“I reckon I ain’t goin’ nowheres,” he says.
I legged it downstream to catch up but never seen Frank all the way to the saloon, so he must of legged it pretty fast himself to get here ahead of me. There’s noise by the bucket coming out of the big tent and I never wanted to go inside, but if I go back without Frank, Jim won’t believe I done my best, so I pulled open the flap and slid inside. The floor ain’t nothing but dirt with sawdust sprinkled around to soak up the puke and there’s a lamp or three hung from the long ridgepole. Down one side there’s a plank bar with bottles and barrels and jugs and bartenders taking gold dust off miners, who was all in high spirits, shouting and jawing and cackling like birds gathered in a tree at dusk. I pushed through the drinkers looking for Frank, but he warn’t there. I ask the bartenders if they seen a little baldy man with yeller teeth but they never, so I reckon Frank must of got sidetracked on his way here, or was maybe taking a leak behind a tree when I run past. I went outside again where you can breathe the air without getting drunk and waited, but he never showed. I waited and waited; even a snail would of got here by now.
Then I see there’s a new tent over yonder that warn’t there even this afternoon when I come in to register the claim, and a man come out of it buckling his belt and says over his shoulder:
“Next time I reckon I’ll waste my gold at a saloon.”
“I reckon you already went,” says a woman’s voice, so it’s a whore’s tent and the customer ain’t satisfied. Maybe Frank went in there while I was in the saloon, or he seen me waiting outside and snuck in to hide. Well, I had to know, so I marched over and give a knock on the tent pole and the woman hollers:
“Don’t stand on ceremony, come on in!”
I done it, and she’s real big, not small big like Hepzibah, just the biggest, fattest woman I ever seen, about the size of a cotton bale but maybe heavier. She says:
“Are you a midget or lookin’ for your Pap?”
“My Uncle Frank, ma’am. He’s kind of skinny with a baldy head and yeller teeth and talks educated.”
“I ain’t seen him. I would of remembered someone booklearned. Them around here is ignorant as pigs, and smellier too.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry to take up your time, ma’am.”
“If you find him tell him Bella only costs a pinch of dust.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell him directly I find him.”
There warn’t no use in waiting around no more so I lit out for the claim, and when I got back there’s Frank snoring in the shelter. Jim says:
“He come back jest after you lef’, Huck. ’Pears to me he jest wandered aroun’ de trees some den got tired an’ come back.”
“There,” says I, “I never even should of bothered.”
“Maybe so,” says Jim, but I seen he’s glad I done it anyway, and I reckon that’s worth all the legging I done that night. I smoked my pipe awhile with him to show we’re friends again and then we done the same as Frank.
Matters got considerable worsened with Riley and Wells. They panned and cradled the same stretch we already done and when they never seen a trace of color they got mad. To cover up the way they felt about things they took to poking fun at us. Riley says:
“What the dangblast are you tearing down the hill for? Near water’s where you find gold, not halfway to heaven.”
“We reckon different, Mr. Riley. A claim don’t just run along the creek bed, it runs back away from it too, so the hill’s part of it.”
“Maybe so, but you ain’t going to find no gold there. Only a jackass would waste his time that way.”
“What kind of jackass would that be, Mr. Riley, the kind that does a thing nobody else figured out on account of he’s got fresh ideas, or the kind that washes the same stretch of creek twice?”
“Boy,” he says, “one day you and me’ll meet up when you ain’t stood on your claim, and when it happens I aim to lift you by the ears.”
“That’s a right kindly offer, Mr. Riley, but folks tell me my flaps already stick out a mite too far. Maybe you can find a real jackass to do it to, seeing as they got plenty of ear to grab hold of, but don’t go reaching for no looking glass by mistake.”
I reckon he would of splashed across the creek and killed me if Jim hadn’t of come down and took over the cradle so I can’t sass Riley no more, and he give me a lecture about it later on. But I never wanted to quit. It’s only fair for me to sass them in return for the way they keep on insulting us. I figure both of us done it for the same reason, namely to hide the frustrativeness of finding no gold. Jim and me started wondering if Frank had such a good idea after all, but Frank reckons we should let ourselfs get guided by his wisdom and knowledgment. “The moth does not question the ways of the eagle,” is how he puts it. So we kept on, and one night he says to us:
“I have an announcement to make.”
“Well don’t let it get stale,” says I.
“Before I reveal my news I must warn you not to make any noise.”
“What kinder noise?” says Jim.
“Cries of jubilation and the like,” says Frank, real smug. “We have found gold.”
“Who has?” I ask.
“To be precise, I have, this very afternoon.”
“Where?” says I, disbelieving it.
“Why, in the cradle, where else?”
“But you never told us.…”
“Of course not. I had no wish to alert our neighbors across the water. They already hate us because of your senseless taunting. If they learn that we have made a strike their jealousy will overcome such control as they have thus far shown and we will certainly be murdered in our sleep.”
“They ain’t no murderers, just idiots,” says I. “And where’s this gold?”
He took out his handkerchief and opened it, and in the firelight we seen five lumpy little pebbles the size of lemon seeds, only yeller.
“Are you sure?” says I.
“Positive.”
I rubbed one against my teeth like I heard is a good test, and sure enough it feels smooth.
“Frank,” says I, “you ain’t wrong.”
“No exultation, please,” he says, looking across at Wells and Riley’s fire. “I found them in the last load to be washed before dark, so the chances are excellent that tomorrow we will wash out a bonanza if we dig from the same spot we finished at today. But we must remain secretive. I do not trust any of the yokels in these diggings.”
“Frank,” says I, taking off my hat to him, “if that’s how you want it I reckon we owe you the favor of doing it out of gratefulness for the fact you figured out the whole thing and was the first to find nuggets. Me and Goliath won’t say nothing to no one.”
“It de smartes’ way,” says Jim, staring at the gold. “My, my, don’t it shine.…”
Come morning it’s the way Frank says, with gold in the very first load we washed and almost every load come after. Whichever of us that’s working the cradle took the nuggets out from the riffle slats without giving no sign Wells and Riley can pick up on, just slipping them casual into our pockets, and at the end of the day we got a heaped handful of nuggets and grains. Frank reckons he should keep it in his handkerchief seeing as it’s all because of him, but he’s a lunatic still and Jim and me figured the safest thing is to keep it hid in the shelter. Frank got peeved but done what we wanted when we told him he can keep them first five nuggets in his pocket for a good luck charm.
For five more days we dug and washed and found about the same each time. Riley and Wells kept on laughing at us, but by now they was all through with washing creek gravel and started digging a hole instead after they heard about a man over on Juniper Creek that done it and found a whole bushel of nuggets. They dug down fifteen feet and more but still never found nothing, and the madder they got about it the more they laughed at us.
“I never seen such a team before,” says Wells. “Just look at you, a boy and a nigger and a candy-ass greenhorn. Why don’t you just give up and g
o home? You ain’t going to find nothing.”
“I reckon our luck’s no badder than yours, Mr. Wells,” says I. “I ain’t seen you jumping for joy over no strike.”
“Hole mining,” he says. “That’s the answer, none of that hill grubbing like you morons are doing. We’ll hit pay dirt anytime now, you can bet on it.”
“I ain’t a betting man,” says I.
“You ain’t even a man,” he sneers.
Well, you can take just so much from a sap-head, then comes a time you got to fight back. It ain’t no use sassing them; they got used to it and nowadays just ignore any smart lip I give them, so I give the problem considerable brain squeezing and come up with the answer. I never told Jim and Frank about it because it means I got to borrow a little of our gold, just a nugget or three. I snitched them next time I warn’t in eye-reach of no one and when night come and everyone was asleep I snuck across the creek and pushed one of the nuggets into the pile of dirt they dug up from their hole and dumped over by the cradle ready for washing next day.
It worked perfect. Around midmorning Riley give a whoop and held up the nugget and danced around the cradle. Wells heard the ruckus and hauled himself up the windlass rope from down in the hole, and when he got showed the nugget him and Riley danced around together till they fell in the creek, then Riley holds up the nugget and says:
“See that, boy? That’s what you ain’t ever going to dig out! If you wasn’t so idiot-headed you’d dig a hole same as us and maybe get rich!”
“I’m real happy for you, Mr. Riley,” says I, “but I reckon it’s a mighty small nugget to get excited over.”
“It’s only the first,” he says. “The first of a haul like no one else found ever!”
“I surely hope so,” says I.
“Don’t you go acting all friendly with us, Wilson,” says Wells. “You’re green with envy, I can see it plain as day.”
“No, sir, that’s just the grass we been eating lately on account of we can’t afford no proper food.”
“Boy, before you and them others is through you’ll look back on grass eating as the best time in your life.”
After they finished laughing they went back to work and beavered away till sundown. They never found no more seeing as I only put the one nugget in their pile, but it never stopped them going downstream to the saloon to celebrate after dark, and maybe to visit Bella. While they was gone I went over and stuck another little nugget in their fresh dirt pile same as before, only this time Jim seen me and says:
“What you doin’ over dere, Huck? Dey open yo’ head wid a shovel if’n dey catches you messin’ wid de claim.”
“I warn’t doing nothing, Jim, honest, just touched their pile for luck.”
“We don’ need no luck, you knows dat. We gettin’ perty rich now.”
“Well, I done it anyhow.”
Next day it’s the same thing over again when they found the nugget, and again the day after that when I hid the third one in their dirt. They was strutting around like roosters now and talking big and never even looked our way seeing as we ain’t nothing but poor miners, not rich as kings like them. That night I done the next part of the trick. A few days back I went for fresh supplies and changed a little of our gold at the mining office for coin money, and now I stuck a twenty-dollar gold eagle in their pile like I done before with nuggets, and never slept much for thinking on how their faces is going to look in the morning when they find it.
I give myself the cradle job deliberate so’s I can be close and worked with one eye on Riley, rocking hard as he can and checking the riffles for new nuggets, only the gold eagle is too big to go through the holes in the bottom of the hopper so that’s where he found it after the dirt got washed away. I seen his jaw drop when he picked it up and he stared and stared, then I see he’s looking over at me suspicious-like, and I say:
“Find another nugget, Mr. Riley? My, but that’s a big ’un all right.… Why, hold hard, Mr. Riley, I believe you got a coin there! They don’t get made underground by nature as a rule so I reckon you must of hit buried treasure! Ain’t it exciting! I never knowed pirates come this far inland to bury their loot! Is it just the one?”
He give a nod, kind of confused, and put it in his pocket and kept on washing the rest of the dirt, but all through the day he never had that eager look on his face like before.
That night I pushed something else into their pile, and it got found on schedule next morning. Says I:
“What is it, Mr. Riley, more treasure?”
“No,” he says, and wipes dirt off the piece of paper and unfolds it and reads what I writ, namely:
We never minded you taking them three pesky little nuggets, but it ain’t right when you steal our treasure money too, so put it right back where you found it or your family and friends will get kidnapped and their heads sawed off with blunt cutlasses.
signed,
THE PIRATES
He must of read it right quick because he flung it down and come charging across the creek at me. I let the cradle do its own rocking and headed for the trees, cowardish but smart I reckon. He chased and chased but he never catched me, which is why I’m alive to tell the tale, and I never showed my face at the claim all the rest of that day. When I figured he’s had enough time to cool down I went back, and both Wells and Riley was gone, along with their tent and tools.
“Dey jest packed up an’ lef’,” says Jim. “Dey was both lookin’ real sheepish ’bout somethin’, but dey never tol’ what, jest upped an’ lef’.”
“I daresay you are somehow the cause,” says Frank, looking at me down his nose, but I’m all wide-eyed innocence and confusement.
“It can’t be on account of me, Frank. I ain’t done nothing. Mr. Riley just went mad and chased me for no good reason as I can see. Proberly he’s one of them lunatics that only cuts loose and foams at the mouth occasional, not full time.”
Next day some men come along and took over the claim. They done the same as us and mined the hillside and started pulling nuggets out of their cradle a couple of days later, so if Wells and Riley had of done it too and not wasted their time laughing at us they would of ended up rich, which is what they call a moral.
29
Golden Harvest—Rough Justice—A Roof Overhead—The Grim Reaper—A Friendship Renewed—Goodbye, Diggings
We mined on and practickly dug away the hill behind the shelter. The gold slacked off some for awhile and we figured our lucky streak run out, but then we hit another pocket and got as much as we done before.
Then fall come down around us and the air turned chilly. When we woke up in the morning there’s mist in the trees and our bodies was full of aches, so Jim reckons it’s time to build a cabin if we aim to stay here and keep mining. We chopped down trees and worked hard laying out a log cabin like Pap’s back in Missouri, and the walls got raised up one log higher every day. While we worked the weather got colder and the shelter warn’t good enough no more, so we got ourselfs a tent to live in till the cabin is ready. Some days it rained down hard and we stayed in the tent, keeping dry. Jim and me smoked and yarned the time away and Frank weighed up the gold we got so far. He counted up little rows of numbers on a sheet and figures we own around sixteen thousand dollars’ worth! Nowadays it’s all kept in little bags stashed in a special hole in the tent floor that’s covered by a hunk of wood with dirt sprinkled on top. There warn’t no banks around so all the miners kept ahold of their gold like we done or else went down to San Francisco to spend it all on a wing-ding. It never worried us to keep it stashed on account of everyone hereabouts is honest and no one got robbed or murdered, at least not till October.
I rode to the store for supplies and seen a big crowd outside the saloon, which has got turned into a two-story wood building just recent and called the El Dorado. There’s hundreds all gathered around a man without no hat and blood on his face. When I ask someone what happened I got told the bloodied man was catched after murdering his partner, and they rushed
him into the mining office and give him a trial, three minutes, and judged him guilty and now he’s got to get hanged. They marched him over to a tree and flung a rope over a bough and put the noose around his neck, then the man that runs the mining office got up on a box and stuck his arms out for quiet, which was a considerable time coming because the crowd is so excited and gingered up waiting for the lynching.
“Men,” he says, “we are from all walks of life! We came by land and sea from near and far, but wherever we came from there were laws to uphold the two things that make this nation great: democracy and justice! We have democratically judged this man guilty and now, in the absence of any official law enforcement agency, we are going to see justice done!”
They give a roar that shows they’re all behind him, and he turns to the murderer and says:
“Prisoner, do you have any last words?”
“I was drunk,…” he sobs. “I never meant to do it.… He was my partner.…”
“Anything else? Make up your mind, it’s starting to rain.”
The murderer looks up at the sky all dark and gray and feels the drops of rain coming down on his face and closes his eyes.
“Well?” says the mining officer, getting impatient.
“I reckon not, …” he snuffles, and brung his gaze down from the clouds and looked straight across at me where I’m sat on Jupiter with a clear view over all them hats. It’s Jesse. He reckernized me the exact same time I done the same to him, and his eyes opened wide and he points at me and screams:
“It’s him!… He’s a murderer! Catch him quick!”
All them hats turned into faces when everyone looked around to see who he’s pointing at, but all they seen is a boy on a horse, which ain’t how you generally picture a murderer. Someone yells:
“He’s goin’ crazy! String him up while he’s still in his right mind!”
“Listen to me!…” squeals Jesse. “It’s him!… He’s a wanted man! It’s Huck …”
But he never finished. They hauled on the rope and Jesse went up in the air with his boots kicking hard and his eyes bugging out. He swung and jerked and danced in the air maybe two minutes, awful long minutes, with his face turning blue and his tongue stuck out all thick and purple like a buffalo’s. Then he quit kicking and just hung there with his rained-on hair hanging in his eyes, still open and staring directly at me. It give me the shivers to see. The end of the rope got tied around the tree trunk so he’ll hang there awhile to make an example to recollect if you ever get the urge to do murder, and the crowd got bored with looking at a dead man and drifted away under cover from the rain, mostly into the saloon. There ain’t nothing like a hanging to give a body a thirst, they say. I got down off Jupiter and went over to the mining officer.
The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Page 45
