“You look like you ain’t got long to live anyhow, and this way you can say how-do to St. Peter with a clear conscience and get saved from the hot place. Ain’t that a worthwhile reason, Pap?”
“I ain’t dead yet!” he hollers. “And I ain’t endin’ my days on no gallows, not for you or no one!”
“The bulldog’d give you a twenty-four hour start to get away if you confessed, Pap, I just know he would.…”
“I ain’t confessin’ to nothin’! Now you get out!”
“Can’t you even do one good thing in your life, Pap?”
“No I can’t! You get before I whale you black and blue, you … you ingrate!”
It ain’t no good. Asking Pap to show his better side is like asking a fish to do arithmetic, so I went back to Jim and we done some talking. We figured we best stay put for now and hope we can sneak out of town in a few days maybe, if they catch the traitor meantime, that is. It ain’t hardly what you could call a plan, but it’s all we got.
35
A Disappearance—Deception and Revelation—A Leavetaking—Poetic Justice—Out of the Egg—The Spider’s Web
In the evening the door flew open and Miles is back with his men. He never wasted no time, just says:
“Where is she?”
“Where’s who?”
“Grace had disappeared and I advise you to tell me where.”
“I ain’t seen her in a week.…”
Portiss grabbed me and the other two men held Jim so he can’t do nothing, then Portiss give me a punch that sent me flying across the room.
“Where is she?” says Miles.
“I dunno, honest! Maybe she don’t like you no more and lit out, how should I know!”
Portiss give me some more treatment and I seen little blobs of light dancing around in front of me like fireflies, then I’m looking at the ceiling and the fireflies is gone.
“Where is she, Finn?”
His voice come from a long ways off, too far to bother answering, so I never. Then Jim’s voice come to me, real hollow sounding.
“Maybe you should ask Randolph,” he says.
“Why him?” says Miles.
“On accounter he de onlies’ man we knows dat knows Grace. Jest don’ hit de boy no mo’. He don’ know nothin’.”
“Squires has left his hotel and sold his coach,” says Miles.
“If’n you took de trouble to fin’ dat out I reckon you must of done de figurin’ I jest done. It ain’t nothin’ to do wid Huck an’ me, so I’se askin’ you to let him be.”
“If you learn anything of her whereabouts you’ll bring the information directly to me, understand?”
“I reckon I do,” says Jim, and I heard them go out. He picked me up and set me down on my bed and mopped the blood that’s running out my nose. It never surprised me about Grace and Randolph. Soon as she quit calling him Mr. Squires I seen which way the wind was blowing, only I never wanted to admit it. She warn’t able to see through them good looks I reckon. But I got enough problemation without getting all worried over Grace, and I went all quiet and peaceful inside the way you do when there ain’t nothing else can go wrong, and after Jim cleaned me up I say:
“Jim, I reckon it’s time we quit hiding under a rock and come out fighting like men is supposed to.”
“How you mean, Huck?”
“I ain’t sure myself, but I ain’t ducking and hiding no more. We never done nobody no harm and it ain’t right the way we been hounded all this time. The camel’s back has been broke, Jim, and I aim to climb out from under all that straw.”
I lay there pondering awhile and at the end still figured the only way to get Bulldog Barrett off my back is make Pap confess about how Morg murdered the judge with Bulldog there to hear it. But Pap’ll have to be mighty drunk before he’ll agree to do it, and maybe even then he won’t. He never wanted to this morning, but he only just started drinking at the time and half his brain must of been working. He’s likely been sucking the sauce all day and right about now he’ll be in a mellower mood. You don’t take no chances when you play for big stakes, so before I went to Pap’s room I went out and got a bottle of whiskey. The hopes I got that he’ll go along with the plan is thin as paper, but there ain’t no other way. I went in and he’s slumped over the table with an empty bottle in front of him. I set the full one down where he can see it through them red eyes of his and he come alive slow like a tortoise poking his head out of the shell, blinking and smacking his gums. He looks up at me and says:
“Your face is all swole.”
“Portiss give it to me. Him and Wyeth reckon I done the company wrong over what happened last night.”
“Ain’t he the limit. I never worked for no one so coldblooded. Soon as I got me a little saved I aim to quit.”
“They say anyone that tries gets his throat cut, Pap.”
“I disbelieve it. That’s just to keep us in line. Anyway, I ain’t scared of ’em. Us Finns got grit.”
I uncorked the bottle and poured us both a glass, then say:
“Here’s to you, Pap, a man that life never give a chance to.”
“Changed your tune, ain’t you?” he says.
“I surely have, Pap. It’s took all this time for me to see how you been mishandled by fate, and seeing as the same thing happened to me I reckon there ain’t a need for us to be enemies no more.”
“Well, it’s about time you seen the light,” he says. “You been treating me like trash lately. A boy oughtn’t to treat his Pap that way.”
“I’m real apologetic over it, Pa, that’s why I brung the bottle, which is a gift to mend the bad feeling we got one for the other.”
He drunk his glass down and I done the same, then I poured out more, and for the next hour or two I lied like I ain’t never lied before, praising Pap to the skies and back again and saying how it’s a shame the way we both been treated. He swallered it down along with the whiskey, and I kept his glass filled but only sipped from mine. He got drunk slow, being used to it, but finally he’s had enough for me to start talking about how Morg, rest his soul, warn’t halfway decent enough to be partners with the likes of Pap, and how I seen the way Morg bullied him and never treated him gentle and sympathetic which a man of Pap’s refinement deserves. He agreed with all of it and got to cussing Morg’s memory with the briskest kind of language.
“And just think, Pap,” says I, “he’s gone to his watery grave with folks figuring he’s a fine, upright citizen, when you and me know he warn’t nothing but a lowdown murderer that led his partner astray. Ain’t that shameful?”
“It sure is, boy. He don’t deserve no tears wept over him that way.”
“The thing to do, Pap, is kind of blacken his reputation now that he ain’t around to deny it.”
“Blacken? How? I ain’t follering you, son.”
“Why, tell the world he murdered the judge is how. That’ll make folks quit shedding tears over him right quick.”
He give me a long look with them beady red eyes from behind his hair, then give a cackle and says:
“I ain’t a fool. I already told you I ain’t tellin’ no one about what happened in St. Petersburg. You can fill me with all the whiskey you want, but I ain’t tellin’.”
I misjudged him, that’s for sure. He’s the worst kind of drunk, but he’s still got a smidgin of shrewdness left, and that whiskey cost me thirty dollars too. Says I:
“You’re too quick in the brain for me, Pap. I guess a young pup can’t fool no old dog.”
He give a laugh, real pleased with himself, then says:
“I reckon Morg warn’t no fool neither, even if he’s a sonovabitch. You recollect that time a couple years back when you made folks figure you was murdered and they drug the river and all? Well I got a notion ol’ Morg’s gone and done the selfsame thing.”
“Why, Pap? Ain’t he truly dead?”
“No one seen him get knifed or throwed overboard and drown, so maybe he ain’t a corpse at all. Maybe he’s s
till alive and kickin’.”
“He would of showed up by now if that’s so.”
“Not if he wants the Corneycopey Company to reckon he’s dead.”
“Why would he want that?”
“On account of he acted mighty strange the last few days before them danged pirates landed on us.”
“What kind of strange?”
“All superior, like he ain’t going to be poor much longer, saying he aims to be someone big in town after things has changed.”
“What things?”
“He never told, but I reckon he knowed the company was close to gettin’ poleaxed by another bunch that’s tired of seeing Mr. High-and-Mighty Wyeth run things all his own way. That night we went out to the Antelope he told me to be sure and stay in the boats to load the stuff and not go on board to get it outer the hold. He knowed there’s a fight bound to happen, that’s how I figure it, and while the ruckus is on he kind of slid away so’s we’ll all figure he’s dead.”
“But how could he know before it happened?”
Pap tapped his nose and give me a wink and says:
“Know nothin’, tell nothin’, but if Morg ain’t dead he’s tucked up cozy with Hattie the Trout right this minute and laughin’ at Wyeth and the rest. I reckon that should make you feel better about that swole face you got.”
