Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim (20 page)

"Is it
them
?"

And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say:

"You bet it is."

And it was the same as before, ‘cept that men had weapons a-ready and was bandin’ to make the best of things. Women an’ children were shuffled away for safe hiding, and tame baggers was beheaded where they stood-just in case they had any plans on mutinying.

Birdock was sensible enough to be right terrified. He'd saw what I'd saw, after all, and despite all his crazy talk he knowed deep down that he weren't one of the Devil's Army.

So we run all the way back to the river.

Jim calls out, “I hear it, yes I does. I hear de commotion. I hear it in de wind, Huck. It be getting’ bad, bad, bad."

We shoved off an’ I said we best stick to the river forever; never go ashore again. That's how it was getting’ to be. I knowed it wasn't gonna change any. It was only gonna get worse. Miles worse. The dead was a mean, hungry bunch.

An’ so we stayed on the raft three days, long as we could hold out, an’ we just went with the current. I couldn't think o’ anywhere we had to get to anytime soon. Jim had himself a good ear for his kind, and he telled me whenever he could hear ‘em on the wind. He could tell if they was in droves, or jus’ small groups, or even just two at a time.

We dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along down the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal.

It was good havin’ Jim nearby. I wonder'd how come he could keep hisself from eatin’ me all up, but I put it down to frien'ship. That don’ explain why he din’ eat thet damn Birdock, though.

Ever'thing that came out of Birdock's mouth was loonacy. He told a story ‘bout how a couple Italians went to have dinner with a fella named Tremble Ickle, and the wine was the best anyone ever tasted, and the banquet was like magic; an’ if you cut into a leg of pork you might find a stuffed quail; an’ if you spooned open the quail, you'd find yourself with an oyster. And that story took him a blasted long time to tell, an’ it was all about food, more ‘n anything, and me ‘n Jim gave up listening long b'fore Birdock was even half finished tellin’ it.

We passed a village where a man stood on the dock and waved us on, holdin’ up a sign that said Quarantine. I got the impression that fissythis was hittin’ pretty hard there, but mebby it was jus’ rabies.

An’ then a steamboat come by and it was stuiffed right to the gills with passengers; so many they seemed to be hangin’ over the sides, and Jim figgered it was maybe a million folks onboard. He said a million was the biggest number imaginable. I don't think it was quite
that
many folks, but it shore was a lot of ‘em. And then I figgered for myself they was getting’ out of the north in droves, getting’ away from the zombys what war eatin’ everyone up.

That sent shivers up an’ down my spine.

Anyway, on th’ morn’ of the fourth day I couldn't stand it no more. Had to stretch my legs an’ get some grub. An’ Birdock was only too eager to get himself onto dry land. He said,

"I'll fetch a pretty penny for myself, just you wait an’ see, an’ I won't no more hafta live like this.” He was all squirrel-eyed an’ fidgety.

So Jim says he ain't heard no bagger activity in quite a spell, an’ figgers it might be safe to go ashore. He said mebby we was outrunnin’ the Devil's Army, p'haps jus’ by a few miles, but he seemed sure we was ahead o’ th’ carnage.

That sounded fine to me, an’ especially to Birdock, an’ we put to shore at the very next town what come along. This was Steadman, an’ it seemed peaceful enough, an’ there was a funeral in progress.

We done the same as before, which was to give Jim enough slack to move about, but not enough thet he could go chasin’ after a human meal.

First good sign was that folks was still keepin’ baggers and those baggers seemed to be b'havin’ themselves. So maybe we was ahead of the Devil's Army after all. Maybe things was peterin’ out the further we drifted.

I thought about pickin’ through some pockets at the funeral, but somethin’ felt wrong in my guts about that an’ I kept my hands to myself.

After the funeral, along about noon-time, a couple of baggger traders come along, and Birdock went to talk to them about sellin’ himself. All I could hear was laughter. One o’ them traders as't Birdock if'n he was drunk. I was sure hopin’ they'd take him. An’ while they talked, I went down to the dry goods store to buy some licorice an’ mebby see if there was any talk about bagger hordes.

Mebby I wasted too much time lollin’ about. Things was quiet an’ peaceful an’ ordinary. I saw a matron walkin’ with her bagger an’ he was carryin’ her things an’ that made me feel good about things.

Some time passes an’ I can't find that loon Birdock anywhere; an’ it crosses my mind thet mebby he managed to sell himself to them traders, after all. So I head back down to the river with my pockets full up of candy an’ vittles an’ I yells out,

"Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now! Birdock's sold!"

But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shout-and then another-and then another one; and run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't no use-old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange bagger dressed so and so, and he says:

"Yes."

"Whereabouts?” says I.

"Down to Silas Phelps’ place, two mile below here. He's a runaway bagger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"

"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd
eat
my livers out-and told me to lay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard to come out."

"Well,” he says, “you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him. They getting’ all the wayward baggers, ‘cause word from the north is that they've all gone frizzy."

"
Yeah
, frizzy. It's a good job they got him."

"Well, I
reckon
! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. He's not just a wayward bagger, but he's a bagger with a price on ‘im, too. It's like picking up money out'n the road."

"Yes, it is-and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him
first
. Who nailed him?"

"It was an old fellow-a stranger-and he sold out his chance in him for a hunnert dollars."

"A hunnert, huh?"

"He was a troubled fella. All crazy eyes an’ panick. Mebby he don’ even know whut a hunnert dollars is wo'th. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?"

I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for that Birdock, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because he could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his death, and amongst strangers, too, for a hunnert dirty dollars.

That's what crazy men are like. There's no sense t'be found in it.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a bagger
-
slave at home where he was
from
, as long as he'd
got
to be a bagger
-
slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful
or
dead-brained bagger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of
me
! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a bagger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's
bagger
that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that bagger goes back to the everlasting fire and stays there."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from
me
, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting
on
to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth
say
I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that bagger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter-and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson,

your runaway bagger Jim is down here a mile above Steadman, and traders has got him and maybe they will give him up for the reward if you send.

Huck Finn.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the carnage was; an’ how he wouldn't never bring hisself to eat me no matter how bad the urge got; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and how he smelled not so terrible fer a dead man, not as bad as some o’ the others; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll
go
to Hell"-and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of bag
-
slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.

Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it, “Phelps's Sawmill,” and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yet-I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was that dang Birdock.

"Hel-
lo
! Where'd
you
come from?” Then he says, kind of glad and eager, “Where's the raft?-got her in a good place?"

I says:

"Why, that's just what I was going to ask you."

Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:

"What was your idea for asking
me
?” he says.

"Well,” I says, “I let time slip away yesterday; so I went a-loafing around town to hear what folks are sayin'. A man up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, ‘They've got into trouble and had to leave; and they've took my bagger, which is the only bagger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;’ so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what
did
become of the raft, then?-and Jim-poor Zomby Jim!"

"Blamed if I know-that is, what's become of the raft. I got me a hundred dollars for Jim and nothin’ for myself. These fellas took a listen to my heartbeats and declared that I'm still alive. And when I got home late last night and found the raft gone, I said, ‘That little rascal has stole our raft and shook
me
, and run off down the river.’”

"I wouldn't shake my bagger, would I?-the only bagger I had in the world, and the only property."

"I never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon I'd come to consider him
our
bagger; yes, I did consider him so-goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. An’ you know it's all for ‘is own good, don’ you? They is roundin’ up these wayward zombys so they don't get in no trouble like in the north. That Jim is a danger an’ a liability an’ I done you a favor, Huck."