The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Greg Matthews

  The man seen Jim has gone and argued himself into a corner, and he lowers his pistol and says to the niggers:

  “There, you see? Without me you boys’d be lost. Thanks, nigger,” he says to Jim. “You pointed it out real good.”

  Jim gives him a disgusted look, but I seen he’s disgusted at himself too for telling the niggers to get free and then saying freedom ain’t no better if you’re a nigger anyhow. That’s the true way of it. A nigger that ain’t a slave is still a nigger, just like Injuns and Chinamen, and no better off for freedom even if he gets it. There ain’t no way around it. Jim turned away and went off into the dark and the man laughed after him and says:

  “Boy, you got one ornery nigger there. He’s kin to Nat Turner I bet. One of these days he’ll murder some white folks in their beds.”

  “Well I reckon they’ll deserve it if they’re kin of yours,” says I.

  “I ain’t about to forget your face, boy, you and the nigger both. Abolitionist sonsabitches like you two are just bound to brush with the law one of these days, and when you do I’ll come to the hanging and bring my boys along too, just so’s they don’t think they can backtalk a white man and get away with it.…”

  He stopped right there and I seen his face change, just staring at me, and I got a big dose of the fan-tods, because it’s the kind of look you get when you all of a sudden see a thing that’s been in front of you all along and you only just now reckernized it.

  “You’re Huck Finn, ain’t you?…” he says.

  I reckon it’s that talk of hanging that’s made him figure it out, but I ain’t going to give him no satisfaction.

  “Who?” says I.

  “Huckleberry Finn,” he says, “the one that killed some judge up in Missouri.… Hell on earth, I got Huckleberry Finn!…”

  He’s kind of amazified that he’s the one that’ll bring me to justice and get his name put in the newspapers and collect the reward, already counting the dollars I bet, but he ain’t lifted the pistol again on account of the surprise, so I swung my Hawken to the side of his head. I never even planned it that way, just done it out of scaredness, and he went down like a clubbed hog. A Hawken is a heavy gun and I near filled my britches wondering if I killed him, but he’s breathing still so I ain’t. No one else around seen it happen and the niggers never moved. Maybe they heard of me too and figured I’m a natural-born murderer that aims to kill them if they raise a holler. I reckon I could of bluffed them with some threatsome talking, but it don’t come natural to me, not with niggers that done me no harm, so I say:

  “Please don’t make no noise, not till he’s awake. You can run for your freedom or stay, only please don’t make no noise.…”

  Then I run off after Jim. He’s back with Thaddeus, and the men that was listening to him yarn-spinning has drifted off. I give them the facts real fast and they never spoke a word, just got the horses saddled up again faster than a fox making for cover. A man seen us doing it and come over.

  “Leaving?” he says.

  “Itchy feet,” says I. “I reckon we’ll move on before the rain comes back.”

  We rode out of the camp slow and went a little way down the road before we even dared to breathe normal.

  “He’ll raise a holler anytime now,” says Thaddeus. “Listen out for horses coming up fast from behind and we’ll get off the road and let ’em by.”

  But we never heard none all night long. Maybe the slaves run off and the owner’s got his hands full trying to round them up, but proberly he’s just feeling mighty poorly with a sore head and reckons it ain’t worthwhile backtracking down the road for no miserable thousand dollars’ reward, not when there’s millions up ahead waiting to be dug out of the ground. Once a miner gets headed for the diggings it takes a twenty-mule team to drag him back the other way, so we’re saved by gold fever.

  “You boys got to keep your heads down,” says Thaddeus. “You ain’t in no position to be preachifyin’ about freedom and such. It just makes you stand out like a Bible in a whorehouse. From now on don’t pay no mind to nothin’ except getting yourselfs on a ship out to sea. You boys ain’t behaving sensible at all. Up on the Yuba I seen a Spaniard get lynched for cutting a man that insulted his wife. He never killed him, but he got lynched anyway. Did I get up and make a speech about injustice? No, sir, I would of got lynched myself. Peacemakers and philosophers got no place here, not yet. Maybe their time’ll come later, but you and me ain’t going to see it.”

