“Lord, don’t spook ’em, boy,” comes Pap’s voice, shouting back over his shoulder. “Don’t you want a clear run at it?”
Pap was getting his way, ’cause though Tom was causing some stir, most folks seemed to think it was just a boy fooling ’round and stayed where they was. Told him to hush up, some of them.
I hear Joe’s wicked voice come laughing after us: “I can still stop it! Just put your souls back in, boys!”
But he warn’t going to stop it, no matter what. Tom’d seen through this Joe, all right: now he loved doing evil for the fun of it.
I could see the boilers plain, their furnaces glowing red, heating that water into steam, steam that didn’t have nowhere to go. There was one of the mates and an engineer and a couple of stokers darting round ’em – least they knew there was something wrong. I run over.
“Which one is it?” says the mate.
“Can’t tell,” says the engineer. “It’s got me beat! Feel that vibration? If I didn’t know better I’d think they was all blocked at once – but that’s impossible!”
“Oh, no, it ain’t, mister,” says I. “They’re all going to blow! You’ve got to clear the deck – the whole ship – get everyone down to the stern!”
“Boy, I don’t have time for…” Then that engineer cast his eyes ’bout, kind of desperate, and looks back at the mate. “He’s right – we’ve got to abandon ship! I’ll do what I can, here.”
“I’ll go tell the captain,” says the mate. Then, to the stokers: “You clear this deck; you get everyone up from below decks.” Then he was running up the steps to the hurricane deck and the pilot house.
“Come away, Huck!” It’s Jim, hauling on my shoulder. “Leave it to the crew. We’ve gotta save ourselves, chile!”
Up above us, on the hurricane deck, a bell has already started ringing; I feel the boat turn sharp toward the Missouri shore – taking us out the main channel and closer to land. The stokers and the other crew was stirring people up, all right – but they warn’t having no more luck than Tom at directing ’em. They was swarming round in a panic, them passengers, didn’t know what to do. I did, I reckon. Tom was nuts for steamboats – and the disasters that befell ’em – so we’d talked over ev’ry inch of ’em ’fore then. That’s how I knew you had to get to the back: ’cause the boilers was all bunched up toward the front, ’neath the chimneys – and if they blew they took the front of the boat with ’em. And you couldn’t dive off of the front or the sides of the boat, neither – reckon you’ve already seen how that puts you in the path of the paddle wheels.
So I run to one of the lanterns lighting the deck and pull it down; then I run toward the bow, best I can, folks barging ’gainst my shoulders at ev’ry turn. Then I holler loud as I can: “Get back to the stern, dern it!” And I fling that lantern into the clearest patch of deck I see. It shatters at once, flaming oil splashing all over the place. Well, a fire on a boat’s a whole disaster to itself, most times, but this one did what I wanted it to: in seconds every one of those passengers is running the right way, away from the flames – and the boilers – to the back of the boat. Running? Stampede, more like! I’m getting carried along by ’em, getting knocked black and blue and my feet stepped on, when I trip. I pitch forward and hit that deck and in a moment there’s feet stamping ’cross me, each one knocking the wind out. I’m figuring it’s my last moment when someone grabs me by the shoulders and lifts me up. Jim!
“It’s all right, chile,” says he. “I’se got you now!” And he holds me steady and stands behind me to block the crowd and reaches round me with one of his big arms and sweeps people out of the way, left and right – not even caring that they was white folks – and clears us a path through that mob. Next few seconds is just a mass of screams and shouts and ringing bells and the flickering of the fire I’d started, and that strange shaking running through the boat – the vibration, the engineer called it – and a high-pitched sound, so sharp you could barely hear it at first, but rising to a scream, of the steam forcing itself out somewheres, busting out of the iron prisons of those boilers. And ’bove it all the evillest sound I ever hope to hear: Joe laughing and laughing, sitting perched on the rail, flames shining red and orange off of his watery face.
Then, for ’bout half a second, there’s complete silence. Can’t hear nothing; I’m just flying up in the air, it seems, looking down on Big Missouri, all its lights sparkling away there on the river, the fire too, and lots of folks floating below me too, and above, and alongside. My, I thought – even then, knowing what’d happened – ain’t this strange and pretty? Won’t never see nothing like this agin!
