“Why, Turtle, what a surprise. What is it you require?”
I pointed away off somewheres and she says:
“Is it Andrew? What does he want? Oh, of course, you can’t tell me.”
I run off quick around the corner and hid behind a barrel. She come after me looking real worried but never seen me there.
“Drat the boy,” she says, and went off to look for Andrew. Soon as she’s gone I went back to her door and let myself in when there warn’t no one looking, then went to the writing desk and put pen to paper.
Your wife is sparking with a person that ain’t you and acting like Jezebel so you better put a fence around her quick
A Friend
It’s a lowdown trick that don’t do me no credit, but I’m a desperate man. I folded the note and shoved it in my waistband then put the pen back the way it was and slid out the door breathing fast. A genuine criminal would of stole them marzipans too.
There’s a fair number of people walking around in front of the colonel’s office so I’ll have to wait till dark to push the note under his door. That’s what I figured, but fickle fate never wanted it to be that way, because just before sundown a wagon train rolled up to the gates and there was noise and bustle and confusement. There was maybe thirty wagons and the wagonmaster come in to meet the colonel. I’m curious, so I hunkered down under the side window of the colonel’s office which is open on account of the heat and spread my ears. The wagonmaster introduced himself as Mr. Berringer and after considerable jawing about the trip he says:
“A couple of days past Chimney Rock we found two graves that struck us as strange. We’ve seen plenty of graves along the way where cholera victims have been buried, but they always had a cross planted on them. All these had were rocks piled atop the corpses, so we opened them up and found two white men, both scalped, both with arrows still in them which our guide identified as Sioux. There’s something mysterious in the way these two were laid out, Colonel. I don’t believe Injuns are in the habit of even piling a few rocks over their victims for decency, but then whites don’t go scalping each other, so it looks as if they were killed by redskins and buried by whites, and not too long ago, maybe four or five days.”
“Those are indeed peculiar circumstances, Mr. Berringer,” says the colonel. “There have been no recent incidents involving the Sioux, but if they have begun to pick off stray travelers they must be taught a lesson. I’ll send out a patrol to find and question the Sioux tomorrow, in fact I’ll lead the expedition myself and take whatever action I deem necessary if they are responsible for the deaths of these men. Meanwhile I suggest you take your train over to the west side of the fort and make camp. You’ll find plenty of grass for your teams there.”
“Thank you, Colonel. We’ll only stop over for one day.”
I never waited around to hear no more but went looking for Andrew, only it was him that found me and he’s looking real vexated. He says:
“Huckleberry, what kind of game are you playing? Lydia has informed me you brought her a silent message from me, a message I did not send. Explain yourself, please.”
“She must of got me mixed up with some other Injun. There ain’t time to argue on it. There’s a wagon train just arrived, so now you got no excuse for not leaving the day after tomorrow when they go.”
“Yes.… Well …” he says.
“If you don’t then me and Jim ain’t going to wait around no more.”
“You wouldn’t abandon a friend would you, Huckleberry? Please try to understand my situation. Lydia is the woman I’ve been searching for all my life. To leave without her is … unthinkable.”
“Well, you got to. She ain’t about to set up house with no shoe clerk.”
“I have not mentioned that aspect of my past to her as yet,” he says, squirming some.
“And I just bet you ain’t going to neither. She’ll find out sooner or later, Andrew, you know she will, and then she’ll fling you out the window or shoot you.”
“Lydia is the gentlest creature on the face of the earth.”
“You can believe it if you want, but I reckon she’s a wolf inside sheep’s wool, so don’t blame me if you get bit.”
“I respect your concern for my welfare, Huckleberry, and will make my decision tonight. The Beckwiths have asked me to dine with them.”
“Then you’ll likely get told news I already heard, namely Rufus and Eben got dug up and the arrows in them reckernized for Sioux, so the colonel aims to go out tomorrow and find them and ask a few hard questions.”
