Rumors of Me — a short action adventure

21 min readSep 28, 2023

Rumors of me, Huck Finn

When Tom Sawyer and me last talked, I guess I was near about eleven or maybe twelve years old. We was at Tom’s aunt’s house in Arkansas, and Tom was gabbing his jaws about some high faluting adventure we was to go on, pirating and some such. Well, you can wonder why I didn’t want no part of that mess of trouble, if you had read about what I went through to help Jim and stay away from Pap.

So I lit out West. I didn’t think too much about never seeing anybody again, Tom or Jim or the Widow. I just wanted to get on away from it, so I moved without thinking about it.

Jim went back to Hannibal and got his family. Then he went to missing me and such, so he tracked me down out West. There was a lot that went on between me leaving and him finding, but I’ll get to that. All you really have to say is me and Jim went into business together a few years after we hooked up again. Life is kind of peculiar that way. If Jim had gone and found me, I should have figured I’d run into that other person from my childhood sometime or another.

I did.

I was walking through Jackson when a voice called me. I quit going by Huck Finn since I was fifteen and killed that man in Tucson. I changed it every so often, and most folks don’t seem to mind, seeing as I don’t keep the same company too much. It can sure be a problem though, if I ever run into someone I done business with before, and I have to go and search my mind for what my last name was to them.

Me and Jim decided it were easier to keep the same first name, and usually that’s all I gave unless I was pressed. Some folks just don’t set right till they got your last name, so I just yell out whatever’s on the top of my head, or whatever color I might be looking at or some such.

But I ain’t used Finn in over ten years.

Huck Finn got a wanted poster for himself out West, with a reward and everything. I don’t look too much like the picture anymore, unless I grew out a beard and mustache again.

So I don’t advertise that he is me, and we are the same. I just give my first name as Huck, and my last as whatever and it’s all the same to anyone concerned.

But that voice screamed out across the muddy street and dragged me back all them years.

“Huck! Huck Finn! Is that you?”

This tall skinny fella trots across the road, jumping mud puddles and slipping between horses and buggies. He was dressed up like a dandy, with a fine silk shirt all cloud white and a shiny black felt derby on his head. He even had matching flowers in his lapel and hat brim.

I thought to myself, “Now this here fella is going to get killed,” and rested my hand on my pistol.

See, I knew the voice and my mind was working something fierce to tell me where I knew it from. But the rest of me was waiting on that part to work, so I had to be ready just in case I didn’t like the answer.

“Who’s that?” I asked, trying to growl it out in a scary voice.

He stopped right in front of me, stared me straight in the eye.

“Why Huck, it’s me. Tom. Tom Sawyer.”

I didn’t say nothing right off, cause to tell you the truth, the name didn’t mean all that much to me.

But then he smiled, and all them memories came flooding in like the Mississippi in springtime. I felt warm inside all of the sudden and smiled back.

“Tom Sawyer.”

He always looked good in fancy clothes, and was always itching to get out of them far as I can remember. This suit, he wore like he meant it, and it looked like money.

I don’t know how he recognized me though.

I don’t look nothing like when I was a kid.

“Tom Sawyer,” I repeated to make sure it was him.

He nodded.

“I knew it was you. I ain’t seen you in fourteen years. How the Hell are you?”

I looked around to make sure no sheriff or marshal or a law-abiding citizen had paid too much attention to him calling out my name. No one seemed to be watching us particularly close, but it didn’t pay to not pay attention if you was in Jackson, doing what I did.

“How did you know it was me?” I asked.

“I couldn’t forget your face, Huck. How I could I forget old Huck Finn, the best friend I ever had as a kid?”

“Thank you, Tom.”

“The heathen has manners? What did you do Huck? Where have you been? Where did you get manners and that buckskin?”

He took a step back and looked me up and down.

I admit, my clothes weren’t fine imports from New Orleans, like his, but they weren’t bad. Them doeskin breeches last forever if you take good care of them. Plus they was good in rough terrain, and in my line of work, you had to be ready for anything.

I put my hand in his arm and tugged gently on his sleeve. I found that people did more of what you want when you did it soft like and they didn’t even know it was being done to them.

“Come over here, Tom, into the shade. How you been? I see you ain’t lost your flair for style. It fits you.”

He tugged at the tight collar wrapped around his throat.

