Huck

by Prizeman, Steven

  “Lord!” says the boy reaching for his tray. “’Most forgot ’bout them.”

  “Take the tankards and try ’em,” says the barkeep. “Them fellers’ll play for dollars.”

  “No,” says the boy. “Not till I’ve got it figured. Set ’em up agin – I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “What ’bout the quarter I won three times over?” says I.

  “Fair ’nuff!” The boy flips it to me. “But the joke’s on you,” says he as he moves into the crowd. “It’s a counterfeit! Didn’t spot that, did you, Mr Smarty!”

  My hand’s no sooner closed round that coin when another hand comes down on my shoulder: Pap. He grabs a whisky off of the tray with his other hand, downs it, and slams the empty glass down on the bar (beside the barkeep, who’s trying to explain the tankards to one of the drinkers). I smuggle that counterfeit into my britches pretty quick while he does that. Then Pap grabs me under the arm and steers me into the crowd.

  “Told ’em I’d go see what happened to the whiskies,” says he, lowering his sour-breathed mouth next my ear. “I’m down twenty dollars I don’t have, thanks to you, dern you. Let’s get out o’ here ’fore they come looking. No sense o’ duty, that’s you – skipping out on your own Pap! If there warn’t so many folks here I’d lam some respect into you. What you got to say to that?”

  “That I’m glad there’s so many folks here,” says I. “And out on the deck too. And if you start on me I’ll holler so loud even those gamblers will lay down their cards and come running. That’s what I think, Pap!”

  I was feeling pretty good to say that – that’s what getting your soul back in your own hands does for a body, I guess.

  “I’ll settle with you later,” says he. “C’mon. Time we was leaving anyhow.”

  We come out on the boiler deck. There’s still plenty folks awake – talking and smoking and such – but most seem to have found seats, or are laying on the deck itself, asleep. Pap steps through ’em, clipping a few here’n there, dragging me with him. It’s hard to see where you’re going ’cause most of the lanterns’ve been turned down for the night. Pap hurries over to the rail, grabs a-holt and peers into the night, his head darting from side to side as he tries to make out where we was. That ain’t so easy – we’re ’bout in the middle of the river and the Missouri shore’s just a dark line away over yonder.

  “Dern!” says Pap, spotting something, somehow. “Reckon we’ve passed McDougal’s Cave; we’re more’n two mile south if I’m any judge. Why didn’t you sing out?”

  “How was I to know?” says I. “First time I’ve been on a steamboat. Can’t tell the speed at all inside; couldn’t you?”

  “Why you…”

  Pap’s fist goes up, ready to lam me – but it just hangs there, ’bove his head, like it’s caught on something. It’s caught, all right – there’s a big, dark shape behind him: Jim.

  “Why, Lordy, ain’t it good to see you, Marse Finn – ain’t dat de truth!” says Jim in his chucklehead voice. Then he leans in close and growls in Pap’s ear. “You raise your han’ to that boy again, Finn, an’ I’ll break it off at the wrist… an’ ain’t that the truth!”

  Jim lets go of Pap and Pap pulls his hand to his chest and rubs his wrist.

  “Dern, you,” says Pap. “I could git you hung – git you hung on this here boat, just by speaking up, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Reckon we can all get each other hung or lynched or beaten or run out of town or thrown overboard,” says Jim. “So let’s agree none o’ us is gonna do any such foolishness…” He pauses a time to let that sink in. “We’re all fixin’ to get rich off o’ Injun Joe’s treasure, ain’t we? We don’t never have to see each other’s faces again after that. That all right with you, Mr Finn?”

  “Fine,” mutters Pap. He tugs a chaw out of his britches and stuffs it in his mouth like he don’t care –but I can see from his eye that if he’d had a gun and no witnesses Jim’d be laying down before long.

  “I guess you know we done sailed past McDougal’s Cave,” says Jim. “Would’ve fetched you, but they wouldn’t let me in the saloon; got a bushel o’ dirty looks just for steppin’ off o’ the hurricane deck.”

  “Well, they got some standards,” mutters Pap. “This is a respectable boat.”

  “What was you figurin’ on doin’ anyhow?” says Jim. “Payin’ the captain to set us down at the landin’ stage? You know it ain’t a regular stop. And how’d that square with what you tol’ him ’bout goin’ South to sell me an’ such?”

  Pap waves his hand all scornful (then winces and rubs his wrist some more).

  “Hell, I could’ve spun him a dozen different yarns would’ve covered that,” says he. “Ain’t you got no imagination?”

  “Question is…,” says Tom, stepping up from behind Jim. “…is Injun Joe dead, or ain’t he?”

  “What come off of that paddle wheel looked pretty dead to me,” says I. “But Mother Hopkins said that warn’t ’nuff to do the job – and she knows more’n any of us, I reckon.”

  “She ain’t so smart,” says Pap. “Is she, Huck?” And he gives a mean little laugh.

  “What’s he mean by that?” says Jim. Jim and Tom didn’t know Pap had lammed Mother Hopkins and robbed her – hadn’t hardly had a chance to talk since he done it. Pap darts me a sharp look – he knowed Jim wouldn’t take kindly to it – so I just shrug (with them two having only just made a truce, I warn’t going to be the one to break it up).

  “If he ain’t dead then the best thing we can do is keep going,” says Tom. “Like you said, Mr Finn, maybe it won’t take more’n a day or two for the whole of Petersburg to cotton onto him. We can lay low, sneak back quiet, and feel pretty sure he won’t never set foot in that town again.”

  “Well, I guess he wouldn’t need to, now would he?” says Pap, kind of disgusted. “Having had all that time to clear his loot out o’ McDougal’s Cave and skip away free as a bird. That what you want? Why, it’d be an insult to all those he’s wronged – ’cluding me!”

  “So what’s your plan, then?” says Jim.

  “Get ashore soon as we can. Walk back up to the cave. Get the loot. Leave there rich.”

  “Simple as that?” says Jim, gaping. “I ain’t never been in McDougal’s Cave, but I’se heard tell – how you ’spect to find anythin’ in there? How you ’spect to know if Injun Joe’s layin’ for you roun’ the next turn?”

  Pap rolls his eyes, sighs, and shakes his head like he’s hearing the most pitiful words ever spoke.

  “Lord, boy,” says he. “How can you be smart ’nuff to get a-holt of a charm like the one roun’ your neck yet too dumb to use it? That’s how we know where to look and how to keep clear of Injun Joe. We ask it – simple as that. And if you’d leant me it before we’d have some money in our pockets already from the card table.”

  “Man who uses charms to win at cards is liable to get hisself hung,” says Jim, kind of thoughtful – though I could see he thought Pap was right. I couldn’t see no fault neither – why not just ask it?

  “Let’s start with first things first,” says I. “I reckon Tom and me’d like to know if it’s safe for us to be on this here river – and, if it is, for how long. Lady Miz seems awful quiet now, but Joe Harper might’ve seen us heading for Big Missouri. Don’t reckon he’ll bide his time any longer than need be before trying something new.”

  “That’s so,” says Tom. “And this current’s picking up – dog my cats, if it ain’t! Reckon that must mean the Miz is getting back to her old self.”

  “Then we’re ’greed,” says Pap, staring straight at Jim. “Ask the dern thing if we should get off o’ this here boat now.”

  Jim rubs his jowls with one of his hands.

  “There’s somethin’ I should tell you ’bout this charm,” says he. “Somethin’ I should’ve tol’ you before, maybe…”

  “Oh?” says Tom, me and Pap, raising our brows some.

  “Well,” says Jim, kind of sheepish. “Y
ou don’t hardly get nothin’ for nothin’ in this worl’ – not even with magic an’ charms.” He gives a sigh and his big shoulders heave up and down. “Specially not with magic an’ charms. This spirit I’ve got a-holt of, well, he’s powerful all right – you’ve seen that, what he knows. But…”

  “But…?” says I.

  “But…?” says Tom.

  “But…?” says Pap.

  “But he’s kind o’ an unlucky spirit,” says Jim. “Unlucky to be aroun’. He draws bad luck to hisself. He can’t help it – it’s jus’ how things is! An’ the more you asks him, an’ the bigger the question, the more he drags it to him, like, like…”

  “Like iron filings to a magnet,” says Tom.

  “That’s right, Marse Tom,” says Jim. “Like that. Only unlucky.”

  “Dern it, he’s right,” says Pap – and he hawks some tobacco juice onto the deck to show how disgusted he is. “After I asked it somethin’, didn’t Injun Joe pitch up? And that feller who took a-holt of it – didn’t he get drownded, like it said? And then right after we asked it ’bout Injun Joe’s treasure an’ where it was hid, didn’t he come swimming up, his own self, an’ ’most kill us? Dern!” He stains the deck some more.

  We all take a step away from Jim and eye him some.

  “I was fixin’ on gettin’ a real good charm to balance it out,” says he. “Jus’ didn’t get to it, what with everythin’ that’s happened tonight.”

  “Lord, Jim,” says I, giving a whistle. “What’s the use of a charm dangerous as that? Can’t hardly use it!”

  “Some things you jus’ gotta ask, Hucky,” says he, kind of mournful. “No matter what happens after. Some things… some things you jus’ gotta know!”

  “What could be so imp…?” says Tom, starting out on a question, but I catch his eye and shake my head and he falls silent. Jim had something big weighing him down, that was clear, and it don’t do to ask ’bout such things. Even Pap knew better’n to dig; he was keeping silent and chewing his chaw, thoughtful, looking at the river. Nobody spoke for a few seconds, seconds that dragged, then Jim tells us anyways, though he don’t need to.

  “Got a wife,” says he. “Daughter too. Ain’t seen ’em for years. Way down over in Alabama, last I heard. Cotton plantation. That’s where we all was; where I come from. My marse, back then, he wasn’t a bad man, far as these things go – though any man thinks he can own another man’s bad ’nuff, I reckon. Anyways, he took to speculatin’ in some new machine to work the cotton, thought it’d make him rich. Well, it didn’t – they jus’ couldn’t get it right. He ’most busted hisself tryin’, though – loans an’ mortgages an’ all that carry on. Then folks wanted their money back. Didn’t have it. He sol’ off some lan’, sol’ off some horses, then he sol’ off some slaves. Sol’ me, but he kept my wife an’ chile. Sol’ me to a farmer. That farmer didn’t have me more’n a month ’fore he sol’ me over into Georgia, to Miss Watson. Was with her a couple o’ years, then she come up here to Petersburg to visit with her sister, the Widder. That’s why I needed this here spirit in this here charm: to fin’ my kin. I asked it last night: ‘Is they still alive, my wife an’ girl? You tell me straight, spirit!’ An’ it said they is! They is!”

  Jim stops then, for a moment, all choked up and tears starting to his eyes. Tom and me look away, down at our feet, feeling awkward.

  “I had me a wife once,” says Pap, kind of quiet. “Died.”

  That was my ma he was talking ’bout.

  “Both my parents is dead too,” says Tom – not wanting to be left out, I guess. “My ma and my pa…” And he gives a little sniff. “…years ago.”

  Tom probly thought he had the edge on me there, being ahead one parent. But you’ve seen ’nuff of Pap, I’ll allow, to ’gree it can’t be figured up straight as that. Reckon a kindly old aunt (no matter how strict and handy with her switch), and a sweet-natured cousin and a brother that’s better’n nothing put Tom in a sight better place’n me. A drunken pap who can’t hardly hold his liquor or his dollars and is pretty free with his fists ain’t nothing to write home ’bout (if I had a home or could write).

  “Anyways…,” says Jim, pinching his eyes dry. “…that’s what I need the charm fo’. To find ’em again. First question, last night, was to see if they was still alive; next question’ll be to find out where they is – plantation or elsewhere, together or apart. Now I’se free I’se a-gonna find ’em an’ steal ’em away – else find me an abolitionist and pay him to steal ’em away for me. Heck, I’ll pay someone to buy ’em back legal if I have to.”

  “Buying ni… slaves? Paying Ablitionists?” says Pap with a spit, ’fore carrying on kind of gleeful. “Getting to a free state – that ain’t half of it! A fugitive slave’s got to be sent back where he come from – from a free state same as anywheres else. That’s the law! He’s gonna need false papers. So that ’bout settles it, I reckon: we’re just gonna have to get off o’ this here boat and track up to McDougal’s Cave and find Injun Joe’s loot – where else is he gonna get that kind o’ money?”

  Jim nods.