“He’ll be absent from the fort?”
“Him and a parcel of troopers.”
“Hmmmm …” he says and turns on his heel, and we went our different ways.
I went inside the fort to watch the train get pulled into the spot the colonel told them and set up camp. It was just like when the Naismith train reached Fort Kearney, with Injuns swooping down on them selling their women for whiskey and trade goods. It’s dark by now and there’s people red and white around the campfires and plenty of noise. Then I heard a bell ringing and pretty soon seen Mr. Pettifer and Mrs. Ambrose coming through the crowd with her swinging a hand bell and him bawling out at the top of his voice:
“Come to the store first thing in the morning, folks! Everything you could want! Hardware, harness, drapery, firearms, all kinds of supplies at a reasonable price! Just inside the main gates, folks! Look for the sign! Pettifer’s Store! You won’t find another before you get to California so take this chance to buy what you need first thing tomorrow! Pettifer’s Store is where to go to get all the things you need! Quality goods at fair prices for one and all!”
When they passed me by Mrs. Ambrose give me a look then turned away, the second time that day she come close to suspicioning me for Huck Finn, but she kept on going and swinging that bell. The camp warn’t a pretty sight, so I left and legged it to Jim’s hideout and give him the news, and he says:
“’Pears to me you ain’t usin’ de big stick on Andrew like you oughter, Huck.”
“What big stick?”
“He’s mighty scareder de colonel’s wife findin’ out he ain’t no genulman. You got to tell him you goin’ to spill de beans on it if’n he don’ promise to leave when you say.”
“It’s a mean trick to play, but no meaner than slipping the colonel a note about his wife, safer too. I reckon you’re right, Jim. If the carrot don’t work you got to use cunning, the big stick kind.”
We talked awhile longer then I strolled through the train on my way back to the fort. There was still plenty of drinking and whoring going on and I never seen one white woman around, so they either shut theirselfs away in the wagons to ignore the sights or else it’s a train of only men, two of which was stood watching a squaw get throwed out of a wagon after she’s been used. She drug herself away half drunk to find another customer, pitiful and dirty and sad.
“Look at that,” the first man says. “Did you ever see a more disgusting sight? These redskins must be the most degenerate beings in creation. They have not one whit of modesty or decency or cleanliness.”
“Morally bankrupt,” says the second, and points at me. “Look at that, for example. Only a boy, yet here he is with the rest of them, most likely trying to sell his mother or sister. Obviously not enough to eat either, look how skinny he is. Dead before he’s twenty-five I’ll bet.”
The first is short and potbellied and the second tall and smoking a cigar, both of them dressed neat for forty-niners; you could tell they ain’t farmers or rivermen, nothing like that. They talked near as good as Andrew. The first one says:
“Looking at a specimen like that makes you laugh at the theory that redskins are one of the seven lost tribes of Israel.”
“If that were so the Jews would turn Catholic,” says the second.
That give them both a laugh, then they seen I’m still there staring at them, and what I’m doing is testing myself to see if I can take a heap of scornful talk and still walk away prou
d to be a halfbreed.
“What do you think he’s after, money? He appears not to be selling anything.”
“Could be drunk, I guess. Very little expression on the features, you’ll notice.”
“Rather like a nigger in that regard.”
“Exactly. He’s a red nigger.”
They surely knowed how to crack a joke, them two, and I laughed along with them, kind of curious to hear what else they come out with. The potbellied one crooked a finger at me and I went over. “What is your name?” he asks.
I never give no sign I understood American and he says: “Tell me, young savage, are you aware that you are the lowest form of life?”
I give a nod and a grin, which made them laugh all over again, then he says:
“And is it true that you take pleasure in fornicating with your own mothers?”
Another nod had them practickly in stitches. He says:
“But best of all, I’m told, is the custom whereby the men abuse each other while standing in a circle under the full moon. Is that correct?”
