Tom and Huck's Howling Adventure

by Tim Champlin

  “Take it? She doan much like it, but she had to take it.”

  “She give me a good lecturin’ when the sheriff left,” Huck put in. “Told me all the stuff to do and what to look out for. But when she got done, she kinda shook her head and said to go along, that I was likely the most growed-up boy in the village awready, seein’s how me and Jim had somehow stalled off the old man with the scythe all last summer. We sure didn’t see no such person. If he’s some kin o’ hers downriver I reckon he couldn’t of been no worse than the king and the duke.”

  Jim nodded agreement.

  Zane grinned, but didn’t say anything.

  “Mars Tom, if you and Huck scuffs up agin some kind o’ trouble, me and Zane can’t do nuffin’ about it,” Jim said. “We be stuck on de steamboat headin’ on to St. Louis.”

  “Won’t nothin’ happen,” Tom said. “All we gonna do is leave the gold, then pile into the boat and row away so’s the kidnappers can come pick up the money by ’n’ by.”

  “All de same, I wisht we had some way o’ reachin’ dat island,” Jim said. “We could all travel down de river together.”

  “No. We have to keep it simple,” Tom said. “This ain’t like the time me and Huck busted you outa the cabin on the Phelps farm. We threw lotsa style into that rescue—like the old times in France.”

  “Dey be dat canoe I uses to fish,” Jim said. “It could do wif a bit o’ patchin’, but we could carry dat on de steamboat, and have it handy. It’s pooty light.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Zane said. “Don’t regular passengers carry luggage aboard? A small canoe could be our luggage. Isn’t there room to tie it down on the main deck somewhere?”

  The boys hashed over this idea and agreed that they all needed to be ready for any situation, including having the ability to leave the steamboat quickly. They couldn’t assume everything would go as planned.

  “As long as we’re buying a yawl offen the Millicent, I don’t reckon they’d mind,” Tom said. “Cordwood is stacked on the main deck, so there’d surely be room for a small canoe.”

  So it was agreed that Jim would have his canoe ready and near the boat landing on Friday morning.

  Tom gave Huck, Jim, and Zane their boat tickets. Zane and Jim each took one of the money belts, and Huck said he’d retrieve his half of the three hundred, which he’d hidden in the cellar, and give it to Jim to hold for now.

  After making sure everyone knew the details of the plan, the four of them dispersed and Jim headed back to work.

  “I’ll pick up a small ham, corn pone, fishing lines, lucifers, and a few other needful things,” Tom said as they left. “We’ll be away overnight, and could be we can’t buy food nowhere.”

  Huck joined the boys as they descended the steep, winding trail down Cardiff Hill to town.

  “Tom, I been thinkin’ we need to carry a gun,” Huck said.

  “You mean like that old musket you had last year? Maybe t’ shoot ducks with?”

  “No. I mean pistols we can hide.”

  “Where we gonna find pistols?” Tom asked.

  “I dunno.”

  “Ain’t nobody gonna sell us a pistol or two with powder and shot without they wanta know what we’s usin’ them for.”

  “We could say they’s to protect us.”

  “From what or who?” Tom asked. “We ain’t gonna be in no danger. If we was to encounter them kidnappers, you reckon me and you’s gonna shoot it out with ’em? Not likely. We could wind up bein’ kilt with our own guns. Besides,” he added with a hint of pride in his voice, “I know what it feels like to be shot, and it ain’t fun.”

  “I’d just feel safer,” Huck said, his voice sinking as he gave in. “Zane, you ever shot a gun?”

  “Yeah. My dad has a .22 rifle. We’ve taken it out to a farm a time or two for target practice at tin cans. Then I’ve shot little .22s at a shooting gallery booth at the fair.”

  “I don’t know a size like that,” Tom said. Mostly our guns is .31 to .50 caliber.”

  Zane knew that guns of 1849 were cap-and-ball weapons; cartridges had not yet been invented. He started to say something about that, but decided it wasn’t worth all the explanation.

  “Maybe I can ask Jim if he can bring a gun along,” Huck said.

  “He’d have to steal it. Nobody’s gonna sell a nigger a gun—even if he is a free man.”

