The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Greg Matthews
“Andrew, these two men in the poem, did they go back to Fort Kearney on the rafts or take the boats up ahead to Fort Laramie?”
“I believe they went with the boats, but I can’t be sure. Were the lines not to your liking?”
“Oh, it’s mighty fine, I reckon. You surely do have the poetical touch, Andrew. Did you do a verse on Cap’n Jack?”
“I did. Perhaps you’d offer your opinion.
“The skipper of this noble ship
Was full of beard, thin of lip.
Upon his head a captain’s hat,
His figure lean and far from fat.
Upon his brow a worried frown
As on the flood the ice came down,
But when the foaming waters cleared
He gave a tug upon his beard
And gave another on the whistle,
The grandest sound in this epistle.
‘Hurrah!’ we cried as paddles churned
‘We’re off to where our hearts have yearned!’
Westward-ho and feed the fire
That takes us to our heart’s desire.
Three cheers for our gallant crew
And three cheers for the captain too,
For his keen eye and steady hand
Will steer us to the promised land.
Set forth upon the sweeping flood,
Inflame the soul and stir the blood.
For bold adventure’s in the air
And Captain Jack will take us there.
“Those were the last lines I composed aboard the Nicobar. Now, of course, I have a shipwreck, bloody carnage and a thrilling chase to compose. I’ll begin at once.”
And he kind of squinted his eyes and nodded his head up and down in time with the verses that come rushing into his brain. It’s the first time I ever seen a poem made in front of me, and we kept hush out of respect for the brain squeezing he needed to make all the tail-end words match up.
Rufus and Eben kept ahead of us, still talking and now and then turning around to see if we’re still there, which we was so they done more jawing, and that’s how the day passed. We still had meat left over from the deer and et our fill gathered around the fire that night. Andrew kept right on poeming and me and Jim stayed quiet for it, doing our piece for artisticalness. The other two had the sulks over something and never opened their mouths except to put more food in, and it warn’t long before we was all asleep.
What woke me up was the barrel of my Hawken poking in my ribs. Rufus was at the other end of it with Eben stood beside him.
“Get up,” he says.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Hoyt?”
“You bet there is, and you’re it. You and the nigger are just about the wrongest thing I ever come across. Now get up and wake the rest.”
I done it and they made Jim and me stand over by a big rock so’s he could cover us with my rifle. Andrew says:
“What in the world has come over you men? What does this mean?”
“I’ll tell you, Mr. Poet, it’s them two there. Me and Eben reckon they ain’t who they say they are.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re Huckleberry Finn and Nigger Jim. There’s a reward out on them for murder back in Missouri, and we aim to claim on it.”
“I’m Daniel McPhee, honest,” says I, “and this here’s Ben, truly he is.…”
“And I’m the president,” says Rufus. “Eben seen posters in St. Louis and St. Joe, and they give a description of you two plain as day. It won’t do no good to deny it, we made up our minds on that money.”
“This is outrageous,” says Andrew, hopping from one foot to the other all anxious. “The boy has saved us from horrible torture and certain death. You can’t repay him in this fashion. Even if he is who you say, what does it matter? Surely by his actions in rescuing us he has compensated for whatever misdeeds he may have done.…”
“We don’t see it that way, poet,” says Eben. “These two are worth a thousand dollars, maybe more by now, and that’s the kind of money me and Rufus need to get to California. We lost our jobs thanks to the cap’n and his crazy scheme to run the Platte, so now we aim to be forty-niners. The reward’ll be a grubstake for us, so don’t go getting in the way.”
“I must express my deep disappointment in your behavior. I have never before witnessed such ingratitude.…”
“Button your lip and get over there with them if you’re that full of sympathy for murderers.”
“Very well, if that’s what I must do to express my contempt.”
And he done it, too. Rufus says:
“I guess it sticks in your craw the way you got this far and then got captured, Finn.”
“I reckon I’m a mite upset by it.”
“Well it’s no more’n you deserve, you little …”
He had to stop talking there on account of the arrow that’s gone through his neck from one side clear out the other, and he’s got a startled look on his face when he dropped the Hawken and crumpled on the ground. Eben’s mouth hung open in surprise, so he never got the chance to say nothing before he got an arrow too, square in the chest. It only took but a moment. Andrew clapped a hand over his mouth and stood there looking horrified, then out from cover stepped Running Horse and two more Injuns. They never spoke a word, just scalped Rufus and Eben, making sure they got the ears and ear-rings on Rufus’s scalp, then one of them went over to Andrew and got set to lift his hair as well.
“No!” I hollered, and he stopped. “Not that one! He ain’t to blame! It was Rufus fired the cannon and you killed him already! Please don’t go hurting no one else.…”
I got down on my knees in front of Running Horse and done the speech over again. He never understood a word, but the message must of been plain because they left Andrew alone and Running Horse give a speech, maybe telling how after mourning for a dead chief the warriors can go back to what they was doing before they got interrupted, or maybe telling us never to show our faces in Sioux territory again, I can’t tell, but when he finished him and the others just melted back into cover and we three was left alone. Andrew says:
“This is a nuisance. I’ve already composed at least fifty lines describing your capture by natives as a child, and now I know it to be untrue all my efforts have been wasted.”
“I’m sorry, Andrew, truly I am, but you can see why I done the lying.”
“Yes indeed. I’m being foolish,” he says, and took a look at the scalped bodies and fainted.
He looked kind of peaceful there on the ground so we left him reposed with his mouth open while we covered Rufus and Eben with rocks and got ready to leave. I can’t say I’m sorry they was dead, which is natural considering the mean-hearted way they repaid what I done for them both, but the thing that bothers me is I never had hardly no feelings at all except maybe relief. Just a few months back seeing them peeled heads would of turned my belly and made me puke for a week, but now I ain’t the same person no more, which is worrisome. A body that can’t feel no sense of regret when he sees something like that ain’t a complete and entire person without he’s made of wood. Judge Thatcher told me once that all is flux, which means moving all the time like quicksilver, and time and change will make a man different no matter how hard he tries to hold back, so I reckon that’s what must of happened to me, only the inside part of me ain’t getting bigger with the change, only smaller. It’s a puzzlement.
Andrew come around near the end of the job and I told him the whole truth about Jim and me and made him promise never to tell no one nothing, which he done willing and I believed him. He warn’t a strong man but he’s honest, and we could of done worse than have him along for company.
We got on the horses, of which there’s only three left since Running Horse and his friends took the rest, and kept on following the wagon tracks leading to Fort Laramie. Along toward the end of the afternoon Andrew says:
“I have a few more lines for your consideration, Huckleberry.” “Let’s hear ’em then.”
“Outcast orphan, victim of Fate,
Young Finn did all but hesitate,
Accused of murder, set free from jail,
He cast his lot beyond the pale
And set off with his trusty friend,
His hopeful journeyings to end
In western lands where all are free
To bathe in radiant Liberty.
But Fate was not content to let
Our unsung hero get there yet,
For on his trail the hounds did bay,
Reminding him of yesterday
While fleeing for his very life
To seek a haven free of strife.
Pursued across the trackless waste
Oft times slowly, oft in haste,
He crossed the daunting wilderness
With Christian charity unblessed.
Befriended by the savage Sioux,
A wordless bond between them grew.
That bond was burst asunder when
There came a ship of foolish men
Who witlessly grew scared and slew
A bevy of the noble Sioux,
A slaughter witnessed by young Huck
Who realized his run of luck
Had trickled off to well nigh naught;
‘Gainst fickle Fate he’d so long fought
And now his dream of peace had gone,
Blasted to oblivion
By craven men of Finn’s own hue,
Yet to his race he still held true
And chose to risk both life and limb
By saving souls unknown to him.
In darkness came the gallant Huck
With quiet display of youthful pluck
And won the trust of these few men
Who scarce believed their fortune when
He spirited them safe away
Before the dawning of the day.
“The chase and its outcome will follow on, naturally, but for the moment I feel quite drained by creative effort.”
“Well I ain’t surprised. You must of wrung your brain like a dish rag to strain out all that rhyming. How is it you ain’t famous for being the greatest poet in the world?”
“I once tried to have some of my work published. The editor told me he had never in all his life come across such inmitigated doggerel.”
“I guess he must of been impressed, and I don’t blame him for it.”
“I … I’m grateful for your appreciation,” he says, blushing like a girl. He’s modest too, is Andrew.
17
Invitation to a Wedding—A Stern Warning—The Woman in Black—The Bride Unveiled—A Question of Color—Declarations in the Hay
Two days later we reached Fort Laramie. It’s bigger than Fort Kearney, built partly in mud brick and partly in wood, and there’s the usual Injun tepees all around but no wagons, so whichever train come this way recent has gone again, heading for South Pass and the Rockies. We reined in a mile or so from the fort and run over the plan we come up with for safekeeping, the main part of which means Jim has to stay in hiding while me and Andrew go into the fort and buy supplies with Andrew’s money and hear the news and see if Bulldog Barrett is sniffing around and if Pap’s there. In my buckskins I look like an Injun, but with Jim alongside we still look like desperado Finn and his Nigger accomplice. So we found a place for Jim to hide away in a little ravine that never had tracks around it so no one ever went there, and promised to get back soon as we can. Then Andrew and me rode up to the fort, which is considerable bigger up close than she looks from a distance.
Inside there’s hustle and bustle with soldiers and other whites all milling around and Injuns propped up against walls or sat crosslegged smoking pipes. There was stables and a blacksmith shop and a store set up in a corner of the quadrangle with a sign outside: PETTIFER’S STORE.
