“Yes, Colonel.”
“Another thing. Have you seen any sign of a boy about the same age as this one along with a tall nigger?”
“No, Colonel, I can’t say I have. Are they lost?”
“The boy’s wanted for murder and other crimes in Missouri and was last seen at Fort Kearney. A detective called Barrett tracked him there but the little snake slipped away and disappeared along with the nigger. His chances of survival are slim, but he’s cunning. How he got that far I’ll never know. Anyway, if you catch sight of him keep away or you’ll have your head blown off. He’s armed with a Hawken rifle like the one your guide has there and he’s highly dangerous.”
“I see. Is the detective still in pursuit?”
“He came through some weeks back, found the boy and nigger were not here and decided they must have slipped around the fort without leaving their calling card. He took off for the mountains to catch them and I’ve heard nothing since.”
“I’ll keep a sharp lookout for the boy, Colonel. What is his name?”
“Blueberry Finn. No, wait … I’m confusing him with the pie of the same name.… Huckleberry, that’s it. Well, as I say, steer clear and tell someone with experience so they can either capture or shoot him.”
Andrew knowed the colonel is saying he don’t look like the kind that’s tough enough to get mixed up in dangersome business and his neck turned pinkish, but he kept on smiling civil, proberly used to getting talked to that way. Then the colonel says:
“We’re having a wedding this afternoon and a reception for the happy couple in the evening. You’re welcome to attend. There’ll be plenty to eat and a bowl of punch, just the thing to cut the trail dust in your throat.”
“I’ll certainly be there. Thank you, Colonel.”
We went outside again and awhile later I took some of the supplies outside the fort to the hideaway so Jim can feed himself. I explanated how things was, mainly that Pap and the bulldog has both come and gone, and he says:
“We cain’t join wid no train, Huck. You a passable Injun but I reckon I ain’t never goin’ to look like nothin’ ’cept what I am, an’ give us away.”
“Don’t worry on it. Andrew just agreed about the train to keep the colonel sweet. We’ll be heading off directly come morning, just the three of us. We’ll likely sleep inside the fort so don’t expect us back before sunup, and if you light a fire keep it hid so no one comes poking around.”
“I be waitin’, Huck. Don’ you go turnin’ inter no drunk Injun at de weddin’.”
“Injuns ain’t invited,” says I, and set off back to the fort.
Halfway there I heard galloping hoofs behind me and turned and seen a woman on horseback come flying along toward me with two giant dogs running alongside, practickly big as the horse and mighty savage-looking too with their tongues lolling out over their fangs. The woman was dressed all in black with a man’s hat and long hair trailing behind in the wind. She’s wearing a split skirt, not riding sidesaddle like most women do, and her horse was a black thoroughbred, the kind that don’t like to go slow. She sat on him like a soldier with a rifle across the pommel and come thundering down on me like the angel of death. I had to make my horse sidestep or get run down. She flashed past without even looking at me and I seen a handsome face under the hat with a strong jaw like a man’s, then she’s gone by and streaking for the fort gates, riding full pelt right up to them and through, which must of made people jump that’s inside.
I followed along slow and when I got inside there’s the horse, a stallion I see now, and he’s got a soldier leading him away to the stables, and there’s the two dogs flopped on the porch outside Colonel Beckwith’s office. They was just the biggest dogs I ever seen, with spiky gray hair all over and long snouts and legs and tails. Both has got fancy leather collars and are the kind you’d have set beside the throne if you was king. They had their eyes closed except when a fly landed on their nose and they snapped kind of lazy at it and dozed off again, looking peaceful but I kept a fair distance off anyway.
Then the woman come out of the colonel’s office. She’s tall and straight with considerable bosom out front, only the femaleness of it don’t match up with her face, which is mannish like I told. There’s two red patches on her cheeks and her eyes is flashing like she’s riled over something. She stood on the top step and the dogs come to life and jumped up and licked her hand, but she warn’t in the mood for affection and just ignored them, then come down the steps stamping hard with her boots, real riding boots for high-class riders. Then she seen me and stops dead.
