by Tim Champlin
“I’m guessing it’s to keep adult, armed law officers away,” the judge said. “Less danger to themselves when they retrieve the ransom.”
The sheriff gnawed thoughtfully on the corner of his drooping mustache. “I’m not so sure. There’s a connection between the amount of the ransom demand you pointed out, and these boys. This is their money being taken; your daughter is only their means of acquiring it. I wonder if this involves some kind of a personal grudge or revenge.” He focused a searching gaze on Tom and Huck. “If you boys are holding back anything that might shed some light on this, now’s the time to spit it out.”
Silence.
“All right, then, we must form a plan of action to deal with their demands,” Stiles said. “Judge, this young lady is your daughter. What do you want to do?”
“Pay the ransom,” Judge Thatcher said without hesitation. “Her life means infinitely more than any amount of money—mine or theirs.”
Tom and Huck glanced at each other in some kind of silent communication. “Judge, you can use our money,” Tom said, apparently speaking for both of them.
“I’m sorry, boys, I truly am. If there was any other way . . . But, except for your gold, I don’t have that much.”
“We didn’t have nothin’ when we found that treasure,” Huck said. “We was gonna ask you for some o’ that money, directly, but I reckon Providence has other plans for it now.”
“Don’t you worry,” Judge Thatcher said. “I’ll pay you back if I have to sell this house and my farmland. Consider this only a loan.”
While the discussion progressed, Zane decided not to waste the food that had been placed before them. He forked three flapjacks onto his plate, smeared them with melting butter, and drowned them in maple syrup. Let the others talk; he’d continue the process of putting on a few pounds. He added two fried sausage patties to the pile.
“How much did you tell that reporter who was here earlier?” Sheriff Stiles asked.
“ ’Most everything,” the judge said. “Except the part about Tom and Huck. I reasoned the more information the public knew, the better chance we had of someone coming forth with some information that might help.”
“Good idea to keep the boys and the place of the drop a secret. We don’t want to jeopardize Becky’s safety.”
Zane spoke up for the first time, talking with his mouth full. “We don’t have long to raise the money. This is already Tuesday.”
“Who are you?” the sheriff asked as if noticing Zane for the first time.
“This is Zane, a new friend of ours,” Tom spoke up quickly. “His folks are visitin’ kin up north in Iowa for a spell. His pap is gonna come pick him up later.”
“Hmm . . . Well, keep your mouth shut about all this,” Stiles cautioned. “That goes for the rest of you, as well,” he added, taking in Jim. “All the details will leak out soon enough.”
“We’ll keep mum.”
“The new kid is right, Judge. There ain’t a lot of time to raise that kind of cash in gold.”
“No worry about that,” Judge Thatcher said. “The market where I had their money appeared in imminent danger of collapse. I withdrew it all and converted it to gold to hold its value while searching for a better, less risky investment. It so happens that it’s all here, locked in my safe.”
“I wonder if the kidnappers knew that?” the sheriff mused.
“I don’t know how they could have,” the judge said. “There are some things in life that can only be attributed to coincidence.”
Or to Providence, Zane thought. He could hardly fathom how quickly he was becoming acclimated to this new world and way of thought. He wondered how much this 612,000 was equivalent to in currency of his own day. Certainly, a vast sum.
“We could arm the men of the village, and request the help of the St. Louis police who are local to that island,” Stiles said. “We could be lying in wait for them when they come to pick up the ransom.”
“Oh, please no!” the judge said. “Anything could go wrong. And I want Becky back safe. Let them have the gold. We can go after that later once Becky is safe at home.”
“All right. You’re calling the tune here,” Stiles said. “Next thing to find out is if Tom and Huck are willing to deliver the ransom as ordered.”
“You bet we are,” Tom enthused.
Huck nodded.
“This is not some kind of lark, boys,” the sheriff cautioned. “A girl’s life is at stake here, and maybe yours, too. But why in the world they want you to deliver it, I can’t figure.”
