The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Greg Matthews

  “I’ll do what I can. Wait for me on the far bank. If I don’t show up inside an hour I guess you better run for it.”

  It never took long to get back to the camp and I never had trouble finding it neither. Only a deaf person would of missed them drums beating away and all the whooping too. I hunted around for Jim and told all, and he shook his head worried-like.

  “De Injuns ain’t goin’ to b’lieve de men on de boat snuck dem horses away wid no help, Huck. Dey goin’ to figure we done it.”

  “That’s right, Jim, so we’re going along too. I don’t rate our chances too high anyway if the men get away and we’re the only whites left around to scalp.”

  “I knows it, Huck. Dat Hepzibah, she’d have ’em lif’ our hair befo’ breakfas’ an’ eat like a horse after. If she ain’t red den I ain’t black.”

  He went off to get six horses ready while I strolled into the firelight to give Hepzibah a look at me so she don’t figure I run off or nothing. The men was all painted up by now with stripes and zigzags all over theirselfs and looking mighty frightening the way they jumped around the fire, slashing the air with their tomahawks and shooting arrows in the air, which I reckon is a waste if you’re fixing to have a battle next day, but proberly the squaws had the job of picking them all up again at first light. It give me the shudders to hear the bloodcurdling yells they give out, and they never looked like the same men I admirated on the buffalo hunt. Watching a bunch of folk get ready for fighting is just the fearfullest, ugliest sight, and I never wanted to see more of it than I seen already, so I slipped away to join Jim. There warn’t no guards on the horses like I counted on and we led them away into the dark, three apiece. We never had time to collect our saddles, so all six of us will have to ride bareback. When we got a fair step beyond the camp we mounted up and led the rest on a fast gallop to the river and splashed across past the Nicobar to the other side where the men was waiting.

  “God bless you, boy,” says the captain, then he catches sight of Jim.

  “Who’s that?”

  “That’s Ben.”

  “He’s a nigger, ain’t he? What’s a nigger doing out here?”

  “He got captured by the Sioux too.”

  “What would they want with a nigger?” says Rufus.

  “Oh, they put him to work fetching water and such.”

  That unsuspicioned them and they got on the horses, then the moaner fell off and we had to help him aboard again with the others cussing him plenty. Finally we was all set and rode up the bank to level ground on the south side of the Platte. The moaner fell off again soon as we started to gallop and we had to stop and set him on his horse again. His legs and arms was all gone to jelly and he can’t hardly hold the reins, so I led his horse and told him to just hang tight onto the mane and grip with his legs and we started off again.

  We headed west along the bank fast as the horses would go for a little while, then slacked off so they never got winded. We trotted awhile, then galloped, then walked, and kept it up till daybreak, when we had to stop a spell or bust the horses’ lungs. The captain says:

  “We’re mighty obliged to you, son. What was your name again?”

  “Daniel McPhee, sir.”

  “Well, Daniel McPhee, you’re an angel of mercy that’s come to us in our hour of need and I’m proud to know you. I’m Captain Jack Banning and these two boys are Rufus Hoyt and Eben Woolcott, deckhands both. That there’s Andrew Collins,” he says, meaning the sobber and moaner, then he adds, “He’s just a passenger,” to explain why he ain’t been acting manly, and behind his hand he says scornful. “Used to be a shoe clerk in St. Louis,” which settled things once and for all.

  16

  A Daring Rescue—The Tables Turned—The Poet of the Plains—Betrayed!—Revenge of the Sioux

  When the sun come up full and strong we rode fast again, nervous now that the Sioux must of found the boat empty and be hot on our trail. I figured they’ll likely catch up around noon if they take along fresh horses to use. I was forever looking back over my shoulder and the others done the same. Mr. Collins still moaned occasional but stuck to his horse and never let himself be last in line. When we was on a slow trot Captain Jack says:

  “What do you reckon, Daniel, will they catch us up?”