I nodded again and they had to hold each other up. Potbelly barely manages to talk around his tears when he says:
“We must not, of course, forget the redskins’ supreme delight, which is the buggering of buffalo. I’m right aren’t I, Injun?”
“Almost,” says I, “but it’s a heap more fun to listen in on talking jackasses. We don’t get the chance too often, so thank you and goodnight, gents.”
And off I went with them staring after me, not making a sound. I was walking tall all the way across to the fort, only the gates had been closed for the night, which took some of the starch out of me. I never wanted to sleep on the ground, not with a hayloft waiting for me inside, so I knocked hard on the gates. A couple of sentries poked their heads over the wall and looked down at me.
“Go take a squat,” says one. “No Injuns allowed in after dark.”
“Wait on,” says the other. “Ain’t that the Injun that’s with the feller Miz Beckwith went ridin’ out with?”
“How kin you tell? They all look the same.”
“See that long rifle? That’s how. Better let him in or there’ll be complaints. I ain’t pullin’ no extra guard duty, not if I kin help it.”
So they let me in, and it means they had to come all the way down off the sentry platform and slide back a heavy log to do it, which put them in a mean temper. When I come through they give me a boot in the rear that sprawled me in the dust, but it made them laugh so they never done nothing more to me. Staying proud when you ain’t white is a mighty hard thing to do. I picked myself up and headed for the stables, but when I passed the store porch a voice come from the shadows.
“It’s you, ain’t it, Jeff Trueblood, or should I say Huck Finn?”
I looked close and seen Mrs. Ambrose in a rocking chair.
“Yes, ma’am,” says I.
“Come up here where I can see you.”
I went up on the porch and stood beside her and she looked me up and down, rocking herself gentle all the while.
“I wouldn’t hardly of reckernized you in that Injun rig-out, but when I seen you a time or three it started me thinking, and I figured where I seen that face before. You created an almighty fuss when you busted out of Fort Kearney. The whole train talked on it all the way across the plains. It was just awful the way you treated that poor girl that went to give you comfort, knocking her on the head that way and stealing her clothes, downright indecent. What have you got to say for yourself?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
I wanted to make myself more righteous in her eyes, but it would of meant saying Grace done a crime to help me escape, and I never wanted to get her in trouble over it. Mrs. Ambrose says:
“Did you do all them things they say you done back in Missouri?”
“No, ma’am, Mrs. Ambrose.”
“I’m Mrs. Pettifer now, since yesterday. You seen the wedding. Why, you even got the bouquet,” she says, and laughs, which made me rest a mite easier, then she says:
“Are you saying you’re innocent, first, last and always?”
“Yes, ma’am. Hope to die if it ain’t true. I been hounded all this way for nothing, only I can’t prove it.”
“How am I supposed to believe that when you can do a thing like you done to that poor girl? Answer me that.”
Well, I can’t, not without hurting Grace. Mrs. Ambrose says:
“Are you denying you done what she says you done to get away?”
“I ain’t saying nothing, ma’am.”
“You ain’t even going to try and convince me you ain’t a liar?”
“No, ma’am. You can believe or disbelieve it, but I ain’t saying nothing. Are you aiming to tell the colonel about me?”
“Do you reckon I should?”
“No, ma’am. If I was you I’d turn a blind eye and let an innocent man go free, I truly would.”
“Do you know what I think, Huckleberry Finn?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I reckon that girl was a friend of yours. Would I be right?”
“I ain’t saying.”
“Well I ain’t going to press you on it if you’re protecting her. How did you come to be dressed that way?”
“Disguise, ma’am. They’re all looking for a white boy, not an Injun.”
“That’s mighty clever of you. You’re a mighty smart child. That detective with the highfalutin’ manner looked silly as a clown when you got free. Funniest thing I ever seen was his face when he got the news. You brung him down a peg that night. But you watch out, he’s the kind that never lets up.”
“I know it, ma’am.”
