Another fretful week rolled by, then word ran through tent city like wildfire. The ice is gone! There was a rush to the river and sure enough, there she is sweeping by with only a little chunk now and then, and there was shouting and hoorahing and a pistol got emptied at the sky. People hugged each other and men danced around till they fell in the mud. Then there’s another rush to the wagon-master’s office to see the notice nailed up outside. It got tore off so they nailed up another. That went too so they had a hundred or so printed up and handed around so everyone can read the schedule and get ready.
Mrs. Ambrose’s number was set to get ferried across two days from now, or maybe sooner on account of a whole slew of ferries got built real fast and rope lines was rowed over to the other side and staked, so the schedule warn’t nothing but a waste of time and ink. The longest chain in the state got pulled tight till it’s just under the water out in midstream and the first wagon and team rolled on board the ferry in the afternoon and got a send-off from the crowd like it was Columbus setting out in the Mayflower. The men hauled on the chain and away she went, swinging downstream some halfway across, then pulled back on course when they got closer to the shore. The team was whipped up and the wagon rolled off onto real western soil, and there was more cheering and gunshooting. The new ferries had lines of wagons waiting too, and pretty soon was crossing the river every five minutes or so. We never wasted no time. Jim and me hitched up the mules and I put a saddle on Mrs. Ambrose’s horse and led the way down to the riverbank.
Nobody give a hoot what number they was, just first come first served, and you had to pay the ferrymen five dollars for the trip. When night come the ferries set lamps on their corner poles and it was a fine sight to see them going back and forth with the lights shining and reflecting in the water. Then one of the wagonmasters come down to the bank and tried to make the ferrymen quit on account of there might be an accident with folks drowning in the dark, but they told him he’s just an old woman and kept right on working, and them in the wagons never paid him no mind neither so he give up.
Around midnight it got to be our turn. Jim led the mules by the bridles and they clattered aboard and pulled the wagon after, prancing and skittish. There’s plenty of room so I rode on board too and got down so the horse don’t throw me overboard. The ferrymen heaved and across we went. The mules got panicky when they felt the current under their feet but Jim got them calmed. In a little while the ferry bumps onto the shore and we’re out of Missouri.
There warn’t no sudden change. There’s a few cabins over on this side of the river and the wagons was all trying to get assembled a half mile away, but it’s a shambles and they ended up scattered all over. Some of them wanted to get started right then in the dark, but the smart ones say to wait for daylight and the wagonmaster. There was near a hundred wagons brung over before word reaches us that the sheriff got called in to make the ferrymen stop. The plan is to let the first batch which is already over get a day or two start on the next batch so they don’t get all bunched up together. There’s three or four different wagonmasters and each has got his own train to look after, so we’re lucky to be with the first. There’s people with us that was supposed to be with other trains but it all got scrambled in the rush to the ferries, and even if they paid their money to a different wagonmaster they warn’t bothered by it, and everyone settled down to get some sleep.
10
The Wagon Train—A Mountain Man—An Unpaid Debt—Conjures and Crows—A Hex Is Planned
At first light our wagonmaster come over and joined us, and his name is Colonel Naismith. He’s tall and dignificated and from Tennessee, and you could tell just looking at him he’s used to getting his way, only this morning he’s mean-tempered over what happened last night. He went around the wagons on his horse, which is a thoroughbred, and told everyone to get assembled. When there’s a big crowd around him he says:
“We have begun badly. Last night was a disgrace, and if such a breach of discipline occurs again the perpetrators will be singled out and punished in no uncertain terms. I mean what I say. A wagon train must operate as a unit, a family, and there can be only one head of that family. In future I expect all of you to do as ordered, for your own good.”
