by Mike Rich
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(Tom Sawyer’s Comrade)
By Mark Twain
Illustrated.
It was in that moment that Henry heard the stateroom’s door latch fall. And before any of them could react, the bright light from the hallway spilled in and created an unmistakable outline around the gentleman standing there in the door’s narrow frame.
“Well now,” Mark Twain exclaimed to the four of them as he switched on the room’s lights. “Looks like I’ve got myself a passel of young guests on my hands.”
FIFTEEN
Sam
THE GREAT AUTHOR’S hair still had a touch of color, though by now most of his tangled mane was light gray and well on its way to white. The strands that still held the deep red of his youth were made lighter by the swirl of his cigar smoke. His eyes twinkled beneath the stray, meandering edges of his extremely bushy eyebrows.
“We’re not gonna have any problems here, are we?” Twain asked as he casually wiggled what little was left of the cigar in his hand. “’Cause if we are,” he added with zero concern, “I might just have to light myself up another one or two of these little devils. All things in moderation, of course . . . including moderation.”
“No, sir,” Jack said to him. “No problem at—”
Mattie cut in to try and help. “Yes, Mr. Twain,” she assured him before quickly making a mess of things. “I mean, no, I mean . . . yes, there won’t be any problem. We were only trying to . . . well . . . it’s kind of a really long story.”
Jack shot her a quick look.
“I’m very familiar with those, young lady.” Twain puffed on his still-smoldering stub. “Though I tend to prefer short stories that lead to long conversations. Preferably with total strangers, which, correct me if I’m wrong, the four of you are. That’s an ill we can easily remedy, I suspect.”
He extended his hand to Jack, seemingly unconcerned that four such total strangers were standing in his private stateroom.
“Mark Twain,” he introduced himself.
“Jack Babbitt, Mr. Twain, sir.”
The two of them shook hands.
The smoke from Twain’s cigar found its way into Ernie’s nose. “Ernie . . .” he coughed and struggled as he and the great author shook hands as well. “Ernie Samuels, sir. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“Under the circumstances, I’m sure.” Twain smiled as he turned to Mattie.
“Matilda McGillin, Mr. Twain, sir,” she gave her name and then commenced with an out-of-the-blue, more-than-polite curtsy. “I’ve read everything you’ve written. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which, we kinda thought . . . well, never mind. The Prince and the Pauper. Oh, and there’s the one about that frog in that one county. The . . . the . . .”
Mattie winced as she lost her train of thought. Until the great author kindly bailed her out.
“I think you might be referencing ‘The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.’ Not to worry, miss, you got further than most by just having read it.” Twain chomped on his cigar before turning his attention to the last of the intruders. “And whom have we here?” he asked.
Chief? Dad? Mom? Gigi? Guess whose hand I’m about to shake?
None of these words came out, thankfully. Instead, Henry introduced himself with a reserved “Henry Babbitt, Mr. Twain.”
The great writer didn’t offer his hand right away, eyeing Henry closer than the rest. He tilted his head toward Jack and sent a glance his way. “You two brothers?” he asked.
“Oh, no, sir,” Jack replied. “Just a coincidence.”
“Ah,” Twain said as he finally turned to shake hands with Henry. “Seems we have a healthy supply of those right now. Along with an unnecessary propensity to address me by the word ‘sir.’”
He lowered the cigar into the brimming ashtray before adding, “The largest of these coincidences being the fact that apparently we’ve all been booked into this very same particular stateroom.”
Twain pulled out a new cigar from his inner vest pocket and bit off the end.
“That is quite a coincidence, don’t you agree?” he inquired of the room. “Unless, of course, there may be another story as to why the four of you are here?”
He spit out the tobacco stub, more than content to wait, but not without a dash of humor first. “Might as well tell the truth,” he said with a wink. “I’ve long said that if you do that, you’ll never have to remember anything.”
Henry cleared his throat. “We, uh . . . well, we all came here from New York, Mr. Twain, sir,” he said before remembering the legendary author’s instructions. “I mean just . . . Mr. Twain.”
“Much better.” Twain nodded with approval, striking a match and lighting his next smoke. “Even though the proper stating of my name really represents just a start to whatever it is you’re plannin’ on sayin’ to me. Oh, and please don’t take offense to this, but how did a quartet of miscreants get all the way to Missouri from New York?” He took his first pull from the new cigar.
Mattie politely jumped in. “Well, Mr. Twain, we aren’t really miscreants. We actually did kinda pay the boiler room workers once we got on board and, well, your door wasn’t locked,” she jabbered, “and we weren’t planning to take anything anyway, as I’m sure you can tell, because we already would have, and then we heard footsteps, so . . . I guess that’s maybe a long way of saying ‘miscreants’ might not be the best choice of words.”
Ernie jabbed her in the side, but Twain had already allowed himself a hint of a wry grin.
“Miss McGillin, I do stand corrected,” he said, cocking an appreciative eyebrow in her direction. “Even though I do pride myself on being a fairly adequate wordsmith.” He paused again. “Still didn’t answer my question, though. It’d be a shame if that turned into a habit.”
The banjos on the main deck broke into a new song, the skilled players behind the quick-pickin’ tune showing why they’d been invited as tonight’s prime entertainment.
Down here, though, not surprisingly, it looked as if Mattie had barely noticed. “Have you ever heard of Mr. Skavenger’s Hunt, Mr. Twain?” she asked him.
“Mr. Hunter S. Skavenger?” Twain inquired with a curious look. “Is that the Skavenger whom you’re referencing, miss?”
“It is.” She nodded. “We found a clue in New York a few days ago . . . and, well, it said the next clue might be here. Here on the Natchez riverboat.”
For the first time since he’d walked into his room, Mark Twain looked speechless—something history books had taught Henry was a rare occurrence.
“One of Mr. Skavenger’s clues? To his latest great hunt?” Twain said with an incredulous look. “In this room? My room? Ha! Ha, HAAA!” he laughed with disbelief.
Henry could see Mattie’s lower lip quiver just a bit. He could tell the manner in which Twain laughed had made it all sound ridiculous, even though he probably didn’t mean it that way.
Noticing Mattie’s expression as well, the author shifted his tone in a hurry. “Ohhh, no, no, no. Okay, okay now.” Twain raised his hands in apology. “Tell you what, darlin’, you go right ahead and take a look at whatever you want in here. In fact, all four of you can. I’m as much a sucker for a great adventure as anyone.”
He gave her a supportive, hopeful look, which seemed to settle her down a little. Jack and Ernie promptly began looking around the stateroom, while Henry turned back to the desk.
It’s gotta be this. I mean, look at it. A first edition of Huck Finn? Feels totally Skavenger-esque.
Instead of immediately joining the search, Mattie showed Mr. Twain the beer glass from New York.
“This is why we came here, sir,” she told him with gathering composure. “The clue we found. It’s on the bottom. Go ahead, take a look.”
Twain put on his reading glasses and held the empty glass aloft, studying it with a scrunched nose under an equally scrunched brow. It took all of maybe five seconds before his expression suddenly relaxed and he leaned
back with a belly laugh.
“Natchez? Two fathoms deep? Ha HAAAAA! Well, I’ll be.” He shook his head and peered over his glasses toward her. “And trust me, this is good laughter, Miss McGillin. Maybe I should take a gander around this stateroom too!”
Mattie returned the smile and the two of them headed over to join Henry, who was still closely studying the unspoiled, new edition of Huck Finn.
Twain put an encouraging hand on the young hunter’s shoulder and whispered right in his ear, “I think this is where I would’ve started too, had I not broken into—oh, wait, scratch that—I mean, had I not simply entered an unlocked room.”
Twain made sure Mattie saw the wink he’d just sent her way as Henry quickly flipped to page thirty-six.
