“What for?” says I.
“What for?” he says, and all the others laughed. “What for? Tomorrow’s New Year’s Day, muttonhead!”
It come as a big surprise to me and it must of showed, because they laughed plenty, then Herb says:
“But we got to finish this job fast, so it ain’t going to be no vacation for no one here. You want me to say it all again, bonehead?”
“No I don’t,” says I. “I ain’t deaf.”
“Maybe not,” he says, “but you sure are dumb.”
That got another big laugh, and he says:
“I bet you don’t even know what year it’ll be tomorrow, do you?”
“This year plus one,” says I, and got laughs on my side this time, which Herb never liked.
“You take care of your health, boy,” he says. “Carrying around a heavy brain like yours must be an awful strain.”
“Not so big a strain as carrying yours must be. Keeping your head straight so your brain don’t rattle around inside is a mighty hard trick.”
They all laughed, but quit when they seen Herb ain’t amused. He says:
“Boy, you just backtalked your way out of a job.”
“Ain’t you got no sense of humor?” says I.
He just shook his head, smiling, and Albie says:
“Don’t fire him, Herb. Him and Ben is good workers both.”
“We don’t need no smart-talking snotnose around here,” says Herb, “but the nigger can stay.”
“I ain’t stayin’,” says Jim.
“No, Ben,” says I. “You got to. Ma and Sis got to have their medicine and you know how much we got to pay for every bottle. The doc says if they don’t get it regular both of them’ll die spitting blood. You got to stay on and work, Ben.”
“Hear that, Herb?” says Albie. “You’re killing a helpless woman and girl. The nigger don’t earn enough on his own to buy no medicine. How much was it you was telling me the stuff cost, Jack?”
“Fifty dollars a bottle,” says I, snuffling, “and they both got to drink three bottles a week each just to stay alive. It’s only Doc Sawyer’s Elixir that’s keeping Ma and Sis out of the grave.”
The other men set up a sympathetical racket and Herb seen the way of it.
“All right,” he says, holding out his hands for quiet, “the bonehead can stay on too, only he’s got to keep a civil tongue in his head.”
“Oh, it’ll be real sivilized, Herb,” says I.
“Well make sure it is. I don’t want no one starting the new year on the wrong foot,” he says, and turned away quick so’s to have the last word, only he never watched where he stepped and put his foot through a gap in the floor planking and fell down hard, which give us all a good long laugh.
“Must of been the right foot but the wrong leg, Herb,” says one of the carpenters, and the laughing doubled.
But we had to stop when Herb hollered at us to pull him out, and when he’s laid out on the planks, Albie looked at his leg and touched it and says the bottom half is broke. The carpenters fixed him up with splints right quick, being handy with wood, and his leg got wrapped tight with sackcloth. Albie done most of it seeing as he done the same for a dog once.
“Don’t worry, Herb,” he says, “that dog walked again. Mind you, he never catched another rabbit in his life.”
Someone give Herb a snort from a bottle of whiskey to ease the pain, then we lifted him onto a lumber wagon and took him to the hotel he’s got a room at and hauled him up the stairs and into bed, by which time he was considerable drunk. He says:
“Albie, you got to keep the boys working hard. When the contractor comes around with the wages you got to hand them out and keep things running smooth. Don’t let nothing get in the way of finishing that job.”
“Don’t you worry, I know how to be a foreman,” says Albie.
“Talk loud and smoke a cigar,” says someone, but we never laughed out of respect for Herb’s busted leg. Albie told the woman that runs the place Herb has got to have his meals brung upstairs and his chamber pot emptied till his leg gets mended and he can move around again. She never took the news with a smile so we all give a little donation to sweeten her, which Albie calls the Pisspot Fund. Then we left to celebrate New Year’s Eve, all eight of us in the wagon.
I never would of believed it if I never seen it myself, but San Francisco was even livelier that night than usual. It’s only early evening yet but the streets was packed so tight the buildings got their paint wore off. It warn’t possible to take the wagon nowhere in all that mud and crush so we drawed straws to see who has to take it back to the livery stable where it belongs, but then we seen it’s a waste of time and the team got hitched to a post and left right there while we looked for a saloon. The closest was just across the street, but it may as well of been across a river. There’s duckboards laid across the mud to cross over on, but every man that used them figures he’s got the right of way, and men coming from both directions got into arguments and one or both of them ended up in the mud. I swear I seen one man vanish clean out of sight in the ooze, but I could of been wrong. Albie says:
“Men, we need to get across somehow, and I figures it ain’t right if all of us has to get muddied. If four of us carries the other four over that leaves half of us clean and decent to face the world. How about it?”
“Which four gets carried?” asks a carpenter.
“The first four to clap hands, …” says Albie, and straightaway everyone except Albie, me and Jim clapped hands and looked mighty smug.
“… is the ones that’ll do the carrying,” he says. “You should of waited till I finished, boys. Henry, you was a mite slow to clap so you get carried. All right, men, mount up!”
“Hold on there, Albie. It ain’t fair, …” says a bricklayer.
“Tell me something that is, but do it bent over so’s I can climb aboard.”
“I ain’t totin’ no nigger,” says another, and Albie give him a vexed look and says:
“Zachary, you’re just the pigheadedest man I come across. Don’t go getting fractious on the last day of the year.”
“Well I ain’t,” says Zachary, poking out his chin.
“Me neither,” says someone else. “Not for no nigger.”
“I’m takin’ the boardwalk,” says a third, and in the end we all done it, and Zachary and a couple more got pushed off before we even got halfway, which I’m glad about. But the real trouble come almost at the other side when a real big man with bushy whiskers come face to face with Jim.
“Step off this walk, nigger,” he says. “I aim to pass.”
“Dere’s room to get by if’n we both squeezes,” says Jim.
“There ain’t. The only thing I aim to squeeze tonight is a woman, so get them nigger feet over the side.”
“I ain’t partial to mud,” says Jim, and the bushy man pulled a pistol from his belt and pointed the barrel square at Jim’s belly. The men pushing and shoving along the walk stopped when they seen it and that part of the street got mighty still.
“Off, nigger,” says the bushy man, smiling.
There’s a long spell of quiet, then Jim done it, and stepped into mud way over his knees. The man give a big laugh and put his pistol away.
“White men before niggers, nigger,” he says.
He took a couple or three steps, real pleased with himself till I put my leg between his and tripped him. He went into the mud head first, so deep here only his legs stayed above it. The crowd give a cheer, not on account of sympathy for Jim, just because them legs looked mighty funny waving in the air. Then someone hollers:
“He’ll drown! Get him out!”
Jim was closest, just a few feet off, but he never made no effort to pull the bushy man out. He just climbed back onto the boards and left that man to drown, and I can’t say I would of done different. He got saved anyway when a couple of men that’s already been pushed off waded over and hauled him up by the belt, and the first thing he done is puke up mud
and supper. All of us was across by now and Jim says quiet to me:
“Das de las’ time, Huck. I ain’t steppin’ down no mo’.”
Albie and the rest pushed their way into the saloon, but Jim never moved.
“I ain’t goin’ in, Huck. If’n I don’ get sold no liquor I’se goin’ to bust a few heads, I kin feel it. You go on in if’n you wants to.”
“Naw, I reckon I’ll let it pass by. Liquor ain’t good for you anyhow.”
Albie comes out again and says:
“You boys the slow mail or what?”
“We ain’t going in, Albie,” says I.
“Why not? I’ll buy Ben a drink. He don’t have to get served.”
“I ain’t goin’ in,” says Jim.
“Maybe if we do like Albie says there won’t be no trouble.”
“You go on in, Huck. I ain’t goin’ to.”
“What’d he call you?” says Albie.
“Just a pet name my Ma give me. Tucker’s my middle name, see, and she used to call me Tuck all the time, not Jack like I wanted her to.”
“Well come on in, the both of you. It ain’t in the rules to greet the new year sober.”