No one spoke up, just looked sheepish, and the colonel turns to a man stood beside him. He’s forty or so, small and wrinkled and wearing buckskins with fringes and beads all over and broken-down moccasins. His hair is done in two long braids and his beard was salt and peppered. There’s a feather stuck in his hat and in his hand there’s a long rifle same as mine. Colonel Naismith says:
“I introduce you to our guide for the long journey ahead. Mr. Winterbough has wide experience of the western terrain. He has worked for the famed Missouri Fur Company and is one of the original Green River men. The money each of you has paid constitutes his fee for services about to be rendered, and I regard it as sound investment. I have total confidence in his expertise and have placed him as second in command of his enterprise. Mr. Winterbough, do you wish to say a few words?”
“I reckon not,” he says.
“In that case,” says the colonel, “please return to your wagons and prepare to move out. Do not crowd together and do not lag behind. The heavier wagons will be first in line, especially if drawn by oxen. They will set the pace for us all. There will be no racing or overtaking. That is all.”
It took an hour or more till everyone was strung out in a line and started moving. Jim drove our wagon with Mrs. Ambrose sat next to him and I stayed on horseback and rode alongside, just ambling slow. It was tiresome and dull, so I rode back along the train to the end, where the last in line is a two-wheeled buggy with one horse and a driver. He’s dressed neat with a waistcoat that matches up with his jacket and britches and a necktie and porkpie hat. He looked like he’s on his way to church, and was mighty upset about being tailender.
“I just don’t see the point,” he says to me. “Why should I be last? For that matter why do we have to travel in line when the country is wide open?”
“I don’t rightly know. It’s just the way they do it,” says I.
“Well I can’t see the sense, not a scrap. I’m a businessman and I don’t believe it’s right that I should have to trail behind farmers and ne’er-do-wells just because I had the intelligence to invest in a lighter vehicle than them. I made a close study of the exploits of the pioneers and from it drew one firm conclusion; heavy wagons will be unable to cross the mountains. Those idiots at the front with their tons of weight will find themselves in trouble when we reach the Rockies, believe you me. If any of them could read they would have drawn the same conclusion and planned things the way I’ve done. My rig will sail over those peaks like a cork riding the waves. There is no doubt in my mind I will be among the first to reach California, if not the first. I’m just biding my time back here, young man. Before journey’s end I will have taken my rightful place at the head of the column.”
“Yessir, I expect so.”
He warn’t pleasant company so I rode to the head of the train counting wagons on the way, and there’s ninety-seven of them stretched out over maybe a mile. The pioneers never seen such a train. It just went on and on and was a mighty uplifting sight, and every turn of the wheels took me and Jim further away from St. Petersburg and Pap and Bulldog Barrett. I got to the head of the line and there’s Colonel Naismith and Mr. Winterbough plodding along on their horses fifty yards ahead of the rest. Mr. Winterbough’s horse showed poorly next to the colonel’s thoroughbred, just a runty pony sprinkled with black and white and brown with a shaggy mane that hung in his eyes and a tail that’s all over knots. I reined in a little way behind, then the colonel looked back and seen me and waved me to come ahead, so I rode up alongside them and he says:
“Well, youngster, how does it feel to be heading west?”
“It feels mighty fine, sir. I never went further west than the Mississippi before in my life. I’m from Illinois.”
“How many of you
r family are with you?” he asks.
“Just my aunt on my ma’s side, Mrs. Ambrose, and our nigger Goliath.”
“You mean there are no adult men with you?” he says, looking concerned.
“No, sir, unless you count Goliath. He’s full growed.”
“What is your name?”
“Jeff Trueblood, sir.”
“Well, Jeff Trueblood, the weight of responsibility must rest upon your young shoulders for the duration of the journey. You must play the part of a man and render your aunt every assistance.”
“Yessir, that’s what I figured when we started out. I’m all prepared for it.”
“You have the right spirit,” he says. “The way ahead is fraught with dangers both anticipated and unforeseen, and we will all need stout hearts and steady hands to win through, but with God’s help we will surely do it. Mr. Winterbough, I shall ride back along the train to see if there are any teething troubles. Good day to you, young Trueblood,” he says polite, even if I ain’t but a boy, then turned his horse and gallops away.
I rode along with Mr. Winterbough awhile and he never spoke a word, just smoked his pipe and spit occasional at the ground. Finally he says:
“Mighty fine rifle you got there.”
“Thank you. It’s a Hawken.”
“Mine too,” he says, then a few hundred yards on he follows up with: “There ain’t finer than a Hawken.”
“Yessir.”
“Don’t call me sir. I ain’t no gentleman.”
“No, sir, Mr. Winterbough.”
“No need to call me that neither. I got give Thaddeus for a name.”
He coughed a little and spit a gob and I seen he’s got as many spaces between his teeth as a picket fence, and them that’s left is all snaggled and brown. It felt like we was almost to the Rockies before he spoke up again. He’s the silentest man I ever come across outside of a deaf and dumb person. He says:
“That rifle of your’n has got a familiar look to it.”
“Yessir … Thaddeus. It’s the same as you got. I recollect discussing it a few mile back.”
“I mean I seen that very one before. Give it over so’s I can see her good, if you don’t mind.”
I handed her across and he looked at the stock, going straight for the little letters carved there, and nods his head.
“I knowed her soon as I seen her. This here gun was Jed Frazer’s.”
“Is that someone you’re acquainted with?” says I.
“Was,” he says. “He’s been dead a fair number of years.”
“How did he come to die?”
“Crows,” he says.
“Pecked to death?” I ask.
“Crow Injuns, boy, the hostilest there is.”
“Why?”
“That’s just their way. Some Injuns is friendly and some’s hostile. Take Mandans f’rinstance. They’re right glad to see a white man generally. They’ll feed him and trade with him and be glad of his company, but Crows is different. They just hate to see a white face in their territory.”
“Are we going to pass through there?”
“Nope, a ways south. Jed and me was up in Crow country after beaver back in ’thirty-six. Skinned a heap of ’em.”
“Crows?”
“Beaver. Crows skin you if they catch you settin’ traps. That’s what happened to Jed, catched and skinned. He was alive at the time. Heard him clear across the Rockies. Had a powerful setter lungs.”
“Did you try and rescue him?”
“Nope. Too risky.”
He never give no excuse for it the way a man that felt guilty would of done, and I seen that Thaddeus is the kind of man that only says the truth no matter what. Says I:
“And you never seen his gun again from that day to this?”
“Nope. Must of passed through a heap of hands these last few years. Where’d you get her?”
“Off a gunsmith in St. Joe. Forty dollars.”
“Worth every cent,” he says. “I know for certain that there rifle accounted for three grizzly bears, two wolves, a panther, a couple dozen deer and a handful of Crows too. If it ain’t been stomped on meantime she’ll throw a ball true across a quarter mile.”
He give her back to me and we rode on awhile, then he says:
“This aunt of your’n, is she a sensible woman?”
“I reckon so. She don’t go in for fancy thinking.”
“She ain’t brung no tables and chairs and picture frames along?”
“Nothing like that, just supplies.”
“I seen some of the truck these people got with ’em. Practickly a whole houseful. They’ll heave it away later on. They always do. You take the pioneers now, they ended up with nothin’ but their plows and seed left aboard.”
“Did you guide them too?”
“I done it just one time. The fur trade went downhill when beaver hats warn’t the fashion no more. There was a heap of mountain men without no livelihood after that, and some took to guiding greenhorns west. Others went back east and some stayed put and done their best to turn into Injuns theirselfs, but it ain’t easy.”
“Why? I reckon it must be a real simple thing to do, living like Injuns.”
“You ain’t ever tried it. You can marry an Injun woman or just live with her and give her sprouts, but it don’t make you Injun. You can’t be what you ain’t. A white man don’t get satisfaction from just living simple like the Injuns. There’s something inside of white men that don’t allow it. Likely they’ll set up a trading post way out yonder just so they still got connections with other whites. A white man can’t let well enough alone wherever he’s at. He’s just got to change things to please himself. If a man jumped high enough to reach the moon the first thing he’d do is set up a trading post and do business with the moon people. A white man can’t be no Injun. I know, I give it a try. That’s how come I done guiding for the settlers back in ’forty-two.”
