Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians

by Twain, Mark

  Now as to that antelope, it brought us some pretty bad luck. When we was done supper, that day, and was setting around talking and smoking, Brace begun to make some calculations about where we might be by next Saturday, as if he thought this day was a Saturday, too—which it wasn’t. So Tom he interrupted him and told him it was Friday. They argued over it, but Tom turned out to be right. Brace set there awhile thinking, and looking kind of troubled; then he says:

  “It’s my mistake, boys, and all my fault, for my carelessness. We’re in for some bad luck, and we can’t get around it; so the best way is to keep a sharp look-out for it and beat it if we can—I mean make it come as light as we can, for of course we can’t beat it altogether.”

  Tom asked him why he reckoned we would have bad luck, and it come out that the Bad God was going to fix it for us. He didn’t say Bad God, out and out; didn’t mention his name, seemed to be afraid to; said “he” and “him,” but we understood. He said a body had got to perpetuate him in all kinds of ways. Tom allowed he said propitiate, but I heard him as well as Tom, and he said perpetuate. He said the commonest way and the best way to perpetuate him was to deny yourself something and make yourself uncomfortable, same as you do in any religion. So one of his plans was to try to perpetuate him by vowing to never allow himself to eat meat on Fridays and Sundays, even if he was starving; and now he had gone and eat it on a Friday, and he’d druther have cut his hand off than done it if he had knowed. He said “he” had got the advantage of us, now, and you could bet he would make the most of it. We would have a run of bad luck, now, and no knowing when it would begin or when it would stop.

  We had been pretty cheerful, before that, galloping over them beautiful Plains, and popping at Jack rabbits and prairie dogs and all sorts of things, and snuffing the fresh air of the early mornings, and all that, and having a general good time; but it was all busted up, now, and we quit talking and got terrible blue and uneasy and scared; and Brace he was the bluest of all, and kept getting up, all night, and looking around, when it wasn’t his watch; and he put out the camp fire, too, and several times he went out and took a wide turn around the camp to see if everything was right. And every now and then he would say:

  “Well, it hain’t come yet, but it’s coming.”

  It come the next morning. We started out from camp, just at early dawn, in a light mist, Brace and the pack mule ahead, I next, and Tom last. Pretty soon the mist begun to thicken, and Brace told us to keep the procession closed well up. In about a half an hour it was a regular fog. After a while Brace sings out:

  “Are you all right?”

  “All right,” I says.

  By and by he sings out again:

  “All right, boys?”

  “All right,” I says, and looked over my shoulder and see Tom’s mule’s ears through the fog.

  By and by Brace sings out again, and I sings out, and he says:

  “Answer up, Tom,” but Tom didn’t answer up. So he said it again, and Tom didn’t answer up again; and come to look, there warn’t anything there but the mule—Tom was gone.

  “It’s come,” says Brace, “I knowed it would,” and we faced around and started back, shouting for Tom. But he didn’t answer.

  Chapter 7

  WHEN we had got back a little ways we struck wood and water, and Brace got down and begun to unsaddle. Says I:

  “What you going to do?”

  “Going to camp.”

  “Camp!” says I, “why what a notion. I ain’t going to camp, I’m going for Tom.”

  “Going for Tom! Why, you fool, Tom’s lost,” he says, lifting off his saddle.

  “Of course he is,” I says, “and you may camp as much as you want to, but I ain’t going to desert him, I’m going for him.”

  “Huck, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Get off of that mule.”

  But I didn’t. I fetched the mule a whack, and started; but he grabbed him and snaked me off like I was a doll, and set me on the ground. Then he says:

  “Keep your shirt on, and maybe we’ll find him, but not in the fog. Don’t you reckon I know what’s best to do?” He fetched a yell, and listened, but didn’t get any answer. “We couldn’t find him in the fog; we’d get lost ourselves. The thing for us to do is to stick right here till the fog blows off. Then we’ll begin the hunt, with some chance.”

