The Daily Procrastinator

In Chapter I, Huck described how the Widow Douglas took him in to “sivilize” him and how Miss Watson came into town fleeing a rampant illness in St. Louis.  One night, after a strange green haze illuminated the night sky, Huck leaves the house to go on an adventure with Tom…

Chapter II.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow’s garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

“Who dah?”

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch. Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy — if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

“Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin.”

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore — and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me — kind of a little noise with his mouth — and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake.

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. Tom asked where Sam Peckins was but none of the other boys said they seen him, which was funny cause Ben lived right up the street from him. We waited a bit longer but Sam never showed so we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river a bit, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. Tom fussed every now and again that Sam warn’t there – he was supposed to bring some of his mom’s biscuits.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn’t a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:

“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn’t belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.

Just then a noise back from where we entered the cave started everyone up. It was a shuffling sort of sound, like when you drag a log behind you on a gravel road, only it was short sounds. Tom looked around at us and then gave us a grin, putting his finger up to his lips telling us to get quiet. Then Tom whispers:

“Listen, that’s gotta be old Sam Peckins finally getting here and aiming to give us a fright. Well, we’ll pull one over on him. Red, give Ben here your candle and get beside the entrance there in the dark. We’ll tuck in here at the back of the cave and make like we didn’t hear a thing. When Sam gets past you, you jump out and give him a fright, and won’t we have the laugh!”

So we all huddled around Tom and the oath with a few candles lit and made like we were going over it some more. Red hid in the dark near the entrance and then we waited. The shuffling sound grew a bit louder as Sam neared, and every now and again one of us would sneak a look over a shoulder because blamed if Sam wasn’t giving us a little scare because he was taking his time.

The shuffling noise got closer and closer, and we heard Sam’s breathing kind of heavy, too, to add to the effect. Then the shuffling stopped and Red screamed out, only it wasn’t a scream to scare Sam, but more like Sam managed to scare Red, despite Red knowing he was coming.

All of us jumped up and looked to see how Sam had done it, but it warn’t Sam at the entrance. It was a taller figure dressed in what was burial clothes – the kind you see on bodies that ain’t got no money for a proper ceremony or loved ones to do them up right. The jacket was short on the arm, which was thin and white and spotty with dirt and grabbing at Red’s shirt. Red was still screaming and yelling and trying to get away, but the stranger got hold of Red and pulled him toward him, bending down at him. Red yelled out, but all of us seemed frozen to our spots, we was so surprised. That is, all but Tom.

Tom ran at the stranger and attempted to shove at him to get him away from Red. And that’s when the stranger turned to look at the rest of us. I’ll never forget that face: it was the same white as the arm but dirtier, and darker stains not like dirt were on its chin and lips. It was dried blood. Its face was narrow and looked as if it hadn’t eat in ages; its eyes focused on Tom and it let out a snarl of rage, almost as if it knew who it was looking at. And of course, it did. It was Injun Joe, come back from the grave for his revenge.

Well, Injun Joe let go of Red and moved at Tom, reaching out with a hand that seemed more like a claw; the skin and flesh of his fingers had been torn off back when he was trying to dig his way out of the cave he had been locked in, I remembered hearing. Tom gave out a yelp and backed off, he was so shocked at the sight before him, and moved back with us. Red had fallen down into a heap behind Joe, but it warn’t no matter because Joe was now fixed on Tom. He swept his arm at Tom, but Tom was too quick for him, and he came back to the rest of us at the back of the cave.

“Pick up any rocks you can find, boys!” Tom says. “That’s our only chance!” So those of us who warn’t still frozen with fright started picking up what stones we could find and getting ready to chuck ‘em at Joe. Injun Joe didn’t seem to hear or understand, but kept on coming, dragging his feet, though, as if chained. He got nearer and nearer, and the smell! It was most enough to gag a buzzard! I won’t lie — I thought we was lost.

Just then another figure came in through the entrance – it was Miss Watson’s Jim! He had a heavy looking log in his hand and rushed up behind Injun Joe and swung with all his might at his head. Smack! A sickening thud and Injun Joe’s head just seemed to burst like a melon when the log hit it. Some teeth and some other stuff hit against the side of the cave and what was left just kind of crumpled in a ball. Jim looked at the log, covered with the remains of Injun Joe’s head, and dropped it disgusted. He then looked around at us and says:

“Mars’ Tom, Mars’ Huck, you’s all right? I’s bin following you’s since you seen me whens you lef’ de house – I was jus’ foolin’ with you a bit by pretendin’ to be sleepin’ whens you saw me. Then’s I seen this man follow you alls into the cave, so’s I had to make sure you’d be allright. I din’t mean to hit him so hard, but he had me scared for you’s.”

Tom told Jim to never mind about that, that he done what he needed to. But we needed to work out what was going on and what we was going to do as we all recognized that the body in the cave belonged to Injun Joe, who we knew was dead. Then Ben Rogers piped up:

“Tom, maybe Injun Joe wasn’t really dead!”

“Ben, how you talk! The whole town done come around to see his body. Judge Thatcher hisself knew the body to be Joe’s, and don’t you think I would know him?”

“Then how do you explain his walking around here, trying to get you?”

“I don’t rightly know, but I read a book once about bodies that came back to life.”

“Tom, you ain’t talking about the Bible are you? We all here know about that one.”

“No, Ben, not the Bible. This book talked about people who come back from the dead were zombies, and prowled the night and ate nothing but human flesh.”

“Ate human flesh? Why on earth would they do that?”

“I’m not sure, the book didn’t give any particulars on that, but that’s what they ate. And the only way to kill a zombie was to destroy its head, like Jim done with Joe here.”

“So then we’re done with all this frightfulness, right? Jim done killed it!”

“Maybe so, Ben. At least I hope so. But the book says that a person that’s been bit by a zombie is infected and will soon die and turn into a zombie himself.”

“That’s rotten luck, but none of us got bit, thanks to Jim, right?”

All of nodded in agreement at that, though I noticed at the time how pale Red got at that. Maybe ‘cause he was so close to being bit himself, I thought.

We decided then and there not to breathe a word of this to anyone, because it would have caused so many problems for Jim seeing as how he killed a man, no matter if the man was already dead. And it all seemed over, anyway. And nobody was going to miss Injun Joe, neither. So we talked it over some more and swore each other to secrecy, and decided never to come back to the cave. After that night, playing robbers didn’t seem to hold no interest for many of us anymore, and we put an end to the talk of killing our relatives.

We made our way home, and Ben walked Red home, who was still shaking and tearing up a bit. Injun Joe must have wrenched his arm a bit, I thought, as he was holding it close to his side.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired. But that night’s events wasn’t far from over. Not by a stretch.

Next week: St. Petersburg has a zombie problem.