And then the roar of them boilers exploding and the boat breaking come screaming up at me like demons, just noise, noise, noise – louder’n anything I’ve heard. Louder’n thunder or guns or anything. I turn over and over in the air, still going up. Something whistles past my head, then agin – air’s full of things flying round. There’s a cry and I look over at a feller a few yards off. His face is all twisted up, his chest with a hole in it like someone’s worked on him with a revolver. I hear a whistle and another hole busts through his leg; all around, other folks is going the same way – shot through with rivets from when the boiler plates gave out. I pitch over forwards as I start to drop and, below me, I see the front half of Big Missouri ain’t there no more; ain’t nothing forward of the wheels. No chimneys, no pilot house, nothing. Just a big cloud of steam hanging ’bove the wreck and people on the deck screaming and dying and flinging themselves into the water as they get boiled alive by it. One breath of that steam’d be enough to scald your lungs. You’d die in agony, certain. And we was falling back into it!
I shove my hand into my britches pocket and take a-holt of that counterfeit quarter with my soul in it. I ain’t got but a second to ’member them words if I want to die with my soul back in.
“Come… Come back, soul, from… from where you’re resting; I’m a…”
But I can’t get my breath, can’t get the words out, and there just ain’t no time. I drag my hand back out my britches, pull the cuffs of my shirt sleeves down over my hands, clamp them ’cross my face, and close my eyes.
And then I drop into the steam.
Chapter 12: Underworld
It hurt all right, you bet it did. I’ve spilt hot coffee on myself a few times, burned my mouth on it too, and knocked over a pan of boiling water once, left my leg blistered for a week. But this was like that all over. I wanted to open my eyes, but I knew that if I did I’d go blind; I wanted to cry out, but I knew that if I let that steam inside me, even for an instant, I’d die. So I kept my hands still, screwed my eyes tighter shut and waited to hit the deck.
It didn’t happen – ’stead I splashed into the Mississip. Hit like a thunderbolt and went in deeper and deeper, going down like a borehole. And that water was cold! Lord, it felt good. By the time I get back up to the surface, my lungs ’most busting, it’s like the pain’s been washed off. I shake my head and look round as I gasp for breath, treading water to keep me still. There’s a lot of people in the water; most of those nearby are laying in it, face down, still. Farther off, there are more like me – heads bobbing up and spluttering, or chins in the water, arms driving up and down as they swim for the shore or the wreckage. Ain’t no shortage of that – there’s a great wide trail spreading out behind Big Missouri. She’s still afloat, somehow, though she’s just her back half, tipping forwards as the current takes her downstream, sending her slowly over toward the Missouri side. Her home – and her grave too, now.
The cries of the poor folks still stuck on what’s left of that boat take my eyes back to the upper decks and, just for a moment, ’fore it disappears in the breeze, I see something in that cloud of steam, formed by the steam itself. See it plain, picked out by the moonlight and the fires burning ’cross the wreck. A face. Woman’s face. Huge and angry and screaming. A whole face of fury. Lady Miz herself. See her just for an instant, but it’s her all right, I know it.
First time since I’d hit the water I’ve thought of her, or drowning, or Joe, or anything like that. I remember where I am – the middle of the river. Five minutes before, that’d’ve scared me. But it don’t scare me now – world’s changed since then. I’ve seen something. I know something.
“Huck! Hucky! Over here!”
Hearing my name shouted takes my mind off of what I was thinking. I turn round, away from Big Missouri, and there he is, ’bout thirty yard off: Tom. I swim over.
“Looking mighty pinkish, Tom,” says I.
“I’m looking pinkish?” says Tom. “You’re red as a boiled crayfish!”
“Well, I felt like it for a moment, I’ll allow,” says I. “But I reckon you’re stretching it some, all the same. Makes your eyes sting, don’t it? Seen Jim?”
“Over yonder.” Tom flings out an arm, then goes back to treading. Away to the stern of Big Missouri I see Jim leaning back in the water, swimming backwards with one arm while with t’other he’s keeping a lady afloat – she can’t hardly stir for herself. The boat was carrying freight, of course, as well as passengers, so there’s slathers of truck spreading out across the river now – Jim’s taking her toward a large piece of lumber floating nearby with folks laying on it. He hands over the lady to some fellers and they drag her aboard. He swims off, once she’s safe, making for the Missouri shore; a couple of fellers shout after him – wanting to set him to work, I guess – but Jim acts like he don’t hear, just keeps on swimming.
