The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Greg Matthews

  I went out of the stable all dazed, like something awful just happened and there ain’t a thing I can do about it, not even truly understand the way of it, just suffer the miserablest feelings, helpless and forlorn. Jim was the best kind of man you could of found if you looked for a lifetime across the world. He never had no selfishness and was a true friend that made himself a criminal on my account without even giving it consideration beforehand, and how many friends would do that? He never had no book learning so some might call him empty-headed, but it ain’t so. He’s got to be brave and strong like a hero just to get through everyday living without turning a hair, all because he ain’t colored white, which he never had the choice of in the first place. Why, adding it all up Jim is about the noblest man I ever met, and I wished he was there so I can tell him face to face, but he’s hid in a ravine outside the fort, making a sacrifice of comfort so’s to make things safer for me, Huck Finn. It almost made me cry, the nobleness of it all, and I figured if Jim can handle it with dignification then so can I. I’d be proud to get called a halfbreed, and the whole trick is to take it with a face that don’t give nothing away and a heart that stays calm, not fluttery and hurt. But I can understand how a red or black man might someday hit back at them that torments him so.

  Nothing happened all the rest of the afternoon. Some Injuns tried talking to me or using sign language but I just shook my head, which give puzzlement to some and made others spit, so I was feeling kind of desperate by the time sundown come. They whipped the paper streamers out of the church and strung them up again in a big room in the officers’ compound and got ready for the reception. I seen soldiers taking music insterments in there too, so it’s going to be a regular wing-ding. Andrew never showed for hours and I got to worrying maybe he’s in trouble, but I never should of bothered, because here he comes with a smile on his face. He seen me and come over and says:

  “What an amazing woman, truly stupendous!”

  “Who is?”

  “Why, Mrs. Beckwith of course. Lydia.…”

  The way he spoke her name set off a little tingle of alarm in my head.

  “What’s so special about her?”

  “You were in her home, you saw the books. Huckleberry … She reads poetry.… She even writes it!”

  “So?”

  “But don’t you see? She’s a woman of great culture, a rose struggling to survive in a desert of thorns, a lonely bird in a forest of silence, a questing mind bound by fetters of ignorance. Her husband … what an oaf!”

  “Hold hard there, Andrew. How come you know so much about her?”

  “We met at the wedding. She asked my name and when she heard my story and realized I am your employer she invited me to her home for afternoon tea. She drinks tea, Huckleberry, can you imagine it? Delicate china cups in this far-flung outpost of civilization. We talked for hours. I admitted my predilection for the muse and she confessed also, and then … we exchanged verses! She has talent in abundance. I have one of her recent efforts here. You must hear it.”

  He drug a piece of paper out of his pocket and tilted it so light from a window shone on it and commenced to read.

  “ODE TO A DEAD WOLF

  I gaze upon your shaggy form

  That lieth dead upon the ground

  With lips drawn back and eyes forlorn,

  Already flies do swarm around

  To feast upon your noble frame

  And slake their thirst upon your blood

  That floweth freely without shame

  In copious torrents, nay, a flood

  Of crimson wine that stains the earth

  On which you lie, oh mighty lord

  Of prairie wilds, I am not worth

  Your proud disdain, yet with my sword

  Have lately slain a precious thing.

  Fleet and free, unfettered Lupus, lordly beast

  So cruelly slaughtered, fallen king,

  For easy sport and canine feast.

  Forgive me, let my spirit fly

  With yours away from here, my liege,

  To lands less harsh where you and I

  May run together ’neath the trees

  In forests of Elysium, there to dwell

  In harmony, set free from care,

  Far removed from tolling knell

  Of death, we’ll linger there.

  “Sublime, such beauty of expression, such limpid poignancy, don’t you agree?”

  “It’s powerful stuff all right, but I reckon she used a rifle, not a sword.”

  “Poetic license, Huckleberry. These subtleties are perhaps beyond your understanding. What a cruel waste.”

  “The wolf? I reckon he got et, every scrap. Them dogs has got appetites.”

  “Lydia,” he says, impatient. “To think she must forswear the culture and comforts of polite society in order to be with … him in this crude place. Fate has treated her unkindly, I fear. Colonel Beckwith has no appreciation of her poetical accomplishments. He dismisses the outpourings of her soul as mere word rhymings, the plaything of children. He is unlettered and boorish. A soaring dove has been chained to a grunting hog. Her spirit is waning, I can tell. Without nourishment it will fade and die.”

  I can’t hardly see a woman like Mrs. Beckwith fading and dying, not without a fight, but Andrew had the bit between his teeth now and rattled on about nourishment and enrichment and food for thought, which got my belly growling so I munched on some dried meat I kept in my pouch along with rifle balls and such and he finally talked himself out, which give me the chance to slip a word in edgewise.

  “We got to leave tomorrow definite, Andrew, wagon train or no. There’s a woman here that knows my face.”

  “What woman?”

  “The one that got married today, Mrs. Ambrose.”

  “You mean Mrs. Pettifer. How can she possibly know you?”

  I told him and he says:

  “I shouldn’t worry. In that costume she won’t give you a second glance. We must stay here until the wagons arrive.”