“Me, look at you. I don’t remember you in nothing but overalls, the same pair. Now, Huck you look like a cowboy.”

I wiped off the front of my breeches.

“Well, I did poke some out West.”

“Poke. Listen at you talking. I want to hear all about it. What did you do when you disappeared? We all looked for you for days, then sort of gave up. Many a night, I lay up thinking about you, wondering what you got yourself to. I thought we made some plans to go together, but the next thing I knew, you were gone. I kept waiting for you to cat call under my window some night, and out of the blue, I run into you in Jackson. What are you doing here?”

I smiled at him, Tom did run on so.

I tugged at his sleeve some more and pushed him up the street to a tavern I knew.

“I ain’t been doing much of nothing Tom. Spent some time out West, learned to shoot and ride. Came back here to make my fortune and settle down maybe. But I sure like traveling, and I don’t think I’m done yet. What about you?”

“Me and Sid went into business together. After Aunt Sally died, we bought some land and niggers to work it down here in the delta. We speculate on cotton. We’re doing pretty good, I suppose. I mean, it ain’t pirating, but we do all right.”

We found the swinging doors and pushed through to the smoky inside. Tom coughed a little and waved away a cloud so we could see the bar.

“Barkeep!” Tom slapped the stained wood with a silver coin. “A whiskey for me and my good friend, Huck-”

I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed hard, enough to make Tom groan.

“My name is Black now, Tom. Huck Black.” I whispered.

Tom looked at me kind of funny, but shrugged it off, rubbing his shoulder. I smiled at him. The bartender looked at me crossways, but I ignored it and he went back to the other end of the bar where some tiny man was plinking away on a dirty upright piano.

“You got a grip on you Huck,” Tom said, still rubbing his shoulder. I forgot how strong roping makes your hands. I tried to take his mind off of it.

“To my lost friend, Tom Sawyer, gentleman farmer,” I raised my shot glass.

Tom joined me and the firewater went down smooth. The bartender didn’t give us the rotgut they serve West, I guess he recognized a discriminating taste in Tom, or he liked the silver coin enough to want another. Tom didn’t disappoint him. He bought eight more, all in a row. I was feeling a little shaky, I wasn’t much on drinking since in my business, a clear mind was pretty much needed all the time. But Tom, he looked like a preacher on Sunday morning, his cheeks all red, his nose flaring.

Tell you the truth, I hadn’t paid too much attention to him on the street. It was my own fault, since I’m used to measuring a man for danger, how much damage they could do to me.

Once I knew it was Tom and gave him the once over, he looked harmless. I was more worried about the law or some person hearing my name. The bar wasn’t the right kind of place to be doing a close inspection.

But the lantern light played across his face kind of funny, and showed his nose was crisscrossed with red veins. Tom looked like a man who liked his liquor too much. We hadn’t done much talking since we walked through the swinging doors, drinking as much as we did. I tried to get him away from that by starting him off on something or another.

“Why don’t you tell me about Hannibal? What ever happened when I left?”

He stared at me over the rim of his glass for a minute, his eyes all blurry and lazy.

“They all died. Everyone. The Widow Douglas, the Parson, Aunt Al. Me and Sid and Becky moved down here about eight years ago. Hannibal was dying Huck, and Tom Sawyer ain’t the dying kind.”

“Becky?” I asked, trying to ignore that warm feeling that was washing around inside of me again. “She’s here with you?”

“Mrs. Thomas Sawyer. Yeah, she’s here, down on the plantation with her nigger maids.”

The glow left me.

“Congratulations,” I said, hoping it sounded better than it felt.

“Save them,” he snapped. “Don’t need them. She can’t have no kids, so the Sawyer legacy dies with me. I should have never left Hannibal. I should have left her there. Sid’s got kids. Four of them. Married him a girl from St. Louis. Had kids right quick, quick as rabbits. I tease Sid about it, but he starts crying about how sorry he is on me and Becky. Big crybaby. Just like when we was kids, Huck. We should have never grown up.”

It hurt my ears to listen to him slur out all them words.

“You did all right, Tom. Look at you, respectable business man and all. Pretty wife.”

“I’m a pirate!” he shouted out. “A pirate of the Mississippi and I’m landlocked.”

The piano player stopped playing and everyone sort of looked at us. I thought it was a fight for sure, so I laid my pistol on the bar. Just then, Tom’s head plunked down beside it, passed out. They all went back to their business.

“Tom?”

He was drunk as Pap and if anything was like that old man’s, he wouldn’t be up for awhile. I was kind of shocked, meeting old Tom and finding him a drunkard all in the same day. It was a lot to take in. But ever since I lit for the territories, I been getting by on my wits. I called the barkeep over and gave him some bills. I stuffed a stool under Tom. He didn’t move.

“You keep my friend here safe as a baby, and I’ll be back for him,” I told the man.

“Yes sir.”

I gave him a good snake stare, to make sure he knew I meant business. I learned that trick from some Choctaw I stayed with when my horse threw lame once. He gulped and slipped back to the other end of the bar.

I looked poor old Tom up and down, and left the tavern shaking my head.

I had a meeting with this fella that I didn’t know. In my line of work, you got to go by reputation and go between and all sorts of shady underdealing. If you knew who you was dealing with, and you got caught, then you might be inclined to let a few names slip out when the sheriff and his deputies was interrogating. So most folks I know used different names and code words and such.

Me, well I talked it over with Jim long and hard and we decided to go on and stick with one name in particular. Jim said it would get to be known and folks would trust it just at the mention of it, and all that would work out to our favor. And I believed Jim when he talked like that, since most of the time he knew things that folks just don’t understand. So we did. I was known up and down and all over as Huck Black. Not that anyone could put that name with my face, its just that when they said I was doing a job, people knew it was getting done.

I was going to meet this fella that I never dealt with before, so I wasn’t too sure about him.

Then Tom stopped me and that made me a little late. I hoped he would wait, but in my business, if you didn’t stick to a scheduled meeting, the ones you was meeting with hauled out of there and didn’t look back till the sun set on them in another town. I had to do that a couple or three times and it wasn’t fun. I lost a whole set of clothes that way, checking into a hotel before a meeting, then missing the man. I left town quick, and good thing too, cause I heard that a bounty hunter set a whole trap for the both of us. That was in Alabama, right close to the Georgia state line. I didn’t do much business there for awhile, hoping that they’d forget my name. I asked Jim if we could just change it and start over, but he said no, that the people needed it for some such luck reasons or something. I just went along with what he said and moved my work to Mississippi and Louisiana for awhile.

I walked down to the rail yard, watching behind me every now and then to make sure no one was with me. Sometimes a bounty hunter would recognize my face from a picture floating around, or bring the information back East with them and try to take me for the reward. I wasn’t worth much, just five hundred dollars. But some of them types would do anything for money. I had to shoot or fight my way out of some tight spots. They could always get close, but I could feel them and slip away. The Indians said I had a charmed life or something like that. I don’t know, I just know I did what I felt was right, listening to my gut, and my gut wasn’t wrong much. You get that way living with Indians is what Jim told me.

Truth of the matter is, the man I shot in Tucson deserved what he got. The law should have paid me a bounty on him. That’s another thing about my blood. Just about every white man I hooked up with was a drunk, and this one thought he was going to take the place of Pap.

I was sixteen and staying with him on his farm. He came in from town one night, drunk as a skunk, and he took a stovelength to me and the woman living with him cause the gravy was lumpy or the fire was too cold.

It don’t really matter why he did it that particular night. It wasn’t the first time either of us went to bed all black and blue. I thought that’s how folks lived. I didn’t know.

It was easy to shoot him. He left his pistol in a belt hanging by the door. One of his swings caught me across the side of the head and knocked me into the door. I pulled myself up, reached out for the gun and plugged away for all six shots.

I got him with the last two. I didn’t even kill him. He lay there on his back and spit up blood and drowned in a bubbly mess. Me and the woman just watched him.

Then she took me in his room and made me a man. The next morning, the sheriff came out with some deputies and they was all drinking buddies of the man. They busted in the house, saw him on the floor and the woman jumps out screaming how I shot her husband. They wasn’t even married. They dragged me to jail and on account of it being an election year and killing the sheriff’s friend, he promised me I was going to hang.

