Then come a voice at the window, and it’s Jim.
“Huck, stan’ away from de wall,” he says, and something thumped hard against the bricks outside, then again and again, and pretty soon bricks come flying into the cell followed by a sledgehammer swinging in and out. First there’s just a little hole then a bigger one as Jim beavered away at it. The mortar was old and them bricks never needed much persuasion to part company. In as long as it takes to tell what happened there’s a hole big enough to scramble through and I’m outside on my knees in the snow. Jim slung the sledgehammer off into the trees and hauled me onto my feet and we churned our legs away from there fast as we could, Jim leading the way and giving me the story between puffs.
“Dat Tom, he stay up all night jest thinkin’ on how to get you outer de jail, but he don’t have no luck on it till he recollected ol’ man Wilson goin’ to slaughter a hog today, Blossom dat won de prize a couple years back, an’ it give him de bes’ plan yet. When him an’ de sher’ff gets to de Wilsons’ Tom kin say he never could tell de difference of a hog screamin’ an’ a body gettin’ murdered. Tom, he a smart boy an’ das for sure.”
“But the sheriff’s going to know it was a decoy when he comes back and sees I’m gone.”
“Das what he’ll be thinkin’, only he cain’t prove it. Ain’t goin’ to be nothin’ he kin do ’cept cuss.”
So Tom Sawyer went and delivered the goods after all, and I’d just a minute ago been calling him a sap-head when all along he’s a genius.
“But how’s he going to join us for California, Jim? Is it part of the plan to meet up with him later on?”
Jim shakes his head and says:
“He ain’t goin’ to be comin’, Huck. Runnin’ off after dis’d put de finger on him for sure, so he goin’ to stay put in town. He give me a message for to give you. He say to get aholder plenty gold nuggets so’s you kin buy a ship an’ send for him an’ go a-tearin’ ’round de seven seas together.”
I made up my mind right there I’d do it. I’d find enough gold to be a millionaire and own the grandest ship on the ocean, painted all over red and gold and called the Injun Princess. There’d be an Injun girl for a figurehead on the bows with her hand up shading her eyes, on the lookout for snags and such, and me and Tom would be captains both, and Jim the first mate.
“Where we running to, Jim?”
“De river, Huck. I got de skiff waitin’ hid on de bank. If’n dey puts hounds on de trail de water fool ’em good.”
“Then where do we go?”
“Downriver ’bout ten mile. I got a frien’ waitin’ for us wid de mules an’ supplies nex’ to Rocky Point. Tom say de sher’ff goin’ to figure we kep’ on downriver far as St.Louis or somewheres an’ he won’ be lookin’ for us ’cept on de river. Mighty smart, dat boy.”
It was a good plan, up to Sawyer standard like the escape, so I never doubted it. As we run, Jim untied the money belt from around himself and give it back to me to put on, and I got more comfort from it than the fanciest silk sash.
Pretty soon we come to the river and followed her downstream to where Jim had the skiff hid, and we hauled it to the water and got in. Jim pushed off and then we’re rushing along at a fast lick away from the bank so no one can see us in the snow, still falling thickish, but not so bad we won’t see Rocky Point when we come to it. All the steamboat pilots use it for navigation, it stands out so. The river was iced up worse than I seen it any winter before, flat chunks all gray and brown and dangersome, but we was going the same way as them so it warn’t such a risk as plowing upstream against the current. The river swept us along rapid, grumbling and rumbling the way she does, the ice chunks grinding one against the other and sliding off again. A skiff in fast water is light as a leaf so we went faster than the ice. Jim stayed in the bows with a pole to keep us off the worst-looking ones and I done my best to hold us straight and steady with a paddle at the stern—mighty hard on the wrists, I can tell you.
After awhile the snow started coming down harder than ever, lashing along sideways in the wind with white curtains and veils twisting and swirling and blotting out the shore. Jim bawls out:
“How far you reckon we come, Huck?”
“Maybe six or seven mile! We better get closer in or miss the Point!”
But it warn’t so easy. The current boomed along deep and swift and we near busted ourselfs trying to break free of it. We made a mite of progress inshore, then I seen something ahead, big and dark, and for a second I figured it’s the Point, but it’s squarish not rounded, and then I reckernized her; it’s the Arkansas that run hard onto a snag last year and got stuck fast, and now she’s looming up dead ahead, high and wide like a cliff. Jim poled frantic to keep us clear of the ice wedged along her deck and I skulled hard with the oar, but too late. The skiff run straight up onto the ice and slid along till the hurricane deck was overhead then come to a stop sudden. Jim and me both took a sprawl but never got hurt, not even very wet, and we looked around to get the lay of things.
The Arkansas was side-on to the current and you could see the snag where it poked up through the bows just for’ard of the firebox. When it happened she must of slewed around and fetched up on others just under the water. She settled some, and her main deck was awash, tilted maybe fifteen degrees, the side facing upriver all tumbled with ice and her deck cargo swept away. There’s just the hurricane deck and Texas deck and wheel-house high and dry, all frosted with ice and snow like a big lopsided wedding cake and her tall chimneys leaning over like old dead trees waiting to fall. I seen her go by once when she was the proudest boat on the river and it’s a shame now she ain’t nothing but a wreck. Every timber was creaking and trembling with the water and ice trying to pull her under, and the wind whistled shrill through the guy wires between the chimneys, a mournful sound.
“We bes’ be gettin off, Huck,” says Jim. “She li’ble to break up perty soon. Feel her shake.”
He was right, but I wanted to look her over before we shoved off. I never met nothing curiouser than me unless it’s a cat. Says I:
“Take the skiff along to the stern, Jim. Maybe there’s some stuff aboard her we can use.”
“It ain’t worth it, Huck. She be strip’ clean by now.”
“I’ll just be a minute or three,” says I, and stepped careful across to the stairway and went on up to the hurricane deck, slipping and sliding. I went along through all the cabins and Jim’s right again; she’s empty, just a shell with all the walls frosted. The Texas deck was the same, with doors and shutters banging in the wind. Then I come to the main cabin and straight away felt something different. There warn’t nothing to catch my eye first off, but then I seen a pile of rubbish over in the corner where the deck tilt had it gathered, and when I come closer I seen it’s old empty cans of food mainly and other trash too. Now that was mighty strange up here where the high-class passengers used to sit and jaw and smoke, and it means someone lived here awhile after she hit the snag and was left to rot, only why would anyone do it except maybe a hermit? It was the lowest kind of living. I give the cans a poke with my boot and they rattled around some, hollow and sad, and I stood there trying to figure it out with the whole Arkansas shaking and straining under my soles. Finally I give up and turned to go, and then I seen it. Pap’s footprint.
There’s dust on the floor from the summer, all froze over now and made hard, and there’s the print with the cross on the heel and another not so clear. I got down on all fours and looked at them close. The edges was rounded over, and it means the prints got made before the frost come in through the broken windows, back before winter set in. Back when the Widow Douglas’s house burned down. It would of been a made-to-order hideout seeing no one ever come here. I had that same feeling I had on the judge’s doorstep, kind of like getting throttled and wanting to puke at the same time. I scuffed the print away with my hand, but it stayed firm and true in my head. Now I knowed practickly for sure Pap’s alive and killing them that stood in his way in the pa
st, which means me as well. I signed away my share of Injun Joe’s loot to the judge for safekeeping and it got Pap awful riled when he found out there warn’t a way he could get his dirty hands on it. He must of carried a grudge ever since, and not just the usual kind. Only a crazy man would of near sawed the judge’s head off that way, and I’m next if he can find me.
I went back to where Jim’s waiting and we pushed off, heading around the stern clear of the paddle wheel. The current grabbed us and we scudded along same as before, working our way gradual across to the shore. Jim says:
“You fin’ any kinder stuff back dere, Huck?”
“No.”
I never wanted to talk about it.
Pretty soon we come in sight of Rocky Point standing out sharp and high through the snowfall and run the skiff onto the bank a hundred yards below. Soon as we set foot on shore Jim pushed her out into the flow again and she was whisked away out of sight. That way if they find her they’ll figure we drowned. Then we trudged along to the Point and went around to where the rocky part turns into trees, and there’s Jim’s nigger friend waiting with our mules and another mule to take him back to St. Petersburg. It never took but a minute. The nigger give Jim a hug like they was related and wished us both good luck. Then he offers me his hand, the first nigger apart from Jim that ever done it, and says all the niggers in town know my name and have got respect for it ever since I helped Jim run off that time, and how none of them reckon it’s me that murdered the judge and they all hope I get away. I near sat down with the surprise of it. I never give niggers no mind but for Jim, and all of them is on my side when everyone white wants to see me hanged. It never made sense. I give him my thanks and shook his hand warm, then he got on his mule and rode off.
I looked at the river grumbling along past the Point and felt a wrench inside of me. She’s the first thing I ever recollect when I was small. I lived on her all my life and now I’m leaving, maybe forever. She never cared about me or no one, only wanting one thing and that’s to get down to the sea, and it come to me I’m leaving home for the first time, not St. Petersburg which is only where I lived, I mean the river, which is where I belonged. East of her there’s sivilization, just farms and towns and cities even bigger than St. Louis they say, and I was never tempted to see none of it. West is different. I seen a map in the judge’s house once and it showed the plains stretching all the way to the Rocky Mountains, and then there’s desert and after that come the Sierras, after which comes California, and where that ends there’s a whole world of ocean till you get to China. All of a sudden I felt mighty small, and I never wanted to go out and get lost among all that distance and emptiness. Jim says:
“De snow lettin’ up some, Huck. We bes’ be goin’.”
And the scaredness inside of me went away. Hereabouts I’m wanted for a murder I never done, and I never was too popular even before it. Out west there’s Injuns and gold and adventure waiting. I give the river a silent goodbye and we clumb on our mules and pointed them away into the trees and kicked our heels till they got moving.
“Jim,” says I, “we’re going from Rocky Point to beyond the Rocky Mountains. Don’t you think there’s poetry in it?”
“I don’ know ’bout po’try, Huck. I jest knows we goin’ away somewheres we ain’t knowed of. Das po’try ’nough for me, I reckon.”
And that’s how we started off for California.
5
Knights and Dragons—Shelter from the Storm—A Slew of Lies—Lady Luck—Pipe Smokers of History
We headed due west, which is where St. Joseph is, two hundred miles and more away. About a mile from the river we hit a westbound road and followed her, easier than riding through trees. The mules was plodders but steady. I seen horsecollar galls on my nag’s neck and Jim’s was the same, so we’re making our desperate getaway on farm mules, but I never minded. Soon there warn’t no wind or snow to speak of and we was both tolerable warm, with heavy blankets tied around us and over our heads, and we had foodsacks and bedrolls slung over our saddles, all a body could need says I:
“Jim, don’t you just feel like a knight in armor setting off on a quest?”
“What kinder night’s dat, Huck?”
“It ain’t a night like you get after daytime, it’s the name they give to a soldier, and the armor’s his clothes, made out of tin.”
“Dat soun’s perty much of a discomfort. How dey ben’ over an’ walk all shut in like dat?”
“I don’t know, but they do it, and have swordfights by the dozen and slay dragons and such every other week, but mostly they go on quests.”
“I never hearder no ques’, Huck. What it be?”
“That’s a journey someplace, looking for something, just like us going off to look for gold. We’re on a quest, Jim, and it’s a prideful thing.”
“Dese knights, dey lookin’ for gold too?”
“Sometimes. Dragons live in caves that are just brimming over with it, and when the knight slays the dragon and lets out buckets of steaming blood he can walk right in and claim it all, but first he’s got to free the lady tied up outside.”
“What she doin’ dere, Huck?”
“The dragon keeps her there all the time, right by the cave so’s a knight passing by don’t think it’s just empty and not worth the bother of getting off his horse to looksee. Soon as he spots a lady tied up though, he knows there’s a dragon lurking there in the dark and he’s obliged to go in and kill it.”
“’Pears to me dem dragons ain’t too smart. Tyin’ up de women outside jest bring de knights down on ’em like a candle do wid insecs an’ such. Whyn’t dey jest sit tight in de cave an’ count de gold quiet-like?”
“It ain’t in the rules, Jim. The dragons has got to let the knights know they’re at home, otherwise there wouldn’t ever be no killing done, and what’s a knight going to do with his time if he can’t find dragons to kill? Why, he’d sit around all day polishing his armor and getting fat, and he’d be the poorest kind of trash without any dragon gold to pay his way, and he’d never get married neither. They mostly marries off with the rescued ladies and buy a castle to live in forever after.”
“Ain’t nothin’ else dey do ’cept for killin’ dragons?”
“Just one, and that’s when they go on the biggest quest of all, to find the Holy Grail.”
“I ain’t ever hearder dat neither.”
“It’s a cup, only not just ordinary like you and me drink out of. It’s made of silver and pearls and rubies and it’s filled to the brim with Jesus’ tears. He drank out of it at the last supper and afterwards it got lost when they washed up the dishes. The knights give plenty of time to searching for it, riding up hills and down again and asking around if anyone’s seen it. They use up about a hundred horseshoes a year tramping around trying to find it, and while they’re away their wives just sit at home knitting and feeding the dog and pining away with lonesomeness. It’s awful hard on everyone, but they just got to find it. Them tears is the most valuable thing in the world to knights on account of they’re so religious.”
“Why’d Jesus go an’ fill his cup wid tears, Huck?”
“I don’t rightly know, but there was twelve of them at the supper besides himself. He likely got landed with the bill at the end, and he warn’t a rich man.”
“Wait on, Huck. How come he payin’ de bill when he kin rustle up loafs an’ fishes by de bushel outer nothin’?”
“Maybe it was a Roman eating house they were at. Them Romans liked hard cash every time and never set much store by miracles. That’s how they come to rule the world hundreds of years ago, by only trading in dollars, not trusting to miracles that maybe wouldn’t show up when the bills had to get paid. They was mighty practical folk.”
“You reckon de Grail out west, Huck?”
“You might have hit on something, Jim. There’s people out there but scattered far and wide, so there’s a heap of space for it to be lost in, and the Injuns wouldn’t ever reckernize it if they seen it,
proberly use it for a cook pot.”
“Ain’t dere been no knights out west to give her a look?”
“Not as I know of. They stick mostly to Europe and Arabia and such places. King Richard, he spent years in the Holy Land looking for it, lifting up stones and riding up mountains, but he never found it, and it made him so mad he started a war out there against the Ayrabs, trying to make them tell where they hid it, but that come to nothing too. I reckon if King Richard can’t find it then it must be out west.”
We kept on going all afternoon till dusk come down around us. It takes a considerable time to leave sivilization behind; there was farms set back off the road every few mile with lights in the windows and smoke coming out of the chimneys, cozy and warm, but we never seen a living soul. Then it started in to snow again and I had to figure where to spend the night. I picked the wrong time of year to start out, but now there’s a hangman’s noose over my shoulder so I never had the choice. Our teeth chattered away in our heads and there’s ice on our eyebrows and we shivered so hard we near fell off the mules. Then I seen a light winking in another farmhouse and I made up my mind.
“Jim, we’re going to have to ask for shelter over yonder. If we don’t we’ll freeze.”
He nodded his head and chattered some so I reckoned he’s agreeable, and we followed a rutty little track off the road to the farm. When we come up to it I seen it’s a tumbledown place, just a two-room house and barn and yard. I slid off my mule and knocked on the door and waited, then it opens and there’s a little woman about as tall as me with her hair pulled back tight in a bun and a face all pruned with wrinkles and little beady black eyes and the tiniest mouth all sucked in like a cat’s rear end. She give me a look then says: