by Dave Mckay
Pap was a-going on so he never saw where his old legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels over the bucket of salted pig meat and took skin off the front of both legs. After that his talking was all the hottest kind of language -- mostly hitting at black people and the government, but he give the bucket some, too, all along, here and there. He jumped around the cabin a lot, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first on one leg and then onto the other, and at last he let out with his left foot and give the bucket a shaking kick.
But it weren’t a good choice, because that was the shoe that had two or three of his toes hanging out the front end of it; so now he let out a shout that was enough to make a body’s hair stand up, and down he went in the dirt, and lay there, holding his toes; and the bad words he used then stood over anything he had ever done before. He said so himself after that. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it stood over him, too; but I think that was kind of putting it on, maybe.
After dinner pap took the bottle, and said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one round of the dreaming shakes. I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would take the key, or saw myself out, one or t’other. He went on drinking and drinking, and fell down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn’t run my way. He didn’t go deep asleep, but was moving around. He groaned and moaned and threw his arms and legs around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so tired it was all I could do to keep my eyes open, and so before I knowed what I was about I was deep asleep, and the candle was still burning.
I don’t know how long I was asleep, but all out of the quiet there was an awful shout and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and jumping around every which way and shouting about snakes. He said they was coming up his legs; and then he would give a jump and shout, and say one was biting him on the cheek -- but I couldn’t see no snakes. He started to run around and around the cabin, shouting “Take him off! take him off! he’s biting me on the neck!” I never seen a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and fell down breathing real fast; then he turned over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and hitting and reaching at the air with his hands, and crying and saying there was devils took a-hold of him. He tired out by and by, and was quiet a while, moaning. Then he was quieter still, and didn’t make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the trees, and it seemed awful quiet. He was laying over by the corner of the cabin.
By and by he lifted himself up part way and listened, with his head to one side.
He says, very low: “Step -- step -- step; that’s the dead; step -- step -- step; they’re coming after me; but I won’t go. Oh, they’re here! Don’t touch me -- don’t! Hands off -- they’re cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!”
Then he went down on all fours and moved around like that, begging them to let him alone, and he covered himself up in his blanket and squeezed in under the old table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket.
By and by he come out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he seen me and went for me. He ran after me around and around the place with a pocket-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, and then I couldn’t come for him no more. I begged, and told him I was only Huck; but he laughed such an awful laugh, and shouted and used bad words, and kept on coming after me. Once when I turned short and raced under his arm he made a reach and got me by the coat between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I come out of that coat fast as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who.
I climbed up as soft as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the rifle. I pushed the stick down it to make sure it had gunpowder in it, then I rested it on the top of a barrel, pointing toward pap, and sat down behind it to wait for him to move. And how slow and quiet the time did go by.
Chapter 7
“ Get up! What're you about?”
I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. The sun was up, and I had been fully asleep. Pap was standing over me looking sour and sick, too.
He says: “What you doing with this gun?”
I judged he didn’t know what he had been doing, so I says: “Someone tried to get in, so I was waiting for him.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I tried to, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t move you.”
“Well, don’t stand there talking all day. Outside and see if there’s fish on the lines for breakfast. I’ll be along in a minute.”
He opened the lock on the door, and I ran out up to the river. I saw some logs and other things moving on the water, so I knowed the river had started to come up. I knew it would have been great times now if I was over at the town. The June rains used to be always good luck for me; because as soon as that happens here comes firewood down the river, and pieces of timber rafts -- sometimes ten or more logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the timber yards.
I went along up the river with one eye out for pap and t’other one out for what the waters might bring along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe; just a perfect one, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck. I jumped head-first off the side of the river, like a frog, clothes and all on, and started swimming for the canoe. I was thinking there’d be someone lying down in it, because people often done that to trick people, and when a boy had pulled a boat out almost to it they’d jump up and laugh at him. But it weren’t so this time. It was a free canoe sure enough, and I climbed in and pushed her to the beach. Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this -- she’s worth ten dollars. But when I got to land pap weren’t around yet, and as I was running her into a little place by a cliff, with willows hanging all over, I come up with a plan: I judged I’d hide her good. The n, instead of taking to the trees when I run off, I’d go down the river about fifty miles and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time walking out on foot.
It was pretty close to the cabin, and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time; but I got her covered; and then I looked around a few trees, and there was the old man down a piece just lining up a bird with his rifle. So he hadn’t seen anything.
When he got along I was hard at it taking up a fish line. He shouted at me for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what made me take so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five fish off the lines and went home.
While we rested up after breakfast, both of us being tired, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be better than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me.
Well, I didn’t see no way for a while, but by and by pap got up a minute to get a drink of water, and he says: “Another time a man comes a-looking around here you wake me up, you hear? That man weren’t here for no good. If I see him, I’ll shoot him. Next time you wake me up, you hear?”
Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been saying give me the very plan I needed. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody won’t think of following me.
About twelve o’clock we got up and went along up the river. The water was coming up pretty fast, and lots of timber was going by. By and by along comes part of a raft -- nine logs tied together. We went out with the boat and pulled it to the beach. Then we had lunch. Anyone but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more timber; but that weren’t pap’s way. Nine logs was enough for one time; he must go straight over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took the boat, and started off pulling the raft about half-past three. I judged he wouldn’t come back that night. I wait
ed until I believed he had got a good start; then I come out with my saw, and went to work on cutting a way out again. Before he was to the other side of the river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a little black spot on the water away off in the distance.
I took the bag of corn meal to where the canoe was, and pushed the willow branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of salted pig meat; then the whiskey. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the bullets; I took the bucket and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and a heavy iron cooking pan and the coffee pot. I took fish lines and matches and other things -- everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there weren’t any, only the one out where we cut firewood, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I took out the rifle, and was done.
I had marked the ground a lot by climbing out of the hole and pulling out so many things through it. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by shaking loose dirt all over the place.
That covered up my footprints and it covered the sawdust from cutting the log too. I fixed the piece of timber back into place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there. If you stood four or five foot away and didn’t know it was cut, you wouldn’t never think any different; besides, this was the back of the cabin; it weren’t like anyone would go looking around there.
It was all grass between there and the canoe, so I hadn’t left footprints. I followed around to see. I stood on the high ground and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the rifle and went up a piece into the trees, and was hunting around for some birds when I seen a wild pig; pigs soon go wild in them parts after they get away from the farms. I used the gun to kill this one and took the body into camp.
I took the axe and broke in the door. I cut it a lot a-doing it. I brought the pig in, took him back almost to the table and cut his throat with the axe, and put him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground -- hard dirt, and no boards. Well, next I took an old bag and put a lot of big rocks in it -- all I could put in and still pull it -- and I started it from the pig, and pulled it to the door and through the trees down to the river and pushed it in, and down it went, to the bottom. You could easy see that something had been pulled over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the special touches. Nobody could show himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.
Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and made it stick on the back side, and threw the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my chest with my coat (so he couldn’t drop blood) until I got a good piece below the cabin and then pushed him into the river too.
Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag of corn meal and my old saw blade out of the canoe, and brought them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and cut a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there weren’t no knives and forks on the place -- pap done everything with his pocket-knife about the cooking. Then I carried the bag about a hundred yards across the grass and through the trees east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five miles wide and full of bullrushes -- and ducks too at the right time of year. There was a very little river coming into it on the other side from miles away, I don’t know where, but it was away from the Mississippi. Some of the meal come out and made a little line all the way to the lake. I dropped pap’s stone for making his knife sharp there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the hole in the meal bag with a string, so it wouldn’t come out no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that was hanging over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I tied up to one of the trees; then took a bite to eat, and by and by leaned back in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they’ll follow the marks from that bag of rocks to the beach and then go into the river to look for me. And they’ll follow the marks from the bag of meal to the lake and go up the little river that leads into it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won’t ever hunt the river for anything but my dead body. They’ll soon get tired of that, and won’t think no more about me. So I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson’s Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can take the boat over to town nights, and go around in secret and pick up things I want. Jackson’s Island’s the place.
I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I come awake I didn’t know where I was for a minute. I sat up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so big I could a counted the logs that went a-moving along, black and quiet, hundreds of yards out from the sides. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and it smelled late. You know what I mean -- I don’t know the words to put it in.
I took a good look, and was just going to cut loose from the tree and start, when I heard a sound away over the water. I lis- tened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that boring kind of over and over sound that comes from oars working in the locks on the side of a boat when it’s a quiet night. I took a little look out through the branches, and there it was -- a boat, away across the water. I couldn’t tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was across from me I see there weren’t but one man in it. Thinks I, maybe it’s pap, but I wasn’t thinking it would be him. He dropped below me with the movement of the river, and by and by he came up close to the beach in the easy water, and he went by so close I could a reached out the rifle and touched him. Well, it was pap, sure enough -- and he weren’t drunk, too, by the way he was using his oars.
I didn’t lose no time. The next minute I was a-moving down river soft but fast in the darkness of the high ground on the side of the river. I made two mile and a half, then pushed out four hundred yards or more toward the middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the boat landing on this side of the river, and people might see me and call out to me. I got out where all the logs were moving along, and then got down in the bottom of the canoe for a good rest, and let her go without oars.
I had a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the light of the moon; I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too -- every word of it. One man said it was getting toward the long days and the short nights now. T’other one said this weren’t one of the short ones, the way he saw it -- and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again; then they waked up another man and told him, and laughed, but he didn’t laugh; he shouted out something bad, and said let him alone.
The first man said he wanted to tell it to his old woman -- she would think it was pretty good; but he said that weren’t nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o’clock, and he hoped morning wouldn’t wait more than about a week longer. After that the talk got farther and farther away, and I couldn’t make out the words any more; but I could hear the sound of them talking, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long way off.
I was way below the ferry now. I put my head up, and there was Jackson’s Island, about two miles and a half down river, covered with trees and standing up out of the middle, big and dark and solid, like a big ship without any lights. There weren’t any signs of the sand at the head of it -- it was all under water.
It didn’t take me long to get there. I flew past the head because the water was moving so quickly, but then I got into the dead water and landed on the side toward Illinois. I run the canoe into a deep opening in the short cliff that hangs over the river on that side, that I knowed about; I had to separate the willow branches to get in; and when
I tied up nobody could a seen the canoe from the outside.
Chapter 8
The sun was up so high when I came awake that I judged it was after eight o’clock. I stayed there lying in the cool of the grass thinking about things, and feeling rested and pretty comfortable and happy. I could see the sun out of one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all about, and dark in there under them all. There was spots on the ground where the light come down through the leaves, and the spots moved about a little, showing there was a little wind up there. Two squirrels sat on a branch and talked at me very friendly.