“You,” she says, pointing. “Do you speak English?”
I nodded yes before I can recollect if Andrew and me decided if I could understand English or only Sioux, but too late. She come over and says:
“Go to the cookhouse and fetch back meat for the dogs, and tell them if I shoot a wolf on Monday I expect it to be ready on Tuesday. Do you understand?”
I nod again and she says.
“Well don’t just stand there like a post, do as I say.”
So I went to the cookhouse, which I reckernized by the smoke coming out of a stovepipe chimney, and a man in a sweaty apron says:
“Well, what are you sniffing around for—scalps? I just cooked up the last one.”
Him and two other men there laughed fit to bust, then he asks again what I want. If you ever tried to get across a message without using no words you know the kind of trouble I had. First I got down on all fours like a dog, then I held up two fingers to show there’s two of them, then I gobbled air to show feeding, and when they just looked at me blank I done a lady’s walk, only straighter and stiffer and the aproned one seen what I’m saying.
“The colonel’s wife? She wants food for them dogs?”
I give a nod and he says:
“It’s out back. You wait here.”
So I did, and he came back with a couple big hunks of red meat all dripping in blood and give them to me. He says:
“You take that to Mrs. Beckwith, Injun, and tell her I’m sorry it warn’t ready on time, but when you got to skin it and gut it and all the service can’t be regular as she’d like. Go on.”
Out I went with the meat leaking blood down my shirt and went over to the colonel’s office, only she ain’t there no more, nor the dogs neither. There’s a soldier standing by a hitching rail and he seen me looking around and says:
“Hey, redbelly, you lookin’ for them dawgser Miz Beckwith’s?”
I nod and he says:
“Well, you just take that hunker meat aroun’ the corner there and you’ll see a house with curtains in the winders. That’s where they’re gonna be.”
I done it and seen the curtains and knocked on the door. Mrs. Beckwith opened it and says:
“About time too. Bring it in and follow me.”
She led me through to the back and there’s a little yard there with a bush growed in a tub and a big bowl of water and the dogs, which when they seen the meat they flew at me like hairy eagles. I dropped it and stepped back quick before they tore me to pieces in mistake for the meat, which got ripped and bit and swallered in around half a minute.
“Come inside,” she says.
So back through the house we went. This time I seen it proper, and even if it’s small it’s awful neat with furniture like in a regular home and a stretch of carpet on the floor and a whole wall full of shelfs groaning under books, just like the judge’s library back in St. Petersburg. Mrs. Beckwith went to a bureau and took out a jar and opened it and it’s crammed with candy all done up in little colored wrappers, and she stuck it under my nose and says:
“You may take one.”
Which I done, and it’s marzipan, mighty sweet. I never tasted nothing more delicious ever, and it seemed like no time at all before it melted away on my tongue.
“Well?” she says. “Don’t you know how to say thank you?”
I pointed at my throat and shook my head and opened and shut my mouth a time or
three, looking plaintive and sad while I done it and she says:
“Are you mute? You are? My gracious, how sad for you. Here, have another. Take two.”
Them marzipans slid down easy and left me craving more, but she put the jar away and sat herself down on a fine-looking chair and stared at me with a finger on her chin awhile, then says:
“You are obviously not a full-blooded redskin. Was it your mother who was white? I thought so. Raped, I don’t doubt. Has she survived until now? Well, perhaps it’s a mercy. You were raised by savages? But now you have attached yourself to whites? Very good. There is hope for you. Can you read? You can? How amazing. And write? I find this hard to believe. Come over here.”
We went over to a desk and she fetched out a pen and ink and paper and says:
“Write something for me.”
I picked up the pen and dipped it and covered the paper with my arm so she can’t see, and when I was all done she picked up the paper and give a loud laugh, because I drawed little stick pictures like the ones on Chief Standing Tall’s tepee.
“Thank you,” she says. “That’s the first time I’ve laughed in months. Of course you can’t read or write English. It was foolish of me to imagine you could. What a shame you’re mute. I should like to know your story, young man.”
Thinks I, not so much as your husband would, lady. She says:
“What is your name, can you tell me?”