“Maybe ’cause of our repertation for bein’ brave and bold,” Tom said, his brashness returned.
Stiles shook his head. “Not likely.” Then he looked thoughtful. “But I must have the permission of your parents.”
“I think I can tell you what the Widow Douglas will say,” the judge stated. “Tom’s Aunt Polly might take a little persuading, but she’ll give in when she knows Becky’s life is at stake. After all, her Tom saved my Becky once before by bringing her out of that cave alive.”
“Yes, that’s so. I’d forgot these boys don’t have parents—only guardians.”
“And not even legal guardians, at that,” the judge said. “These two lads were taken in. But no real parents could be better. I know these two women well. They will give their consent.” He beamed at the boys.
“So that’s two of our problems out of the way,” the sheriff said. “The gold is available, and the boys are available.” He stood and slid the still unlit cigar into his shirt pocket. “Well, I’m off to my office. I’ll set my deputies to combing the area for clues about these men.” He moved toward the doorway into the front parlor, then turned back. “Judge, you been up all night. After some sleep, things will look a little better. You’re hurting right now. Buck up. We’ll get your daughter back safe, never fear. Then we’ll work on catching those criminals.”
The rest of them rose to leave as well, but the judge called Tom and Huck back. “There’s some extra cash in my safe I want to give you boys,” he said quietly.
“What for?” Tom asked.
Zane watched and listened from across the room. Jim had started for the front door.
“It’s three hundred,” the judge said. “A goodly amount and it’ll tide you and your families over until we can recover the ransom.” He pulled aside a framed print of a pastoral scene, revealing a wall safe.
The judge pulled out a leather pouch and counted out a pile of coins, splitting them between Tom and Huck. “I feel very bad about taking your money,” Zane heard him say. “Consider this as advance interest on the loan of 612,000. Put it in a safe place until all this business is over. Maybe give it to your Aunt Polly and to the widow for safekeeping and expenses.”
The boys dumped the handfuls of shiny coins into their pants pockets. As Tom and Huck walked past him on the way out, Zane saw their side pockets sagging with the weight of heavy metal.
CHAPTER 8
* * *
The four of them left the judge’s house and struck back downhill toward the main part of the village. They formed a somber, silent group.
“Well, it looks like our adventure to the territory has been postponed,” Zane said, trying to liven up the mood. He had no idea what territory he was even referring to.
“Yeah,” Tom said, shortly.
In less than a day, Zane had learned enough to guess Tom was mentally jumping ahead, working out the details of their mission and had already forgotten his earlier plan.
“How we gonna do this, then?” Huck asked. “Eagles Nest Island’s ’most of a hundred miles downriver. Me and Jim must o’ passed it on our raft. We might of even camped on it, but I don’t have the foggiest notion where it is or what it looks like.”
“If you starts now, mebbe you be dere by Friday,” Jim said.
“You two muggins’re purely lackin’ any sense about this,” Tom said. “We can’t take a small boat. We’d never find it. There’s a slew o’ islands and towhea
ds and swamps between here and St. Louis and most o’ them look a lot alike—as you found out last year.”
“I know you likely conjured up a plan,” Huck said. “Let’s hear it.” The words were sarcastic, but the tone was not.
“Only thing we can do is take a steamboat and ask to be put off on Eagles Nest Island.”
“Everybody on that steamboat would right soon find out what we was about,” Huck said.
“All dat gold be mighty temptin’ fo anybody like de king and de duke,” Jim said.
“That’s why we have to keep quiet about what we’re doing,” Tom said.
“How you gwine to do dat,” Jim asked, “when you be carrying two heavy satchels on de boat?”
“We’ll have to disguise it some way,” Tom said.
“Remember when we found all those coins hid in the cave?” Huck said. “We had to split it up into smaller sacks to even carry it to our skiff and back to the village. Then we borrowed a little kid’s wagon to haul it the rest of the way. So even if we stash it in carpet bags, we’d look like we was tryin’ to tote two elephants.”
