Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim (8 page)

the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest-FST! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs-where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.

"Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."

"Well, you wouldn't a ben here ‘f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn’ mos’ drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile."

The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old distance across-a half a mile-because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs.

Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles-they would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them. We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.

One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft-nice pine planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches-a solid, level floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go; we didn't show ourselves in daylight.

Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got aboard-clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.

The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something leaning against the wall in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says:

"Hello, you!"

But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:

"De man ain't asleep-he's dead. You hold still-I'll go en see."

He went over, and touched him and looked, and says:

"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's all taken by pox; his nose still draining awfulness. But he got himself a bullet-hole too, like some'un had a cause to shoot ‘im. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. You best stay apart, Huck, and doan’ look at his face-it's too gashly."

I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. I went into t'other room to look for salvageables. There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal. There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too.

I heard Jim cry out, and other sounds, too. I was too afeared to go look. I knowed without knowin’ what was goin’ on. That dead man wasn't all completely dead. He was a bagger, like Jim, and mebby full-bag, too. Not gentle and still keeping pieces of his former self. This fella was mean, and he shrieked like the boyo. Jim yells:

"You stay
'way,
Huck! You just stay ‘way!"

An’ I heard things breaking, and glass going smash, and the sound of bodies rolling against the wall and across the floor.

"He's a hungry one!” Jim yells.

I crouched in the corner and put my hands over my ears. I didn't know what else to do. Fright overtook me, I reckon. No control over that.

Soon enough all went quiet and there came a splashing noise. Some'un went into the drink. An’ the body that came around the corner could have been either one o’ them, but I was damn pleased to see it was Jim. Says he:

"I broke his neck, surely I did. An’ now he be on his way to the bottom of the river, an’ den back to Hell."

So, we put the things I collected into the canoe-it might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account. The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff.

Jim had scrapes down his one cheek and a long trail o’ yella snot down the other. He said that was courtesy of the man who was now in th’ river. He said he was a nasty one, and wouldn't a made a good servant fer anyone. He says:

"Mind that some o’ dem might try to eat you, Huck."

I says, “Thet's what pap used to think. I figgered he was all full up of beans. Why would anyone want ta eat somebody?"

"It a bad desire, I tell you."

"Would you wan’ eat me, Jim?"

"No, but I could ‘magine it."

"'Magine eating me? Thet's bunky."

"I wouldn’ do it ‘cause you my friend an’ I be civilized an’ all, but I be lyin’ to you if I said the’ warn't pat o’ me that din’ think it might be nice to take jus’ a li'l taste."

"Lay off now, Jim,'fore I bean you one."

He laughed ‘bout that.

We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the other one, though we hunted all around.

And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a bagger a good ways off, mostly on account of his eyes, and the way the flies buzzed around his big dead head. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. We got home all safe.

"He not alive on da river bottom,” Jim said. “I kin tell you dat."

We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that. I says:

"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim."

"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart. It's a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."

It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him.

He didn't yell or nothin'.

He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there 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 eat it and said it would help take away his other cravens. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too. He said that was a good-luck charm and Lord knew we needed more good luck. Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it. I as't him:

"Don’ it hurt?"

He says, “I don’ feel too much, Huck. Stuff is all dead inside o’ me. Sumtimes I'm not even sure I'm here. I gots to touch myself to know, an’ even dat don't always work."

I know from pap's stories that getting’ bit by a rattler feels like someone stickin’ a white-hot poker up inside you. An’ here was Jim just sittin’ like a dull lobcock, not really very upset at all, like pap woulda bin.

Still, Jim was troubled a bit. He reminded me of the young bagger what I shot, an’ how he was all rough and missin’ parts. He says he had to worry ‘bout the same problem for himself. He says, “If'n my foot gits ‘nfected, it might just fall off of me. And then I be hoppin’ ‘round like a fool."

I says, “Aren't you alreafy infected? With death, I mean?"

"I doubt it's the same, Huck."

"It smells about the same to me."

Jim sucked and sucked at the whisky jug, thinkin’ that fillin’ himself with spirit might ward off the bad humors. His foot swelled up a wee bit, and some black juice oozed out. He din’ get drunk though, an’ when he relieved himself it was still pure whisky what came out of him.

Jim stayed laid up for four days and nights. He din’ wanna take no chances. He said he wanted to keep his feet as long as possible. There was no serious swelling. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool.

Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry.

Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket. I took notice, and done better.

I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.

I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I tied up and started 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 had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know. Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid I had come; people might know my voice and find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.

She had herself a half-bagger. An old man who was missing his legs b'neath the knees. The very thing Jim feared for himself. An’ he just sat on the porch, useless like a sack of mulch, baking in the sun and not even botherin’ to swat the flies offa himself. I couldn't imagine the point of keeping a bagger like that one. What could he do? Not much, to my mind. Not much at all.