“Who’s Hattie the Trout?”
“A whore. Morg got bit by her awhile back and kept on layin’ out cash for more. I figure there ain’t nothin’ more disgustful than a man that goes with a whore regular. You ain’t done nothin’ like that have you, boy?”
“No, Pap, I ain’t partial to whores.”
“Well don’t ever get that way. I brung you up Christian and don’t you forget it.”
“I won’t, Pap,” says I, with a plan hatching slow and steady in my head, but before I can get it figured out perfect there come a knock at the door. I opened it and Jim’s there with a Spaniard boy around my age. He says:
“Dis here’s Manuel. He sayin’ he got to talk wid you.”
“Talk away,” says I.
“The message is private,” says he, speaking real good American.
I took him off down the hall and he give me a scrap of paper. It says:
Follow this boy
G
“You will come now?” asks Manuel.
“I reckon I will, but wait on a moment.”
I told Jim about the message in a whisper so Pap don’t hear, and it got Pap peeved to be left out that way.
“What’s the greaser want?” he says.
“It ain’t your business,” says I.
“Oh, ain’t it just? You got no right keepin’ your business secret from me till you’re twenty-one, boy.”
Acting nice to Pap this last hour or so ain’t left me in a sociable mood, so I say:
“You ain’t got no rights over me and you know why, you houseburner.”
He got on his feet, swaying from all that whiskey, and I seen he had it in mind to give me a whomping for talking back like I done. But he ain’t got the steadiness for it, and when he seen it himself he kind of shrunk inside his clothes and can’t look me in the eye no more. Just a few minutes ago he was talking big and acting smart, but now he ain’t nothing but a feeble old man, pitiful as usual.
“I run out of tobacco,” he mumbles. “Loan me a pinch, boy.”
I give him some, then me and Manuel snuck out the back door in case Miles has got men watching the front. We went south through town to where the buildings thinned out and open country starts, with the hills all bare and empty in the moonlight. Manuel never spoke up till now, and he says:
“My clothes look well upon you.”
“Your clothes?”
“You do not remember? My sister Consuela gave them to you.”
“Grace’s maid?”
“Señor Wyeth’s men have given her a black face and broken lip, but she told them nothing. When I am older I will kill them all.”
“I can understand it, I reckon. Where’s Grace now?”
“A little way still. You are Huckleberry Finn the bandit?”
“I wish Grace warn’t so free with her mouth.”
“It was not her that told me. My sister has long ears.”
“Well, I hope she ain’t going to tell no one else when her lip gets mended.”
“She knows you are the compadre of Grace, who is kind to her. She will tell no one but me. I am honored to meet with a bandit of fame.”
“I ain’t no bandit. I ain’t nothing you’d be proud to know.”
“But you are with fame, no?”
“I’d trade places with someone that ain’t got none if I could.”
He give me a look that says I ain’t acting like the heroical type, but I ain’t concerned with him, only with Grace. Another half mile on we stopped at a big tree by the road and he give a whistle. Out from cover come Grace and Randolph on horseback, riding side by side. Grace got down and says:
“Your face is all puffed out, Huckleberry.”
“Never mind no face, Grace. Wyeth’s awful mad at you. If he never had a heap of other worries he’d be turning San Francisco upside down for you right now.”
“He can turn all he wants, I won’t ever go back. Everything you told me about him is true. Randolph told me the same and after that I believed it. I’m sorry I called you a liar, Huckleberry.”
“Most of the town knows about Wyeth,” puts in Randolph, “even people in high office. He pays them off and they turn a blind eye.”
“That’s why we have to leave,” says Grace. “We aren’t safe here now, but I wanted to say goodbye. I owe you so much. If it wasn’t for you I never would of met Randolph. Why, I might have wasted years of my life with that Miles person and never found out the truth.”
“Uh … Grace, can we talk private?”
“If you want,” she says, and we walked a little ways off. “Was it something personal you wanted to ask?”
“I just … well, so long as you reckon you’re happy, Grace, with Randolph I mean.”
“Of course I am. I’ve been sneaking over to his hotel every day and we went and fell in love.”
“He’s awful hard-headed, Grace. He ain’t the sensitive kind at all.”
“He is so too. He’s just the kindest, gentlest man in the world, and he’s mine. I do believe you’re jealous, Huckleberry Finn.”
“I ain’t no such thing. I just wanted to be sure you ain’t doing nothing to regret later on.”
“Thank you for worrying,” she says, and give me a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve been a true friend and I won’t ever forget you. I know Randolph is what I want. When you’re grown up you’ll understand.”
That’s just about the worst thing she could say to me, but I never showed it. Us Finns has got grit.
“Where are you going?” says I.
“Down the coast to a little place Consuela comes from, San Diego. She says boats come in there for fresh water. We’ll get on one and go down to Panama then on to New Orleans. Randolph knows plenty of people there. I’ll be thinking of you, Huckleberry.”
“I ain’t about to forget you neither, Grace.”
She put out her hand mannish and I shook it, then we went back to the others. Manuel helped Grace into the saddle and Randolph throwed me a little bag that jingles.
“You’ll need that, Huckleberry,” he says. “Goodbye and good luck.”
“And you, Randolph,” says I, and they turned their horses onto the road south. I watched them ride away, getting smaller and smaller, and it felt like something inside of me is getting smaller too. Grace give a final wave then they was gone over a hill and I can’t even hear the horses no more.
“She is beautiful, no?” says Manuel. “You regret?”
“I don’t regret nothing.”
“Randolfo is macho. They will have many sons.”
“It ain’t none of my concern,” says I, and we headed back to town.
“When I am older
I will be a bandit like you,” says Manuel. “How many Americanos have you killed?”
“Oh, just a couple dozen. They had it coming.”
“You showed no mercy?”
“They never expected none so I obliged ’em.”
“When will you kill the señor bulldog that chases you? I have seen him. He does not kill easy that one I think.”
“I reckon I’ll wait till he comes in sniffing distance then put a ball between his eyes. He’s been asking for it some considerable time now.”
“Will you cut off his head?”
“If I ain’t got nothing better to do.”
“This I would like to see with my eyes.”
“Well I’ll let you know beforehand so’s you can tell folks how you was there when it happened.”
“Thank you. I am proud to be your friend. What has Randolfo given to you?”
“Money I reckon.”
“But how much? You must see.”
I opened up the bag and we counted out a thousand dollars in gold eagles, but it seems like thirty pieces of silver. I give Manuel twenty dollars for fetching me, but the look he give me made me feel cheap so I made it sixty dollars. Even hotel bellboys has got big expenses in this town. I ain’t bothered about money no more because I got that plan hatching in my head, and I’m keeping it warm like a broody hen so’s it don’t die in the shell.
“Look!” says Manuel.
There’s a red glow in the sky up ahead and we run up the last hill to see what it is. When we got to the top San Francisco is spread out below and part of it’s on fire, a whole block at least. We hared down the hill and into town, and the streets was jammed with men running the same way. Me and Manuel squeezed along through and the closer we got the sicker I felt, just like that time I seen the fire in St. Petersburg.
It’s my street all right, and the Ophir Hotel and all the buildings along that side and back into the block practickly to the next street was just blazing and roaring like the end of the world. There ain’t even a bucket brigade on account of the scorching hotness, just hundreds stood around watching the flames thunder up into the sky and shaking their heads regretful. There ain’t nothing could of stopped it I reckon, and my belly got knotted up with worry over Jim. I just got to find him, and I searched frantic through the crowds looking for his face. But he ain’t nowhere to be seen. I give Manuel the slip, wanting to be alone awhile. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep I’m so wore out and woeful. Now I ain’t got nothing at all, not without Jim. He’s the truest friend a body could of had, the best and decentest person I ever met or ever will, and now he’s crisped to death same as his family back home. It ain’t fair. Them flames burned fierce as ever and roared in my ears like demons laughing, and I can’t even cry for the hotness blasting my face. Then a hand come down on my shoulder.