  “But we can’t join up with them, not with Jim along, and I ain’t going nowhere without him.”

  “Yes, yes, I realize that, but it’s essential we at least give the appearance of having joined, for Colonel Beckwith’s satisfaction. We’ll consider ways around the problem of Jim when the time comes. For the moment we must simply relax.”

  It was easy enough for him to say, getting invited to the reception dance like he was, but I had to do my relaxing somewheres else. By the time all the guests arrived and the music got started I found the right place, up in the hayloft in the stables.

  I tried getting some shuteye but the music come drifting across and kept me wakeful. I had a bad feeling inside of me, not the gutrumbles from eating too fast, something else, a kind of fear that warn’t directed toward no particular thing, just squirmed around inside me looking for something to latch onto. I got drowsy halfway through a waltz and slumbered off awhile and dreamed about the Injun Princess sailing across the ocean with all sails set and me at the wheel with spray flying over me and whales leaping out of the water alongside. It was the best kind of dream and I warn’t happy to leave it, but voices below woke me up, and they ain’t unfamiliar.

  “Are you sure we won’t be missed?” says Andrew, sounding drunk.

  “And if we are, Mr. Collins, what of it?” says Mrs. Beckwith. “Does the prospect of an angry husband frighten you?”

  “Indeed no, I was merely concerned for your obligations as garrison hostess.”

  “My obligations can jump into deep water and stay there. Not one of those present is of any interest to me except yourself, Mr. Collins, and I find it impossible to hold a coherent conversation amid such babbling as the rest are given to. They talk of nothing but the heat, and in winter of nothing but the cold. The unfortunates who married today will be discussed until Christmas, and God knows there is nothing about them worthy of discussion.”

  “You must find conditions here intolerable, Mrs. Beckwith.”


  I eased over to the edge of the loft and peeked down. They was right below me, stood a little apart. Mrs. Beckwith says:

  “I hope you do not find me forward or outspoken for having opened my heart to you on so brief an acquiantance.”

  “Not at all. I am honored to be the recipient of such intimate outpourings, hence my reciprocation.”

  “You must understand that Fort Laramie is not often blessed with the presence of gentlemen of your breeding and sensitivity, Mr. Collins.”

  “I appreciate your candor, Mrs. Beckwith. Kindred spirits will always attract each other as if by magnetism.”

  “Just so. I have great sympathy for your own plight. It was surely a bitter experience to be banished from the family estate as you were.”

  Andrew heaves a sigh and says:

  “Father simply could not understand my infatuation with the muse. He wished only for a son content to inherit and expand the family business, but control of a vast merchandising empire spelled only boredom and spiritual poverty for me. We quarreled endlessly, and Father altered his will in favor of my younger brother, upon whose shoulders the burden must now rest. He will make an ideal worshiper at the altar of Mammon. As for me, no task lures me other than the scaling of Parnassus, there to acquire riches of the soul rather than the purse.”

  “A noble endeavor,” she says, all gushing, and I seen he spun her a pack of lies that never had a word about being a St. Louis shoe clerk in them. She goes on:

  “But we did not come here for this. You intimated there was a special purpose in our being alone.”

  “Indeed there is, Mrs. Beckwith.”

  “Please call me Lydia, and I shall call you Andrew. Formality is redundant between such as we.”

  “Of course … Lydia.”

  And they looked at each other awhile, then she says:

  “The purpose?”

  “Ah yes, forgive me dear lady. Your gaze held such fascination I temporarily forgot myself. I have composed a verse in your honor, and rather than risk compromising you by committing it to paper which might later be found and read by a certain person, I will deliver it here and now orally, with your permission.”

  “I await with expectation,” she says, and he cleared his throat.

  “ODE TO A LADY

  Far out beyond the Great Divide

  Where eagles soar and Injuns ride

  There dwells a flower of rarest kind

  A-blooming in the sun and wind.

  More beautiful, this lovely flower

  Than ever grew in castle bower,

  Alone, untouched among the weeds

  She thrives among the centipedes

  With ne’er a drop of water clear

  To slake her thirst, this flower dear,

  Surrounded by a bramble wall

  That someday soon perchance may fall

  And set her free to spread apart

  The luscious petals of her heart.

  For flowers that come late to bloom

  Are sturdier, and need more room

  To spread and grow, freed from restraint.

  Whose portrait do I herein paint?

  Lovely lady, it is you

  Who from this flawless flower grew.”

  It’s hard to credit he’s the same man that filled his pants when we was escaping from the Sioux, but there he is, spouting away full of confidence and poems right below me, and it shows how folks can have different sides you never would of guessed was there without you seen it with your own eyes. But maybe it’s just the drink inside of him.

  “Oh, Andrew,” says Mrs. Beckwith. “That was so … wonderful. Is there more?”

  “Alas, not as yet, but fear not, there will be stanzas abounding dedicated to you in the completed epic.”

  “I am honored,” says she, and I reckon she means it.

  “And deserving of it,” says he, and he ain’t fooling neither, because all of a sudden they flung their arms around each other, only she’s stronger and heavier than him and put a mite too much effort into the clinch and they went over backwards into an empty stall. There’s a thud as Andrew’s head connected with the wall on the way down and Mrs. Beckwith got all anxious.

  “Andrew, Andrew.… Speak to me, Andrew.… What have I done?…”

  Then come a voice at the stable door, and it’s the colonel.

  “Lydia, is that you in there?”

  “Yes, Horace,” she says, jumping up and brushing straw off her dress.

  “What are you doing here? There are guests to attend to.”

  “I was checking on Jupiter,” she says, coming forward before the colonel can get a look at Andrew’s feet poking out of the stall.

  “You spend more time with that horse than you do with me,” says the colonel.

  “Only because I find his company more congenial, Horace,” she says.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps.

  “Nothing, dear. Shall we rejoin the party?”

  Away they went with the colonel mumbling and grumbling. I clumb down the ladder and throwed a bucket of water over Andrew and he hauled himself onto his feet.

  “Huckleberry … What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to get some sleep, but it’s hard going. How’s the wingding?”

  “Awful. Those officers are so smug. They spoke to me as if I were a child. I believe I’ll go back and tell them exactly what I think.”

  “I reckon you been sucking up the punch, Andrew.”

  “A glass or two, no more.”

  “Was they bucket-sized or what?”

  “Perhaps I did overindulge. My head is giving me pain …”

  “Can you climb to the loft?”

  “Why would I wish to? Please don’t bother me with foolish questions. My head …”

  “You can’t sleep down here, you’ll get stomped on by horses. Put your foot on the rung, that’s it, now put the other foot on the next one up, then the first one on the next one.… No, Andrew, you got to hold onto the ladder with your hands too or you’ll fall down again. Give it another try. First foot on first rung …”

  I got him up there, but it took a heap of time and sweat. He sunk into the hay and was asleep before it quit rustling, and I joined him pretty soon after. The last thing I seen was a star winking at me through a gap in the roof slats.

  18

  Friends Fall Out—A Necessary Note—Harmless Entertainment—The Disguise Fails—Faith Rekindled

  Next morning Andrew was tetchy and warn’t in the mood for talk, so I let him be and walked out to see Jim. He was mighty glad to see me but wants to know where the horses and Andrew is.

  “There’s been a change of plan, Jim. We ain’t going till the wagons get here so the colonel don’t get riled about us going off alone. He’s a believer in safety in numbers, so we got to hang on awhile yet.”

  “I don’ like it, Huck.”

  “Me neither, but we need Andrew. I reckon it’ll only be a day or two.”

  “Say, Huck, kin you hear horses?”

  “Get down, Jim,” says I. “Someone’s coming!”

  We ducked down under the lip of the ravine, which ain’t wide nor deep, and heard the hoofbeats get louder, two horses I reckon. I could feel the ground shake they’re so close, then they went sailing across over our heads and kept going away from the fort. I peeked over the lip and it’s Mrs. Beckwith with Andrew. They headed over a rise out of eye-reach with just Romulus and Remus for chaperons.

  “Jim,” says I, “I reckon we got a problem.”

  “Warn’t dat Andrew?”

  “It was, and the lady with him is the colonel’s wife, and worse yet, Jim, she writes poetry. That’s the problem.”

  “He sparkin’ wid her, Huck?”

  “It’s got all the earmarks of a full-blowed romance far as I can tell. Dang it, he ain’t ever going to want to leave now, not with her talking poems in his ear.”

  We put our heads together and come up with a plan, then I went back to th
e fort to wait for Andrew. I got mighty fretful just ambling around without nothing to do but worry. One time I seen Mrs. Ambrose go strolling across the quadrangle; I never reckernized her straight off on account of the smile she’s got on her face, so I figure married life agrees with her. She looked at me once and stopped and the smile slipped some, then she shook her head and walked on, so my disguise is good and my heart quit hammering.

  Andrew and Mrs. Beckwith got back in the late afternoon, both of them looking happy. The horses got led away to the stables and I followed them to Mrs. Beckwith’s place and seen them go inside, which ain’t so good. He come out after awhile and I collared him and say:

  “You got to quit sparking with Mrs. Beckwith.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “If you don’t you’ll land us in a heap of trouble. I want to leave right now, and so does Jim.”

  “But the wagons have not arrived.”

  “Never mind no wagons and never mind what the colonel wants. We got to go now.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Huckleberry. There is no cause for alarm.”

  “There surely is. You don’t eat the lion’s food if you’re in the lion’s den.”

  “Meaning?” he says, looking down his nose at me.

  “You know what I mean. She’s the colonel’s wife, dang it. Ain’t you got no sense at all?”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “It’s so, but you ain’t acting like one, not risking everything this way. When you play with fire I reckon you got to expect burnt fingers.”

  “How many more homespun homilies are you going to bludgeon me with? I assure you there is nothing to worry about, and I resent your intrusion into my private life. Now if you’ll excuse me I have verses to prepare in commemoration of the day’s events.”

  And off he went all stiff and offended. There warn’t nothing else for it, I had to use the plan. I went and knocked on Mrs. Beckwith’s door and she opened it.