“Guess we’d better get after him,” says I.
“Better get ashore, anyhow,” says Tom, turning pale of a sudden and looking ’bout him fearful. “Seen Joe anywhere? Think he could’ve blown himself up? Maybe he got boiled into steam – it’d serve him right.”
“That it would,” says I. “But I don’t know and I ain’t wasting time guessing.”
I lit out for the shore then, Tom likewise; then a voice calls us back.
“Hold up there! Boys! Hold up, dern you!” Pap. He comes over sitting astride a barrel, using half a length of broke plank for a paddle. “Come on over. Quick, now! Grab a-holt.” Tom tries to lift hisself out the water and get up on the barrel; Pap gives him a push back. “No, no, son – ain’t room fer but one o’ us up here – an’ I gotta stay out the water ’cause o’ my rheumatiz. You’ll be comfortable enough there, I reckon, holding onto the end, strong boy like you. You too, Huck – don’t crowd the side, grab a-holt o’ the end, next your pal there. That’s right.”
I cast my eye over Pap as he sits up and gets hisself comfortable and casts his eye ’cross the whole sad scene I’ve told you of. Not a scratch on him; might’ve guessed. He shakes his head and spits in the river; it floats nearby.
“My, this is just terrible, terrible,” says he under his breath. “Boat wrecked – shivered all to flinders, folks dead, scores o’ injured a-wailing. Terrible – there’ll be relief boats crawling all over this stretch o’ river within a couple o’ hours – must’ve heard the blast clear up in Petersburg. We’ve gotta get to McDougal’s Cave ’fore the sightseers come cramping our style. Well? What’re you waiting fer? Kick out, boys! Lively now – d’you expect me to paddle you both to shore? Lazy no-goods!”
I don’t know why I didn’t just leave him there, out on the river, and swim for it – I could’ve got out of lamming distance of that paddle easy. Pap’d never catch me, neither, paddling with them whisky-weakened arms. But you get used to things, you know? And I guess I didn’t want to leave him to catch up with Jim – who I knew was set on going for Injun Joe’s loot hisself, after what he’d told us ’bout needing the money for his kin. No, I knew what Pap’d do if there warn’t no one round to witness it – first chance he got after finding any truck he’d fetch Jim one unawares. Same treatment he give Mother Hopkins. He might even do worse, though I wouldn’t like to think it, not even of Pap. Don’t know why Tom stood it, though… well, I guess I do. For my sake! Didn’t want to leave me alone with Pap.
So we both grit our teeth, put up with it and kick for the shore – though we tipped that old drunk into the Miz a dozen times in our imaginations, you can bet.
It was ’most dawn when we reached land. Not dawn proper – ’stead it was that half hour or so you get ’fore it breaks and the sun comes up. That awful sickly blue-gray light that fills the sky and makes the world look half dead and you feel half dead along with it, and like you’ve got no business being awake. The air was chill – we felt it soon as we got out the water – and the mud and the trees and everything smelt real fresh and clear (don’t know why everything smells best early in the morning, but it does). The air was quiet though, but for the birds coming awake and some shouts and screams coming ’cross the water and from away downstream somewheres where other folk had fetched up.
“Tarnation! If a thing’s worth doing, ain’t it worth doing well, boy? Ain’t that what I always told you? ’Spect me to get off o’ this here barrel with the water half up my shins and ruin my boots? You don’t have no boots to worry ’bout; water ain’t gonna do bare feet no harm. Selfish, I call it! Now push me up to the shore prop’ly. That’s it! Why, thank you, your lordship!”
Then Pap skips off, into the mud, and starts laying into the top of that barrel, trying to prise it off, in case there’s something inside he can drink. I get a lot of such talk from Pap – don’t hardly bother me no more; you get used to it, like I said. Saw Tom raise an eyebrow, though – he was ’preciating his Aunt Polly then, I’ll bet. And Pap ain’t so dainty ’bout his clothes when he’s been at the jug, neither – he’ll wallow in a hog-sty then, happy to.
“Dern,” says he. “Molasses! Molasses, if you please – on a boat headed south!”
