CHAPTER XII
It must 'a' been close on to one o'clock when we got below the islandat last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was tocome along we was going to take to the canoe and break for theIllinois shore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't everthought to put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything toeat. We was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things.It warn't good judgment to put _everything_ on the raft.
If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp-fire Ibuilt, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayedaway from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn'tno fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could.
When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead ina big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood brancheswith the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked likethere had been a cave-in in the bank there. A towhead is a sand-barthat has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.
We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on theIllinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at thatplace, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid thereall day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missourishore, and up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. Itold Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jimsaid she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself shewouldn't set down and watch a camp-fire--no, sir, she'd fetch a dog.Well, then, I said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog?Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready tostart, and he believed they must 'a' gone up-town to get a dog and sothey lost all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a towheadsixteen or seventeen mile below the village--no, indeedy, we would bein that same old town again. So I said I didn't care what was thereason they didn't get us as long as they didn't.
When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of thecottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing insight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built asnug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep thethings dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot ormore above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all thetraps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of thewigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with aframe around it for to hold it to its place; this was to build a fireon in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from beingseen. We made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the othersmight get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forkedstick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light thelantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep fromgetting run over; but we wouldn't have to light it for up-stream boatsunless we see we was in what they call a "crossing"; for the river waspretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; soup-bound boats didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy water.
This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a currentthat was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked,and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind ofsolemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backslooking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud,and it warn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a lowchuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothingever happened to us at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next.
Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides,nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. Thefifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world litup. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirtythousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see thatwonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. Therewarn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night now I used to slip ashore toward ten o'clock at somelittle village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or baconor other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn'troosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take achicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourselfyou can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't everforgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, butthat is what he used to say, anyway.
Mornings before daylight I slipped into corn-fields and borrowed awatermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or thingsof that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things ifyou was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said itwarn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body woulddo it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap waspartly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or threethings from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then hereckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked itover all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make upour minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or themushmelons, or what. But toward daylight we got it all settledsatisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. Wewarn't feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now.I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain't evergood, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet.
We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morningor didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, welived pretty high.
The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight,with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in asolid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care ofitself. When the lightning glared out we could see a big straightriver ahead, and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By and by says I,"Hel-_lo_, Jim, looky yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killedherself on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her. Thelightning showed her very distinct. She was leaning over, with part ofher upper deck above water, and you could see every little chimbly-guyclean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hathanging on the back of it, when the flashes come.
Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all somysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would 'a' felt whenI seen that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middleof the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little,and see what there was there. So I says:
"Le's land on her, Jim."
But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:
"I doan' want to go fool'n' 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame' well,en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like as notdey's a watchman on dat wrack."
"Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch butthe texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going toresk his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, whenit's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?" Jimcouldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And besides," I says,"we might borrow something worth having out of the captain'sstateroom. Seegars, I bet you--and cost five cents apiece, solid cash.Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and_they_ don't care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as theywant it. Stick a candle in your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till wegive her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by thisthing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure--that'swhat he'd call it; and he'd land on that wreck if it was his last act.And wouldn't he throw style into it?--wouldn't he spread himself, nornothing? Why, you'd think it was Christopher C'lumbus discoveringKingdom Come. I wish Tom Sawyer _was_ here."
Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk anymore than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightningshowed us the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboardderrick, and made fast there.
The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it tolabboar
d, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow withour feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it wasso dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck theforward end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next stepfetched us in front of the captain's door, which was open, and byJimminy, away down through the texas-hall we see a light! and all inthe same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder!
Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me tocome along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft;but just then I heard a voice wail out and say:
"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"
Another voice said, pretty loud:
"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always wantmore'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, becauseyou've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've said itjest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest hound inthis country."
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling withcuriosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, andso I won't either; I'm a-going to see what's going on here. So Idropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft inthe dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and thecross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on thefloor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and oneof them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, andsaying:
"I'd _like_ to! And I orter, too--a mean skunk!"
The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "Oh, please don't,Bill; I hain't ever goin' to tell."
And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh andsay:
"'Deed you _ain't!_ You never said no truer thing 'n that, you betyou." And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got thebest of him and tied him he'd 'a' killed us both. And what _for_? Jistfor noth'n'. Jist because we stood on our _rights_--that's what for.But I lay you ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner.Put _up_ that pistol, Bill."
Bill says:
"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him--and didn't hekill old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?"
"But I don't _want_ him killed, and I've got my reasons for it."
"Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit youlong's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on anail and started toward where I was, there in the dark, and motionedBill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but theboat slanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep fromgetting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upperside. The man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got tomy stateroom, he says:
"Here--come in here."
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up inthe upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there,with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't seethem, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd beenhaving. I was glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made muchdifference anyway, because most of the time they couldn't 'a' treed mebecause I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body_couldn't_ breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest.Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our sharesto him _now_ it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the waywe've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn state's evidence;now you hear _me._ I'm for putting him out of his troubles."
"So'm I," says Packard, very quiet.
"Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that'sall right. Le's go and do it."
"Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me.Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the things _got_ to bedone. But what _I_ say is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n'around after a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some waythat's jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into noresks. Ain't that so?"
"You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time?"
"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whateverpickin's we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore andhide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to bemore'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down theriver. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for itbut his own self. I reckon that's a considerable sight better 'nkillin' of him. I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you cangit aroun' it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't Iright?"
"Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she _don't_ break up and wash off?"
"Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?"
"All right, then; come along."
So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambledforward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarsewhisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort ofa moan, and I says:
"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there'sa gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat andset her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away fromthe wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we findtheir boat we can put _all_ of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'llget 'em. Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt thestabboard. You start at the raft, and--"
"Oh, my lordy, lordy! _Raf'?_ Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done brokeloose en gone!--en here we is!"