Then the horse stopped dead and laid his ears back. I figured he’s got the scent of a bear or mountain lion and I cocked my Hawken just in case, but never heard nothing, just sat waiting for I don’t know what. Then I hear a twig snap, and out of the trees and mist come an Injun with his hair all spiked out with porcupine quills. He was just as surprised as me and we looked each other over for the flicker of an eye, then he ducks back out of sight and I turned tail and galloped off the other way. It never took long to break free of the trees and reach open ground, and I slowed down and pretty soon come across the wagon ruts, only I don’t know which way is east and which is west.
I fired a shot in the air and it echoed around through the mist and mountains. A shot come back in answer and I headed for it, but them echoes had me fooled good because after I followed the ruts maybe five minutes there come another shot and it’s way off behind me, so back I went at a gallop and finally come across the others all bunched together.
“Was it you who fired the first shot?” says Randolph.
“I got lost, then I seen an Injun.”
“You can’t see nothin’ in all this,” says Jesse, disbelieving.
“I went off the trail and seen him in the trees,” says I.
“Just the one?” Andrew wants to know.
“I never seen no more, but they could easy be around.”
Everyone looked out into the mist nervous-like, then Lydia says:
“Mr. Squires, where is your cousin?”
Bertram warn’t there, and when Randolph give a shout for him there wasn’t no answer. He shouted again and it echoed roundabout. Still no answer, and Randolph says:
“He must have heard.…”
“Maybe the Injun’s right,” says Bob. “There’s Injuns out there and they got him.”
“Spread out and find him,” says Randolph, “but keep your guns at the ready.”
“I reckon we oughter stick together,” says Jesse. “If we go traipsin’ around on our own they can pick us off easy. I’m for lookin’ in a bunch.”
“Me too,” agrees Bob.
“Are you men cowards?” says Randolph, getting his dander up.
“They have a point,” puts in Lydia. “We must stay together. Separated we will become lost as Turtle did. Your cousin may have simply fallen from his horse and hit his head, but we must not rule out the possibility of hostiles.”
“Very well,” says Randolph. “Let’s begin.”
We rode back along the trail calling out Bertram’s name but he never answered, so we spread out just a little so each of us can see at least one other and covered the same ground again. It was Jesse that found him and give a holler, and we all gathered. Bertram was on the ground with an arrow in the hip and another in his chest. He must of died quick because no one heard nothing. His horse warn’t around that we could see and was proberly took by the Injuns. His pistol and hat and boots was gone too, and his scalp likewise.
“Murderin’ sonsabitches!” says Bob, and him and Jesse glared at me like it’s my fault even if whoever done it ain’t even my tribe, but to men like them Injuns is Injuns and all tarred with the same brush.
“May I say how truly sorry we are, Mr. Squires,” says Lydia. “This is an awful moment for you.”
“Thank you,” says he, tight-lipped.
We buried Bertram by the trailside and Andrew done the Lord’s Prayer like he done over Captain Jack and we rode on, bunched up tight with the woods hid behind the mist, more scarifying than if we could of seen them plain. No one spoke a word for fear of Injuns roundabout hearing it. We kept on going long past nightfall, just wanting to get clear of that part of the trail, and was all dog tired and saddle sore when we smelled woodsmoke. Lydia reckoned it must be Fort Bridger at last and we searched around, but you can’t see past your hand in the mist and dark and the fort warn’t showing no lights. Randolph says we got to yell and get their attention, which we done full strength, and when our throats was getting sore from it a voice come out of the dark.
“Who’s that makin’ all the ruckus?” it says.
“A party of travelers,” says Lydia. “Are we near Fort Bridger?”
“Just a hop and a step,” says the voice, and a man come into sight with a rifle and an Injun with him. He’s around fifty with a heavy gut and beard and he says:
“Foller me, folks.”