  I reckoned he was right, but I most wanted to kill him for eating that antelope meat and never stopping to think up what day it was and he knowing so perfectly well what consounded luck it would fetch us. A body can’t be too careful about such things.

  We unpacked, and picketed the mules, and then set down and begun to talk, and every now and then fetched a yell, but never got any answer. I says:

  “When the fog blows off, how long will it take us to find him, Brace?”

  “If he was an old hand on the Plains, we’d find him pretty easy; because as soon as he found he was lost he would set down and not budge till we come. But he’s green, and he won’t do that. The minute a greeny finds he’s lost, he can’t keep still to save his life—tries to find himself, and gets lost worse than ever. Loses his head; wears himself out, fretting and worrying and tramping in all kinds of directions; and what with starving, and going without water, and being so scared, and getting to mooning and imagining more and more, it don’t take him but two or three days to go crazy, and then—”

  “My land, is Tom going to be lost as long as that?” I says; “it makes the cold shudders run over me to think of it.”

  “Keep up your pluck,” he says, “it ain’t going to do any good to lose that. I judge Tom ain’t hurt; I reckon he got down to cinch up, or something, and his mule got away from him, and he trotted after it, thinking he could keep the direction where the fog swallowed it up, easy enough; and in about a half a minute he was turned around and trotting the other way, and didn’t doubt he was right, and so didn’t holler till it was too late—it’s the way they always do, consound it. And so, if he ain’t hurt—”

  He stopped; and as he didn’t go on, I says:

  “Well? If he ain’t hurt, what then?”

  He didn’t say anything, right away; but at last he says:

  “No, I reckon he ain’t hurt, and that’s just the worst of it; because there ain’t no power on earth can keep him still, now. If he’d a broken his leg—but of course he couldn’t, with this kind of luck against him.”

  We whooped, now and then, but I couldn’t whoop much, my heart was most broke. The fog hung on, and on, and on, till it seemed a year, and there we set and waited; but it was only a few hours, though it seemed so everlasting. But the sun busted through it at last, and it begun to swing off in big patches, and then Brace saddled up and took a lot of provisions with him, and told me to stick close to camp and not budge, and then he cleared out and begun to ride around camp in a circle, and then in bigger circles, watching the ground for signs all the time; and so he circled wider and wider, till he was far away, and then I couldn’t see him any more. Then I freshened up the fire, which he told me to do, and throwed armfuls of green grass on it to make a big smoke; it went up tall and straight to the sky, and if Tom was ten mile off he would see it and come.

  I set down, blue enough, to wait. The time dragged heavy. In about an hour I see a speck away off across country, and begun to watch it; and when it got bigger, it was a horseman, and pretty soon I see it was Brace, and he had something across the horse, and I reckoned it was Tom, and he was hurt. But it wasn’t; it was a man. Brace laid him down, and says:

  “Found him out yonder. He’s been lost, nobody knows how long—two or three weeks, I judge. He’s pretty far gone. Give him a spoonful of soup every little while, but not much, or it will kill him. He’s as crazy as a loon, and tried to get away from me, but he’s all used up, and he couldn’t. I found Tom’s trail in a sandy place, but I lost it again in the grass.”

  So away he started again, across country, and left me and this fellow there, and I went to making so
up. He laid there with his eyes shut, breathing kind of heavy, and muttering and mumbling. He was just skin and bones and rags, that’s all he was. His hands was all scratched up and bloody, and his feet the same and all swelled up and wore out, and a sight to look at. His face—well, I never see anything so horrible. It was baked with the sun, and was splotchy and purple, and the skin was flaked loose and curled, like old wall paper that’s rotted on a damp wall. His lips was cracked and dry, and didn’t cover his teeth, so he grinned very disagreeable, like a steel-trap. I judged he had walked till his feet give out on him, and then crawled around them deserts on his hands and knees; for his knees hadn’t any flesh or skin on them.

  When I got the soup done, I touched him, and he started up scared, and stared at me a second, and then tried to scramble away; but I catched him and held him pretty easy, and he struggling and begging very pitiful for me to let him go and not kill him. I told him I warn’t going to hurt him, and had made some nice soup for him; but he wouldn’t touch it at first, and shoved the spoon away and said it made him sick to see it. But I persuaded him, and told him I would let him go if he would eat a little, first. So then he made me promise three or four times, and then he took a couple of spoonfuls; and straight off he got just wild and ravenous, and wanted it all. I fed him a cup full, and then carried the rest off and hid it; and so there I had to set, by the hour, and him begging for more; and about every half an hour I give him a little, and his eyes would blaze at the sight of it, and he would grab the cup out of my hands and take it all down at a gulp, and then try to crowd his mouth into it to lick the bottom, and get just raging and frantic because he couldn’t.

  Between times he would quiet down and doze; and then start up wild, and say “Lost, my God, lost!” and then see me, and recollect, and go to begging for something to eat again. I tried to get something out of him about himself, but his head was all wrong, and you couldn’t make head nor tail of what he said. Sometimes he seemed to say he had been lost ten years, and sometimes it was ten weeks, and once I judged he said a year; and that is all I could get out of him, and no particulars. He had a little gold locket on a gold chain around his neck, and he would take that out and open it and gaze and gaze at it and forget what he was doing, and doze off again. It had a most starchy young woman in it, dressed up regardless, and two little children in her arms, painted on ivory, like some the widow Douglas had of her old anzesters in Scotland.

  This kind of worry and sweat went on the whole day long, and was the longest day I ever see. And then the sun was going down, and no Tom and no Brace. This fellow was sound asleep, for about the first time. I took a look at him, and judged it would last; so I thought I would run out and water the mules and put on their side-lines and get right back again before he stirred. But the pack mule had pulled his lariat loose, and was a little ways off dragging it after him and grazing, and I walked along after him, but every time I got pretty close he throwed up his head and trotted a few steps, and first I knowed he had tolled me a long ways, and I wished I had the other mule to catch him with, but I dasn’t go back after him, because the dark would catch me and I would lose this one, sure; so I had to keep tagging along after him afoot, coming as near to cussing the antelope meat as I dast, and getting powerful nervous all the time, and wondering if some more of us was going to get lost. And I would a got lost if I hadn’t had a pretty big fire; for you could just barely see it, away back yonder like a red spark when I catched the mule at last, and it was plumb dark too, and getting black before I got home. It was that black when I got to camp that you couldn’t see at all, and I judged the mules would get water enough pretty soon without any of my help; so I picketed them closer by than they was before, and put on their side-lines, and groped into the tent, and bent over this fellow to hear if he was there, yet, and all of a sudden it busted on me that I had been gone two or three hours, I didn’t know how long, and of course he was out and gone, long ago, and how in the nation would I ever find him in the dark, and this awful storm coming up, and just at that minute I hear the wind begin to shiver along amongst the leaves, and the thunder to mumble and grumble away off, and the cold chills went through me to think of what I had done and how in the world I was ever going to find him again in the dark and the rain, dad fetch him for making all this trouble, poor pitiful rat, so far from home and lost, and I so sorry for him, too.

  So I held my breath and listened over him, and by Jackson he was there yet, and I hear him breathe—about once a minute. Once a week would a done me, though, it sounded so good to hear him and I was so thankful he hadn’t sloped. I fastened the flap of the tent and then stretched out snug on my blankets, wishing Tom and Brace was there; and thinks I, I’ll let myself enjoy this about five minutes before I sail out and freshen up the camp fire.

  The next thing that I knowed anything about, was no telling how many hours afterwards. I sort of worked along up out of a solid sleep, then, and when I come to myself the whole earth was rocking with the smashingest blast of thunder I ever heard in my life and the rain was pouring down like the bottom had fell out of the sky. Says I, now I’ve done it! the camp fire’s out, and no way for Tom or Brace to find the camp. I lit out, and it was so; everything drenched, not a sign of an ember left. Of course nobody could ever start a new fire out there in the rain and wind; but I could build one inside and fetch it out after it got to going good. So I rushed in and went to bulging around in the dark, and lost myself and fell over this fellow, and scrambled up off of him, and begged his pardon and asked if I hurt him; but he never said a word and didn’t make a sound. And just then comes one of them blind-white glares of lightning that turns midnight to daytime, and there he laid, grinning up at me, stone dead. And he had hunks of bread and meat around, and I see in a second how it all was. He had got at our grub whilst I was after the mule, and over-eat himself and died, and I had been sleeping along perfectly comfortable with his relics I don’t know how long, and him the gashliest sight I ever struck. But I never waited there to think all that; I was out in the public wilderness before the flash got done quivering, and I never went back no more. I let him have it all to his own self; I didn’t want no company.

  I went off a good ways, and staid the rest of the night out, and got most drownded; and about an hour or more after sun-up Tom and Brace come, and I was glad. I told them how things had went, and we took the gold locket and buried the man and had breakfast, and Brace didn’t scold me once. Tom was about used up, and we had to stay there a day or two for him to get straightened up again. I asked him all about it, and he says:

  “I got down to cinch up, and I nearly trod on a rattlesnake which I didn’t see, but heard him go bzzz! right at my heel. I jumped most a rod, I was so scared and taken so sudden, and I run about three steps, and then looked back over my shoulder and my mule was gone—nothing but just white fog there. I forgot the snake in a second, and went for the mule. For ten steps I didn’t hurry, expecting to see him all the time; but I picked up my heels, then, and run. When I had run a piece I got a little nervous, and was just going to yell, though I was ashamed to, when I thought I heard voices ahead of me, bearing to the right, and that give me confidence, knowing it must be you boys; so I went heeling it after you on a short-cut; but if I did hear voices I misjudged the direction and went the other way, because you know you can’t really tell where a sound comes from, in a fog. I reckon you was trotting in one direction and me in the other, because it warn’t long before I got uneasy and begun to holler, and you didn’t hear me nor answer. Well, that scared me so that I begun to tremble all over, and I did wish the fog would lift, but it didn’t, it shut me in, all around, like a thick white smoke. I wanted to wait, and let you miss me and come back, but I couldn’t stay still a second; it would a killed me; I had to run, and I did. And so I kept on running, by the hour, and listening, and shouting; but never a sound did ever I hear; and whenever I stopped just a moment and held my breath to listen, it was the awfulest stillness that ever was, and I couldn’t
stand it and had to run on again.

  “When I got so beat out and tired I couldn’t run any more, I walked; and when the fog went off at last and I looked over my shoulder and there was a tall smoke going up in the sky miles across the plain behind me, I says to myself if that was ahead of me it might be Huck and Brace camping and waiting for me; but it’s in the wrong direction, and maybe it’s Injuns and not whites; so I wouldn’t take any chances on it, but kept right on; and by and by I thought I could see something away off on the prairie, and it was Brace, but I didn’t know it, and so I hid. I saw him, or something, twice more before night, and I hid both times; and I walked, between times, further and further away from that smoke and stuck to ground that wouldn’t leave much of a track; and in the night I walked and crawled, together, because I couldn’t bear to keep still, and was so hungry, and so scratched up with cactuses, and getting kind of out of my head besides; but the storm drove me up onto a swell to get out of the water, and there I staid, and took it. Brace he searched for me till dark, and then struck for home, calculating to strike for the camp fire and lead his horse and pick his way; but the storm was too heavy for that, and he had to stop and give up that notion; and besides you let the fire go out, anyway. I went crawling off as soon as dawn come, and making a good trail, the ground was so wet; and Brace found it and then he found me; and the next time I get down to cinch up a mule in the fog I’ll notify the rest of you; and the next time I’m lost and see a smoke I’ll go for it, I don’t care if it comes out of the pit.”