  “Your Pap’s right, Huck,” says he. “There ain’t no money wi’ Jim’s name on it elsewhere, so I’se gotta try for this while I can. Ony thing to settle now is do we dare ask the charm another question first? Reckon my first one is the reason Petersburg’s out to lynch me now! Spirit must’ve figured that a mighty big question – though it ain’t much to ask, to my way o’ thinkin’, how your womenfolk is.”

  We all look at each other, wondering what we should ask and if we dare. It’s only some seconds, I guess, but they drag.

  “Longer we wait, farther we’ve gotta go to reach that cave,” says Pap at last, voice as edgy as a rasp. “If we’re gonna go, let’s git!”

  “You’se right, you’se right,” says Jim. “Gonna have questions ’nuff, once we get there, tryin’ to fin’ treasure in that heap o’ darkness. If we’se gonna call down some new misfortunes, better then than now, I guess!”

  “Well, all right, then,” says Pap. “Let’s find the cap’n and get him to pull up. I’ll talk him into it; tell him my boy’s got the typhus or some such. Huck: start shiverin’; if you can fetch somethin’ up in his sight, so much the better!”

  We all take a step, ’most as one, toward the steps up to the hurricane deck and the pilot’s cabin. I guess we all figured the captain’d be up there, wanting to keep an eye on things, the river the way it was.

  Then, no more’n a yard forward, a voice stops us in our tracks.

  “Say, boys, I’ve a question for that charm of yourn…”

  Joe Harper! He’s standing behind one of the pillars supporting the hurricane deck – only it don’t look wide ’nuff to’ve hid him. He just seems to slide out from it, thinner’n I’ve seen him before; taller too. He’s ’bout the wateriest I’ve seen him; water just seems to be coming up from the top of his head, under his hair, and streaming down all over. ’Most like a fountain he was.

  “Where’d he spring from?” Jim speaks ’fore he knows it, his hand grabbing the hairball charm to keep it safe. He realises what he’s done and claps his hand over his mouth, but it’s too late.

  “He came from the river,” says the hairball spirit.

  “That’s right,” says Joe, casting a yellowy eye over Jim. “Come up from the river – where else? My, but ain’t that charm a fancy one? Ain’t it, though! Anyhow, I’ve a question for it – though it’ll be a struggle to get it out, I’m so choked with all the sorrowfulness I’ve been hearing– wives and parents and daughters being dead and lost and such. I’m ’most in tears!” Joe smiles wide and water trickles out through the gaps in his teeth.

  “Did we put you in mind of your ma?” says Tom.

  That was a cutter, all right. Joe’s face clouds over real stormy.

  “I ain’t so sure I want to be stuck in the Miz with you fellers for eternity,” says Joe, growling. “So this here’s my question, and it’s the last time I’m asking it: where’ve
you hid your souls?” He moves closer, leaning round the pillar, kind of oozing – like river mud ’twixt your toes. “If I was the spiteful type, Tom, reckon I’d kill you now, without your soul in, and see how you’d like that!”

  Tom ponders a moment – just a second – then his eyes open up wide and his mouth gapes.

  “Oh, Lord,” says he, “He is the spiteful type – since he’s been dead, anyhow. We’ve got to get off this boat quick.”

  “Get off of the boat?” says Pap. “Ain’t that what I been saying, boy? Everybody comes back round to my ideas sooner or later!”

  “No,” says Tom, ’most falling over hisself. “I mean everybody’s got to get off the boat.” And he swings his arm out to show he means all the passengers ’cross the deck, sleeping on the floor, or huddled up in chairs or leaning ’gainst the rail.

  “What’s wrong?” says Jim, holding Tom by the shoulders. He can tell Tom knows something we don’t. “What’s he done?”

  “The gauge cocks!” says Tom. “They ain’t sounding – ain’t heard ’em whistle for ages!”

  “So?” says Pap, butting in. “You an engineer now? What does that matter?”

  “It means the boilers ain’t venting steam! He’s blocked ’em somehow – come in through the intake pipe with the river water, maybe, and brought mud and other rubbage with him!”

  “So?” says Pap. “So?”

  “So they’re going to blow,” says Tom. “That’s all! They’re going to blow!”

  “Dern!” Pap hawks out the last of his chaw, then he’s heeling it toward the stern.

  “Get off the boat!” shouts Tom, waving his hands ’bove his head and jumping up and down. “Mister! Ma’am! You’ve got to get off of this boat! Get to the stern and jump – hurry now!”