“What happened between then and now?”
“Nothin’ I care to speak of,” he says, and went quiet again. It’s clear he’s talked himself out for now so I went back to Mrs. Ambrose’s wagon. She seen me coming and hollers:
“You! Jeff Trueblood! Don’t you go galloping the flesh off that horse!”
“I warn’t, ma’am.”
“Don’t you lie. I seen you going by like the devil was behind you. That animal’s got to carry you two thousand mile, so don’t you run him to lather like that.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll walk him all the way from now on.”
The colonel never let us stop to cook up food around noon, and says we ain’t going to do it any other day neither. It wasted time to stop and light fires and such, and the whole train has to get the habit of eating cold food through the day. I warn’t bothered at all. I never et no hot lunch outside of the widow’s house so it just seemed natural to go without, but there was plenty that grumbled. It’s the first lesson in getting toughened up for the trail.
The sun dipped ahead of us as the day wore on and slid down the sky toward evening. The colonel called a halt and the lead wagon turned in a wide circle and the others followed on. Pretty soon the lead oxen was nose to tail with the businessman in the light rig that wants to be first in line. Well, he was mighty close, and you could even say he’s ahead of the rest, but he never looked happier for it. When all the wheels stopped turning there’s a circle two hundred yards across. The teams got unhitched and gathered inside so no Injuns can sneak up and steal them, but there ain’t going to be Injuns for miles yet, someone says; it’s only for practice.
Campfires got lit here and there and it was real friendly with folks stood around jawing and cooking and enjoying the adventure of it all. After I filled up on food I strolled around smoking my pipe and feeling peaceful, then there’s a voice from behind a wagon and it froze me dead in my boots.
“Hello, Huckleberry.”
I spun around and there’s Grace with a tight little smile on her face and firewood she’s fetched under o
ne arm.
“Why, hello yourself,” says I, swallering smoke and hacking it up again till my eyes flooded.
“You act surprised to see me,” she says.
“Well, I’ll admit to it. How’d you come to be here?”
“No thanks to you,” she says, snippy. “You were about as much help in getting away as a club foot. That was a feeble thing, running off just when I was ready to go too.”
“It warn’t my fault, Grace, honest. Mordecai went and woke everyone up. I done my best. What happened after we went?”
“It was awful funny. Uncle Mordecai’s hair burned off before Pa could roll him on the ground and smother the fire. His head’s all over blisters and he has to wear a bandage full of poultice till it’s mended. He swears it was the devil set fire to him, and he says you’re Satan’s imp that was sent to tempt him. I was so furious with you for running off I nearly told about you being a murderer. Don’t look at me that way. I never did it, and you can thank me for it to make up for the betrayal.”
“Thank you, Grace,” says I, wanting to keep on the right side of her. “What happened then? Did you sneak off?”
“Not till next day. Pa saw I was fixing to do just that, with my clothes and bag and everything, so he locked me up and says he won’t feed me till I told the whole story. He knew there was something strange about you when he found out you paid Mr. Trask in bills instead of coin, but he was waiting to see just what it was, and he wanted me to give him the truth. Well, I wasn’t about to tell that old hypocrite a word, so I just stayed in the wagon all day without eating a bite. Then I heard Chastity playing outside and I whispered to her to unlock the door. Silly old Pa went and left the key in the lock, and she had it open that instant. I just picked up my bag and ran. Ma saw me and let out a yell, but I’m the fastest runner in the family. I stayed off the road for awhile just in case Pa came after me on horseback, then I walked all the way to St. Joe. I never needed your help after all,” she says, kind of scornful and superior.
The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Page 15