Jim give a sigh and we went in, and him and me wedged ourselfs in a corner while Albie went for a bottle I give him the cash for. Jim shouts above the noise and conbobberation:
“I shoulder kep’ shut! You reckon he figured it out?”
“He ain’t got nothing on his mind but drinking! It don’t matter!”
We waited and waited, then Albie come back with a bottle.
“I’ll be over there with the rest!” he says, pointing across the room into all the smoke and confusement. “Come on over when you feel like it!”
It’s real considerate of him the way he knows we ain’t truly a part of the bunch he’s with and never forced us to join him once we’re inside, but he ain’t about to let no problemation spoil his fun and went off again. Jim and me swigged from the bottle awhile but never got comfortable in there with all the shouting and laughter. Somehow it hit the wrong note after all that’s happened to us this past year, and we figured we may as well leave, which we done gradual on account of the crush.
Once we got outside we pushed our way through the crowds and worked our way to the edge of the city and up over a hill to where we can see the bay. It’s a real sight even at night, with the sky clear for a change and moonlight sparkling on the water. We went down to the shore where there ain’t no houses and it’s quiet, with just the waves lapping soft and soothing, and found a sheltered spot and sat there passing the bottle back and forth, sipping and smoking our pipes.
“It ain’t much, Huck,” says Jim.
“What ain’t?”
“De lives we’s livin’.”
“It ain’t so bad now we got a little spending money.”
“I ain’t talkin’ cash, I’se talkin’ life. You rec’llect what we was sayin’ all de way back in Missouri after you got busted outer jail?”
“I disremember exactly.”
“We was talkin’ ’bout po’try an’ de Holy Grail an’ such.”
“Well, maybe so. What’s your point?”
“We ain’t foun’ none of it, das de point. You still a wanted man an’ I’se still a nigger, an’ we ain’t nothin’ but trash to de rester de worl’.”
“Who cares what they think? The rest of the world can go hang.”
“I reckon I don’ care ’bout de worl’ so much, Huck, but de worl’ don’ wanter let me be. I’se peaceable, you knows dat, but de worl’ jest keeps on jabbin’ at me wid a stick, tryin’ to rile me, an’ someday I’se goin’ to turn aroun’ an’ bust dat stick over whoever doin’ de jabbin’. I been holdin’ on ever since we lef’ de diggin’s, jest hopin’ de plan ’bout de ship an’ de islan’s work out de way we want, but it never, an’ when de gol’ got stole I come near to givin’ up.”
“I kind of felt that way myself, but it don’t do to weaken, not after all we been through. I reckon we just got to look on it like it’s an adventure in a book. You don’t put down no book without you read to the end and see how things pan out for the hero.”
“I cain’t read, an’ I ain’t no hero.”
“You surely are, Jim. I got to beg to differ there. Why, look at the way you busted me out of Sheriff Bottoms’s jailhouse. I bet that’s permanent history in St. Petersburg now. I’d be a rotting corpse with maggots coming out of my eyes if you hadn’t of done it. And look what you done in the desert. You saved Frank and me both from getting parched to death. If that ain’t a heroical deed I don’t know what is.”
He stayed quiet for awhile, then says:
“If’n you says so, Huck.”
“Well, I do.”
By and by we heard a scattering of gunfire over the hill from the city, so it must be midnight. It died away after awhile and we drunk up the rest of the bottle slow and easy and shared out more tobacco. Says I:
“I reckon New Year’s Eve has got to be the disappointingest time of year.”
“Why’s dat?”
“Well, I never yet felt different on the far side of midnight to the side just gone. Everything is still the same after you hear them twelve licks on the clock as it was before. I reckon a new year is something that don’t exist except on calendar paper.”
“You proberly right ’bout dat, Huck, an’ Cris’mastime too. Ain’t nobody’d know it’s Cris’mas Day without other folks tol ’em so.”
“I reckon you and me need a special day that don’t mean nothing to no one else but us, Jim.”
“You means like a birthday?”
“Kind of, but that’s a day that gets handed to you by fate. What we need is a day that’s ours just because we picked it ourselfs.”
“What we goin’ to call it?”
“Huck’n’Jim Day is the best-suited name. It’s got the right ring to it.”
“Soun’s perty good to me. What day it happen on?”
“Somewhere in summertime I figure, so we get good weather for it. But not too close to July fourth. We don’t want Huck’n’Jim Day to get confused with no other holiday.”
“How ’bout de las’ day in July? Das still high summer.”
“July thirty-first is still a mite close to July fourth,” says I. How about the first day of August?”
“I never like de sounder August. Puts me in mind of a woman I knowed befo’ I’se married, Augustine. She give me a hard time, dat woman.”
“Then we’ll split the difference and make it July thirty-second.”
“Das fine by me, Huck. It feel mighty good to know we got ourselfs a special day ain’t nobody else goin to know ’bout.”
We finished off the bottle and both blowed a wish into it then throwed it into the bay, only we forgot to put the cork in on account of being drunk so I reckon it must of sunk. Then we headed for our crate and 1850.
There ain’t nothing like a bottle to make you sleep snug, but I got woke up while it’s still dark by a power of banging and crashing and clopping hoofs and grinding wheels. When I poked my head out of the crate I seen that two big doors in back of the warehouse has been opened and four or five wagons with canvas-covered loads is being emptied by a couple dozen men. They worked real fast with trolleys and such and got them wagons unloaded in maybe half an hour by lamplight, boxes and crates mostly. One got dropped accidental and busted open and its full of cans, preserves most likely. They never seen me watching from the dark, and when the job’s done they closed them big doors and fitted a padlock or three and lined up to get wages for what they done, then went off in different directions without much talking. When the last two got paid there’s an argument, and they got mad and talked loud enough for me to hear.
“It ain’t fair,” says one. “We’re ten dollars short.”
“You broke a case,” says the one handing out the money. “You don’t expect to be rewarded for carelessness do you?”
“It slipped,” says the third one, smaller and whini
er, and I got a chill down my back.
“It slipped because you’re drunk, both of you. If you want to keep working for the company just sober up in working hours.”
“I ain’t drunk,” whines the little one and I knowed for sure. It’s Pap, and the big one has got to be Morg. He says:
“I reckon we should get the same as the rest. Hell, it’s New Year’s Day.”
“That’s right, not Christmas, so no presents,” says the money man. “Take what’s offered and keep your mouths shut.”
He walked off to put an end to the argument. Pap and Morg grumbled some more then went off down an alley to the street. Jim’s still snoring, drunker than me, so I never disturbed him and followed after them. They walked slow and stumbled some, but the streets were full of drunks even if it’s near dawn by now, and I kept close without getting seen. Finally they come to a hotel on Montgomery Street and went inside. I give them a minute then went up to it. There’s a sign out front that reckons it’s the Ophir Hotel, but the building has got flophouse writ all over it, dirty and neglectable even if it’s a new place. I went in and there’s a clerk half asleep behind the desk with a bottle for company.
“Happy New Year,” says I.
“Nnnnngh,” says he.
“Pardon me for bothering your celebration, but I think I just seen my uncle come in here with another man. I ain’t seen him since back in Ohio, and I wondered if you can maybe tell me if it’s him, if it ain’t too much trouble that is.”
“I never seen ’em.”
“You must of. They come in just this minute, a big man and a little man with long hair.”
“I know ’em,” he says, and fumbles with the register book awhile and says:
“Oliver Twine and Casey Holbrook. Room twenty-seven.”
“Thank you. I reckon I’ll go up and surprise them.”
He slumped down in his chair again and I clumb the stairs and found number twenty-seven down the hall at the back. There ain’t no one in the hallway so I kneeled by the keyhole and spied through. There ain’t much to see, just Morg’s back where he’s sat at a table, but I can hear them pretty clear.
“One of these days I aim to stomp on that sonovabitch,” says Morg.