“Ohh, I like your thinkin’ here, son.” The great author seemed to understand what he had in mind. “I do, however, have a fairly strong working knowledge of this particular page, having pondered and scratched on it for more hours than I care to remember. Not sure where any of it might fit into Mr. Skavenger’s latest quest.”
Henry gave the page a look anyway.
Yeah, guess I do see your point.
There was no illustration on the page, only words that started with: “Well, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson, on account of my clothes . . .”
Henry kept on reading until he reached the very last sentence on page thirty-six. Then he looked up with a sigh and without a turn of the page.
“Nothing,” he declared with disappointment, fanning through the rest of the pages as Jack and Ernie joined them at the side of the desk.
“How ’bout you? Anything?” Mattie asked the two of them. Both shook their heads.
Twain put his remaining free hand on Mattie’s shoulder, his teeth more than up to the task of holding the cigar.
“Tell you what,” he told all four of them. “You’ve still got yourselves a good bit of time before we get back to dock. Riddle says you’ve got till midnight, so I’d keep on lookin’, that’s what I’d do. See if there might be another thirty-six somewhere else on board. Might want to be discreet, however, on the off chance you actually don’t have passenger tickets.”
“Nah, we don’t,” Jack admitted. “They let us hide out for a few hours in the boiler room and get cleaned up a little.”
“Well, not to diminish their offer, but it mighta been even more neighborly if they’d let you clean up a little more,” Twain replied as only Twain could. His nose crinkled, but his twinkling eyes told them he wasn’t the least bit serious. He walked them to the door of the stateroom, his head wreathed in cigar smoke.
“If I think of anything, I’ll head down to the boiler to find you,” he promised. “And, if you’d like to just bandy an idea back and forth, I’ll be right here. All right?”
“Thank you, Mr. Twain.” Mattie was disappointed, but she held out her hand. “It was an honor for all of us to meet you.”
“You as well, young miss,” he replied, more than happy to take it. Each of the boys followed suit, before he closed the door with one last nod and a pleasant smile.
The foursome stood there and stared at the bronze 36 on the door. A wisp of white cigar smoke slowly rose to the corridor ceiling as a feeling of dejection began to settle over them.
“If we don’t find anything before the night’s over . . .” Ernie quietly said under his breath, not needing to finish the thought.
Henry could tell right away, though, he would have been better off not even starting the thought—with one person at least.
“Yeah, Ern, we know what happens if we don’t find anything!” Jack shot back with a frustrated voice. “Thanks for reminding us.”
“He didn’t mean anything, Jack!” Mattie spoke up. “We’re still gonna find it. It’s on this boat somewhere, I know it is.”
Jack now turned his anger squarely on her. “Before midnight? We’re gonna find whatever it is we need to find before midnight?” He nearly spit out the words. “All right, let’s do that, Mattie. Let’s find the answer to this clue we traveled across how many states to find? Was it five? Six? Before midnight, remember. ’Cause y’know somethin’? What else do we have to do? What else do you, or any of the rest of us, have to do? ’Cept go back home and let everyone keep telling us we’ll never amount to nuthin’ more than a hill of beans.”
Mattie didn’t say anything for a second. Her lip quivered again, only this time it looked to be with boiling rage.
“Why would you say that, Jack?!” she started in. “Why would you say that about me, about you, about all of us?!”
“She’s right, pal,” Ernie said flatly. “You’ve got no . . .”
Mattie shoved Jack right in the chest. Hard.
“You think I don’t know all that?” She went ahead and gave him a second rough push. “You think I don’t know what happens if midnight comes and we end up finding nothing! Lemme tell you somethin’, I know exactly what happens.” Another shove, and then another, Jack patiently holding up his hands as he weathered the storm.
“We go BACK to BEING NOTHING, that’s what! Nothing!” Mattie’s voice broke as her eyes welled with tears of anger and failure. “We’ll always be NOTHING!”
The last shove pushed Jack right into Henry, who barely budged because he’d yet to let his eyes stray from the front of Twain’s stateroom door.
From the number thirty-six.
He’d overheard every word of Mattie’s high tide of rage, but he hadn’t responded because he was too busy figuring out what was bothering him.
Without even a word to any of them, he reached up and knocked.
It’s in there. It can’t be anywhere else.
“Henry?” Mattie asked as she brushed away an angry tear and fixed Jack with a brutally hard glare.
Henry knocked again, ignoring her for the moment.
Ernie spoke up from behind him. “What is it, pal? You forget somethin’?”
Before Henry could answer, the great author opened the stateroom door. A tumbler of whiskey had taken up residence in his hand next to the latest cigar.
“Back so soon, Mr. Babbitt?” Twain inquired.
Henry nodded and politely asked, “Mr. Twain. Sir. Would it be okay if I looked in your book again?”
Before the question was even finished, the sound of a fresh set of footsteps echoed from the closest set of stairs. Mattie, Jack, and Ernie snapped their heads around to look, but Henry’s eyes remained fixed on the man standing in the doorway in front of him.
“I just need one minute, that’s all. I promise,” Henry said as the footsteps grew louder, somehow sounding more ominous than the banjo-seeking steps from earlier.
This time someone really was coming. Maybe Grace. Maybe Grace and the Dark Men. Whoever it was would be turning the far corner any second.
I don’t care. I’m not leaving till I check one more time.
The footsteps stopped before making the turn. Whoever was there had decided to stay out of sight, and even Twain—standing just inside his room—could hear a match being scratched to life. He pulled the door open, quickly ushering all of them inside.
By the time he’d closed it, Henry was already over at the desk again. Twain had to hold back a chuckle as he and the others all surrounded him.
“Well, son,” Mr. Twain said, resting both palms on the desk as Henry whipped through the pages again. “I respect a dramatic moment as much as the next man, but good Lord in Heaven, what should I be lookin’ for here?”
Something, something, something. Here on thirty—
Henry stopped on the thirty-sixth page, just as he had minutes earlier. And just as he’d seen the first time around, the thirty-sixth page was the very first page of chapter three.
Okay, start over again. Take your time.
“‘Well,’” Henry read aloud to everyone. “‘I got a good going-over in the morning from Old Miss Watson.’”
His voice fell silent as he stopped, his eyes darting back and forth, searching
through each sentence. “It’s here, I saw it, I know I did,” he said out loud, shaking his head.
“Saw what?” Mattie asked him.
Henry didn’t answer. Instead he was reading each word his finger was now tracking. Left-to-right-and-down. Left-to-right-and-down.
Okay, Chief, little help here. What should I be looking for? What would you be looking for?
His eyes went back to Twain’s words again.
“Good going-over. Miss Watson.” Nope, not it. Not there. “‘Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it.’” Okay, that’s prob’ly nothing. It was right around this spot, though. Come on, keep going. “‘She told me to pray every day and whatever I asked for . . .’” Wait. Wait, hold on. “‘Whatever I asked for . . . I would get it,’” Henry whispered under his breath, his eyes sparking as he repeated the words again—though not as quietly this time. “‘Whatever I asked for . . . I would . . . get it.’”
Henry turned his head and saw a twinkle in the great author’s eyes, matched only by the spark in Mattie’s as she stood next to him.
“It can’t be that easy,” he said to her, then glanced up at the man who wrote the words. “Can it?”
“Go ahead, Henry! Go on!” Mattie nodded. Ernie and Jack did the same right behind her. He looked back at the book, double-checking to be completely certain before clearing his throat.
“Mr. Twain,” he asked, hoping his wording was correct. “Do you have the next clue in Mr. Skavenger’s Hunt? And if you do, may we please have it?”
Respecting a dramatic moment as much as the next man, Mark Twain slowly put down his cigar, paused for a good many seconds, then reached into his pocket . . .
. . . and pulled out a brilliant yellow envelope. Which he then handed to Henry.
“I do. And you may,” the great author replied with a proud smile.
The four young searchers gazed at the envelope. Twain used the moment to retrieve his still-smoldering cigar.