We done it and the fort warn’t more than a little way off like he says. It’s small stood next to Fort Laramie or Fort Kearney, with a’log wall all around but tumbledown and sagging and moss-covered. We got led through a gate that got closed after us and come to a halt in a yard with log cabins and huts around, none of them new looking. There’s a forge over in the corner with the coals still aglow but no one working it now.
“I’m Linus Walker,” says the man. “Put your horses in the stable and come on inside.”
The stabling job got give to me and it took awhile to unsling the packs and unsaddle the horses and get them fed and rubbed down. They was all damp and steaming after the long haul and I done the work proper. Dumb animals has got plenty to put up with and deserve to get looked after, I reckon. It took me an hour and more to do and when I finished I went over to the forge and pumped the bellows to blow the coals into life and warmed myself some, then went inside the main cabin.
There’s one big room with tables and chairs all made from split logs and shelfs of trade goods around the walls and a plank bar down one end with jars of liquor behind it, all lit by a fire in a stone fireplace and a lamp or three hung from the ceiling. Our bunch was around the fire eating off tin plates and throwing scraps to Remus. There’s a big cook pot hung over the flames and a squaw even bigger ladled out a mess of stew onto a plate and give it to me, and it went down so fast the plate’s still hot when I finished. There was other people in there too, mostly Injuns, but there’s a raggedy-looking white man with a beard away in a corner nursing a whiskey jug. Him and Linus Walker was the only whites I seen, and Mr. Walker is listening to how Bertram died while he collected payment for the meal.
“I’m mighty sorry about your cousin,” he says, “but there ain’t much I can do about it. This here ain’t a military fort, more like a trading post and way station, so there’s no soldiers you can turn to for help. There’s Shoshoni in the mountains hereabouts and some are peaceful and some ain’t. You just run into the wrong kind.”
Randolph listened calm and never looked like he’s burning for revenge or nothing and I figure him and Bertram warn’t all that close, not like brothers. There ain’t nothing he could do anyhow, and the conversation got turned around to the gold rush and the people swarming through the Rockies heading for California. Mr. Walker says:
“Getting halfway there most of ’em reckon the worst is over, but it ain’t so. The real trouble starts when you get down into the desert. That’s a place that’ll knock the spirit out of man and beast. You folks are better off without no wagon, but you ain’t going to find it easy, I’m tellin’ you straight. I been there.”
“Thank you for the warning,” says Randolph, then pulls out a pack of cards and lays them on the table. Everyone looked at them like they was something they never seen before, and he says:
“Would anyone care to while away the hours with a game of chance?”
“You’d play cards on the day your cousin died, Mr. Squires?” asks Lydia.
“Indeed I would, ma’am. No action of mine will return him to the land of the living. Do not misunderstand me, the loss of Bertram has not left me unmoved, but I have encountered death before and know that a man must be philosophical. Some mourn by keening and wailing, others by the application of sackcloth and ashes. I console myself with cards. Do I have any takers?”
“Deal me in,” says Bob.
“And me,” says Jesse.
Lydia was disgusted and took herself off to a chair by the fire where Jim was sat and Andrew joined them, only not too close.
“Mr. Walker,” says Randolph, “are you interes
ted?”
“I reckon I am,” he says. “I ain’t played a hand since Methuselah was in diapers. Wait on while I get a cloth. Just a plain old tabletop ain’t right for a gentleman’s game.”
He went across to the shelfs and took down a shawl and spread it over the table and smoothed it out. Randolph give him a dollar for a jug and when it was brung over he asks for glasses, but Mr. Walker says he ain’t seen none since Methuselah’s grandma was in diapers, so they had to pull on the jug with it slung over their shoulders riverman style. Bob and Jesse looked like they was born with jugs on their shoulders. Randolph turned to the raggedy man in the corner and says:
“How about you sir? Are you a gambling man?”
But he just shook his head without lifting it out of his jug, so they put their stakes on the table and started without him. The Injuns warn’t invited to join in but they stood around watching, curious what kind of game could be got out of little pieces of cardboard. Randolph mixed all the cards up right quick and spun them out to the others real fast, and I knowed then what his kind of work is. I should of guessed before that he’s a gambler from his hands, which is white and smooth with no dirt under the nails. I watched for awhile along with the other Injuns but never understood the rules and finally went over by the fire.
There warn’t none of us happy. Jim is miserable on account of he has to wear a dress, Andrew is miserable because of Lydia and Lydia’s in mourning for Romulus still. I reckon I’m the only one there that ain’t hangdog to look at, and I got more reason to be miserable than all of them. But there warn’t nothing else to do except pull up a chair and look at the fire and smoke my pipe: After awhile Andrew says:
“I have composed a short piece. Would anyone care to hear it?”
Jim and Lydia just nodded polite, not really caring, and Andrew’s face got longer so I say:
“I’ll be right glad to hear it, Andrew. I reckon you got the poet’s touch with words and it’s been too long since you give out with a verse or three. I’m disposed to hear what you got and I hope it’s a long’un.”
“Thank you, Turtle,” he says. “All too often I must cast my seed upon barren ground.”
He stood up and put himself in front of the fire and grabbed his lapels and after considerable throat clearing got down to business.
“IN PRAISE OF LIFE’S INIQUITY
What chance have we as mortal men
To steer our course through life’s great maze?
For ladies Luck and Bountiful are there
At birth and through the days
Of shaping firm the swaddling babe,
Withholding much or giving all,
Dispensing, blessing, oft neglecting,
All of us are in their thrall.
From cradle rock’d to grave dug deep
They play with us as queens at chess,
Manipulating us at whim,
These ladies without due redress
Dictate our paths across the board
Where some grow strong and some are lost,
Swept aside, their hopes and dreams
Mere nothings, corks on oceans tossed.
Yet make a stand as men we must
Or yield all will, for trusting Fate
Alone to guide us through the maze
Is weak; such vaporings innate
In craven cowards renders hope
Of thrusting forth with will and pride
A chimera, receding far
Beyond our grasp; the weak will hide
Behind the myth these ladies plant
In shrinking breast to bind them down
Upon the board; bereft of heart
Our sustenance their dreams will drown
Amid the slough imposed upon
Their timid souls by self-laid hand.
So perish those without the strength
To cast aside those ladies grand
And search the maze, undaunted, free.
Bedeviled by sad circumstance,
Their heads unbowed, they find the path
Toward the gate that offers chance
Of rich reward, kudos for those
Who learn the simple truth and laugh;
Cruel Fate is but the wind that winnows
Sturdy wheat from fragile chaff.”
When he finished there’s a silence. The card players was stopped and all heads turned. Bob says:
“That’s mighty fine versifyin’, Collins. I ain’t heard the like outside of church.”
“What’s it mean?” asks Jesse, and Bob give him a scornful look.
“What’s it mean? Why, you danged jackass, it’s poetry. It don’t have to mean nothin’, just sound complicated is all, and I never follered a word of that’n.”
“Thank you, sir,” says Andrew. “Your appreciation is welcome.”
“No charge,” says Bob, and the cards started flying again.
Lydia wasn’t the same as she was before the poem. There’s a kind of light in her face and she’s staring at Andrew like a Bible picture I seen once of Mary Magdalene looking at Jesus. When he seen the look he went straight over and sat beside her and they never spoke a word, just reached out and grabbed ahold of their hands and give each other’s eyes a close looking over. I figure things is all patched up between them again on account of the poem, which is nice, but it’ll mean more sleepless nights for the rest of us.
The raggedy man in the corner come alive and stood up like he’s going to come over and shake Andrew’s hand for being such a genius poet, but he went right by and come over to me and laid a hand on my shoulder and pulled a pistol from his belt and stuck it in the side of my head and says:
“Huckleberry Finn, I arrest you for murder.”
He’s gone and changed himself considerable with disguise but I reckernized the voice, and it’s Bulldog Barrett.
“What is the meaning of this!” snaps Lydia, and stood up sharpish.
The card players quit and everyone in the room turns my way.
“Be calm, ma’am, I have the situation under control. I am Chauncey Thermopylae Barrett of Boston. This boy is a wanted criminal and I have been waiting for him to pass this way.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she says. “That boy is a Sioux.”
“No, ma’am, I beg to differ, and the nigger in the dress is his accomplice.”
“See?” says Jesse to Bob. “I told you he warn’t no female.”
“Kindly explain yourself, sir,” says Randolph.
“I am a detective in the employ of Miss Becky Thatcher of St. Petersburg, Missouri, contracted to apprehend the murderer of her father, Judge Caleb Thatcher. This boy is the guilty party.”
“Him?” says Bob. “That runty little halfbreed a murderer? Your brains must of leaked out your ears, mister.”
“I have the proof here,” says Barrett, and pulled out a wanted poster and tossed it to him.
“I demand that you release our guide immediately,” says Lydia.
“He’s no guide, ma’am, and no Injun. He’s Huckleberry Finn.”
“Sure looks like him,” says Jesse, eyeing the poster, and I see it’s one that’s got drawings of Jim and me, not just words, and he held it up so’s I can take a good look. I never seen no likeness of myself before except in a mirror and it’s real insulting what they done to us both. Jim ain’t got no forehead and he’s got a scowl on him that scares me to look at, and the artist ain’t done me no justice neither, putting my eyes close together and making my teeth all snaggled that way. Says I:
“There ain’t no resemblance at all, and I ain’t surprised seeing as I ain’t no Huckleberry Finn. And I bet Hannah’s offended at the way you called her a man, ain’t it so, Hannah?”
“I reckon I am,” squeaks Jim, disremembering he’s supposed to be mute.
“Your disguise is clever, Finn, but not good enough. This time there will be no mistakes. You’ll come back with me to Missouri, and the nigger too.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Barrett,” says Andrew, �
�but you have confused this boy with another. He has been with me on my journey across the plains.”
“You’ve been deceived, sir, like so many before you.”
“But I owe my life to him.”
“That is of no account to me. He’s wanted for murder and will stand trial in Missouri.”
“I got my doubts on that, mister,” says Bob.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Missouri’s a long ride from here. How you reckon on takin’ a boy and a nigger all that way?”
“In chains if necessary,” says the bulldog. “The authorities at Fort Laramie will assist me.”
“Even that’s a fair step, must be close on four hundred mile.”
“Attend to your business, sir, and I’ll attend to mine.”
“This is our business, Mr. Barrett,” says Andrew. “Turtle is our guide and we have no intention of losing him to become lost ourselves in consequence.”
“A praiseworthy attempt,” says Barrett, “but I am not a fool. If the boy is a Sioux as you say, he’ll know nothing of the land west of the plains. He is therefore no loss. Put down that gun!”
That was on account of Bob reached for his rifle, but he pulled his hand back when Barrett cocked the pistol jammed in my head.
“If anyone makes another move like that the boy’s brains will be strewn over the floor. My arrangement with Miss Thatcher includes the option of death if apprehension proves impossible, and the reward offered by the state makes no distinction between a criminal living and a criminal dead.”
“You vile, odious, disgusting … man-hunter!” hisses Lydia.
“No, ma’am, I’m a detective, and take no pleasure in killing, but if need be I’ll shoot this boy rather than allow him to escape me a second time.”
“Got away from you once already, has he?” sneers Jesse.
“I reckon he ain’t so smart, for a detective,” says Bob.
That got the bulldog mad and he says:
“What is the matter with you people? This boy has murdered! He must be brought to justice. You, sir,” he says to Randolph, “and you, and you, ma’am,” to Andrew and Lydia. “You all appear intelligent. Surely you don’t wish to prevent the law taking its course? Have you been so long away from civilization you would hinder me in my task? I cannot believe honest Americans are capable of such misguided sympathy. Do not allow his appearance to deceive you. A criminal is a blight upon the landscape no matter what his age.”
The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Page 32