I done another picture and she says:
“A turtle. Your name is Turtle. That’s all? How touching. A turtle is separated from the world by its shell, just as you are separated by your silence. Poor boy. If you were not dressed in such a fashion I daresay you could almost pass for white. Yes, without the hair and feathers you would indeed. Why have I not seen you around the fort before, or have you just arrived? You have? With whom, more forty-niners? Just one? My husband will not be pleased. He deplores risk-taking of any kind. Do you wish to be a white man or a red man? No, don’t shrug your shoulders, it is a choice you will someday have to make. Your unfortunate ancestry might perhaps be forgotten in the bosom of some worthy family, but not around here. Oh no, on the frontier red is red, and so too is half red. You may go now.”
She’s a peculiar person, the colonel’s wife, kind of wild and free outside the fort with her horse and hounds, but uppity and schoolmarmish like the Widow Douglas inside, a contrary mixture I reckon.
After I left there I seen Andrew talking to a soldier over by the gates. I never wanted to disturb him in case he was fixing to make up a poem about the soldier so I wandered off to where there’s a little room done out like a church with the doors open so I can see inside. It looks like this is where the wedding is going to be on account of there’s raggy colored paper streamers strung hither and yon above the pews and lots of little flowers stuck in vases roundabout and a preacher pushing a broom across the floor. I poked my head in for a better look and he catched sight of my outfit and come storming at me, waving his arms like a windmill.
“Out! Out of here, you limb of Satan! Go back to your own kind and dance around buffalo skulls!”
I warn’t about to argue none over it and ducked away before he aimed the broom at me. Andrew seen me and come over and says:
“What a remarkable man.”
“Who is?”
“The soldier I was speaking with. Do you know, he cheerfully admits killing two men in Tennessee. He says they insulted his sister so he simply killed them. He wasn’t even arrested for it. Such things are apparently commonplace in his region. Remarkable.”
“Andrew, I been thinking how maybe it ain’t such a good idea to wait around for the wedding. We got all the supplies we need. There ain’t nothing to stop us going right now and saving a day.”
“I see your point, Huckleberry, but Colonel Beckwith expects to see me at the ceremony and will be annoyed if he learns we have gone without waiting for the wagon train as he advised. I think it unwise to draw attention down upon us at this stage, don’t you?”
“Well, maybe. I just don’t like it here.”
“My boy, there’s blood on your shirt.…”
“It ain’t mine. The colonel’s wife shot a wolf yesterday to feed her dogs. I reckon they could of got it on their own without no help. Are you sure we got to stay?”
“I believe it’s in our best interest to do so. Don’t be made nervous by all this activity and population. Your native disguise is totally convincing. That reminds me, in future when we converse we must speak softly and use sign language in case anyone is watching. Never forget you’re a mute.”
“I won’t.”
So we stayed, and later on in the afternoon I wished we hadn’t of because of what happened at the wedding. It started off simple enough with everyone in the fort gathered outside the church and the lucky ones inside. Being an Injun I just naturally warn’t among them. A woman started pumping away on a pedal organ which give out a bleat like a calf with its leg getting chewed off by a crocodile. Somewhere in among the noise there’s a hymn, but hid so clever you had to listen close to pick it out, which some done and sung along. It was just as different from McSween at the calliope with the virtues throating away as a mountain is different from a pancake, but no one shot the woman so it must of sounded fine to them.
From where I’m stood on the edge of things I seen the bride come across the quadrangle all done up in virgin white which has got to be a lie because she’s got knuckles like walnuts wrapped around a bunch of flowers, which puts her past her prime. I can’t see just how old she is on account of the veil that’s over her face, but I reckon if the face matched the knuckles that veil was a real blessing. She’s got Colonel Beckwith on her arm to give her away and he’s tricked out in a uniform with gold braid snaking all over the cuffs and on his cap, which he took off before going in the church. The organist must of got the nod they’re coming and hauled that calf away from the crocodile and proceeded to squash him in a cotton press instead, which is supposed to be “Here Comes the Bride.” After that things quieted down for awhile and I could hear the preacher inside sounding stern while they done the will you’s and I do’s, but I never catched the names.