  “They got to, or else lose face for letting us get away. Injuns is awful proud.”

  “What kind of punishment do these redskins hand out?”

  “It depends. They’re partial to peeling your skin off in strips then tying you onto an anthill, and cutting open your belly and showing you your own steaming insides is popular too. Then again maybe they’ll just break all the bones in your body with a rock and let you die slow that way, hung upside down as a rule. Seeing as they like variety I reckon they’ll do something different to all of us, but there’s none of it that’s pleasurable. I recollect they captured a white man and made him eat his own toes, chopped them off and boiled them up right in front of him, then after he et them they done the same to his fingers. Then they told him he can go free if he can run from one end of the village to the other playing a flute, which was unfair in my judgment. When he never managed it they cut off his ears and nose and made him eat them too, even if he never had no appetite after all them fingers and toes. They seen he had trouble cramming it all in his mouth and done him a favor by cutting his tongue out to make room, only he had to eat that too. Injuns is opposed to food wastage.”

  “Great God Almighty.… What happened then?”

  “He died pretty soon after from overeating.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it,” says Rufus.

  “That’s up to you, Mr. Hoyt, only don’t blame me if you can’t play the flute after today.”

  “Ain’t there any chance they’ll just forget us?” asks Eben.

  “I reckon not. The only chance we got is if the chief drops dead.”

  “That won’t stop the rest.”

  “It surely will. When the chief dies the whole tribe downs tools and don’t do another lick that day no matter what. It’s the custom.”

  “You ever see such a thing while you was with them?”

  “No, but I got told, and I believe it.”

  We kept going right on past noon without a break, not even to let Mr. Collins get down and clean his britches, which he filled from nerves and too much bouncing up and down. He stunk considerable and the others made him be last in line. He warn’t happy about it but it turned out to be the safest place, because the Sioux showed up in midafternoon, only ahead of us instead of behind. Don’t ask me how they done it; maybe they knowed the twists and turns of the river better and stuck to the north bank till they figured they was ahead of us then crossed over to wait. Anyway, there they was, a hundred strong, just sat on their ponies when we come over a rise and met face to face. Mr. Collins let out a groan and slid off his horse and started praying so fast he run through the Lord’s Prayer in around fifteen seconds. The rest of us stopped dead. There warn’t no use in trying to run; the horses was winded and there’s nowhere to run anyhow.

  “This is it, boys,” says the captain. We’re dead men for sure.”

  “Dang it!” says Rufus. “Now we won’t ever get to see that cathouse in New Orleans you heard tell of, Eben.”

  “Furthest thing from my mind right now,” says Eben, and puked all down his horse.

  The Sioux was maybe thirty yards away, not moving, just watching us trembling and helpless. Chief Standing Tall was out front in a long, war bonnet and a breastplate made out of little bones stitched onto rawhide. He raised his lance up and throwed it point first into the ground, which I figure is like declaring war. We already knowed that was the case, but Injuns has got the habit of doing these things formal, same as whites.

  “Say, boy,” says Rufus, “did you tell the truth about the chief?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “When he dies they all quit work, ain’t that it?”

  “But he ain’t dead. That’s him out fr
ont.”

  “Well, ain’t that handy,” he says, and leaned over and grabbed my Hawken and cocked it, aimed and fired, all in one go. It was the fastest piece of shooting I ever seen, and it never harmed his aim neither, because there’s Standing Tall falling backwards off his horse. When I seen it I felt ashamed. He never done me no harm, but it’s my gun and me telling about the custom that got him shot. Some of the warriors got down and lifted him up and I seen his breastplate is all splintered open and covered in blood, so he’s dead.

  They lifted him onto his horse and tied his ankles together underneath and let his head fall onto the mane, then they led him away toward the river. The rest of them never moved a muscle nor made a sound, just turned their horses and set off walking in a bunch behind. They crossed the riverbed and passed us on the other side, never once even looking over, and in a little while was out of sight.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” says the captain. “You were right, boy! By God, Rufus, that was the finest shot a man ever made!”

