The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Undead Page 5

  We spread the blankets inside on the rock floor, and that’s where we ate our dinner. Pretty soon it darkened up, and began to thunder and lighten, so the birds was right about that. Directly it began to rain, and it rained like all fury, and I never seen it rain so and the wind blow so. It got so dark out that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; the wind would thrash along so thick that the trees way off looked dim and foggy, and then the wind would bend the trees down in waves and there’d be a cold moaning go through the trees. Then a ripper of a gust would follow and the branches would toss their arms as if they was just wild, and when it was just about the blackest, there’d be a – fssst! and it would be as bright as glory for a second, and you’d see everything in white all around, hundreds of yards farther than you could see before. Then just a moment later, it was dark as sin again, and now you heard the thunder let go with an awful crash that you could feel in your head and your stomach, and then it would go all rumbly, rumbly from one end of the sky to the other, like rolling empty barrels downstairs.

  “Jim,” says I, “this is nice. I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me another chunk of that fish and some hot corn-pone.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t ‘a’ been here if it warn’t for Jim. You’d ‘a’ been down in dah woods widout any dinner, gettin’ most drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it’s gwyne to rain, chile.”

  The river went on rising and rising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four feet deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois side. On that side, the river was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same distance across as it was – just a half mile – because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs. Jim said if the water was this high where we were, they was probably catchin’ it good in Orleans.

  Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was might cool and shady in the deep woods, even when the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines and hanging branches got so thick we had to back off and go some other way. Well, on every tree with low-hanging branches, you could see snakes and rabbits and such things that warn’t used to living so high up, but did so cause of the water; and when the water had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on account of them all being weak and hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to. It reminded me of an old picture in Miss Watson’s Bible, and I told Jim I wondered if this was what Heaven was supposed to be like – animals just sitting there waiting to be petted – and if you was hungry, you just picked up one and put it in a sack. Jim didn’t like me talking like this, and said he never seen such a picture, but it was bad luck to make fun of such a thing, which wasn’t what I was doin’. I was serious. In any case, we could ‘a’ had pets enough if we’d wanted them, but I couldn’t see putting a bunch of animals in the cavern and not think about having them for dinner at one point or another.

  One night we catched sight of a little section of a lumber-raft – nine pine planks. It was twelve foot wide and maybe fifteen or sixteen feet long, and the top of it stood completely above the water. It would have been several weeks of whisky for pap. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them all go. It wouldn’t do to show ourselves in daylight.

  Another night when we are sittin’ at the head of the island, just before daylight, here comes a whole frame-house, down on the west side. She was an old two-story, and it was comical to see a house in the middle of the river, but then we knew it meant someone’s whole life was gone. It was movin’ slow, as it was continual getting’ stuck on jams in the river, so we paddled out and got aboard, right by what used to be the porch. It was still too dark to see much, so we tied the canoe fast and set on the porch to wait for daylight before we did any real exploring.

  The light began to come before we got halfway to the foot of the island. Then we looked in a window. We could make out a bed, a chair, a table with plates on it, and there was an embroidered sampler on the wall that said ‘Be strong, and be of good courage’ on a far wall. There was also a gun laying on the floor and a bunch of clothes settin’ on an old leather chest by the stairs, which I took to mean they was tryin’ to get out but time run out. There was also something layin’ on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says:

  “Hello, you! Hello!”

  But it didn’t budge. I hollered again, just to give it a try, but Jim shakes his head and says: “De man ain’t asleep – he’s dead. You hold still, see. I’ll go inside and have a look.”

  He went in the front window and I went in right after him, though now maybe I wish I hadn’t. There were several dead people in the room, probably the whole family, and there was quite a lot of blood. There was a woman we didn’t see from the window, slumped over next to the front door, some kind of heavy frying pan in her lap like some kind of weapon, and another younger man, maybe a son, right close to her.

  Jim bent over the man we seen in the window and bend down and looked, and said:

  “He dead. He been shot a few times – in de head and de back. Probably came back as a Zum and one ‘a’ these two here shot him. But I don’t get how the gun is over there by the wall. Come on, Huck, doan’ look at his face – he been dead a few days easy. It’s pretty gashly.”

  And before you know it, Jim heard a noise and turned and let out a horrible yelp. There was a boy standing on the staircase to the second floor. He was mostly my age, with overalls on. There was blood comin’ down the side of his face, deep scratches in his skin, and a bullet hole in the chest of his overalls. There was no more blood coming from the hole, and the overalls were red and slick down to his knees.

  “You two keep away from da,” it said, and Jim and I froze to where we was standing. It was Zum, one of the new kind, which made it a more frightenin’ thing, as it was not so different from the rest of us, other than it being dead.

  “We ain’ hurt nobody,” Jim said, his hands up in the air and moving backwards toward the door. He looked at me with wild eyes like he expected me to do something, but my head was empty. I didn’t know how fast it could move, but I knew I could make it out through the window, but I wasn’t sure about getting the canoe free before it caught up to me.

  “We jus’ came to see this house floatin’ down the river. We d’in mean no harm to no one.” This was Jim.

  “Get outta my house!” the Zum boy growled, and I figured by the wetness in his speech he had been dead a few days too.

  “Sho’a, sho’a,” Jim said, like this was a perfectly normal conversation and this was a reasonable request. He kept his hands up like the Zum had a gun trained on him, and went over and opened up the front door. “Huck?” he said, looking at me again, “best we be goin’.”

  We walked out the front door and went over to the canoe, but the Zum boy was next to us in a shot. It still had young legs.

  “What happen’t my maw and paw?” it asked Jim. I guess he was payin’ all the attention to Jim and none to me because Jim was doing all the talking, which was fine. I went to work unhitching the canoe.

  “Well, now, I ‘spect they…” Jim began, and the boy Zum bared his teeth and threw himself on him. We was both startled, figuring he’d keep acting like a boy and not a Zum, but we was wrong. It lit at Jim and knocked him down to one knee, mostly because it was so unexpected, but Jim is tall and pretty strong, which is why Miss Watson could’a got eight hundred dollars for him. After a moment, Jim composed himself and stood back up, holding the Zum by it’s waist and far away, so it couldn’t scratch or bite or gouge. Then Jim grunted and pitched the Zum into the water, where it panicked and started this pitiful screaming. “Maw! Maw! Da!” it cried, “Oh maw, please!” and in a few seconds, it got caught by the current and went under the water. Jim fell to the porch and started sobbing, as he felt he had kilt a child, but I let him alone, cause I knew it was the right thin
g to do. I figured it was the right thing. It just didn’t feel like the right thing.

  Back inside, there was a heap of old clothes scattered around the floor and before we went upstairs, I made sure I had my gun with me, and we loaded up the other one we found. There was some old calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and a lot more men’s clothing, but no more Zum waiting for us. We put the lot into the canoe – it might come good. There was a boy’s old speckled straw hat, which looked like it would fit me, but I let it lay, because it reminded me of the boy, and I figured I would be reminded of him enough.

  We got an old lantern, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candle-stick, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bed quilt off the bed, and a hatchet and some nails, and a roll of buckskin, and a horseshoe; and just as we was leaving, I found a tolerable good curry-comb.

  For a second, I was thinking I was just like pap, stealin’ and callin’ it something else, like being a highwayman, but it wasn’t like that. We didn’t set out to steal; it was just put in front of us and there warn’t no other way around it. We tried to be good. I believe there was a difference.

  Before we left, Jim knelt down and said a quiet prayer for whoever used to live there, and I took a knee too but couldn’t work up any words of either thanks or apology. When we was finally ready to shove off, we was only a quarter mile or so below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and covered him with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was owned folk from a long ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore and drifted down to our spot. I crept up in the dead water and didn’t have no accidents nor see anybody. We got home all safe, and set to moving the stuff to the cavern, and didn’t talk much about what we had just seen, and what we had just done.

  Chapter Ten

  What Comes of Handlin’ Snake-skin

  After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead people we saw and what had happened to them all, but Jim didn’t want to. He said chuckin’ a white child in the water would get him kilt, and though it was no longer a living person, that’s what it felt like; and besides, he said, the boy might come back and haunt us both; he said what he done felt like it deserved a haunting, and that sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn’t say no more. But to myself, I kept studying the whole thing over and over in my mind, wondering what happened first, and to whom, and how that boy happened to die in the first place, or was he shot and then came back. And who would shoot a boy?

  We rummaged through the clothes we got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old heavy overcoat. Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, and I had to mention that we kind of did too, but Jim didn’t want to hear such talk. He said it was bad luck all round, and wish’t we’d never paddled over, so I says:

  “So it’s bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in that snake-skin I found by the cavern day before yesterday? You said it was the worst luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here we are with another gun, more supplies, eight dollars, and all this other truck besides. You dealin’ with that boy Zum and flingin’ him in the river was an ugly thing, but I don’t know what else we could ‘a’ done at that point. We was trying to leave. Heck, I wish we had bad luck like this every day, Jim.” And then I had to stop talking, because I thought I was sounding exactly like paw.

  “Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don’t you git to believin’ too much of what you sayin’; they’s just words, that’s all, and I know you just mean to ease my heart some. Mind I tell you, though, it’s a’comin’. Bad luck is a-comin’.”

  It did come, too. It was a Tuesday we had that talk. Well, after dinner on Friday we was laying around on the grass up on the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the canoe to get some, and found a rattlesnake on the path. I kilt him, and took and curled him up ever so natural on the foot of Jim’s blanket, thinking I’d have some fun when Jim found him there. I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket later whilst I was lighting the lantern, the snake’s mate was there, and bit him.

  He jumped up yelling and the first thing the light showed was the varmint all curled up and ready for another strike. I laid him out quick with a heavy stick, and Jim grabbed pap’s whisky-jug and began to pour it down.

  He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That comes of me being such a fool as to not remember that whenever you leave a dead snake, its mate comes and curls around it. Jim told me to chop off the snake’s head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he et it and said it would help cure him. He told me to take the rattles and tie them around his wrist. He said that would help, too. Then I slid out and throwed both snakes clear away into the bushes; for I warn’t going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.

  Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and told me if he died I should take his head off first thing, as he had no desire to have the first twitch of turning Zum. I laid out a knife and a hatchet, and he made me promise, and I said I would do it. If he died, I would’a done it anyways, but I’d have to leave the island forever, because even I thought he might come back as a ghost and haunt me for bein’ so stupid.

  Every time he came to himself he started sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by he stopped thrashing around and rested proper, and I judged he’d be all right; but I’d d’ruther be bit by a rattlesnake than pap’s whisky.

  Jim was laid up for days and nights. Once or twice he’d open his eyes to see if I was still there, and he’d make sure the hatchet was close in case I needed to use it. Then the swelling started goin’ down, and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn’t take a-hold of a snake-skin ag’in with my hands, now that I saw what could come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time he told me a thing. And he said I could probably put the hackin’ tools away, as he didn’t want me to accidentally take his head off. I grinned, cause he seemed like himself ag’in.

  Later he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn’t got to the end of it yet. Well, I was beginnin’ to feel that way, myself. He said he’d druther see the new moon over his left shoulder a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand, and I’ve always reckoned that doin’ such a thing was one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body could do.

  Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got caught up in a barn by a whole host of Zum, and they spread him all over the barn in a kind of layer, as you might say. So they picked up what they could and dropped the parts into a burlap bag and buried him so. I didn’t see it, but pap told me about it. But anyway, it all came of looking at the moon that way, like a stupid fool.

  So the days went along and for a time I did all the traipsin’ around the island by myself, baiting the hooks and taking the fish off the line and tending to the fire and making breakfast and dinner and bringing Jim water. Once I got a catfish on the line that was as big as a man, being over five feet long, and something like two hundred pounds. Jim was spry enough to want to go see, and one look and Jim allowed we couldn’t handle him; he’d ‘a’ flung us both into the river. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till Jim noticed that it’s guts were trailing in the water, all cloudy and red, with a bunch of minnows picking at them, and his eyes was all gone. I had never heard of no Zum catfish, and neither had Jim, but we had had enough of them for the time, so Jim cut the line, and we was one fishhook less. The catfish rolled down into deeper water and we didn’t talk of it further.

  Next morning I said I was getting dull and slow, and I needed to get a stirring-up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip across the river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion, as he had gotten used to the good life of settin’ and smokin’ a pipe and not doing a thing. Then he studied it over and over and said, why couldn’t I put on some
of those old clothes we found on the house and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we took one of the calico dresses and Jim took a needle and sewed it up to fit me. I put on a sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and Jim said nobody would know me hardly, even in the daytime. I practiced all day to get the hang of things, only Jim watched me and said I didn’t walk like a girl. He said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket, and I took notice and done better after that.

  I went over to the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.

  I tied up and went along the bank. There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn’t been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who took up quarters there. I peeped in at the window, and there was an old woman in there knitting by a candle that was on an old pine table. I didn’t know her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn’t show me a face in that town I didn’t know and couldn’t put a name to. This was a lucky thing, because I was afraid people would know my voice and find me out. So I knocked on the door, straightened my gown, and made up my mind I wouldn’t forget I was a girl.

  Chapter Eleven

  They’re After Us!

  The woman looked at me through the window, cradling an old blunderbuss just in case. Then she unlocks the door, opened it up, and looked back and forth in the darkness. “Come in,” says she, and I did. “Take a chair.”

  I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes and says:

  “What might your name be?”

  “Sarah Williams.”

  “Where ‘bouts you live? In this neighborhood?”

  “No,m. In Hookerville, seven miles below. I’ve walked all the way and I’m just tired out.”