Portiss steered us to port and we rowed on with the oars creaking just a little and the waves lapping soft against the bows and the bell fading behind. Portiss looks at his compass and paper all the time now, and he’s got a pocket watch too, marking off the minutes since we left the buoy. Then he alters course and I seen three masts poking out of the water where a ship has sunk at anchor, real dismal looking. We rowed around it and then we’re on the edge of the floating graveyard. Them deserted ships was shadows in all that swirling fog, riding the water like big sleeping birds. Portiss guided the longboats from one ship to the next, and I reckon his map shows where every one is anchored. They’re so crowded together we ain’t ever out of sight of one at least, and Portiss was mighty clever the way we steered through to where they’re crowded like hogs in a pen. We rowed by so close I seen their names on the bows: Patagonia, Baltic Queen, Venturer, all of them quiet as can be. Then Portiss says to ship oars and we slid alongside a big clipper, the Prometheus. There’s a rope ladder been left hung over the side and one of the men climb aboard and got throwed a line to secure. The men on the other boats throwed lines too, and soon as they was all tied fast everyone swarmed aboard the clipper. It was ghostly and strange to be stood on deck with just the rigging blocks creaking and the fog rolling around, and the men all felt it and kept herded together.
Portiss went to the for’ard hatch and took a hammer out of his jacket and knocked out the clips so’s the hatch can be took off. They lifted it clear and I seen the cargo hold is filled with boxes and suchlike, which I never expected on a ship that ain’t even guarded, and now I knowed what we come here for, which is robbing. A rope got tied to a cleat and throwed down and Portiss points to Jim and me and says:
“Get down there.”
We slid down into the hold and a dozen more followed, along with a big rope net. Lamps got lit so’s we can see to steal better, then Portiss come down too and took out a bunch of papers. He looked at them and then at the crates and started marking different ones with an X in chalk, so I reckon what he’s got there is a cargo manifest and he’s figuring out the best things to take away. Soon as he X’d a box the men drug it over to the net and it got hauled up on deck. They was real expert and done it quick without no fuss, and me and Jim never had no choice but to do our part, and sweatful work it was too. The air down there must of been fresh back in New York or China or wherever the Prometheus come from, but it ain’t improved with the voyage. Injun Joe’s cave back home smelled sweeter, and that’s with Injun Joe dead in it awhile. I sneaked a peek at all the men that’s down there and none of them is Pap or Morg, but there’s plenty more on deck that’s swinging the goods over the side on a boom that I ain’t seen the faces of yet, and more again down in the longboats stowing everything away. We worked steady and fast, even moving crates that ain’t X’d to get to them that’s underneath, so Portiss’s manifest must be real exact to show him right where all the best stuff is.
It must of took hours till someone whispers down that the boats can’t hold no more, but Portiss made us dig out three more crates anyway before he’s satisfied we got the cream of the cargo. The lamps got blowed out and we clumb up on deck, then the hatch got fitted back in place and the clips fixed like they was before. The longboats was all piled high with crates and boxes and bales so there ain’t hardly room enough for us, but everyone squeezed onto a seat and untied the lines then pushed off with the oars till we was clear, then started rowing.
Portiss guided us back the way we come with his map and compass and watch and the keels grinded onto the shore just before dawn. But the work ain’t finished yet. We had to take all them stolen goods out of the boats and load them in the wagons, and it’s on my fifth trip from the boats that I seen Pap the same time as he seen me. He give a shout and fell down, and a man come up to see what’s wrong and it’s Morg, but all Pap can do is point. When Morg seen me he gaped his mouth and says:
“What in hell are you doin here?…”
“Stealing, same as you,” says I.
“But … hell, it ain’t possible … not two times.…”
“Ain’t life strange. Is Pap dead of shock or what?”
“It ain’t you.…” says Pap, so he’s alive still. “It just can’t be.…”
“I reckon it is, Pap.”
“Get away from me!” he hollers. “Get away!…”
It warn’t a happy reunion, but it’s a noisy one, and it brung Portiss down on us right quick.
“What in thunder’s all this racket?” he hisses, then he sees Pap on the ground and says:
“Holbrook, are you drunk again?”
“He ain’t drunk,” says Morg. “He just fell down.”
I slid away before I get mixed up in it too and kept on working, but I can hear Portiss and Morg hissing at each other like snakes and Pap moaning some. Jim brushed past me and whispers:
“What happen, Huck?”
“It’s Pap and Morg after all. They seen me.”
Portiss come stamping along and says:
“Quit jawing and work.”
The last crates got loaded and the wagons started back to San Francisco, and on the way I had a considerable amount to ponder over. I never would of figured a rich man like Miles Wyeth is a thief, but it’s so, and right now he’s in the governor’s house drinking his liquor and most likely the governor reckons he’s a decent man. I seen that it ain’t always hard work that gets a man rich, just two-facedness and hiring others to do the stealing for you. It’s real disgusting, and I aim to tell Grace the first chance I get so’s she’ll know just what kind of double-dealing trash she’s got herself mixed up with. She’ll be gratified to know the truth and thank me for it I reckon. Then there’s Pap and Morg. They ain’t in this wagon but they’re in one of them, and after we’re all through unloading at the warehouse I aim to sneak away with Jim without getting spotted by them. I ain’t happy about us meeting up again and they ain’t neither, but Jim and me got no intentions of working for Miles Wyeth after tonight so Pap and Morg’ll be able to breathe easy again without having us around.
It never worked out like that. We unloaded and stowed all the cargo in the warehouse along with big piles of other stuff that must of come off practickly every ship in the bay, then got paid, but Portiss tells me and Jim and Pap and Morg to stay behind.
“You two,” he says, meaning Pap and Morg, “this is your last chance. If I catch you drunk one more time you won’t work here no more, understand?”
They both looked real scared and never spoke, then he turns to me and Jim.
“How do you like your new job?” he asks.
“We don’t,” says I, “and we quit.”
He give a soft laugh and shook his head like I’m an idiot or something.
“Boy, there’s one thing you got to learn. When you work for the Cornucopia Mercantile Company you don’t ever quit, not till you’re dead. It’s in the contract, and no one ever broke it yet.”
“If that’s so how come you told Pap … these two here they got to sober up or get showed the door?”
“I never mentioned no door. If they finish working here they ain’t going to be working nowhere else, know what I mean?”
“No, and we never signed no contract neither.”
“It’s the kind that don’t get signed, just agreed on.”
“Well I reckon we’re disagreeable.”
“Boy, a month back we had a man that never wanted to keep working for the company. He was real bull-headed about it and never listened to reason. We was real sad to let him go, and sadder yet when we heard the news he got found in the bay with his throat cut. If he had of honored the contract he never would of died, see? It was real unfortunate. You don’t want nothing like that to happen to you, I reckon.”
“No, sir, Mr. Portiss. We figure the Corneycopey Mercantile Company is just the best company in the world to work for and we’re real proud to be part of it.”
“That’s the kind of thinking we like,” he
says. “You keep thinking that way and you’ll stay healthy to spend all the dollars you earn. There’s arrangements been made for you to stay at a hotel that’s company owned, the same one that these two here and some others live at. We like to keep our boys together so’s we can keep a fatherly eye on them, see?”
“It ain’t necessary, Mr. Portiss, sir. We already got a nice place.…”
“No you ain’t. You’re at the Ophir Hotel like the rest. Where are you?”
“The Ophir Hotel. Thank you for fixing it, sir.”
“My pleasure,” he says. “Now get out of my sight.”
The four of us went away and soon as we’re out on the street Pap says:
“Don’t you come nowhere near me.… Don’t you dare.…”
“Maybe you never heard it clear, Pap. Me and Jim is going to be under the same roof as you two, like it or not.”
“Just don’t talk to us,” says Morg. “You keep in your room and we’ll keep in ours and all of us’ll keep our mouths shut.”
“About stealing for the Corneycopey Company or about you both being murderers?”
“I ain’t no murderer!…” bawls Pap, and Morg clapped a hand over his mouth. He says:
“We don’t talk about nothin’, not ever.”
“Ain’t you disgusted to be thiefs now as well as murderers?” says I.
“It ain’t stealing,” says Morg, “not regular stealing anyhow. Them ships ain’t got no one to unload them. Why, all them cargoes’d sink to the bottom if we never brung ’em into the light of day. It’s a shameful waste to let it all rot out there on the water. I reckon we’re doing this town a power of good letting folks get the stuff they need.”
“Just don’t come nowhere near me.…” says Pap, who ain’t following the conversation at all.
“We got no plans to come near no murderers,” says I, “so quit beating your gums on it.”
“I never murdered no one,” he says, whining pitiful, and Morg give him a punch in the neck to make him act more manly, then had to pick him up off the sidewalk. I seen that Pap has gone so far downhill he’s crossed the valley floor and started up the other side, and even if I hated him for what he done it give me a pang to see him drunker and dirtier even than he used to be. Morg says:
“Don’t you pay no mind to what Portiss says. It’s only bluff. They can’t stop you quittin’ if you want. There ain’t nothin’ to stop you doing it right now, so why don’t you?”
“We need the money,” says I, which ain’t no lie, but I reckon Portiss warn’t bluffing and Morg just wants to see us floating in the bay with our throats cut so him and Pap don’t need to worry no more about me turning them in. Well I ain’t falling for it.
We got to the hotel and Morg hauled Pap straight upstairs. The same clerk as before when I come here says:
“No niggers.”
“We was told arrangements got made to put us up here, so if you got any objections you can tell them to Mr. Wyeth.”
“Sign here,” he says, and give me the register book and a pen. “Any old name’ll do.”
So I signed us in as Richard Lionheart and Blondel.
“Room twenty-four,” he says, and give me a key.
We went up and locked ourselfs in and talked awhile, but never seen no way out of the situation. Says I:
“We’ll just have to keep on being thiefs, and after we got enough cash we’ll light out for someplace so far away the Corneycopey Company won’t ever find us. It ain’t like we’re robbing houses or nothing, just cargo that got left to rot like Morg says.”
“Dat don’ make it right, Huck,” says Jim.
“Well, I know that, but I don’t aim to get my throat cut yet awhile, so for now we just got to turn a blind eye.”
Jim seen I’m right and we flopped on the beds and slept all day.
34
The Painful Truth—A Hot Landscape—Resting Up—The Robbers Robbed—The Finger Pointed—An Appeal Refused
In the evening I went to see Grace. The show ain’t started yet and I got let in to see her backstage without no trouble seeing as I’m a familiar face around here nowadays. She’s in the middle of painting her face in front of a mirror when I come in, but real pleased to see me.
“Huckleberry, such excitement! The whole town is talking about what happened at the governor’s last night!”
“I had a little excitement myself,” says I, but she warn’t about to let me get in ahead of her.
“Guess who was there,” she says.
“The president?”
“No, silly, Bulldog Barrett. He got invited because he’s famous, and guess what happened.”
“He arrested a sofa for being Huck Finn in disguise.”
“Stupid. He saw Mr. Squires and accused him in front of everyone of helping you and Jim escape him in the Rocky Mountains. Is it true?”
“I recollect telling you about it, Grace.”
“But you never told me Mr. Squires was the one. My, but that was a gallant deed, to risk his life saving you.”
“He never exactly saved me, just sat there and never lifted a finger to stop someone else braining the bulldog with a whiskey jug. He warn’t interested one way or the other at the time.”
“Oh, Huckleberry, how can you say such a thing? I never thought you could show such ingratitude. If it was the way you say then Barrett would never have accused him.”
I reckon Bulldog would accuse water of running downhill if it suited him, but Grace never wanted to hear nothing that don’t make Randolph out a hero.
“Mr. Squires denied everything,” she says, “but I know he only did it to protect you. It was the noblest thing I ever saw, and when the bulldog kept on at him Randolph … I mean Mr. Squires challenged him to a duel to settle the matter like gentlemen.”
“Did Bulldog say yes?” I ask, hoping Randolph is as good a shot as he is a card player.
“Everyone was watching by then, and Governor Burnett himself stepped up and told them that dueling is forbidden in California by law, so Mr. Squires apologized to the governor for causing any upset, which is more than Bulldog did. He told Randolph he’d find evidence against him before too long, and he did. He left straight after the argument and when he did he saw Randolph’s coach and asked who it belonged to and came straight back in again and told everyone how he chased Huckleberry Finn just yesterday and lost him near that very coach. Then Randolph made him admit he looked inside the coach and it was empty, and the bulldog lost his temper and called him a scheming southern degenerate, and Randolph called him a Yankee dog that only captured so many criminals because it takes one dog to sniff out another. After that they had to be held apart. It was like something in a play. Then Randolph took Miles and me home.”
“That’s real interesting, Grace, but I got some news for you on Miles, and it ain’t what you’d call good.”
“What news?” she says, putting on her yeller Becky Thatcher wig.
“Well … uh … he ain’t honest. That job he give Jim and me out of his generous heart is stealing cargo off ships in the bay, and we can’t quit neither or we’ll get our throats cut.”
“Huckleberry, you’re spinning lies again, I can tell. That’s just typical of you, to bite the hand that feeds. I bet the work was too hard for your lazy bones so you don’t want it. Well, I did my best for you and Miles did too, so don’t expect me to believe any such fantastical tales. Why, Miles wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a gentleman, not so much a one as Mr. Squires, but not the kind to cut people’s throats. It’s just foolish talk and I won’t listen to any more of it.”
Her voice got high and she kept getting the wig put on wrong, and I seen that however much she don’t want to hear the truth it’s been brung to her ears before this. If she truly believed I’m lying she would of acted snooty and scornful, not upset and nervous like she is. I argued with her awhile but she never listened, not wanting her rich man that give her everything she wanted to be showed up for what he is, namely a thief and liar. Th
en when she’s practickly tore her wig to shreds trying to put it on right it’s time for her to go on stage, so I left and went back to the hotel.
There warn’t no ship robbing to be done that night and Jim and me got awful bored just sat around on our beds staring at the walls, then come a screaming from down the hall. I reckernized Pap’s voice and run along to see what happened. His door warn’t locked so I went in, and there’s Pap sprawled across his bed with a turned-over bottle gurgling whiskey onto the floor, and he’s staring at a jug and bowl on the washstand like it’s got snakes wrapped around it. Morg warn’t there to look after him so I figured it’s only decent for me to tend him when he’s crazed like now.
“What is it, Pap?” says I.
“The face …” he says, and points at the jug, which ain’t got no face, just little pink and blue flowers on it. “That awful … awful … face.”
“There ain’t no face there, Pap. It’s just a jug.”
But he warn’t hearing me, just kept looking at the jug with his eyes bugged out and his lips twitching some.
“Who’s face is it, Pap?”
“His … the devil.…”
“Well, he ain’t registered here so he’s got no business being in your room,” says I, and took Pap’s jacket and draped it over the jug and bowl like you do with a parrot’s cage. I never expected it to work, but soon as the jug got covered Pap slumped back with a reliefsome groan and stared at the ceiling awhile. I reckon he never even knowed I’m there he’s so still, hardly breathing even.