“What are you fixing to do now?”
I trusted her somehow, so I say:
“Same as before, ma’am, go to California.”
“That’s your dream, I reckon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, it was my dream too for awhile, but I only got this far. You’re probably thinking I mellowed some since you last seen me.”
“Yes, ma’am. You was right waspish before, if you’ll pardon me.”
“I know, I was a regular cross-patch, but a grieving widow gets that way. Now I’m married again to a good man I look at things different. That’s what marriage is for, to make you see things different. If you don’t get yourself hanged in the meantime I hope you’ll one day find a nice girl and get married.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Only not with that Grace girl. She’s too flighty.”
“No, ma’am. She’s older’n me anyway. Are you going to tell on me?”
“You’re wanting a straight yes or no?”
“I’d appreciate it, ma’am.”
“And if I say yes are you going to kill me?”
“You know I ain’t.”
“That’s right, Huck Finn, I know you ain’t going to kill, and never did no killing, and you can take that for a no.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Amb … Pettifer. I’m grateful.”
The door behind her opened and out come Mr. Pettifer.
“Not coming to bed, dear?” he asks, then he seen me. “Why, what’s the Injun doing here?”
“Just passing the time of night with conversation,” she says, and to me, “Go along now, Injun. You’d talk the leg off a chair.”
So I kind of nodded and backed off and headed for the stables again, and behind me I hear Mr. Pettifer say:
“Talk? But he’s a mute. The man he’s with told me so. They use sign language.”
“Is that so?” she says. “Well to be truthful it was me that done most of the talking. I wondered why he never held up his end of the conversation.”
I slipped into the stables and up into the loft. Andrew warn’t there, so I figured the Beckwiths must of put him up at their place, and I hoped Mrs. Beckwith has got more sense than to go walking in her sleep and falling on top of him accidental-like. I got snugged in and settled down for sleep. It was just dandy the way Mrs. Am
brose never wanted to turn me in, and it give me a warm feeling to know there’s people that are decent and clearheaded in spite of all, which is a comfort. If I had of been the prayerful kind I would of done a prayer for that woman, but I ain’t so I never, and just hoped she knows how grateful I am for being give a helping hand for once and not the back of one.
Then I recollected the note I got stashed in my britches. It’s the perfect time to slip it under the colonel’s door while everyone is sleeping, but I turned it over in my head and reckoned I’d let it slide. With the colonel heading off into the wild blue yonder tomorrow Andrew can’t say he won’t leave ahead of the train on account of it’ll upset the colonel’s notion of what’s safe and what ain’t. No colonel means no argument, but there’s still the problem about Lydia. Well, if he never had the strength to drag himself away from her there’s always Jim’s big-stick plan to hit him over the head with. A lady like that won’t want no truck with no shoe clerk. I got myself satisfied on that line of thinking, then tore up the note seeing as I won’t be needing it no more. Tom Sawyer would of et it. Then I fell asleep.
19
A Change of Plan—Restless Nights—A Wayfarer’s Grave—Gateway to the Rockies—New Arrivals—Bearmeat and Misery
Come daybreak there’s a powerful din below with horses being saddled up and led out into the quadrangle. I slid down the ladder after most of the stalls was emptied and watched the troopers mount up and form ranks facing the colonel’s office. He come out onto the porch wearing field uniform with a pair of fancy buckskin gloves tucked in his belt and made a speech.
“Men,” he says, “word has reached me that the Sioux have murdered two white men in cold blood. It’s my intention to find out the truth on this matter. I will leave no stone unturned in my efforts to find the facts. You know the Sioux. They have a nasty reputation. But you know me as well, if not better, and you know that I never flinch from doing my duty, no matter what the consequences.”
A trooper near me kind of laughed in his nose, and it was catching and run up and down the ranks till half the company was doing it. They kept it up till a captain give them a dirty look, but the colonel never heard it or else just ignored it. He goes on: