoulder: the rails was crowded with folks, the boiler furnaces blazing away plain, and the two chimneys piling the sky with smoke. My, it was a sight, even then!
“D’you reckon they can see us, Tom?” says I.
“Don’t know, Hucky,” says Tom. “But don’t see what they can do, even if they can.”
“Say,” says I. “Did you see ’em drop something over the side, just then? Or was it a feller diving off?”
“Lord, Hucky, I don’t know,” says Tom. “I’m too busy figuring how to stay alive three minutes more!”
He had a point there, and all.
“Now, don’t none of you murd’rers come no closer,” shouts Jim, his voice as hard as ever I heard it. “I can’t never go back to Petersburg – you’ve seen to that. Well, I’m free now and that’s fine with me – that’s how I mean to stay. So me and this feller’s gonna take a little trip down the river to Cairo. If he behaves I’ll let him off ’fore I get there – maybe even on land. Don’t come no closer or his throat’s gonna get awful drafty.”
Jim starts walking backwards, dragging Langdon with him, blade of his knife ’most shaving him – and his eyes not leaving Injun Joe for a second.
“Boys,” shouts Jim. “I know you’d rather not, but you’d best come with me. Go get the skiff ready.”
Tom and me share a look – t’ain’t a happy one – then start to get up, slow and careful.
“Finn!” says Jim, and Pap looks startled to be spoke to so rough. “Lessen you’s a bigger fool’n you look you must’ve figured I’m ’bout the ony man here ain’t killed no one tonight. So make yourself useful, for once in yo’ life, an’ keep these two villains covered till we’re in the skiff.”
“Why, I ain’t never been spoke to by a…” Pap bites his tongue. “Maybe you’ve got something there, boy!”
Pap steps back slow, walking backward toward the river, same as Jim.
“Don’t let ’em take me, Joe,” gasps Langdon. “This here charm said I’d drown tonight. For God’s sake don’t let ’em get me in that skiff.”
“Don’t worry,” says Injun Joe. “You won’t get in that skiff, I promise.”
And away he blasts: one barrel for Jim and Langdon, t’other for Pap.
Jim and Langdon cry out and tumble apart. Jim’s just grazed on one side, but Langdon’s took it bad in the side and one of his arms (if it’d been a slug rather than shot he’d be dying mis’rable right now).
“My soul!” hollers Jim, his hands flailing to try and catch the hairball as it falls from Langdon’s grasp; his knife goes tumbling.
Soon as Injun Joe fires, though, Pap does the same – nails him with both barrels, even though he’s diving for cover.
“Damn you, you treacherous blackguard,” shouts Cooper, who ain’t so stunned not to have seen what Injun Joe’s just done to Langdon. He snatches up his revolver and hammers away at Injun Joe too – puts four rounds in him as he falls. That villain’s all over blood, now. When I see him topple backwards and hit the ground like a felled tree I think my troubles is over.
That lasts ’bout two seconds, maybe three.
Then we hear a groan and Injun Joe sits up. He turns his face toward us, speckled black and red with pellet wounds, and blinks hard a few times, like it’s painful and he’s getting his bearings. Then he gets to his feet slow. He gaps and stretches and groans some more, then sticks his thumb and forefinger into a good-sized bullet hole in his belly, works ’em in a ways and pulls out a crumpled-up slug of lead. He squints at it then tosses it over his shoulder and faces Cooper.
“You didn’t oughter’ve done that,” says he.
I’ll say he didn’t oughter’ve!
Cooper raises his revolver agin and fires off two more shots – one goes wide and t’other lodges itself in Injun Joe’s shoulder without doing nothing but rile him more – then he rattles away in panic, getting click after click as he realises all his chambers is empty. Injun Joe stomps forward, all heavy – Pap and Jim and Cooper and Langdon and Tom and me gaping – then stops and plants his feet. He arches his back till he’s looking up at the sky, the veins at the side of his neck bulging like mooring cables, and he howls up at the moon.
“Wh-what’s he doing, now, Cooper?” murmurs Langdon, all pitiful, one hand clutching his side. “Is… is he changing his ’pearance agin?”
“Changing?” says Jim, his voice as hollow as a mourning bell. “I should say!”
Well, to those of us who’d heard what Mother Hopkins had to say, it was plain: that wendigo inside of Injun Joe was a ravening beast. It’d had ’nuff for one day and now it was busting out! His skin darkens and starts sprouting hair all over, his head swells, bones cracking and crunching. He grows ’bout a foot in height, chest, arms, legs, all swelling out and splitting his clo
thes – and where they tear there’s thick, brown fur bulging. Claws come out of his fingers – and out of his toes too; bust the shoes clear off of his feet. He’s becoming a bear! He towers ’bove the no-good Cooper, roaring away; Cooper’s rooted to the spot with fear – can’t take his eyes off of the monster, not for a moment. Then his hands go scrabbling for his bullets – trying to load that revolver agin, ’fore it’s too late. But it is too late. Down comes Injun Joe, a-swiping with his right paw and a-swiping with his left. Cooper’s just a tore-up pile of blood and rags after that.
“Hope you’re ready with that skiff, boy,” yells Pap, tossing down the empty shotgun and turning tail. “It’s time to go, all right!”
Soon as he turns sharpish and his coat flies up, Langdon spies that old revolver Pap was given in town, sticking out of his trouser band, and grabs it with his good hand. Pap pauses for ’bout half a second, glances down at the gun, up at Langdon, ’cross at Injun Joe, then back at Langdon.
“Yours and welcome!” says he, ’fore kicking up some dust as he runs for the river. “Step for it, Huckleberry,” shouts he. “Every man for hisself! You’re on your own now!”
Like that was something new!
Jim was ’ready back at the skiff, pulling it out from under the bank.
“Come on, Hucky,” says Tom, tugging at my sleeve. “We’ve got to get!”
“Chance the Miz? Ain’t you heard ’bout fires and frying pans, Tom?”
“Why, how’re we going to ’scape him like that?” says Tom, ’most tearing his hair. “If he’s got a bear’s sense of smell he’ll know us for forty mile or more!”
Well, I cussed, I don’t mind telling you.
“All right, Tom,” says I. “If that’s how it’s got to be then I guess that’s so. But there’s something I gotta do first.” Then I begin crawling ’cross the grass, ’most running on my knees and elbows, I’m working ’em so hard. Go straight past Langdon without him bothering to glance; he’s holding that pistol ahead of him in a shaky hand and cocking it. Not more’n thirty feet away Injun Joe (the bear) is turning toward him, having let up mangling Cooper. I’ve just passed under his arm when I hear that gun blaze away ’bove me and a cry of pain from the bear (wrapped up in a passel of rage). Off it goes agin! Even then, with things on my mind, I think: “That gun don’t sound quite right.”
“Got it!” says I, snatching up what I’d been after: Jim’s hairball. “Now, spirit,” says I, holding it close to my mouth and talking fast, “it’s Huckleberry here now, though I reckon you know that. Here’s my question: where’s Tom’s doorknob with his soul in?”
“Ahead ten yards,” comes the voice, all ghosty. “Right three yards. Under the bramble.”
“That’ll do,” says I, setting off agin. “Steer me straight if I go wrong.”
Well, there warn’t much danger of that, I could see that bramble plain – it had an awful big bear nearby. I didn’t pay no heed to them thorns; I just stuck my hand in under that bramble and rummaged.
“Got it!”
Bang! Goes the gun agin, making the bear roar. It seemed more interested in Langdon than me, long as he had that gun. Well, that was good, I’ll say. Bang! That one caught it in the chest and it stumbles back a pace, groaning. That gives me time to crawl past agin. I can hear Jim and Tom calling to me, telling me to hurry.
“I’ve got you now, Joe,” cries Langdon. Bang! Another hit. “Bet you never thought you’d see the day! And t’think I was afeard of drowning tonight! Well, that ain’t gonna happen neither!”
BANG!
Well, that one was a sight louder. My ears is still echoing with it when I hear Langdon’s shriek. I glance up and see he’s all over blood: that revolver’s gone and exploded and took off half his hand, studded the rest of him in wounds and metal. Didn’t think that gun looked right from the first.
Then, ’midst all the screaming and crying and hollering and growling and gunplay I hear Tom’s voice.
“What’s that noise?” he says, then: “Oh, Lord!”
There’d been a kind of sucking sound for ’bout a minute past, which I hadn’t paid much heed to (being busy); now there was a rushing. And that rushing was becoming a roaring; we hear the bell ringing on Big Missouri too, and folks’ voices raised in alarm.
“Joe!” cries Tom.
“He’s behind me!” I holler, leaping to my feet, ready to run for the skiff.
“No,” comes Tom’s voice agin. “Joe!”
And there he is, Joseph Harper, riding a wave that could top a steeple.
The Mississipp had backed herself more’n halfway toward the Illinois side and piled her waters up like hills, Big Missouri sitting atop and looking mighty small now. Hadn’t never seen nothing like that before – could see the riverbed plain, mud and stones and debris and little pools and trickles holding out here’n there, and fish flapping around all pitiful. Well, I hadn’t seen them waters go up but I was seeing them come down all right. They’re a-tumbling toward us, making for the Missouri shore like a stampede of white horses – or maybe, I think, like fingers, grabbing for me and Tom. The wrathful hand of Lady Miz. And laying in that hand, pointing at us like an arrow, is Joe Harper. It’s too far and too dark and too mixed up to see his face, of course – but I knowed it was Joe, all right, just as Tom did.
“Hurry,” yells Jim. “Get in the skiff!”
“Get in the skiff? You crazy, boy?” hollers Pap, starting to get out. “Head for the hills, I reckon.”
“Skiff floats, don’t it?” says Jim.
Pap pulls his leg back in and squats down, gripping the sides. I run up and dive in. Tom’s ’ready in, Jim’s ready in. We grab a-holt of each other and the skiff for dear life. Last thing I see ’fore I duck down is Langdon shambling for us, shifting as best he can. Him and a bear!
Then the waters hit and I got that Sunday school feeling: sentences I’d heard Reverend Sprague say some time ’bout the hand of God moving over the deep, and the whole world flooded, and Leviathan moving in the seas and mountains being levelled with the oceans. All kinds of stuff come back at me sudden. If I’d paid more mind to it at the time maybe it’d have helped me now, somehow – or maybe it’d’ve just scared me closer to death’n I already was.
And then the waters is all over us, and under us, and throwing that skiff up and around like you’d blow a seed off of a dandelion. And there’s water in my ears and my nose and my mouth and I’m struggling to keep a-holt of my breath. Ever been in an earthquake? No, nor I, but I reckon this was something like, only with water. Didn’t see how none of us could live through it, and yet… we seemed to. I guess boats float and that’s a fact and not all the power nor all the waters of the Mississippi can change it. Well, we flew inland near a half mile atop that wave – I could see Petersburg plain, windows all aglow with lanterns and homely looking, and the Widow’s place still burning over on Cardiff Hill, and, behind us, Big Missouri rocking and struggling, trying to claw her way back toward the middle of the channel from near the Illinois shore, where she’d been pushed. And there was birds too, flying all about us – ones you don’t hardly see at night, all scared and shook out of their beds and calling to each other – and I could hear more whippoorwills’n I’d ever heard at one time before. I give Tom a nudge so’s he could look too – didn’t think he’d want to miss it. But don’t think we started carrying on like it was all just nuts to us, though; didn’t none of us think it a bully place to be. We warn’t set to be in it long, though, ’cause when that wave tired itself out and started to drop and roll back toward the Miz – where the Miz ought to be flowing in regular times, I mean – my, it dropped fast!
With a long, sad, sigh that wave slid back toward where we was before, carrying us with it stern first, kind of gentle now – like a horse that’s bucked so much it don’t have the heart to keep at it no more, even if it still don’t want to be rid. Didn’t know how long it was going to last, but reckon all of us felt safer sticking in that skiff for the time being and
seeing what come next. All four of us was sat up by then and looking around – Tom, Jim, Pap and me – though we was still gripping the gunwales for dear life. Pretty much everywhere the river’d covered was thick with mud now, lying knee-deep all around, and the trees painted brown with it to the top of their height.
“Most o’ the water’s runnin’ off down the creek,” says Jim, kind of to hisself. “Spose that’s the easiest way. Jim ain’t complainin’! That’s the way I wants to go. Yessir, Lady Miz – you just let Jim float out in you an’ downstream a-ways. I’se gonna turn off at the Ohio – don’t need bother you no mo’. An’ you doan need bother, Jim, no, sir.”
Had some things on his mind, I guess, Jim.
“Where’s them varmints?” mutters Pap, darting his eyes around all sides and looking ’bout as twitchy as when he ain’t had a turn at the whisky all day. “There’s one!”
It was the no-good Langdon, stuck in the branches of a tree growing out the creek bank. He was scratched up pretty bad by the branches, and muddy, and bleeding still. He was clinging onto them branches though; we floated by just below him, ’most within touching distance.
“Still ain’t drowned,” says he. And even though his teeth are all bloody he gives a laugh. There ain’t no sign of his pal Cooper, though – whatever Injun Joe left of him got washed away, sure ’nuff. “No, sir – I ain’t gonna be drowned ’cause no spirit says so. How d’you like that, eh? Eh?”
“Guess that feller’s had ’bout ’nuff for one day,” says Jim.
“What I want to know is where’s Joe?” says Tom.
“That him there?” Pap points over the side. As we pass Langdon’s tree and the water continues to fall, dragging us back out toward the Miz, we see a big mound appearing through the surface, all crumpled up on the ground. A bear – it’s fur caked with mud, it’s jaws gaping and no signs of life. “Dern!” says Pap – and something stronger too – and he gives a whoop and spits toward the carcass. “That’ll teach that no-good bushwhacker!” And he pulls up his trouser band and rolls his shoulders and gives us a fierce look, like it was him that’d done something ’bout it.
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