We went in and there’s everything you could want to buy, and the storekeeper come up and says he’s John Pettifer himself, around fifty with a friendly face. Andrew never had much idea what kind of supplies we needed so I give him a list before we went inside. Part of the plan is for me to act like I can’t talk, just in case someone who speaks Injun tries to get jawing, which would of give the game away. Andrew ordered what I listed and paid for it out of a little purse like women carry and we put it all in sacks. Then he asks where can he buy saddles, seeing as how we’re all of us tired of riding bareback, which makes your legs itchy and mighty odorsome too. Mr. Pettifer took us to another part of the store and showed a collection of saddles and harness, some of it new but mostly second-hand. Andrew never had good judgment for it so I pointed out the ones we wanted, battered some but still good, and the whole shebang came to a hundred and twenty-eight dollars. Andrew broke out in a sweat at that, but he paid up and looked at the money that’s left in his purse with a mournful eye. It was a fat purse before and slimmed down some now, but we needed what we got so there ain’t no helping it. Mr. Pettifer says:
“Who’s the Injun?”
“His name is Turtle. He’s my guide, dumb, poor fellow, but absolutely loyal to me.”
“If there’s just him and you how come you need three saddles?”
But I already had Andrew primed for that one and he says:
“We will use it for trade with redskins while passing through the Rockies. Turtle tells me they prize saddles greatly.”
“How could he tell you that if he’s dumb?”
“I … uh …”
I seen the danger and started doing sign language in the air with my fingers, darting them rapid this way and that, and Andrew says:
“Sign language. We communicate by sign language.”
“I know Injun sign talk myself, Sioux, Shoshone, a little Cheyenne, but I can’t make head nor tail of what he’s saying.”
“That is because he’s using white sign language, sir. In the east I tutored deaf and dumb children and found it necessary to perfect a means of communication with them. I have employed the same lessons with Turtle, rather than subject myself to the inconvenience of learning native signs.”
“That’s right smart of you,” says Mr. Pettifer. “Did you report to Colonel Beckwith yet?”
“Colonel Beckwith?”
“He’s in charge here. He takes down the names of anyone that passes through, on their own or with a train. You’d best get on over and give him the details. He’s a stickler for the rules and likes things sewed up neat.”
“I’ll do so immediately. May we leave our purchases here for the moment?”
“Sure you can. I’ll keep ’em behind the counter till you get back. You can put your horses in the stable for fifty cents a day. How long do you plan on stopping over?”
“Not long, I think. I’m impatient to reach California.”
“Why don’t you stay around for a few days? There’ll be another train along any day now and you could ride along with them for company. There’s a wedding this afternoon, too, and just take a guess who the lucky bridegroom is—yours truly. You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?”
“Indeed not. It’s a comfort to find such civilized institutions operating out here. Goodbye until later.”
We stabled the horses then walked across the quadrangle where a bunch of soldiers was marching back and forth, back and forth, raising dust and going nowhere, and Andrew asks someone where he can find Colonel Beckwith. We got pointed the way to his office, which is raised up behind some steps and a wide porch to keep the sun off the windows. I waited outside and smoked my pipe like all the other Injuns stood around and a minute later Andrew come out and says the colonel wants to see me too, so I went in.
The colonel’s office ain’t all that big but it’s got the same kind of air the judge’s office used to have. There must be something about important folk that rubs off on the walls. The colonel was sat behind a desk all covered in paper and had bushy sidewhiskers that stuck out like little wings on his face, and I figured he growed them to make up for having a baldy head. His nose was beaky and his eyes set
“What’s his name?” asked the colonel.
“He calls himself Turtle.”
“He’s not full-blooded, his face and hair are all wrong.”
“I … believe he’s a half-caste.”
“What tribe?”
“The Sioux.”
“Just so. His shirt has the Sioux markings. You say he’s mute?”
“Completely. He has a tongue but cannot make a sound. I suspect a damaged larynx, possibly a childhood accident or birth defect.”
“Hmmmm.… Now then, Mr. Collins, you say you’ve come all the way from St. Joseph alone?”
“Until I met Turtle, yes.”
“That’s the foolhardiest thing I’ve ever heard! You’re a greenhorn, Mr. Collins, and you just don’t know what you’re up against out here. You can consider yourself lucky to be alive. I daresay its your friend here that’s kept you that way.”
“I acknowledge Turtle’s importance in surviving the journey.”
“The only safe way across country like this is by wagon train. A few weeks ago we had a handful of men stagger in here from a steamboat wreck back down the Platte. I ask you, who but a fool would book passage on a dry river like the Platte? They were lucky to be alive too, but did they stop to consider their situation? No sir, they did not, just bought horses from the local redskins and kept going west. I’m growing heartily sick of all you easterners swarming across the plains, ill prepared for what you find. The small parties who want to travel fast are the worst. They’re just asking to get scalped. For my own peace of mind and your own safety I want you to join up with an incoming train, Mr. Collins. I can’t make you do it, but if you take my advice your chances of reaching California will increase tenfold, that I guarantee.”
“I’ll give the matter my earnest consideration, Colonel.”
“Do more than that, mister, or you’ll more than likely wind up as buzzard food. Once you’re with a train I also advise you to part company with the halfbreed. They’re even less popular than full-bloods and you’ll have trouble on your hands. You won’t need a personal guide when you’re part of a train. Just give him some rations and geegaws and he’ll be happy to go back to the Sioux.”