  “Jim seems like a very responsible and moral man,” Zane said. “Too bad he can’t buy one like any other grownup.”

  “That’s just the way things are,” Tom said. “Bein’ legally free don’t change nobody’s attitude.”

  Huck nodded.

  “Sheriff Stiles will have a gun,” Tom continued. “That’s all we need to protect the ransom money until we deliver it. Besides, we’ll put the gold in the captain’s safe for the few hours it will take to go a hundred miles down to the island.”

  “I’m agreeable,” Huck said.

  “Let’s spend the rest of the day collectin’ the stuff we’ll need—maybe an old canvas for a tent, some food and such,” Tom said. “I’m gonna throw in an old pair o’ shoes. My feet ain’t toughened up yet, and I don’t want to be hobblin’ around with a cut toe or bruise.”

  “I’ll bring a pair, too,” Huck said.

  “Then, tomorrow, we’ll have all day to fish or play or whatever we want,” Tom said.

  “Yeah,” Huck added, “Friday mornin’ we’ll be on the boat and startin’ for Eagles Nest Island.” He appeared to shiver. “It ’most gives me the fantods thinkin’ how close we’ll be to them kidnappers come Friday evenin’.”

  “Not likely they’ll be in shoutin’ distance when we arrive,” Tom said. “The deadline is midnight, so I’ll wager they won’t show ’til after that to collect the ransom—sometime before daylight when they still have some dark time to slide out without nobody seein’ ’em.”

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  Thursday flew by for Zane. Most of the afternoon was spent on an expedition to the cave a mile or two south of town. Zane was sweating profusely by the time the three boys hiked there and then scrambled up the wooded hillside to Tom and Huck’s favorite entrance, an opening they had to crawl through. The boys had stored their oil-soaked torches inside to be handy as needed. Tom struck a lucifer to one of the torches and they were off, walking in single file.

  The cool, winding aisles of red and yellow stone, dancing in the light and shadows of the torch, were vastly mysterious to Zane who was used to a world lit by electricity. The hot, muggy June day outside vanished in the silent, cool underground recesses. Strange formations and twisting pathways were marked with names, initials, and dates smoked on the walls. Overhead, the mighty cleft of ceiling disappeared beyond the torchlight.

  “You sure you know where you’re going?” Zane asked in a loud whisper. There was no need for silence, but the gloominess of the underground tunnels seemed to depress his spirits. He’d read all about this cave in Twain’s novel, but experiencing it was a different matter entirely. His imagining of this place was nowhere near the reality.

  “C’mon, let’s show him where the treasure was hid,” Tom exclaimed, taking the lead and holding his torch high.

  The cool air was drying Zane’s perspiration as he followed the pair. He wondered how the boys could go unerringly to a place as if traveling in daylight.

  “There!” Tom stopped about thirty minutes later, pointing, and the other two crowded up beside him. “It was down under that rock, stuffed way back yonder outa sight.”

  “Pretty well hid, but we found it,” Huck said.

  Tom handed Huck the torch and knelt down to dig like a badger with his hands in the soft, red dirt. “Here’s what I was tellin’ you about.” He held up an obsolete, single-shot pistol, full of dirt and rust. “It’d take a power o’ work and elbow grease to fix this thing where it’d work again. I think there’s an old cutlass down in here somers, but I don’t recollect exactly where. Best to let the rust have it, I gue
ss. We ain’t been to this spot in a couple years. Time to let the younger boys have it if they form a gang.”

  After more extended hiking and exploration, Zane was completely turned around, with no idea of direction, so it came as a surprise when they struggled up a steep rise and found themselves at the opening where they’d entered. Tom extinguished his torch in the soft dirt and set it aside for future use. Zane was surprised how far down the sun had moved when they crawled out through the hillside hole and into the humid air of the wooded glade.

  Zane leaned on the railing of the hurricane deck the next morning and scanned the scattered crowd. The Millicent had not arrived the night before as expected; the captain said they’d spent all night aground on a sandbar north of Keokuk.

  It seemed to Zane that at least half the residents of the small village were at the waterfront. The Millicent had been moored for a half hour, unloading and loading passengers and freight, but was now getting underway.

  An hour earlier in Tom’s front parlor, Zane had turned away, somewhat embarrassed, when Aunt Polly had hugged Tom, tears in her eyes, telling him to watch out for trouble and how much she loved him for doing this noble thing to help rescue Becky. Exhibiting emotions in front of strangers was not something he was used to. Such feelings were usually taken for granted in his family.

  Now Tom, Huck, and Jim stood near him watching the deckhands haul up and secure the gangway.

  “You know,” Zane said to the three beside him, “I’ve never been on a real steamboat before.”

  “Dat so?” Jim seemed genuinely surprised.

  “Lots o’ folks too poor to travel,” Huck stated, apparently to excuse this lack of experience.

  Zane smiled, knowing his own parents were well-to-do, but not wanting to brag about it. “No, we travel by car and airplanes and sometimes trains. In my day, I think there is only one real steamboat left in the whole country that still takes overnight passengers.”

  “Dat sho sounds like a mighty dull place,” Jim allowed.

  “When we have time I’ll tell you all about cars and trucks and planes,” Zane said.

  Two blasts on the steam whistle cut off conversation, and a cheer went up from the watchers ashore. The steamer’s enclosed wheels began to thrash in reverse, backing the boat into the river.

  Zane could barely make out the head and shoulders of the pilot through the glass windows of the pilothouse above them.

  Tom and Huck had taken their two canvas bags of gold coins directly to the captain when they came aboard, escorted by Sheriff Reuben Stiles and Judge Thatcher.

  The captain, Clarence Upton, a stern man with white muttonchop side-whiskers, had led them into his cabin and they watched as he locked the two bags in his safe. “I’ll have an armed crewman on guard at my door all day,” he told them as they exited the cabin, and he locked it behind him.

  Then the captain had showed the boys to the white, lapstrake yawl, secured in its cradle on the larboard side. They had unlaced the canvas cover to stash their few items of food and fishing gear and part of a tent shelter. Jim had been assisted by a crewman in hauling aboard his sixteen-foot canoe, the boat showing some fresh-tarred patches, and seams re-caulked with pitch. The scratched and gouged canoe had been tied to a stanchion on the boiler deck out of the way of crewmen.

  All of them except Jim had been too nervous to eat breakfast before leaving. But when the three-deck side-wheeler straightened up and pointed her jack staff downstream, the boys retired to the main cabin bearing their appetites. They were too late for sugar doughnuts. Breakfast was long over, but the cook managed to resurrect two leftover rhubarb pies from the previous night’s dessert. That, along with coffee, proved to be completely satisfactory.

  Jim’s status had been explained to the captain by Judge Thatcher. But, being legally free did not change the black man’s social status. Jim took his pie and sat humbly on a low stool along the bulkhead.

  “Is this cherry pie?” Zane asked, digging in. “Wow, these cherries must be green; they’re sour.”

  The boys and Jim laughed.

  “Ain’t you ever had no rhubarb?” Tom asked.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Looks like green and red stalks o’ celery when it grows,” Tom explained. “But a lemon is sweet and gentle by comparison. If you wanta pucker up, rhubarb’s the thing to eat.”

  “De cook he sweetin’ it up a good bit wid sugar,” Jim added. “But it do make a fine dish.”

  Zane wasn’t so sure. But, by the time he’d finished a slice, he had begun to enjoy the tang and flavor of it. His mother had never made pie or cobbler or sauce from rhubarb.

  When the boys and Jim again came topside, St. Petersburg had vanished around a bend and the countryside consisted of bluffs on the Missouri side and forested lowlands on the Illinois side of the river.

  They had settled in and begun to enjoy themselves for the all-day trip when Jim said, quietly, “If yo needs it, dey’s a gun in my pocket.” He put a hand to the side of his worn jacket.

  “What?” Tom looked aghast. “Where’d you smouch that?”

  Jim looked around and then lowered his deep voice. “Da widow, she keep it in de sideboard.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Huck said.

  “Jes de widow and Miss Watson live dere a good while—two women wif no protection, she say. Case o’ burglars and any other trash comes ’roun’ de place.”

  “Did she let you have it?” Zane asked.

  “Ah pays a dollar rent.”

  “But she don’t know you took it?” Tom guessed.

  “Ah lef de dollar in de drawh.”

  Zane chuckled at the evasion. He was curious to see the gun. He looked around to make sure nobody was nearby on the deck. The deck was nearly deserted except for a couple strolling at the far end. “Let me take a peek at it.”

  Jim eased the pistol out far enough for the boys to see it for a few seconds behind his hand. Then the weapon disappeared again.

  “Looks like a .31 caliber Colt Baby Dragoon,” Tom said. “Ivory grip.”

  Zane looked at him in surprise.

  “I was studyin’ up on weapons and armor when my pirate gang was raidin’.”

  “Is it loaded?” Zane asked.

  “Sho is. But ah don’t know how fresh de powder is,” Jim said. “She only a five-shooter.”

  “Five chambers?”

  Jim nodded. “You wants to shoot mo den dat, yo be obliged to load up wid mo powder, balls, and caps.”

  Later that day, after several weary, monotonous hours of steady river travel, the morning excitement died down. Tom and Huck were slumped in chairs on the hurricane deck, seeking the shade as the bends of the river threw the sun on them and then off again. The enclosed side paddle wheels churned the water to foam.

  In midafternoon, an upbound boat passed them on a wide bend. The boats greeted each other with blasts on their steam whistles. Passengers waved, though the distance between boats was too great to see faces.

  Zane stood at the rail watching the scenery slide smoothly past—sandbars, heavily wooded islands, and towheads thick with willows. Brooding cypress trees stood in sloughs of still water, the trackless swamps extending back out of sight in the tangled vegetation. He shivered, wondering if these swamps contained water moccasins or even alligators. He wasn’t sure if the fearsome gators lived this far north.

  A cabin had been reserved for Zane and Jim to St. Louis. After lunch, Jim went below for a nap, but Zane was too intrigued by his new experience of steam-boating to shut himself into a cabin. He used his time to explore.

  He was amazed how quiet the pistons of the steam engine were compared to the pounding diesels of his own day. He could stand very near the steam engine and listen to the sighing as the connecting rods made their long strokes. No violent explosions that needed to be muffled. The only noise at all—and it wasn’t loud—was escaping steam through a pipe on the hurricane deck.

  Exploring the glass-enclosed pilothouse, Zan
e stood outside the open door and marveled at the red leather of the benches, the gleaming brass spittoons, the giant, spoked wheel, half sunk into the deck but still as tall as the helmsman, the magnificent view of the river from this height, the nonchalance of the white-shirted pilot, steering this behemoth with apparent ease. Two well-dressed men were seated inside, smoking cigars and talking. Zane didn’t presume to enter or interrupt their conversation. From what they were discussing, he guessed they were also river pilots, perhaps deadheading, as his father had showed him airline pilots sometimes did.

  Was this really America of the mid-nineteenth century? And if so, did that mean he was actually here, or only dreaming about it? As he turned away and went down several steps to the hurricane deck, he again questioned this business of traveling back in time. Tom and Huck had not brought it up recently, but he guessed they were also uneasy about this mystery—science or magic?

  The brass bell clanged, signaling a change of the watch. Two minutes later, the relieved pilot came down the steps.

  “Do you know when we’ll reach Eagles Nest Island?” Zane asked as he passed.

  The lean man paused. “Late afternoon, I’d estimate,” he said, stroking his drooping mustache. “Sometime after six o’clock. The spring high water hasn’t receded yet, so we’ve skimmed over some bars we’ll have to sound for later this summer. We been pourin’ on steam all day to make up for time lost near Dubuque when the boat was aground for several hours. We should have arrived at St. Petersburg last night.”

  “Does the boat run at night?” Zane asked, since the man seemed amenable to conversation. “This is my first trip on a steamboat,” he added.

  “Not usually, especially running downstream, or in overcast weather. Bright moonlight is bad, too, since it creates deep shadows. We usually tie up somewhere near a woodyard.”

  “Think we’ll make St. Louis before dark?”

  The pilot nodded. “If we don’t waste any time. Shouldn’t be full dark until around half past eight. But we need to arrive there earlier if we can. Since that devastating fire last month, space at the landing is at a premium.”