“The way the news spreads around in this village, everybody will know what you’re doing long before Friday anyway,” Zane said. “Why don’t you carry it on board in two or three canvas bags and ask the captain to lock it in the safe—if he has one for passengers’ valuables.”
“I reckon that would be best,” Tom nodded. “But there’s another worry.”
They looked their curiosity at him.
“How we gonna make it off the island after we drop the gold in the hollow tree?”
“The steamboat, of course,” Huck said. “They’ll wait for us. It ain’t gonna take but a couple minutes—not even as long as it takes to wood up.”
“That’s if we can find the right tree that fast,” Tom said. “I reckon Eagles Nest Island’s slathered with trees—thicker ’an hair on a hound’s back. How do you reckon somebody come to name it that? Eagles don’t build their nests in bushes.”
Zane had never seen a bald eagle in the wild, but learned in school they’d been saved from near extinction when the government banned the use of a deadly pesticide in 1972. The national bird was making a comeback in his time. But they were bound to be much more numerous here in the year 1849. Instead of thinking these boys lived in a backward time, Zane was beginning to like certain things about their world.
“The kidnappers must have scouted this island,” Zane put in. “If a tree’s hollow, it’s normally dead. If it was hard to find, they’d have told the judge that. I’d bet it’s pretty obvious somewhere at the head of the island.”
“All right, supposin’ we make the drop, and climb back aboard the steamer,” Tom said. “What next? Where’s the boat headed? Why St. Louis, of course, then Memphis, Vicksburg, and all points south to New Orleans. We don’t wanta go to any o’ them places.”
“We’ll hop off in St. Louis,” Huck said. “We can catch the next boat north.”
“While we’re ridin’ around, enjoyin’ ourselves, where is Becky all this time?”
“De robbers got her,” Jim said. “De judge say dey’s gonna keep her ’til dey’s outa danger b’fo dey turn her loose.”
“That ain’t good enough for me,” Tom said. “I wanta stay close by outa sight and watch for them kidnappers to pick up the ransom. Could be we might figure some way to snatch Becky away from them. You know them kidnappers is gonna have her close by all the time if she’s a hostage.”
This dangerous proposal drew silence.
“That would be putting Becky’s life in danger,” Zane said after a few moments. “Why not wait until they release her?”
“You don’t think they’d really kill her, do you?” Tom said. “It’s a bluff. If they was caught stealing gold, they’d likely be let off with a few years in prison. But murder is a hangin’ crime for sure.”
“That’s a risky assumption to make,” Zane said, inserting himself more and more into the conversation as if he were a participant in this venture. “We don’t even know who these men are, so how can we guess what they’re thinking? They might already be murderers and are so desperate for money, they don’t care if they kill one more.”
Tom apparently hadn’t considered this possibility. “Yeah, could be, I suppose.”
“You reckon Eagles Nest Island is long and skinny like Jackson’s Island?” Huck said. “Let’s go down and ask one o’ the pilots on the Susannah.”
The packet had been there since early morning. As the four approached the landing, there were no signs the crew was preparing to get underway.
A crewman was lounging at the guards.
“When’re ya shovin’ off?” Tom asked.
“When she’s good and ready,” the young mud clerk retorted. “Shovelin’ mud outa the boilers.”
“We wanta talk to one of the pilots.”
“They’re all busy.”
“You ain’t even checked.” Tom was growing red in the face. “Let’s go,” he said striding up the gangway and brushing past the clerk.
“Hey, you can’t go up there!” the clerk cried, jumping up.
“Says who?” Huck shoved himself in the young man’s way.
The clerk apparently thought better of challenging all four of them and moved back, allowing Jim to pass as well.
They found one of the pilots, a clean-shaven man of about thirty eating a sandwich in the main saloon.
“Yeah, I’m the pilot. Josh Logan. What can I do for you boys?” he greeted them genially, wiping his mouth and eyeing Jim standing in back.
“What can you tell us about Eagles Nest Island?” Tom said.
“That’s way down south of here. What d’ya want to know?”
“Is it a huge island or only a little skinny towhead? Is it near the shore . . . things like that.”
Logan paused and appeared to be picturing the island in his mind’s eye.
“Eagles Nest is a broad, bluff island. Stands right out in the middle, head up to the current like the prow of a ship, about three-quarters of a mile long and a thousand feet wide. Well anchored with heavy timber. Not a place you want to come running down on, pushed by a strong current in anything but good daylight and under full steam. Channel is to the Missouri side. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Yeah. Is there a bar?”
“Sure is. At the head. Not a long one, though. When the river’s on the rise, she goes underwater pretty quick.”
“Do you ever stop there?”
“No need to. It’s uninhabited. That’s why the bald eagles like it.”
“Would your captain stop for a hail?”
Logan shrugged. “You’d have to ask him. But frankly, I don’t think so. I would hope not. I always give that island plenty of leeway. One evening in a storm, when it was roaring like the devil from Hades, I was at the wheel when we come down on Eagles Nest. One of our rudder blades sheared off and she wouldn’t answer the helm proper. For maybe half a minute I figured we were goners and she’d pile up on that bar. But we cleared by a cat’s whisker. My heart was beatin’ faster than a hummingbird’s wings, I can tell you. Had nightmares for weeks.”
Zane felt a chill go up his back under the sweaty shirt. He had no experience on a gigantic river like this, and had only crossed it once in a skiff with Jim rowing. But his imagination could visualize the island—a swift, heavy current ripping past on both sides, wind bending the tops of giant trees, the difficulty landing with no protected water, the threat of running aground on the submerged bar, or losing control and crashing into the bank. It would be very tricky.
Tom and Huck thanked the pilot and the four of them departed.
“Dat ain’t de kinder place I wants to go foolin’ wid no kidnappers,” Jim remarked as they made their way down the gangway.
Zane had been thinking the same thing. “I reckon that’s the reason they chose it. They don’t want any company.”
Tom and Huck were quiet. They had grown up here, and spent all
their lives on the river and its islands. If they were sobered by the pilot’s description, it must be a truly fearsome place.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
That afternoon, the Susannah refilled her boilers, fired up, and subsequently departed under a full head of steam for St. Louis.
Tom and Zane went home to face Aunt Polly, while Jim and Huck reported back to the Widow Douglas.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Tom told Zane as they approached the door of the two-story white house on Hill Street. “Aunt Polly, she’ll be a sight easier on me in front of company.”
Zane wondered what kind of ogre this woman would be. He knew from reading Twain’s novels that she was strict, but loving, in the face of some powerful aggravation.
“Well, there you are!” a slightly shrill voice greeted them when Tom banged the door behind them. A lean older woman in a plain gray dress, hair pulled back in a severe bun, emerged from the dining area into the tiny front parlor. “About time you show yourself. You don’t think nothing of worrying a body to death, out all night and the livelong day. What’re all these outrageous rumors I hear? Becky Thatcher kidnapped and you gallivanting all hours, the Lord knows where.” Her rapid-fire tongue paused for a few seconds as she was brought up short by the sight of Zane. “And who might this be?”
“Auntie, you said it was all right if I went camping on Jackson’s Island with Huck and Jim,” Tom defended himself. Before she could reply, he took Zane by the arm. “I met a new friend. This here’s Zane Rasmussen. His folks is visiting kin up in Iowa and they let him come down to St. Petersburg to look up a cousin who used to live here. But the cousin has moved to St. Louis, so we met and . . .”
“All right, never mind all that,” the old lady cut him off waspishly, hardly glancing at Zane. “Tell me what you have to do with this kidnapping business. I know you’re mixed up in it somehow.”