“It won’t open,” Dudley told him.
“What you mean it won’t open?”
“They is something holding it.”
I heard some more bumping and knocking around the door, and then we heard Silas yell, “They done stacked the shine against the door! Come on, Dudley, and help me push!”
When I looked toward the door I saw the dark mound of illegal whiskey move ever so slightly.
Chapter 12
The Escape
I leaned over my shoulder and called out to Poudlum, “They gonna push their way in!”
“Push back and just give me one more minute,” he said.
I felt the stack of moonshine move toward me when I leaned against it and saw a thin frame of light around the top of the door. With my back to the boxes and my feet planted on the floor, I pushed back as hard as I could and momentarily felt the movement toward me slacken.
“Push harder!” I heard Silas yell from the other side of the door, and a moment later I could tell they had redoubled their efforts, and when I looked up I saw the crack at the top of the door was now an inch wide.
“I can’t hold ’em much longer, Poudlum!” I whispered as loud as I could through my clenched teeth.
“No need to!” Poudlum said right after I heard a loud cracking sound. “I just stomped the board out. Let’s go!”
When I got to the hole in the floor, Poudlum’s head was disappearing through it. “Come on,” he called out to me from underneath the floor.
As I dropped my feet through the hole, the big stack of moonshine came crashing down. When the top case hit the floor, a quart jar flew out, took one bounce and burst. I felt the spray and bits of broken glass hit my face as I slipped through and disappeared beneath the floor where Poudlum was on his hand and knees waiting on me.
We had to stay low to keep from bumping our heads as we crawled toward the outside. The last thing I heard from above was a lot of thumping, bumping, crashing, and cussing.
When we cleared the edge of the floor and stood up outside, Poudlum said, “They gonna be mad as two old wet hens!”
“I hope they drown in all that whiskey,” I told him as we broke into a run toward the river.
When we reached the river’s edge, we were mighty grateful to find our boat beached there. We never broke stride as we shoved her into the water and leapt aboard, where the paddles and the rest of our stuff was secure except our blankets and our food store.
As we dug our paddles deep into the water and pulled away, we heard our former hosts yelling as they ran to the water’s edge, but we were gone into the darkness and safety of the river.
The current had subsided, but it was still difficult paddling upstream. When I moved back from the bow of the boat to sit across from Poudlum, I stumbled over something. When I investigated it with my hands, it turned out to be a half-empty box with six quarts of moonshine in it.
When I got Poudlum to feel it and identify it, he said, “It appears Silas been out delivering shine in our boat.”
We took the lids off the jars and poured the strong-smelling contents into the river, leaned over the side of the boat, rinsed out the jars, and stowed them away. After that, we relaxed some as we were well away from our captors. The dim light of their shack disappeared as we paddled on up the river.
“You think it rained while we was sleeping or locked up in that room?” Poudlum asked.
“I don’t think so,” I told him and then asked why he had asked.
“Because there’s about a inch of water in the bottom of the boat,” he answered.
We were fortunate that two of our torches were still in the boat and had dried out. Poudlum lit one while I paddled and began to inspect the inside of the boat.
A few moments later I heard him say, “Uh oh!”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“We got a hole in our boat!”
“What?! How big is it?”
“Big enough. Looks about the size of a bullet hole, but water’s gurgling up through it. Looks like we got two or three inches in the bottom. We got to get off the river!”
“Can we make it to the other side?”
“We ought to be able to. You paddle and I’ll start bailing.”
Before he grabbed the bailing bucket, Poudlum propped our torch up like a beacon in the front of the boat. It gave us enough light to see how to get to the far side of the river. Now all we had to do was find a good spot to land.
I turned the boat and headed her straight across the river toward the far shoreline. When we got there, we saw it was dark with overhanging bushes and no place to land because the river was still about two feet higher than normal.
“Better find a spot quick ’cause this water is gaining on me!” Poudlum told me.
I knew he was right because I could feel the water creeping into my shoes, and the boat was responding more and more sluggishly.
I looked down and saw the reflection of the flickering torch on the water gathering in the bottom of the boat.
“Better stop paddling and help me bail unless you want to swim,” Poudlum said as he slung a bucket of water overboard.
“I got a better idea,” I told him.
“Better make it quick.”
“Blow the torch out and then get low in the boat. I’m gonna crash us into the brush. When we hit it grab whatever you can and pull us toward the shore.”
We hit with a soft crash, and in the darkness, we reached out and grabbed overhanging limbs and pulled with all our might. When we touched bottom, we reached farther toward the shore and clutched at others. Finally, we heard a grinding sound, and the boat came to a halt.
“Feels like we made it to shore,” Poudlum said.
“You think you can light that torch again?” I asked.
Poudlum struck a match on his belt buckle and reignited our pine torch. We looked around and saw we had landed on a fairly steep grade and up ahead was a giant oak tree with wide sweeping branches, some of which we had used to pull ourselves ashore. When we investigated further, we found that underneath the majestic tree trunk there was a natural clearing which appeared very inviting.