  “I reckon someone had to do it,” says Rufus, handing back my gun. “The boy here warn’t about to fire on his own kin.”

  “Leave him be, Rufus. It’s thanks to him we’re here and not butchered back at the Nicobar.”

  “Someone kick that Collins,” says Eben. “He don’t even know they’re gone.”

  Mr. Collins was still on his knees praying silent, but he quit when he heard his name and looked around for the Injuns, which give the rest something to laugh at. We all got down to stretch and rest the horses, and Jim and me walked off a little way. Jim says:

  “I knows what you mus’ be feelin’, Huck, but we come out alive. Das de thing you got to hold onter. It don’ make no kinder sense, what de Injuns done jest now. I figure one dead man is a heap better’n six, ’specially if’n we’s among de six. De killin’ bin done now, an’ you cain’t change nothin’.”

  He talked sense, but I just never got over the feeling that we don’t deserve to be alive seeing as it was Rufus that started everything by firing the cannon, but at the same time it’s Rufus that saved us. How can you figure a situation like that and understand if it’s right or wrong? There’s got to be a deep thinker somewhere that knows the answer, but he warn’t on the plains that day so I’ll never know what it is.

  Mr. Collins took his britches down to the river to wash them out and by the time they was dry it’s time to move on again, only now it’s a nice easy walk. No one talked much, likely thinking hard on how good it feels to be living and not dead, and the afternoon wore away like that.

  Toward evening we seen something in the distance rising up from the land around and I reckernized it from a map Thaddeus showed me. It’s Chimney Rock, and Fort Laramie is only eighty or so mile beyond it, which give our spirits a lift. Night come down before we got anywhere near and we spent it in the open, not too cold without blankets till the small hours of the morning when we all woke up shivering and hungry. Captain Jack says there ain’t no point in waiting around shaking the flesh off our bones so we got mounted and set off before dawn, which is when I seen a kind of little deer with pronged horns and shot it, so we had breakfast in style and reached the rock in the afternoon.

  It was mighty impressive up close, maybe four or five hundred feet high with a wide round base sloping up to the chimney part, which is shaped like a column with a broke-off jagged top, and we all gazed at it till our necks got stiff. On the north side right close to the rock we found wagon tracks, hundreds of ruts all jumbled together. It was reliefsome to know we ain’t far from other white folks and it give us fresh heart to move on.

  Next day I seen that Captain Jack ain’t looking none too well, his face all gray and his eyes squinted with pain. He says:

  “It’s nothing to worry on, just indigestion. I reckon I must of swollered the ball you put in that deer.”

  He tried to laugh but it come out all wrong, more like a grunt, and he quit and rubbed his chest some. That kind of man don’t like to be fussed over so I let him alone and we rode on. Then in the afternoon I heard a thump and turned around and there’s the captain on the ground next to his horse, and he’s twitching and kicking at the air with his feet. Rufus and Eben got to him before me and when I kneeled down to see what’s wrong he was already still and dead, his eyes wide open and staring.

  “I reckon it was his heart give out,” says Rufus.

  Mr. Collins got down and says:

  “Is he really dead?”

  “No he ain’t dead, you idiot, just admiring the clouds.”

  “He was a decent man,” says Eben, “and a better’n average river cap’n. I guess it was losing the Nicobar that done it, just broke his heart.”

  Rufus pulled the captain’s cap down over them staring eyes and we buried him in sandy soil off the trail. Mr. Collins done the Lord’s Prayer over him and we set off again. I felt sad about losing Captain Jack’s company because apart from him being a decent man it means Rufus is the leader now on account of he’s bigger and tougher and louder than the rest, and I never trusted him all that much. Rufus and Eben rode a little way ahead, talking low and acting secretive, but I figured they’re just recollecting old times with the captain and regretting that he’s dead, which is their private business so I left them to it and got talking with Mr. Collins to pass the time, Jim on one side and me on the other.

