“Yes, ma’am, we’re going to California.”
“What’s the nigger for, to do all the digging?”
“No, ma’am, I plan on doing my share.”
“Where’s your folks?”
“They’re all dead. There’s only me and Goliath.”
“You ain’t but a boy. Why, you ain’t even begun to shave yet. They won’t take you, not a boy and a nigger.”
“Who won’t take us, ma’am?”
“The wagonmasters. Are them mules all you got?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re my inheritance along with Goliath.”
“Then they for sure ain’t going to take you. You got to have a wagon and on top of it you have to pay twenty dollars to join a train. They don’t allow no one afoot or on horseback that can’t carry six months’ supplies at least. That’s the rules.”
“You mean we ain’t allowed to do it on our own? Who’s going to stop us?”
“Nobody, but you’d get killed by redskins if you ain’t part of a big train, and big trains don’t want no hangers-on that can’t feed theirselfs and just be a burden to others. You got no money and no wagon so you can turn tail and go back home.”
“Is that what you aim to do, ma’am?”
“Are you deaf, child? I just got through telling you I’m busted flat with only one horse. I’ll take root here before my problems get fixed. Drat that Ephraim and his gold fever. He couldn’t of found his way to the outhouse without a rope to lead him, and he wanted to go clear across the country to find gold. All it got him was a pine box. He was just a pure idiot, even if he’s my own husband.”
“I’m sorry about the tragedy that befell you, ma’am. It’s a bitter blow I reckon.”
“Well I asked for it, letting him talk me into selling up and coming out here. We had a fine farm and now it’s all gone.”
“Ma’am, do you believe in the scriptures?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” she says. “I can get all the consolation I need from the Book without you putting in your ten cents’ worth.”
“No, ma’am, I mean God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.”
“Horse apples,” she says.
“What I mean, ma’am, is if you want to keep going to California there’s a way you can do it, and me and Goliath too.”
She give me a look that says “Where’s the catch?” and I rattled out the plan that come into my head just that instant.
“Ma’am, we need a wagon and you need a team to pull the one you got. These mules is good pullers both. You just tie that horse of yours behind for a spare and we can all join the train together.”
She pondered it a moment then says:
“Are you serious, boy?”
“I was never more serious-minded in my life, ma’am.”
“What about the twenty dollars and supplies?”
“I reckon I told you a white lie just to be cautious. I got twenty dollars and some more that’ll buy supplies.”
“Why would I want to go to California now?” she says. “I don’t have a notion to dig for gold.”
“No, ma’am, that’s men’s work, and it looks like there’s going to be a heap of men out there. I heard tell it’s fifty men to one woman, and the first thing a miner does when he strikes it rich is rush off and get married to a respectable lady.”
“What are you saying, boy? If it’s what I think it is you got the biggest amount of gall I ever come across.”
“No offense, ma’am, it’s just that you’re young still. They say the trip takes six months. That’s about regular mourning time I reckon.”
“You say one more thing like that and I’ll warm your ears. You’re the brazenest boy that ever lived.”
“No, ma’am, just practical. Maybe you want a little time to think it over.”
She never spoke, just started frying up second helpings of bread and bacon, and I seen it’s the answer I wanted. When she dished up she says:
“You can call me Mrs. Ambrose.”
“Jeff Trueblood, ma’am, and I’m proud to know you.”
She give me her hand and I took it and pumped it a time or two. It felt like a chicken foot, hard and thin and cold. That’s how we come to be partners, me and Jim and Mrs. Ambrose.
She took me off directly to a wagonmaster’s office, just a wood hut in a field of mud, and I paid over the twenty dollars and she put our names down. The wagonmaster’s clerk give her a slip of paper with a number on it, and it’s sixty-seven.
“That’s your place in line,” he says. “There’s still too much ice coming downriver to cross and we don’t know when it’s going to let up. When it does and it’s safe to use the ferry there’ll be a notice put up outside so you’ll know where and when your wagon has to be ready for the crossing. Is all that clear?”
“Clear enough,” says Mrs. Ambrose, and we left. Says I:
“It’ll be a fair-sized train if there’s sixty-six ahead of us.”
“Safety in numbers,” she says. “Come on and we’ll get supplies.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We went into town and she ordered the stuff, four big sacks full, and we tied the necks and slung them over the mules and walked back to the wagon. The streets was stiff with men and horses and wagons, and everyone was talking about the ice coming downriver from the spring thaw, which is early this year. On every street corner there’s hucksters selling patent gold-washing machines and doing fast trade too, but we never bought one. When we got back the supplies was loaded into the wagon, which is only small with homemade hoops bent over it and canvas that never fitted correct, but it’s rainproof and not too heavy for the mules to pull so we was all satisfied about it. Then I told how me and Jim never got no sleep last night, leaving out the details of why, and Mrs. Ambrose says we can get in the wagon and take forty winks. We done it and around evening woke up feeling mighty gay about the way things is organized at last, with only the ice holding us back from California.
Mrs. Ambrose fixed more food and after it Jim and me reckoned we’ll go for a stroll through town and take a look at the river. She says not to get in no trouble on account of St. Joe is filled with rough men that’s drinking too much and fighting while they wait for a crossing. I told her we’ll be careful and off we went on foot.
There’s just as many people around as in daylight and it took some considerable time to reach the river. It looked mean and dangersome with them big chunks of ice booming along all gray under the stars. We watched it for awhile then walked along the bank till we seen a big post sunk in the ground with a heavy chain tied around it and leading off into the water. A bunch of men was jawing close by so I ask one of them what the chain is for, and he tells me the Missouri is so deep a river that folks is scared the whole west half of the country is going to break free and drift away into the ocean, so they run a chain across and staked it on the other side to keep America in one piece.
All the men laughed plenty even if they heard the story a hundred times before, then the joker tells me it’s the ferry chain that they use to haul wagons and such across, only they let it slack off some so it’s hanging below the ice and won’t get snagged and the posts pulled out and the chain lost on the riverbed. It’s the longest chain in the state, he says. Right now the ferry, which is just a biggish raft, is over on the far shore, stranded there till the ice has all gone by.
“That’s a powerful big nigger you got there,” he says. “Is he yours?”
“No, sir, he belongs to my Pap. We aim to take him to California.”
“You tell your Pap to watch that nigger close when you get across the river. West of here is like the free states so he’ll likely run off.”
“Not if he wants to stay alive he won’t,” says someone else. “The Injuns’ll get him for sure. I bet they never seen a nigger before. They’d reckon he’s some kinder animal and kill him.” To Jim he says: “You mind what I say, nigger. Don’t you run off from your master or you’ll get roasted alive b
y redskins.”
“Nossuh,” says Jim.
They all laughed and Jim and me went back into town. I looked at all the walls but there warn’t one Huck Finn poster, so it looks like we’re too far west already for people to bother, and it cheered us considerable. St. Joseph was the nicest town in the world without no posters papered around, even if the streets was churned to mud. We passed a newspaper office and it’s still open even at night, so I went in and got a copy. It’s a day old and I reckoned I should only have to pay half price for stale news, but the man there says they only print a new edition twice a week anyway, so I had to be satisfied.
We went along the street to where there’s light spilling out a saloon window and I read all the interesting portions to Jim. Most of it is about the gold rush and how men was flocking to California by sea. There’s thousands going all the way by ship down near the South Pole and up the other side, and others is crossing the skinny part under Mexico and getting on another ship that sails them up to San Francisco. But there’s plenty more doing it like us, heading along the trail blazed by the Oregon pioneers seven or eight years back. The writer calls it “the greatest mass migration since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt.” And Jim and me is both part of it.
There was other news too, mostly about the ice which is stretched all the way down to where the Missouri and Mississippi meet at St. Louis. There’s steamboats on both rivers been crushed by it, just squashed to flinders against the banks. It was a bad winter, but now it’s coming to the end. When the weather warms up the paper says there’ll be thousands more trekking west. Jim says:
“You reckon dey got gold out dere for all dem thousan’s, Huck?”
“I expect so, Jim. They say there’s whole mountains of it.”
I turned a page and there’s a small piece catched my eye and I read it out:
HUNT FOR YOUTHFUL MURDERER CONTINUES
All eyes in Missouri and surrounding states are ever watchful and alert as the search for Huckleberry Finn and his nigger accomplice goes on. Finn, the murderous stripling who slew Judge Caleb Thatcher on February twenty-seventh last is still at large among a frightened populace after his daring jailbreak. Sheriff Wade Bottoms of St. Petersburg has told your correspondent that all efforts are being made to apprehend the blood-thirsty juvenile following his wanton assault upon farmer Hollis Aintree and his wife, a woman of frail constitution. Finn and the nigger, known as Jim, made off with Mr. Aintrees’ horse after ransacking his home and inflicting torture upon the occupants. Mrs. Aintree suspected Finn of evildoing from the moment she laid eyes upon him but was too greatly in fear for her life to resist his demands for food and money. The Aintrees’ meager savings were appropriated along with the horse. It is believed the murderous duo are hiding out in wild country, but just where no one is as yet able to determine. Outlying farms are advised to take all necessary precautions to prevent a repetition of the Aintree outrage. Sheriff Bottoms maintains it is merely a matter of time before the felons are captured and charged, but the murdered man’s daughter has stated publicly that ordinary measures are insufficient to snare such a cunning animal, known for his ability to live without discomfort in primitive surroundings. To this end Miss Becky Thatcher, a plucky fifteen-year-old, has instructed her father’s attorney to contract the services of Chauncey Thermopylae Barrett, the famed detective and resident of Boston, Mass. Mr. Barrett was recently successful in bringing to justice the notorious bank sneak and safecracker Wylie Croft after a dramatic shootout in a St. Louis warehouse, in the course of which Croft sustained serious injuries. It is expected that he will survive to face trial next month. Your correspondent has been unable to question Mr. Barrett regarding his involvement in the Finn affair, but does not doubt that this Galahad of the North will find the challenge irresistible. Readers will not be unaware that the gentleman has oft times succeeded where the orthodox forces of law have failed. Sheriff Bottoms deplores the action taken by Miss Thatcher, but her decision has met with popular approval from the townsfolk of St. Petersburg, who have to a man mourned the sad demise of their most respected citizen. Master Thomas Sawyer, erstwhile companion of notorious Finn, has captured the hearts of many by vowing he will not cut his hair until the youth who so sorely betrayed the friendship has been hanged. Master Sawyer and Miss Thatcher are rumored to have “linked hearts.” The young lady will have need of such tender ministrations until the callous murder of her parent has been avenged.
I tipped my hat to Tom’s haircut vow; that was real style, but I reckon he’ll need a ribbon or three off Becky because I don’t aim to get stretched. Jim says:
“Soun’s bad, Huck. Who dis Chauncey Thermoply Barrett?”
“The greatest detective in the world, Jim. They call him Bulldog Barrett like the English hound that chomps his teeth in whatever he’s after and don’t let go regardless. He always gets his man, and I’m the man he’s after. I’m right peeved about the Aintrees. We never done those things they say. Why’d they go and pour oil on the fire like that?”
“Dat Aintree put up a perty poor show in de barn. Reckon das his way of lettin’ folks know how brave he acted ’steader shakin’ like a leaf. You got to ’spect it, Huck.”
“I reckon I’m disgusted with it. Why, he never mentions the twenty dollars I give him for the horse. It warn’t even worth that much, and we never got no real use from it before it run off. The whole thing is just danged lies.”
We slogged our way back to the wagon, both of us mighty put out by things. Mrs. Ambrose says we got to sleep underneath on account of she ain’t about to share no wagon with a boy and a nigger, but the ground warn’t so bad, not wet or muddy seeing as the wagon’s been stood in the same place a week or more, and we made a blanket bed and turned in. The last thing I wished before I went to sleep is for the ice to quit coming down the Missouri so’s we can get started on the real journey away from sivilization.
But the ice kept coming, and so did more westbound travelers till St. Joe was ready to bust her seams. The tent city just growed and growed. It was the fine weather done it, bringing out gold rushers like it brings out flies, and they swarmed for the sweetest honeypot in the world which is California, only they can’t get past St. Joe, not yet. Time drug heavy for everyone and tempers got short. It’ll happen every time you get folks living crammed up close together like we was. Even if it’s only wagons or tents they live in, folks will start looking at the mud roundabout like it’s private property with a fence around it. It’s their mud, and just you try to set foot on it. Not all was like that but plenty were, and it made life more miserable than it had to be.
Mrs. Ambrose got into argument with the men in the next wagon, maybe five yards away. They kept on taking a shortcut past her back step, as she sees it, when they could of just as easy gone around the other side. They never seen it that way and called her a horsefaced hag, which was real insulting. Myself, I figure she looks more like a turkey.
She got riled and says they never would of sassed her if she had a man with her and not just a nigger and a boy, but they just laughed and told her to go stick her head in a bucket where it’d look better and not frighten the mules so much. She fumed and fumed till she near blowed steam out of her ears, but there warn’t nothing she could do. They was both big men and the other neighbors turned deaf and blind whenever she had a fight with them.
The final straw come when they brung back a painted whore one night and lifted her into the wagon, all drunk and laughing. They made a heap of noise, and not just laughing neither. Jim and me heard all of it, and Mrs. Ambrose thrashed about restless and distracted a few feet above us. She stood it long as she can, then clumb down and went and hammered on the end of their wagon with a frying pan.
“You quit that!” she yells.
There’s silence in the wagon, then a bushy head pops out from the canvas flap.
“What’n heller you upter, woman?” says he.
“Just you quit that racket this instant or I’ll quit it for y
ou!”
“What damn racket?”
“Don’t you dare use that kind of talk in front of a woman! You know damn well what damn racket! There’s a whore in there and it’s just disgusting the noise you’re making!”
“I reckon you’re just jealous,” he says, and Mrs. Ambrose swung that frying pan full circle and crowned him hard. His head kind of swayed left and right then pulled back inside, and there warn’t no more noise after that.
Men was all the time talking about hostile Injuns and how every wagon has got to be armed, so I went into town to a gunsmith and paid out forty dollars for a secondhand Hawken, which is a real famous gun, and plenty of shot and a powder horn and ramrod and gun oil. She’s old-fashioned but reliable and stood taller than me, and I made a sling to carry her over my shoulder on account of she weighs near fifteen pounds. There’s initials carved into the stock, JF, and I reckon that’s who owned her before me. She’s the first gun I ever owned with money I paid from my own pocket, and I took her away from town and set up rocks and bottles and such and blazed away till I could fire and reload right quick, and I was a fair shot, too.
Around that time I seen my first Injun. He was right there in the main street of St. Jospeh, skinny and dirty and lying in the gutter drunk. No one come to take him away. He could of been dead but folks just ignored him and stepped over like he’s a log or something I give him a poke to see if he needs a hand but he only groaned into the long hair plastered over his face. He’s wearing white man’s clothes with a blanket around them and he’s a pitiful sight to see. It was a powerful disappointment to me; even Injun Joe on a bad day used to look better than that.
Time hung heavy on me. Somewhere back across Missouri Chauncey Thermopylae Barrett is most likely sniffing around looking for signs and clues where I went, and it gave me a troubled mind to know such a famous man is on my trail. But there ain’t nothing I can do except wait around with everyone else that’s burning to go west. I had a dream one night and there’s a hand comes down on my shoulder and a voice behind me says: “Huckleberry Finn, your time of freedom is over,” then the hand turned into teeth and sunk in deep. I never needed to ask who the voice is. I woke up in a sweat and it’s only the sharp part of my rifle breech sticking into me, but it shook me some, that dream, and it warn’t easy getting back to sleep.