I’d’ve been happier if it had been something he could drink. Pap can’t go without it for long without he gets twitchy – and then he gets mean (meaner, I mean, of course). Goes a whole day without and he gets the shakes; one or two more and he starts seeing things, talking to ’em too and carrying on. It’s even worse if he’s trying to quit it – but I ain’t seen that more’n once. Don’t ’spect to agin!
“Well, what’re you waiting fer then? Permission? Let’s git! We’ve gotta git to McDougal’s Cave ’fore Injun Joe, case that paddle wheel didn’t do fer him.”
Tom and me just roll our eyes and follow Pap. It ain’t no fun. We’re tired out from swimming – and he’s mighty sprightly when he thinks there’s some good truck to be had.
We all knew the way, pretty much, but none of us had come at the cave from downstream before. We keep going along the shore, looking for an easy way up into the bluffs. Haven’t gone more’n a quarter mile when we see a figure ahead of us, limping somewhat. Big black feller with his shirt half tore off.
“Jim!” says I, hollering.
“Hush up, dern you,” says Pap, sharp. “Want the whole world to know we’re here?”
Jim turns and comes back a few steps while we hurry up to meet him. Pap was torn over Jim, I could tell. He wanted all that muscle around, case Injun Joe turned up, but he warn’t fixing on sharing no loot, no matter what he said, and was wondering if he’d be able to take it off of Jim when the time come. He stands there a moment eyeing Jim, thoughtful.
“Lord, I hope I don’t never see nothin’ gashly as that again, an’ that’s a fact!”
“Me neither, Jim,” says I. “Hurt bad?”
“Naw, Hucky – jus’ smarts is all. Clipped some busted up piece of deck as I come down. How’re you two chillen?”
Tom and me told him we was fine, far as we knew.
“Well, I guess this is nice, ain’t it?” says Pap. “Spending the day jawing like you don’t have no cares in the world. Some o’ us got things to do! You want a share o’ that loot, don’t you?” Pap stares at Jim fierce (though he stays out of his arm’s length). “Come on then! And I hope you got that charm o’ yourn. Brace yourself for asking it some questions, bad luck or no; we ain’t gonna find that treasure otherwise.”
Jim frowns back at Pap.
“Who put you in charge?” says he.
“God, Nature and the State of Missouri,” says Pap. “I’m the only white man here, ain’t I? You’re a ni… a negro, so you don’t count for nothing. He’s my son, so he’s my property, and this ’un…” Meaning Tom. “…is just an orphan boy can find his own way home, if he don’t like it. You’re a runaway slave, and don’t you forgit it. Petersburg thinks you’re a rebel and, top of that, you was on a steamboat that blowed up – d’you reckon that won’t get pinned on you too if folks guess you was aboard? You need me as your character witness – else the first white man you run into’s gonna reach fer his shotgun!”
“Lord, it’s desp’rate when an honest man needs you for a character witness!”
“Them’s the cards you been dealt, boy!” And Pap gives Jim a look kind of haughty and smug. He was telling it loaded, but he was telling it true, far as it went.
“Well,” says Jim. “You’re ’bout the lowest cretur I’se ever took orders from, I spose – but I can stan’ it if it’ll bring me the money to get out o’ this here Godforsaken state an’ go get my fam’ly. Jus’ don’t push me, tho’ – like you said, I’se an outlaw now!” And he steps forward sudden, ’nuff to make Pap skip back a step – so, all in all, they come out even, I guess.
“Best get goin’ then,” says Jim. “Tho’ ’fore we do, I ain’t gonna come so close to death again without a soul in me, an’ that’s a fact – Joe Harper an’ Lady Miz or no Joe Harper an’ Lady Miz! This whole trick’s turned a sight too risky for my likin’.” And Jim grabs a-holt of that hairball charm round his neck and comes out with the words Mother Hopkins told us: “Come back, soul, from where you’se restin’; I’se a-tellin’ you, not requestin’! Get insi’ bowels, heart an’ head – then stay there quiet, till I’m dead.”
He stands watchful for a moment, then gives a sudden gasp like the wind’s been knocked out of him, then gulps like he’s sucking it all back in. Then he puffs a couple of times, gaps, stretches and looks ’bout him, blinking.
Huck Page 23