  He wanted to know all about life with the Injuns and I spun him a yarn that would take a whole separate book to put down on paper, and he drunk it all in wide-eyed and open-mouthed like it’s the most wonderful story he ever heard. Jim was the same, and I got to admit I was danged impressed with the tale myself by the time I got finished with it, especially the part about getting adopted as the chief’s son after I saved his life in a big battle with another tribe. I reckon if I had of stretched the truth any more than I done it would of died of thinness.

  When I run out of lies he started in on his own story, and we learned that he’s thirty years old and been a shoe clerk since he’s fifteen and got unhappy bending over smelly feet all day and measuring them and climbing up and down shelfs to find a pair of boots that fit and generally getting treated like a nigger by even the meanest kind of trash that come in to buy. He used to lie awake of a night dreaming about grand adventure all around the world, but the only thing that happened was he got engaged to the daughter of the landlady at his boarding house, mainly on account of she proposed in a leap year. The engagement lasted a fair number of years, then the girl got peevish about the way he kept putting the wedding off and off, and in the end she turned around and married someone else, which give Mr. Collins a power of relief. Shoe clerking was getting him down after so many years of it and when he read about the gold strike in California he fitted his last shoe and quit his job and got on a riverboat up the Missouri and along the Platte. The rest we knowed, except for the part about him being a poet, which took considerable digging out because of shyness and getting laughed at by other men over it. He says:

  “Are you acquainted with Lord Byron’s Childe Harold?”

  “I never met him nor his boy,” says I.

  “No, Daniel, it’s a collection of poems written by Byron depicting his journeyings across Europe. It is my intention to do much the same thing, only based upon my journey across America. It will be an epic saga, filled with the spirit of a new and untamed land, raw and wild and virginal, and will include word portraits of the various characters I meet along the way, persons such as yourself.”

  “Me? You aim to write a poem about me, Mr. Collins?”

  “Please call me Andrew. Yes, you are without doubt the most interesting of the personages I have thus far encountered and will merit at least a dozen verses.”

  “Care to rattle off a few just so’s I get the feel of it?”

  “I have not composed them as yet, but I do have some lines committed to memory which portray some of the men from the Nicobar.” Would you care to hear them?”

  “Fire away, Andrew.”


  He give his throat a good clearing out and says:

  “Two men together came aboard

  To join the teeming, anxious horde,

  One broad of shoulder, vastly tall,

  The other slender, even small.

  The first was bearded, big and strong,

  The second sickly, with hair worn long.

  Both men silent as the grave,

  The first a master, the second his slave.

  Two men bound by bonds hid deep,

  The smaller one cried in his sleep,

  Tormented man, he frets and curses

  Words too strong for published verses.

  His tall companion offers aid,

  A backhand slap three times he made

  Upon the stricken dreamer’s head,

  Who woke up screaming, filled with dread

  And babbled at a rate increasing

  Of death and sin, his voice ne’er ceasing,

  Till came the friend’s restraining hand

  Around his throat like iron band.

  ‘Be silent, partner, stay your breath,

  Or at my hands you’ll meet your death.

  Yonder passengers are sleeping,

  Not one is roundabout a-creeping.

  No one has heard your sad confession

  Nor heeds your criminal profession.

  None here cares for days gone by,

  They yearn for freedom’s open sky

  And we, like they, will leave behind

  Our past transgressions; west we’ll find

  A land forgiving, ever new,

  Where such as we are far and few.

  West is where the future lies,

  So stay your tears and hurtful cries.

  Let sleep o’er come and purge your mind

  Of deeds long done, of dreams unkind.’

  Mysterious, this band of two

  As dawn revealed the river view.

  “Of course it requires polish, but there you have the gist of it.”

  Well, I never needed a picture to know he’s writ a poem about Pap and Morg, even if he had them talking fancy like that. Says I: