Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim (23 page)

We poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so gay as I was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow-though I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would piss on him.

Come dawn, he was a-hackin’ and coughin’ and his eyes were movin’ unnatural, rollin’ back in his skull one minute and normal the next. We was bunkin’ together an’ I was the first t'notice him like that.

Aunt Sally come along and she was still callin’ him Sid; and that tweaked at me ‘cause I knew Tom could pass, an’ he would pass with his aunt thinkin’ he was somebody who he wasn't. And for a moment I thought about Tom buried under a headstone with th’ wrong name, but then sense grabbed me an’ I realized he'd be comin’ back as a bagger; so I wouldn't
really
be losin’ my good friend, no how.

In a clear moment, Tom as't if Silas would come an’ talk to him, but Sally said Silas was gone to the field, bein’ that word had come of some kinda commotion. My stomach near jumped up into my mouth, and I asked her,

"Are they killin the baggers already?"

"Don't rightly know,” she said. “It sounded like some other kind of business. But don't you fret about all that. We got to get a poultice on Sid right directly. That an’ some cool water might hold him a spell."

Well, I was stuck.

There was Jim I had to rescue, somehow; an’ here was Tom Sawyer, prob'ly gonna die b'fore the day ended, maybe sooner.

Aunt Sally went off to get them comfort items, and then Tom jumped into a moment o’ clarity an’ grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt. He says,

"Cain't go home, Huck. Thar ain't nothin’ left. It was hell bad. Bad enough thet I don't rightly ‘spect to see any familiar faces if another boat comes along."

"Don't be sayin’ that, Tom,” I said. “We'll see lots o’ folks again, you can be shore of that."

"Miss Watson's gone. I din’ wanna say."

"She passed?"

"She passed an’ come back, but she was a vicious one. An’ it was only in time to join in with th’ rest of the baggers, and it was a terrible show. An’ I didn't see how it all ended up, ‘cause I ran. Had to run all the way down to Hockett to get onto that boat. It weren't no lotto, like I said. It was every Tom for hisself. An’ I din’ even tell Aunt Sally ‘bout Aunt Polly an’ all the rest who all was gone."

"You gonna?"

"Don't rightly know."

That's all he said, and that's all I said. It warn't no use to say any more. But I couldn't make out how he was willing to go out of this world; so I just let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to have it so, I couldn't help it.

I felt powerful sad, now. I thought about all th’ folks we knowed, an’ how it was all done with, an’ my eyes'd never see ‘em again.

Aunt Sally come back with a tray an’ she shooed me out of the room. I told Tom I'd come back an’ see him just as soon as I could, but both of us knew it weren't goin’ to go that way. Just like Tom's great scheme to free Jim. It's a good thing to believe, even though you suspect it won't go thet way.

It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer, he knows the same.

The door closed behind me and that was truly the last I ever saw of Tom Sawyer.

Ayyy-men.

I ran all th’ way to Cobb Field, an’ went through the crick, too, hopin’ to shave some time.

I weren't happy that Miss Watson was gone, but I found relief knowin’ that it meant Jim was a free bagger. That or he belonged to me for
real
, an’ that was just the same as bein’ free.

An’ I remember that the air was thick and the ground was damp and I could taste my own spit so powerful it was like havin’ a mouthful of blood.

An’ then there was gunfire. An’ more gunfire.

And the screamin come, too.

First thing I thought was all them penned baggers was bein’ gunned down, but the closer I got the more I unnerstood what was really happening. It was like before. And the time before that, too. An’ it was clear to me now that the Devil's Army was like a neverendin’ stream of red army ants.

They come from the north, like fire, an’ there was a million.

All the men what could be mustard was present, all armed, an’ firin’ at a wave of bodies that was hardly slowed by bullets.

Here I was at the opposite end of Cobb Field. All that horror was mebby a mile across the grass, on t'other side of the bunderlug coop. I know fear and sense shoulda made turnabout and bolted for the way I come, but it was a voice that steeled me up. Jim hollers,

"Get yo'self gone, Huck! Run away! Run away, honey!"

An’ I was so pleased to hear ‘is voice that the smile what crossed my face made my cheeks ache.

"Go won, Huck! Go won now!"

There was at least fifty baggers in that pen, an’ Jim was pressed right to the edge, pointed south with a long dead arm through the slats, pointin’ the way I oughted t'be goin'.

And all that shootin’ and hissin’ and growlin’ and screamin’ kept rollin’ over the field like a wave outta my worst nightmares; but before I know what I'm doin’ I'm at the gate an’ I'm untyin’ it. An’ it struck me how docile these rounded-up half-baggers really was, ‘cause most of ‘em ought to have ‘ad the sense to let theirselves out, but chose not to for bein’ soft-mannered and tamed.

Yes, they was like a pack of tired hounds, not in any rush to go anywheres or do anything atall. Zomby Jim hadta push his way through the mass to get to me at th’ gate. If those had been livin’ people, or full-bag biters, it woulda been a stampede. But it was not so. I says,

"Jim, c'mon! We got to git!"

He was darker and a little more rotted than when I last saw him. Or maybe I'd been so accustomed to him thet I hardly noticed. That little time apart made me realize how crackly and peeled he was becomin'. He says,

"We goan back to da raft, Hyuck! Ol’ Jim will git you safe."

An’ by this time, so many of those armed men were on the ground, getting’ chewed up and feasted on, an’ there wasn't hardly no more gunfire goin’ off. And here comes the bagger horde, thunderin’ across the plain to feast on me an’ anyone else who might come along. All dead eyes, brown skin and yella teeth.

Jim scooped me up like I was a bagga flour and threw me on his shoulder. And then he starts a-takin’ giant runnin’ strides and I feel like one of them Arabs perched high upon a racin’ elephant. I kin see backwards an’ I see that when the Devil's Army gets close to the corral, the tame baggers inside began thrashin’ and clawin’ around, like a ‘coon turned on a penny from rabies.

Seemed to me they mus’ all be sharin’ thoughts-and when a bad one gets close to a not-bad one, their ideas become the same. Just as when one duck starts flyin’ away across the pond, the rest of ‘em go, too. And that's what happened when the horde neared the pen. Pretty quick it was all chompin’ teeth.

A million crazed baggers and a million chompin’ teeth.

Pretty soon I had to close my eyes. I kept ‘em shut tight and it was a dark and ankshis trip, goin’ up an’ down and up an’ down as Jim hurled through the bushes and over the hills and down to the river. And always right in front of my closed eyes I knowed we was bein’ pursued, and closely, too.

But here is me tellin’ this story, so y'all know I din’ die.

Wall, we got fairly clear. Comin’ past the Phelps place, I reckon, them zombys turned to feast on Aunt Sally and whoever else might be nearby; and me n’ Jim just kept on hurlin'.

I don't hardly remember showin’ Jim where the raft was, nor castin’ off, nor fallin’ dead asleep from fright, nor none o’ that. It was Jim what took care of ever'thing. It was Jim what got us clear and free and safe. And I'll bet I didn't wake up until it was a whole new morning.

That was how we went. Back on the river.

And things wasn't good nowhere. Good baggers was turnin’ bad all the ways across the nation, and their numbers grew, and they swept into towns like sheet lightning and consumed ever'thing that breathed. All the way from Buffalo to N'Orlins to Mexico to wherever.

An’ me and Jim just kept goin’ with th’ river, thinkin’ mebby we'll get to England or the South Pole with our hides intact. Well, with
my
hide intact. Jim's hide was much like a rotten potato. But he knowed what I knowed: That Napoleon had killed the fissythis in Europe, so there couln’ possibly be bagger hordes over there.

Mebby we din’ know much.

We drifted an’ drifted and I thought about all those million folks who perished. Most of ‘em I didn't know, but I concentrated real hard on the ones I did. Thought about ever'one I ever met, at least once. I thought about Miss Watson an’ I thought about pap, too. I thought about how I'd never really know which folks got eaten up, and which ones was doin’ th’ eating.

I hoped Tom Sawyer was doin’ th’ eatin'. It coulda gone either way. If he passed before the horde arrived, he woulda come back. If not, wall, I knowed he must be in a better place now, with the big Lord, like th’ others. Jim said,

"We sho’ das got a long way to go, Huck."

"Yuh,” I says. “But we come a long ways, too."

"Ain't dat da truf!"

"It is, Jim. It shorely is."

"Byootyful day."

"Yuh. I wonder if pap is out there somewhere. He be a vicious one even if he ain't dead."

Jim says, kind of solemn:

"He ain't a-comin’ back no mo', Huck."

I says:

"I know it, Jim."

"For sho’ he ain't. Hunnert pa cent."

"How you so shore?"

"Nemmine why, Huck-but he ain't comin’ back no mo."

But I kept at him; so at last he says:

"Doan’ you ‘member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a mad bagga in dah, crazed, en I went in en delivered him and didn’ let you come
close
? Well, den, you kin tank yo’ stahs, kase dat wuz him."

That made me feel nice an’ warm inside.

I wanted to make Jim feel the same way, down in his dead heart.

I told him he was a
free
bagger. No more bounty or rules or nothin'. It was all beside th’ point, o'course, since there wasn't no more bagger trade, nor traders, nor reward, nor owners, nor nuttin’ else; but he liked knowin’ his freedom was completely official, anyhow. Sorta made it taste better, I reckon.

I din’ know the name of the town we come to next, but we drifted right on by it.

When I think about these dead folks turnin’ and eatin’ on each other, I sometimes wonder if we've lost anything at all.