“First thing we got to do is drag the boat up on dry land or we might lose her,” Poudlum said.
We pushed the bottom end of the torch into the soft ground and used the light of it to wrap a rope around the mighty tree trunk and drag our boat out of the water. We still had our ax, cooking and fishing gear, and the tarp, which we transferred up underneath the big tree. After that, we pushed and shoved until we got the boat in a position so the hole was downhill to allow all the water to drain out of it.
“Next thing we need is a fire,” Poudlum said.
“We gonna be hard pressed to find any dry wood,” I told him. “Everything is still wet after all the rain.”
“We won’t mess with any hardwood then,” he said. “We’ll just collect the heart of some rotten pine trees. It’ll be damp but we can get it started with the torch,” Poudlum reassured me.
So we ventured out into the forest with me holding the torch and Poudlum wielding the ax. Within a matter of minutes, we had dragged several hearts of pine trees underneath the big tree where Poudlum chopped them into pieces, and we soon had a nice fire going.
And of course, while knocking the rotten wood off the heart of the pine trees, Poudlum had collected an ample supply of grub worms and deposited them into one of Silas’s moonshine jars, and while I held the torch, we returned to the water and set out some lines suspended from the low limbs of our giant tree.
When we retuned to our fire, we became aware of what a magnificent spot we had accidentally crashed into. The giant tree with its huge drooping branches was like an umbrella of nature and gave the impression we had a leafy mansion over our heads. Long gray tentacles of Spanish moss hung from the limbs, which we gathered for our beds.
>
Afterwards, we folded the dry side of the tarp up and made ourselves a giant hammock, which we hung from two big low limbs, and used some of our rope to secure the four corners. Then we placed the big pile of moss inside of it, and we had ourselves a nice place to sleep.
But there was something else really bothering us. It was hunger. We hadn’t had a bite to eat since the night before.
“I don’t never ’member being so hungry,” Poudlum said. “My stomach is rubbing against my backbone. Right now I would gladly let myself be sold off as a slave to some Chinese man just for some of Dudley’s scrambled eggs.”
“It wasn’t just our food; we lost our blankets, too,” I lamented.
“Fire’s going good,” Poudlum said. “Let’s go check them lines. Maybe we got lucky.”
We lit another torch and went to the water’s edge only to find that our lines hung limp and our hooks bare. Poudlum put some fresh bait on the hooks, and we returned to our fire in a sad and hungry state.
To keep our minds off food, we decided to see if we could repair our boat. After we dragged it up next to our fire, we flipped it over so we could examine the hole in it.
“What I figure,” Poudlum surmised, “is that Silas was out peddling his whiskey, got into some kind of ruckus, probably from cheating somebody, and got shot at.”
“Sounds likely. You think we can fix it?” I asked.
“Maybe we could hammer a fishing cork into it to hold it for a while. Would you fetch me one from our fishing gear?” Poudlum asked as he continued to inspect the hole.
I watched as he whittled the stubby end of a cork down so it would fit. Then he took the head of our ax and hammered it into the hole until it was so tight we couldn’t budge it with our hands.
“All right,” he said. “At least we can get out on the river again and find us some food in the morning; that is, if we don’t starve to death tonight.”
“Good work, Poudlum,” I told him. “Why don’t you go check the lines again, and I’ll stoke up the fire and heat up some grease just in case.”
I had the fire going good with lots of hot coals, and as I sat there contemplating how we were going to sleep through the night being so hungry, a wonderful sight emerged from the darkness into the circle of light from the fire.
It was Poudlum with a whopper in each hand. He had a finger from each hand hooked into the mouths and out of the gills of two big cats with their whiskers still quivering and their tails still flipping.
I got the grease good and hot while Poudlum dressed them out. Our salt and meal were both a little soggy, but we managed, and before long we were feasting on fresh, sweet fish, and even had enough to save some for the next morning.
Later on, with full bellies, we snuggled into our bed of soft moss suspended above the ground while the fire crackled softly below us, and the faint swishing sound of the river came filtering through the tree branches as we reflected on our good fortune.
“Ain’t this something?” Poudlum said. “We been chased up and down the river by the Klan, caught in a flood, locked up by bootleggers, almost sold off as slaves and shipped off to China, had our boat almost sink, about starved to death, and just look at us now. Here we are free as birds, safe and sound, warm and comfortable with full bellies.”
“I guess we just two lucky boys, Poudlum.”
“Naw, it ain’t just that,” he said.
“What else?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what I think.”
“Well, go ahead and tell me then,” I told him.
“I think the good Lord looks after the birds and the squirrels, and surely, he’s gonna look after us.”
After contemplating what Poudlum had said, I told him I thought he was right.
It turned out to be the best night’s sleep we had had since we had been on the river.
When I woke up, I rolled to the edge of our makeshift hammock and saw Poudlum bent over the ashes of last night’s fire, attempting to bring it back to life.
He blew away the gray ashes, and I saw live coals underneath. He layered some of our Spanish moss on top of the glowing coals and continued blowing. Suddenly the flames leapt to life, and he added more fuel to it and before I could get my feet on the ground, he had a nice fire going.
“You don’t reckon anybody will see the smoke, do you?”
“Not after it filters up through this big old tree,” I told him.
We had two thick slabs of fish left. We shared one for breakfast and saved the other one for lunch.
After that, we used the bailing bucket to haul water up from the river. We heated the water on our fire and bathed ourselves and put on fresh shirts and pants. We found a spring back into the woods aways, drank our fill, and filled our water jug from it.
Now that we were rested, clean, and fed, we were ready to take on the world again.
It was getting on toward mid-morning when we ventured down, parted the tree branches, and peered out upon the river. The water had receded to normal level, and the river was like a field of jewels as the warm sunshine glinted and bounced across it.
We looked up and down the river and saw it was deserted, and retreated back to our giant tree sanctuary to contemplate our next move.
As we folded the tarp, we kept our moss inside it. When we had it good and tight, we tied a piece of rope around it, and Poudlum said, “What you think we ought to do?”
“I don’t think anybody crossed the river yesterday. Mr. Henry wouldn’t have taken his ferry out in that current, but everything looks normal today.”
“So you think Mr. Curvin will finally come back from Choctaw County?”
“Uh-huh, and Mr. Henry will tell him what’s been going on and tell him we planned to paddle down to the Jackson Bridge and meet him there.”
We flipped the boat over, loaded it up and began dragging it toward the water. But just before we reached the water’s edge, we peeked through the branches one more time, and what we saw caused us to retreat quickly back into them.
Chapter 13
Mr. Kim
It was Silas and a Chinese-looking man in a large boat. It had a motor on it, but they were paddling very deliberately, and they were right on top of us when we first saw them. However, as a result of our good hiding place, they hadn’t seen us as we observed them.
The Chinese man wore a loose black shirt, and his hair was in a long plait down his back. Below his cold eyes, a long, thin, and limp moustache drooped over the corners of his mouth.
“That must be Mr. Kim,” Poudlum whispered. “The one who wanted to buy us for two hundred dollars and make us into ship slaves.”
“I think you are right about that,” I whispered back. “Silas don’t look too happy about losing his investment, either.”
We continued conversing in whispers because we knew how sound carried better over water than it did over land.
“They are definitely looking for us,” I said. “See how they’re looking for a landing spot on the bank?”
“Uh-huh, and if we had found us a nice clear spot to land instead of crashing into these thick limbs, they probably would’ve found us. Like I told you, the Good Lord is looking out for us.”
We watched until they disappeared around the next bend in the river. Then we retreated back to our sanctuary under the giant tree, where we sat down and leaned our backs against its massive trunk while we contemplated our situation.
“This mess we in reminds me of one of my momma’s favorite sayings,” Poudlum said.
“What’s that?”
“I believe we are in between the devil and the deep blue sea, but in this case, between the devil and the river.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“The Klan’s looking for us upriver, and the slavers are looking for us downriver.”
“You know what, Poudlum?”
/> “What?”
“That does ring true if you consider the Klan to be the devil and the slavers to be the deep blue sea.”
“So what we gonna do?”
“Well, it’s for sure we can’t paddle up to Jackson in the daylight. If we take to the water, it’ll have to be after dark.”
“We could just take to the woods and walk up to Jackson,” Poudlum suggested.
“I guess we could, but what if it got dark on us before we there? I would hate to be caught out in the deep woods at night. Plus there’s probably a lot of swamps between here and there. And if we had to spend the night in the woods, how would we know which way to go in the morning?”
“Okay,” Poudlum said. “Forget traveling through the woods and the swamps. Probably a lot of quicksand and snakes in them swamps. We best stick to the river.”
“I think you are right, Poudlum. Remember, we don’t have any food, and at least here on the river, we can get fish to eat.”
“Speaking of that,” Poudlum said. “We better go bait and set out some lines since we gonna be here until after dark.”
While we were setting lines out to catch us some dinner, it occurred to me that if we didn’t show up at Jackson today, my uncle would probably sound the alarm, and folks would start looking for us.
When I told Poudlum this, he said, “You think they’ll think we drowned and go out on the water and fire cannons to see if our bodies will float up like they did when Huck Finn disappeared?”
We had both recently finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which my brother Fred had given to us as gifts. I read one and Poudlum read the other, and then we traded.
“I doubt if they’ll do that, but by the time dark comes tonight and we don’t show up, I’ll guarantee Uncle Curvin will have a lot of folks out on the river looking for us tomorrow.”
Poudlum sighed and said, “That means we got to hide out till then with nothing to eat.”
“We can get fish,” I told him.
“You know what?” he said.
Trouble on the Tombigbee Page 10