It wasn’t easy to slip out of that jail. The woman came and apologized to me, saying she was sorry. I wanted her to tell the truth, but she wouldn’t do it. Seems one of the deputies had a crush on her and already started courting. Then, this girl I was sweet on from another farm near ours brought me a basket of food. While the deputy was digging in all my grub, she whacked him across the head with his pistol. She kissed me quick, told me good bye and went back to her daddy’s farm. Her brother swore she never left. It was awful nice of her to let me go like that, but the deputy fell with his face in some pudding and suffocated, so I got blamed for his death too. I moved on to uncivilized places looking for justice.

The man I was supposed to meet was sleeping across a barrel, his fingers laced over his round belly. He didn’t look like he belonged in my line of work, but then it called for all sorts. I snack up on him using soft shoe, a trick the Choctaw taught me and kicked his boots. For a fat guy, he moved fast, jumping up and pulling a knife from behind his back. He stared at me with sleepy eyes.

“Love your enemies,” I said, using the password. “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you…”

He wiped his eyes and looked around.

“I will not be ashamed to defend a friend.”

“Be not overwise in doing business,” I finished.

He sat back down.

“You’re late. I almost left.”

“Looks like you caught a nap. Anyone could have snuck up on you, you was sleeping so hard. I could have had your pouch and be gone, you’d never even know I was here.”

He glared at me hard. I was glad it was really shadowy in the alley.

“I would have heard you.”

I didn’t want to argue with him, but the Choctaw didn’t teach me wrong with that trick. Not many folks heard me coming unless I wanted them to.

“I ran into a man I know, I had to get rid of him,” I explained.

“You killed him?”

“No, I didn’t kill him. I left him sleeping in a bar. He likes his naps as much as you.”

Them eyes again.

“I don’t have to tell you nothing.”

That was the part about my job I didn’t like.

He was right.

I needed what he knew, and I needed to keep him on my side. My line of work is hard enough without some greasy turncoat talking to the law about your private business in exchange for a small profit to last him a weekend.

“I know,” I said. “But I wish you would.”

I had to be truthful, so it would show in my voice. And it was true, I did need what he had. He knew it too, and he believed me.

“What you got for me?”

“Two horses. And a saddlebag with fifty dollars in it.”

He looked away.

“The agreement was for three horses and a mule.”

“No, I made the agreement myself. It was two horses. The fifty is extra I put in myself.”

He nodded.

Most of them dealt through three or four other people to set these things up. It was hard for them to tell what the real deal was and who gets a cut. I didn’t like to run my business like that. Too many people knowing what was going on, too many chances of getting caught in an already dangerous job. Me and Jim made the deals ourselves. I took his word as gold, and he, mine.

“All right,” the man said. “Where are they?”

“You get one now, and the other when I meet you tonight to pick up the cargo.”

He didn’t look too happy about that and I guess that should have made me wary. Usually, my senses are like a cat’s and I can pick out trouble walking up the street and cross over to the other side to keep my distance. It liked to look for me and I tried to hide. But seeing Tom Sawyer had thrown me off balance, I guess, and missed the cover his eyes took on.

“Fine, fine,” he said. “Just like we agreed. Take me to my horse and I’ll meet you on old South road tonight.”

“I asked to meet on the North trial.”

“I couldn’t make it to the North trial. You want it or not.”

I wanted it, so I just nodded my head. We walked to where I had hitched the horse and it was easy to tell he was impressed. We shook hands and parted and I walked back to the bar to check on Tom.

He was still sleeping when I got back, his head cradled in his arms like a small child and a light wheezing sound coming from his nose. I asked the bartender to get me a steak and some eggs, since I hadn’t eaten before morning except for some leftover beans and stale coffee. That night would be my one hundred trip out of Mississippi.

I really didn’t like staying in the same area too long, something about familiarity causing me to lose my edge and miss out on important details. But it was worth it to spend some time there. I had been very successful so far. I was still nervous, just like I always was before a run. It never did me any good to not be. I tried all sorts of methods, like warm baths and massages and visits with the girls in saloons. None of it worked. Anything could go wrong, but that never stopped me. I had planned on this trip for six weeks, working out all the little details. I was a big believer in planning and the Jim said this was going to be a good cloudy night with no moon. It felt right.

I ate the leather steak and runny eggs and gave up a copper piece for it. The bartender looked like he wanted to argue about it, but I just laid my revolvers onto the table and started cleaning them, and he changed his mind.

I was finished with my carbine by the time Tom woke up. He yawned and grinned up at me like a little old kid with a secret.

“Guess I was tired from my trip,” he said.