  Toward dawn the road got filled again and we rode on against the tide and come to San Francisco Bay around noon. There’s a ferry steamboat pulling in at a log pier just a little way from where the Sacramento runs into the bay, a sidewheeler with high-standing sides, not flat like a Mississippi steamer. The paddles backed and churned the water as she slid alongside the pier and the deckhands throwed ropes to them that’s ashore. Soon as she’s docked and the gangplank was down off come the miners in a stampede, like ants swarming out of a smashed anthill, and they run along the pier to reach the road and start walking. They was in such a rush two fell in the water and would of drowned under the weight of the picks and shovels strapped across their backs if a couple of deckhands hadn’t of jumped in and saved them. The other miners never even stopped to see if they was rescued they’re so eager to get north, and when I seen it I’m glad we left mining behind. There ain’t no dignification to be had from a bunch of men like that. Thaddeus says:

  “I reckon this is where we part company.”

  We kind of looked at each other, gone all tongue-tied. I got admiration and respect by the bushel for Thaddeus. Next to Jim I figure he’s the decentest man I ever met, only it’s mighty hard to tell him so, and I say:

  “Thaddeus, why don’t you come to San Francisco with Jim and me, just for a little while till we find a ship. It’s something you ain’t ever seen before.”

  “I thank you for the invite,” he says, “but I already seen a city one time, St. Louis, and never hankered to see another. You boys better get your tickets before she pulls out again.”

  “We don’t need our horses no more,” says I. “Take Jupiter. He’s the best horse in California. He’ll take you wherever you want.”

  “Well, I don’t know … I ain’t had the ownership of no thoroughbred before.”

  “Please take him, Thaddeus. If you don’t all I can do is sell him to some miner that don’t know him and’ll maybe treat him bad. I got nothing else to give.”

  “I’ll do it,” he says, and we got dismounted and me and Jim handed over our reins and untied our saddlebags with the gold in them. I run over to a little cabin and got two tickets, twenty dollars each, then run back. Thaddeus is up on Jupiter and looked like he growed there, and he reaches down to shake our hands real solemn and says:

  “Huckleberry, Jim, I ain’t about to forget neither of you.”

  “Same here, Thaddeus,” says I.

  “You watch out when you get in the city. It’s likely full of thieves and murderers.”

  “We won’t get in no trouble.”

  The steamer blowed her whistle and the men that’s been waiting to board started up the gangplank. Thaddeus says:

  “Go on now or you’ll be stuck here till the next one.”

  “Thaddeus, when you get to where them tall trees grow will you do me the favor of carving my name on one? I reckon I won’t ever get to see them now.”

  “You got my word, and I’ll put Jim’s name there too. Now I ain’t wastin’ no more daylight gabbin’ with you both. Get on that steamer directly.”

  The whistle blowed a second time and we shook hands all over again, then Jim and me run down the pier, hard work when you got bags of gold over your shoulders, and we staggered up the gangplank just before they run it inboard and the paddles started churning. She backed away from the pier real slow then swung about and headed out into the bay. We waved and Thaddeus waved back, and I watched till he turned Jupiter and rode south along the shoreline leading the other horses behind. Th
en he went behind some trees and out of eye-reach. I watched them trees till they was far off and blurred, but I never seen him again. Jim put his hand on my shoulder and says:

  “Ain’t no sense in grievin’, Huck. Least he ain’t dead like Andrew an’ Miz Beckwith an’ Frank.”

  “I ain’t grieving, just sad is all. He’s one of a kind I reckon.”

  “Das so, Huck. We kin be proud to of knowed him.”

  There ain’t nothing so mournful as being stood at the end of a boat looking back, so we went to the bows and waited to see San Francisco, but it never showed. A deckhand come by and I say:

  “Pardon me, I can’t see the city.”

  “She’s likely burned down again,” he says. “She burns down just about every other week. The last time was Christmas Eve but the fire never done a total job, just a block or three.”

  “But where is it?”

  “You won’t catch sight for hours yet. We have to go all the way down this bay to where it turns into another bay, then we go across that till we reach the third one, which is where San Francisco is. It’ll be long gone dark before we dock.”

  We stayed on deck till it come on to rain again. We was hungry by then and went below to where they had food for sale. There warn’t hardly no one there, and I seen the reason when I paid eight dollars for just two little pies. There’s a man next to me dressed neat with a brass stickpin in his necktie, and he says:

  “Savor every morsel, youngster. That’s the most expensive pie you’ll ever have.”

  “How come it costs so much?”

  “This is California,” he says. “We must pay for the privilege of being here.”

  Then a man in a uniform come along and says:

  “Only whites allowed below. Niggers and chinks on deck.”

  He’s a skinny little weasel that only reckons he’s big on account of the uniform, and Jim turned around slow and kind of leaned over him with a big smile on his face.

  “’Scuse my askin’,” he says, real polite. “Was dat niggers an’ chinks you was tellin’ about?”

  “That’s right,” says the uniform, leaning over backwards away from Jim’s smile, and Jim says:

  “Das mighty reliefsome. I ain’t no Chinaman an’ it’s kinder cold out dere.”

  “But … you’re a nigger. You have to go out,” he says.

  “Is dat in de rules? Maybe you got it writ out somewheres an’ my frien’ here kin read it to me.”

  “It’s … just a rule,” he stammers. “No … niggers and chinks.”

  “I always tries to go by de rules,” says Jim, still smiling, “only it’s cold like I say.”

  “Well … I can’t help that. Rules are rules.…”

  I seen Jim ain’t learned a lesson from last night, so I reached in my pocket and brung out twenty dollars and give it to the uniform. Says I:

  “It’s awful rainy out.”

  He looked down at the money then up at Jim and says:

  “All right then, just till the rain stops.”

  “Thank you kindly. We appreciate it,” says I, the words kind of sticking in my craw, but we can’t afford no trouble. He went away and the man with the stickpin says:

  “Well, turn me over and call me a pancake. That’s a sight I never expected to see, not even in dreams. You boys are regular rascals, but don’t wait around to see if your bribe worked. He’ll be back with a few friends to throw you out, twenty dollars or not.”

  He’s right, but I practickly had to drag Jim out on deck. We squatted under an awning out of the rain and I say:

  “Jim, you’re forever telling me I changed since we started out, but I reckon you’re the one that’s changed. You know we got to be quiet and not bring no trouble down on us.”

  “I knows it, Huck, but I cain’t help de feelin’s I gets insider me. All my life I bin steppin’ off de sidewalk for white folks, an’ I hates de feelin’ it give me. I bin alive maybe thirty years, an’ de feelin’s bin kinder stackin’ up insider me all dat time, an’ now dey so high I cain’t hardly see over de top no mo’. It ain’t right what dey do, Huck. I ain’t de proudes’ man in de worl’ but I figure I got rights. I ain’t no slave. I ain’t beholden to no one, jest my own self. I reckon even when we cashes in de gold I ain’t goin’ to be nothin’ but a nigger. It don’ matter if’n I’se rich, I’se jest a nigger still, an’ it burns me up inside de way I gets treated. I figure de onlies’ way I’se goin’ to get smooth’ down is way off where Thaddeus tol’ us, dat islan’ wid brownskin’ women. Maybe dey ain’t so partic’lar ’bout niggers dere.”

  “I know it ain’t right, Jim, but there ain’t nothing we can do.”

  “My granpap come from Africa,” he says. “He tol’ me de whole place got nothin’ but niggers in it. He tol’ me dey got nigger kings even, but I ain’t incline’ to b’lieve it. How kin a nigger ever get to be king?”

  “I reckon it must be true, Jim. The Widow Douglas told me about how when she was a girl she went on vacation to St. Louis and seen one of them theater plays with actors and costumes, and she give me the story of it. I disremember what it’s called, but the hero is a nigger king and the queen is a white girl called Mona.”

  “Das de mos’ ridickerless thing I ever heard. Ain’t no white gal goin’ to marry no nigger. Ain’t no one’d talk to her if’n she done it, mos’ likely run her outer town an’ lynch de nigger.”

  “Maybe the play was in Africa, but the king’s a nigger, definite.”

  “What he do?”

  “Just the usual king stuff I reckon. The story’s mainly about him and Mona in the palace, and how they was real in love till the day come when she lost her handkerchief. The king give it to her special and was mighty sore about her losing it, and strangled her.”

  “Jest on accounter de hanky?”

  “I reckon he had a mean temper.”

  “Soun’s to me like he warn’t no better’n a white man.”

  “Well he warn’t all bad. Afterwards when he seen what he done he felt real guilty and strangled himself too for atonement. It’s a real sad story. The widow reckoned it just goes to show you can’t mix black and white.”

  We stayed sat there watching rain fall into the bay, then along come Stickpin. He seen us and come over and says:

  “Discretion is the better part of valor, or to put it another way, prudence before provocation.”

  “Proberly so,” says I, wanting to sound polite.

  He come under the awning without no invite and goes on:

  “You’ll find San Francisco is a tolerant town in all regards but one. Men may shoot each other and beat their women, consort with whores and charge outrageous prices for pies, but nowhere is a nigger sold a drink or asked to linger, not even in the lowest waterfront bar. We San Franciscans are a new breed of American, with wilderness on one side and ocean on the other, perforce isolating us from the rest of the nation. Thus we have evolved our own characteristic style of living which might be termed nonvirtuous, nonabstemious and nonstop, but never nonprofitable. We are a society without morals, but as you have seen we do maintain all the standard prejudices. We are a melting pot. In San Francisco can be found Americans, Englishmen, French, Spanish, German and Dutch, Peruvians, Pacific Islanders, Chinese and Australians. With such a heady brew of cultures you must expect some racial discord. Every day hundreds arrive and leave again for the diggings. We are a city in flux, young man, a social stew unlike any other in the world, and we have only just begun. Your bags appear heavy. I presume you have come from the upper reaches of Sacramento burdened with the spoils of your labor.”

  “Kind of,” says I, wanting him to go away.

  “Are you alone?” he wants to know.

  “Pap and Uncle Silas is both aboard.”

  “Why do they leave such valuable cargo in the care of a boy and a nigger?”

  “They’re down below getting drunk already, so it’s safer this way. They aim to go on a real spree when we hit town.”

  “They
have come to the right place. The city offers delights to tempt all appetites. My name is Orville Treece.”

  “I’m Jack Winterbough and this here’s Ben.”

  “And how did you enjoy mining, Jack?”

  “It ain’t easy.”

  “Nothing is when a man is poor, but with gold in your pockets you’ll find out how easy life can be.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  “I have never been closer to the diggings than the ferry disembarkation point. I take the trip once in a while for fresh air, but today’s trip is business. I am a correspondent for the Bulletin. Would you be interested in discussing your experiences upcountry with me? If the story is interesting it will find its way onto the pages of that worthy sheet. Wouldn’t you like to see your names in print?”

  We already seen them on wanted posters, so I say:

  “We ain’t got no interesting stories. It was real boring, just hard work and rain.”

  “Now there’s a pity. My editor sent me out here to bring back stories on the rags-to-riches theme, and you boys are well freighted with precious metal.”

  “Well, we’re kind of shy.”

  “You’re not Huckleberry Finn are you, by any chance? Now there would be a story.”

  “No I ain’t,” says I, acting offended. “Me and Ben is plain sick and tired of getting asked that. It ain’t our fault if we look like Finn and his nigger. If we never had Pap and Uncle Silas along with us we would of been lynched by now, and if you figure that’d make an interesting story you can just figure again, because we’re sick of it like I say, so don’t you go putting nothing in print or Pap and Uncle Silas’ll come around and smash your press. They’re both mighty big men and powerful mean when they get drunk.”

  “No offense,” he says. “Enjoy your stay in our fair town.”

  And off he went, holding his hat to keep the wind from blowing it overboard. When he turned a corner Jim says:

  “You reckon he suspicioned us, Huck?”

  “Maybe. If he don’t bring back a bunch of men and arrest us in the next ten minutes I reckon we can count ourselves safe, but when we get off in San Francisco let’s make sure he don’t follow us, just in case.”