When they was hitched they come outside where the crowd is all set to dump little white flowers over them, but when Mr. Pettifer and his blushing bride come out into the sunlight I got one of them sick-in-the-gut feelings. The bride’s got her veil up and she ain’t none other than Mrs. Ambrose! She’s all gussied up and clean-looking, but it’s her all right, so she never had to go as far as California to get hitched after all. My legs wanted to run, only I told myself she ain’t about to reckernize me under buckskin and feathers, not even if she got up close, which I aim not to let her anyway. So I got my legs under control and watched her and the eager groom go off under a shower of petals. Before they went inside Mr. Pettifer’s store which is going to be the honeymoon cottage Mrs. Ambrose turned and put her arm back to throw the bunch of flowers. There was a considerable number of females all stomping on each other’s toes to be the one that catched it, but Mrs. Ambrose put a heap of muscle into making that posy fly, and high up and over their squealing heads it went with a little pink ribbon trailing behind. And landed right in the crook of my arm where my Hawken is cradled.
A thousand eyes must of followed it there, and when they seen an Injun with them flowers there’s a silence, then the females screamed and a man come over and grabbed the flowers and give me a shove backwards before he throwed the thing where it’s intended to go. A skinny woman in spectacles hooked it and never knowed if to throw it away again seeing as it’s been touched by an Injun or fill her pants because she’s going to be the next that’s wed. She was mighty plain and done the sensible thing, but spirits was considerable wetted down after that and I figured it’s smart to make myself scarce. I slunk off to the stables and watched a soldier boy not much older than me groom Mrs. Beckwith’s stallion. He seen me watching and says:
“Hey, Injun, bet you wished you had a horse l
ike this’n.”
I moved in closer and he talked on. I reckon he figured I never had the grip of what he’s saying, so it’s like talking to himself only not so lonesome. He says:
“Injun, this here’s the finest horse west of the Missouri. Jupiter’s what he’s called and he goes like the wind. He’d leave them itty-bitty Injun ponies eating dust. You should see the colonel’s wife up on him with her hair flying. She’s a sight to see, you bet. And them dogs, they’re special too. Romulus and Remus she calls ’em. Now me, I’d call the horse Thunderbolt and the dogs Tiger and Grizzly. They deserve better’n them nigger names they got. That Mrs. Beckwith, she’s some kinder woman. Sergeant Hollander says she’s one of them Amazons that cut their right titty off so’s they can aim their bows better. He says one of these nights he aims to find out for sure if she’s got the full pair or not. I’d sure like to see that myself. Sergeant Hollander, he’ll do it, too. He’s what they call a ladies’ man, and Mrs. Beckwith, she don’t see eye to eye with the colonel, no sir, not by a long streak. You can always tell when they had an argument. Out she goes with Jupiter and the dogs, and she don’t come back happy less’n she’s killed something. One time she stayed out all night, says she never wanted to come back empty-handed. The colonel was good and mad over that. Say, I bet you wished you was white.”
I give him a smile to show I never understood and he looked at me scornful and says:
“Now I come to look at you I reckon you got white blood anyway. You’re one of them halfbreeds, ain’t you. I reckon that’s what you are, you sorry-lookin’ piece of trash. I wouldn’t be no halfbreed for a hundred dollars. Bet your Ma was a whore that opened her legs willing to Injuns. I just bet she was. You stink, you halfbreed Injun. You’re just about the smellingest thing I ever come across that wasn’t scraped off a boot.”
Hearing him talk was strange, like I really am a halfbreed. I got all fluttery in the chest and angersome at the way he treated me, and at the same time I wanted to tell him I’m white like him, practickly apologize for looking like I do. But it weren’t advisable so I stayed shut, just trembling all over with ragefulness and shame, and it come to me that Jim has got to tolerate feelings like this every time he come across ignorant sap-heads like the one in front of me. How he done it without killing someone or throwing himself in a river from the shame of it I can’t figure at all.