“I guess you were.”

“Did I say too much?” he asked, not looking me full in the face. “I get a tendency to talk when I’m drinking.”

“Not too much. Told me you was married and an uncle, that’s about it.”

He looked relieved, then tried to hide it.

“You know Huck, you ought to come down and visit me some time, see my farm.”

The look on his face was so pitiful and full of hope, I couldn’t think to say no.

“I think I’d like that. I got to go on to Louisville tonight, but sometime after that, maybe.”

He sat back in his chair and stared at me hard, like he was seeing me for the very first time.

“You ain’t a kid no more, are you Huck?”

I smiled and looked off into nothing over his head.

“I ain’t been a kid for a long time. Don’t you go get serious on me. That ain’t the Tom Sawyer I’m used to.”

He wiped a hand across the back of his eyes.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’s me, Tom Sawyer, kid forever.”

He got all quiet, then ordered some beans and rice and more whiskey. I wanted to say something, but figured it weren’t my place. I let him eat in silence.

“You will come and see me, won’t you Huck?”

I nodded.

“I don’t want you wandering off on me again.”

“I will, I promise. Just as soon as I take care of some business.”

“You got business? Huckleberry Finn? What on earth could that be?”

I looked around real quick, dropping my hand to my pistol, but no one was paying any attention to us. They was all focused on a card game in the back that started up while Tom was sleeping. This tall man in a gray suit was winning the pants off the other players. Just when they was about to give in and quit, he let them win a hand. Them poor fools bought right into it. They stayed on and lost even more the next time. That man had shifty eyes and I wouldn’t play cards with him for nothing. He didn’t set right with me. But he wasn’t watching us, so I just kept him in the back of my mind.

“I guess you could say I speculate too,” I said. “Horses.”

“Huck F-”

I reached across and grabbed his arm, hard. He let out a small squeal.

“Huck Black. My name is Black now.”

Them eyes again, looking at me like I was crazy. All them folks in the back stopped playing when he let out that yell, but I kept my voice low, so there was no way they could hear what we was saying.

“Yeah,” Tom said, massaging his arm. “I guess I’ll have to get used to that. Huckleberry, a cowboy. That’s hard to picture.”

“About as easy as Tom Sawyer, pirate king.”

We laughed together and he got up to leave. He handed me a card with his name on it and told me how to find him down South of Vicksburg.

I watched him go and was a little surprised to have that old twinge again just like when I was a kid. Old Tom Sawyer was up the lattice to his warm bed, and me, down to the cold barrel in the dark side of town.

“You’re late.”

“Your watch is fast.”

The bearded trader leaned against a tree on the side of the road. It was dark, no moon, cloudy skies, but I couldn’t feel rain anywhere about. It was a great night for a trade. I could barely make out his dark from underneath the tree. I listened to see if he was alone. He stumbled across the ditch, making enough noise to block out an army if they was hiding in them trees. I let my hand rest on my pistol. It made me feel a little better. Not much. But a little.

“Is that the other one?” he asked, stopping by the mare I was leading.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“She’s almost as fine as the first one,” he said, running his dirty hands up and down her legs, feeling her over for flaws. The horse blew out hard, not liking his smell.

“That’s the light. She’s better than the first. I saved her in case you changed your mind.”

He looked at me and noticed my hand.

“Me, sir? I’m your friend. I wouldn’t change my mind about this.”

I kept my grip on the rein and at my side.

“Good. That’s real smart of you. Now, where’s my load?”

He whistled toward the woods. I could hear some crackling on twigs and leaves, and wished for just a bit of moonlight, just a second or two. I clicked the hammer on my gun while it was still in the holster. It echoed through the trees.

“Relax, partner,” the trader whispered, but I couldn’t help myself. Something about the air didn’t feel right to me, it was too sticky or tight or something. Parts of me that I usually listen to was screaming for me to call it off. I drew in my breath to tell him so, and there they was. Right in front of me.

Three of them and a kid. Blacks. Slaves.

“You said there would be five,” I turned on the trader. He backed into his new mare.

“He was caught,” he moaned.

I turned to the tall black in the group. He was standing in front of the others, trying to block them with his skinny, hungry looking body.

“Is that true?”

He looked down at the ground.

“Yes sir.”

“Damn,” I said. “I hate that. Are ya’ll ready?”

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