The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Undead Read online

  “Whar’d you come f’m, boy? You prepared to die?”

  Then he rode on. I was scared, but a woman next to me selling cold slices of melon and rock candy says to me:

  “He don’t mean nothing, honey; he carries on like that when he’s been drinkin’. He’s a good-natured old fool and never hurt nobody, drunk or sober.”

  Boggs rode up in front of one of the largest compounds I’d ever seen. It was a half-dozen buildings, easy, and maybe more off the street, all white-washed, some without any windows a’tall, and the whole thing surrounded by a tall fence and barbed wire at the top. He bent his head down like he was peering into a window and yells:

  “Come out here, Wilder! Come out and meet the man you’ve swindled! You’re the hound I’m after, and I’m gwyne to have you, too.”

  The woman selling melons shook her head and said it was a bad business and that he was a fool. No one in town knew the whole story about Dr. Wilder, but he had come from back east somewheres with considerable money. He said he just wanted a place to work and be left alone. He was some kind of doctor, but never bothered trying to find patients or even treat a patient what was brought to him. No, he was there trying to find a cure for the Zum, he was; and he warn’t doing it for the money, either, for it seemed he already had most all of it. He thought it was a right curious thing – a damn curious thing – that the head was so important to the Zum, like nothing else mattered; so that’s what his experiments were all about. He paid for people to bring him active Zum, and he also paid top dollar for newly dead bodies who had not yet gone to that state.

  More than that, no one knew much. He didn’t go around trying to get himself liked, or feel the need to explain what he was doing, and I guess that was why some of the buildings didn’t have no windows. Some people carped that he felt he was better than anyone else, but what of it? And maybe he was. If he came up with some kind of treatment, they’d put a bronze statue of him in the middle of town. Heck, they’d put a bronze statue of him in the middle of every town.

  Seems Boggs had a brother who had been kilt in a fight, and Dr. Wilder offered Boggs some money for the rights to experiment on the remains; had him sign a contract. It didn’t take Boggs long to piss away the money, and soon enough, Boggs sobered up and started complaining. Several times, he showed up at Dr. Wilder’s door – once even sober – and Dr. Wilder coughed up a little more money, and sent him on his way. But today was worse. Boggs rode back and forth in front of the compound calling Dr. Wilder everything he could lay his tongue to, and the whole street was packed with people, laughing and egging him on.

  By and by a proud-looking man about fifty-five steps out the front door of the compound. He’s wearing a white smock and a white wrap about his head. The crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs, mighty calm and slow – he says:

  “I’m tired of this, but I’ll endure it till one o’clock. Till one o’clock – certainly no longer. I was sorry about your brother, but I’m not responsible for him. I have work to do. I’ve paid you several times. If you open your mouth against me once more after that time, you’ll find yourself helping with my work in ways you never dreamed.”

  Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody stirred, and there warn’t no more laughing. Boggs rode away blackguarding Dr. Wilder as loud as he could, all down the street. Pretty soon he pulls a bottle from a bag on his saddle, and takes a long pull. It seemed to revive him. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but they couldn’t. They told him it would be one o’clock in a few minutes, and so he must go home and sleep it off, but it didn’t do no good. He cussed again with all his might and started sobbing how it was his only brother and the doctor had taken advantage of him and made him sign a document he wouldn’t’ve never signed on a sober day, and pretty soon he was a-ragin’ down the street again, his gray hair flying. Everybody tried to coax him off his horse so they could take him and get him sober, but it warn’t no use. By and by somebody says:

  “Go get his daughter! – quick, go for his daughter! Sometime’s he’ll listen to her. If anyone can do it, she can!”

  So someone headed off at a run. Maybe five minutes later, here comes Boggs again, but not on a horse. He was a’reeling down the street, people on either side of him, a-holt of his arms and moving him along. He warn’t hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying himself. He was shouting out:

  “Wilder! Wilder!”

  And then someone sings out:

  “Boggs.”

  I looked over to see who said it, and it was Dr. Wilder. He had gone inside, taken off the white doctor’s outfit, and was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol in his right hand – not aiming it but holding it with the barrel tilted up to the sky. When they see the pistol, the men pushing Boggs along jumped to one side, and the gun barrel comes down slow and steady to a level. Boggs throws up his hands and says, “Oh Lord, don’t shot!”

  Bang! goes the first shot, and Boggs staggers back, clawing at the air, and –bang! goes the second one, and he spins around and tumbles to the ground, heavy and solid. Then a young girl screams and comes rushing out of the crowd, and down she throws herself on her father, crying, “Oh, he’s killed him! He’s killed him!” The crowd closed up around them, everyone trying to get a view, and people on the inside started pushing back and shouting, “Back, back! Give him some air, give him some air.”

  Dr. Wilder tossed the pistol on the ground, and turned on his heels and walked back inside the compound.

  They took Boggs into a little dry goods store and laid him on the ground, then tore his shirt open, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. There was a lot of blood. He made about a dozen long gasps, and then he laid still; he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him, screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, very sweet and gentle-looking, but pale and scared.

  Well, pretty soon the whole town is there, shoving forward to get a look, and everyone was excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, and one long, lanky man marked out the places in the street where Boggs stood and where Dr. Wilder stood, acting out what was done, and who said what, and what happened to each one of them in the right order.

  By and by, someone said Dr. Wilder ought to be lynched. In another minute, everyone else was saying it; so they all went out, leaving Boggs there along on the floor of the dry goods store, looking for rope to do a proper lynching, and enough whiskey to make it easy.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Why the Lynching Bee Failed

  They swarmed up to Dr. Wilder’s compound, a-whooping and raging like injuns, and everyone had to clear the way or get run over and trampled like such, and it was awful to see. Four or five people had fashioned nooses, all the way from thick, heavy hemp ropes you would use to pull out a tree stump, down to a light clothesline. Some folks was carrying guns, some was carrying farm implements, like scythes and pitchforks, and a few was waving around torches, though it was the middle of the day and there was no need of it that I could see. Every window on the street was full of men and women peeking out, and the trees was thick with boys, scurrying up as high as they could for a good vantage point. Lots of the women and girls was crying and carrying on, scared next to death – I think cause it had turned from a group of men, and now it was a mob, and it wasn’t a thing to be reasoned with.

  They swarmed up the walk in front of Dr. Wilder’s compound as thick as they could jam themselves together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for all the noise. Someone sung out, “Tear down the fence! Tear down the fence!” and down she goes, and the front wall of the mob begins to roll in like a wave, trampling the flowers and breaking whatever windows there was.

  Just then Dr. Wilder steps out onto the roof of his little front porch, with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes a stand, perfectly calm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the crowd sucked back.


  Dr. Wilder never said a word – he just stood there, looking down on everyone. The stillness was awful creepy, and uncomfortable. He run his eyes slow amongst the crowd, and whenever people looked up and met his gaze, they dropped their eyes in a second and looked somewhere else. Then pretty soon Dr. Wilder laughed; not the pleasant kind, neither.

  Then he says, slow and scornful:

  “The idea of you lynching anyone! It’s amusing. The idea of you thinking you have the pluck to lynch a man! Because you’re brave enough to tar and feather some poor outcast that wanders along, you think you have the grit to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man is safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind – as long as it’s daylight and you’re not behind him.

  “Your newspapers call you a brave people so much you begin to think it’s the truth – that you are braver than other people, but it’s all a lie. The people who run your newspapers are lying to you, because they live where you live. I don’t conduct my research for the likes of you – oh no! I believe you’re all content to live the rest of your days rolling in the mud. But some people are worth saving; and I’m doing what I do for them, even though I may never know their names.

  “Why don’t you people hang murderers? Because you’re afraid the man’s friends will find you and kill you in your sleep – and so they would. So the courts acquit; and then a man has to go out by himself at night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back, and bring him to justice. Your mistake is you didn’t bring a man with you today; that’s one mistake, and the other is you didn’t put sheets over your head and come after dark when no one could tell who you were.

  “You’re pitiful, only I’ve no pity in my heart for you. The thing for you to do now is to tuck your tails under your legs and go home and crawl in a hole. If any lynching is to be done, do is Southern style; drink a lot more than what you got in you now; do it in the dark when decent folk are asleep; and bring a man along to finish the job. Now leave, all of you, and come back when you’d like to die!” Then he brings up the gun to his left arm and cocks it.

  The crowd washed back sudden, and broke apart, tearing off every which way, grumbling and muttering to themselves. I could ‘a’ stayed if I wanted to, but there warn’t nothing left to be seen.

  I went to the circus and loafed around the back till the watchman went by, then dived under the tent. I still had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because there ain’t no telling when you are going to need it, away from home and amongst strangers. I ain’t opposed to spending money on bearded ladies and sword swallowers and fortune tellers, especially when there ain’t no other way, but there ain’t no use in wasting your money on them if it ain’t necessary.

  It was a really bully circus. First they all came riding into the ring, two by two, the most beautiful men and women you’d ever seen, the men in white tights, no shoes, no stirrups, just riding with their hands on their thighs easy and comfortable – and every lady dressed like a queen, all silk just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful fine sight; I never seen anything so lovely. They went around the ring so gentle and graceful, their heads bobbing and skimming along, and they brought out parasols the same color as their dresses and rolled them around as they rode, and it was just beautiful. The ringmaster stood in the middle of the ring, cracking his whip and shouting “Hi! – Hi!” and by and by all the riders dropped their reins, and they rode out the exit and everyone clapped their hands and went just about wild.

  There were plenty more astonishing things. Next a group of clowns with painted smiles and big floppy shoes came into the ring and did sumersaults and balancing and such, and then another group of clowns dressed like Zum came out and chased the first group around and around the ring. Every now and then one of the first group would trip and fall, and the Zum clowns would form a circle around him, and soon, out flew the red shoes, then out flew parts of his costume, attached to a fake arm or leg, with red ribbons fluttering out of the stumps like it was blood, and by the time they was done, the clown that fell was completely gone, like they had et him up. The audience laughed and howled and couldn’t get enough of it. Then the ringmaster came out and started cracking his whip, and all of the clowns stopped what they was doing and bowed and blew kisses and rolled themselves back out of the ring.

  Around then a drunken man tried to get into the ring – said he wanted to ride one of the trick horses, and that he was as good a rider as anyone in the circus. The ringmaster tried to talk him out of it, but the crowd started making fun of him, and people started singing out, “Let the fool ride!” So the ringmaster signaled and a stallion was brought out that was one of the biggest horses I’d ever seen; he had white ostrich plumes all over him, and the ringmaster made the drunk promise he wouldn’t make any more trouble if they let him ride the horse. Everyone laughed and cheered, and the man got on. The minute he got on, the horse began to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, the drunken man holding onto the horse’s neck, and his heels flying into the air every jump, and the whole crowd standing and shouting and laughing till the tears came down. At last, sure enough, the horse went into a full gallop, round and round the ring with that sot lying down on him and hanging onto his neck, first one leg hanging most to the ground on one side, then t’other leg on t’other, and the people went crazy. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle, a-reeling this way and that; and the next minute, he dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse was a-going like a house fire, too. He just stood up there, sailing around the ring as if he warn’t ever drunk in his life – and then he began to pull off his clothes and toss them into the crowd. And then, there he was, slim and handsome, dressed the prettiest you ever saw, and he made that horse fairly hum – and finally off they went, out into the night, everyone just a-howling with pleasure and astonishment.

  Well, later that night, we had our show; but there warn’t only about twelve people there – just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad, because they hadn’t yet come to the funny parts. So after everyone left, the duke said these Arkansas lunkheads didn’t understand Shakespeare, and what they wanted was low comedy – and maybe something a little under low comedy, he reckoned. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some new handbills, and we stuck these all over town. The bills said:

  AT THE COURTHOUSE!

  For three nights only!

  The World-Renowned Tragedians

  DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!

  And

  EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!

  Starring in their thrilling tragedy of

  THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD

  Admission 50 cents

  Then at the bottom of the bill was the biggest line of all, which said:

  LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED!!

  “There,” says he much satisfied with himself, “if that line don’t bring them in, I don’t know Arkansas.”

  Well, the rest of that day, they was both hard at it, rigging up a stage and a curtain and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the place was jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn’t hold no more, he quit tending door and went around the back way and came onto the stage and made a speech, and praised what they was about to do, and called it the most thrillingest tragedy ever. He went on about the two actors and how distinguished they both was, and when he’d got everybody’s expectations high enough, he rolled up the curtain.

  The next minute the king came a-prancing out on all fours, naked, spouting lines and telling jokes as they came to his mind; and he was painted all over, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. He also had on some of the ostrich feathers from the circus horses, which he must have stolen earlier in the afternoon. It was awful funny. Even if the jokes warn’t very good, or new, having a painted-up naked man tell them made ‘em seem that way. The people most killed themselves laughing, and when the king got done capering, he waved and capered off the stage, a
nd they roared and clapped and stormed and hee-hawed till he came back and did it all over again, and after that they made him do it yet again. It would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut. He made a passable Juliet, but he was a powerful fool.

  Then the duke lets down the curtain, and bows to the people, and says the great tragedy will only occur two nights more, on account of pressing London engagements, where the seats have been sold now for months; and then he makes another bow and says if they have succeeded in pleasing and instructing the crowd, he would be obliged if they would mention it kindly to their friends.

  The crowd starts looking at one another, puzzled, and people start singing out:

  “What! Is it over? Is that all?”

  The duke says, sadly, yes.

  Then there was a fine time. Everyone gets furious and comes out of their seats, and was a-going for that stage and them fine classicly-trained actors, but a big man with a long black beard and scars on his face jumps on a bench and shouts:

  “Hold on! Just a minute, gentlemen!” They all stopped to listen. “We’ve been taken – mighty badly taken. But we don’t want to be the laughing-stock of the whole town, I reckon, and never hear the end of this as long as we live. No. What we want to do is get out and leave quiet, and talk this show up, and sell it to the rest of the town. Then we’ll all be in the same boat. Ain’t that sensible?”

  Everybody whoops like it was the finest idea ever, and so he says:

  “All right, then – not a word about this. Go along home and advise every one of your friends to come see this fine performance! Only two days more!”

  Next day you couldn’t walk around that town but how splendid the show was. The house was jammed again that night, and at the end, we sold the crowd the same way.

  The third night was jammed again – and they warn’t new-comers this time, but people who was at the show the first two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that night had his pockets bulging, or something hidden under his coat – and it warn’t none of it fragrant or perfumery, not by a long sight. I smelt bad eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being close by, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in. Soon I couldn’t stand it.