| AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn’t want to. He said it would fetch bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha’nt us; he said a man that warn’t buried was more likely to go a-ha’nting around than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn’t say no more; but I couldn’t keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for. 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 jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap’s whisky-jug and begun to pour it down.
He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all comes of my being such a fool as to not 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 cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too. He said that that would help. 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.
Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right; but I’d druther been bit with a snake than pap’s whisky.
Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone and he was around again. 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 tro-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 t 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. |
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Despus de desayunar yo quera hablar del muerto y suponer cmo lo habran matado, pero Jim no quera. Dijo que traa mala suerte, y adems, dijo, poda venir a perseguirnos, porque un hombre que no estaba enterrado tena ms probabilidades de andar haciendo el fantasma que uno bien plantado y cmodo. Aquello pareca bastante razonable, as que no dije ms, pero no pude dejar de pensar en aquello ni de tener ganas de saber quin le haba pegado un tiro a aquel hombre y por qu.
Buscamos entre la ropa que nos habamos llevado y encontramos ocho dlares en monedas cosidas en el forro de un viejo capote. Jim dijo que segn l la gente de la casa haba robado el capote, porque si hubieran sabido que estaba el dinero, no lo habran dejado. Dije que seguro que tambin ellos lo haban matado, pero Jim no quera hablar de aquello. Voy y digo:
––Bueno, t crees que trae mala suerte, pero, qu dijiste cuando traje la piel de serpiente que encontr en el cerro ayer? Dijiste que era la peor mala suerte del mundo tocar una piel de serpiente con las manos. Bueno, pues mira la mala suerte! Nos hemos trado todo esto y encima ocho dlares. Ojala tuviramos una mala suerte as todos los das, Jim.
––No pienses ms, mi nio, no pienses ms. No te animes demasiado. Ya llegar. Recuerda lo que te digo, ya llegar.
Y s que lleg. Fue un martes cuando hablamos de eso. Bueno, el viernes despus de comer estbamos tumbados en la hierba en la cima del cerro y nos quedamos sin tabaco. Fui a la cueva a buscar algo y me encontr con una serpiente de cascabel. La mat y la puse enroscada al pie de la manta de Jim, de lo ms natural, pensando lo que me divertira cuando Jim la encontrase. Bueno, por la noche se me olvid lo de la serpiente, y cuando Jim se tumb en la manta mientras yo encenda un farol all estaba la compaera de la serpiente y le pic. Peg un salto y un grito, y lo primero que vimos a la luz fue al bicho enroscado y listo para volver a picar. Lo mat en un segundo con un palo y Jim agarr la damajuana de whisky de padre y empez a verterla.
Estaba descalzo y la serpiente le haba picado en el taln. Y todo eso porque yo haba sido tan idiota que no record que siempre que mata uno a una serpiente aparece su compaera, que se le enrosca encima. Jim me dijo que cortase la cabeza a la serpiente y la tirase y despus le quitara la piel al cadver y asara un trozo. Fue lo que hice, y se lo comi y dijo que servira para curarlo. Me hizo quitar los cascabeles y atrselos a la mueca. Dijo que eso tambin lo aliviara. Despus sal en silencio y tir las serpientes muy lejos entre los arbustos, porque no iba a dejar que Jim se enterase de que todo era culpa ma, si poda evitarlo.
Jim chup y chup de la damajuana y de vez en cuando le daba la furia y se retorca gritando, pero cada vez que volva en s chupaba de la garrafa. Se le hinch mucho el pie y lo mismo le pas con la pierna. Pero al rato le empez a llegar la borrachera, as que pens que estaba bien, aunque yo hubiera preferido que me mordiese una serpiente que el whisky de padre. Jim estuvo acostado cuatro das con sus noches. Despus le desapareci la hinchazn y empez a andar otra vez. Decid que nunca jams volvera a agarrar una piel de serpiente con las manos, ahora que haba visto lo que pasaba. Jim dijo que calculaba que la prxima vez le creera, porque andar tocando pieles de serpiente traa tanta mala suerte que a lo mejor todava no se haba terminado. Dijo que prefera ver la luna nueva por encima del hombro izquierdo aunque fueran mil veces antes que tocar una piel de serpiente con la mano. Bueno, yo tambin estaba empezando a opinar lo mismo, aunque siempre he pensado que mirar a la luna nueva por encima del hombro izquierdo es una de las cosas ms tontas y absurdas que se pueden hacer. El viejo Hank Bunker lo hizo una vez y presumi mucho de ello, y menos de dos aos despus se emborrach, se cay de la torre del agua y se qued tan aplastado que pareca una hoja, por as decirlo, y lo tuvieron que poner de lado entre dos puertas de establo en lugar de atad y lo enterraron as, segn dicen, pero yo no me lo creo. Me lo cont padre, pero de todas formas es lo que pasa por andar mirando as a la luna, como un idiota.
Bueno, fueron pasando los das y el ro baj otra vez entre las orillas, y una de las primeras cosas que hicimos fue cebar uno de los anzuelos grandes con un conejo despellejado y echarlo, y pescamos un pez gato igual de grande que un hombre, porque meda seis pies y dos pulgadas y pesaba ms de doscientas libras. Claro que no podamos tirar de l, porque nos hubiera lanzado a Illinois. Nos quedamos sentados mirando cmo se revolva y se agitaba hasta que se ahog. En el estmago le encontramos un botn de cobre, una pelota redonda y montones de cosas. Partimos la pelota con el hacha y dentro haba un carrete. Jim dijo que se lo haba tragado haca mucho tiempo y por eso haba ido haciendo una bola con l. Era uno de los peces ms grandes que jams se hubieran pescado en el Mississippi, creo. Jim dijo que nunca haba visto otro mayor. En el pueblo habra valido mucho dinero. Esos peces los venden por libras en el mercado; todo el mundo compra algo; tienen la piel blanca como la nieve y fritos estn muy buenos.
A la maana siguiente dije que todo se estaba poniendo muy aburrido y que querra ver algo de movimiento. Dije que crea que iba a cruzar el ro a ver qu pasaba. A Jim le gustaba la idea; pero dijo que tena que ir de noche y estar muy atento. Despus lo sigui pensando y aadi que podra ponerme algo de la ropa que tenamos y vestirme de nia. Tambin aquello era una buena idea. As que acortamos uno de los vestidos de calic y yo me arremangu las piernas de los pantalones hasta las rodillas y me lo puse. Jim me lo abroch por detrs con los corchetes, y me caa bien. Me puse el bonete y me lo at bajo la barbilla, y si alguien me miraba y me vea la cara era como mirar por un tubo de chimenea. Jim dijo que nadie me conocera, ni siquiera de da. Estuve entrenndome todo el da para acostumbrarme, y al cabo de un rato me quedaba bastante bien, slo que Jim dijo que no andaba como las chicas, y que tena que dejar de subirme las faldas para meterme las manos en los bolsillos. Le hice caso y me qued mejor.
Me fui al lado de Illinois en la canoa justo despus de oscurecer.
Sal hacia el pueblo desde un poco ms abajo del desembarcadero del transbordador y la deriva de la coriente me dej al extremo del pueblo. Ech amarras y me puse a andar por la orilla. Haba una luz encendida en una cabaa en la que haca mucho tiempo que no viva nadie y me pregunt quin estara all. Me acerqu para mirar por la ventana. Haba una mujer de unos cuarenta aos que haca punto a la luz de una vela colocada sobre una mesa de pino. No la haba visto nunca; era una desconocida, porque en aquel pueblo no haba ni una cara que no conociera yo. Aquello fue una suerte, porque yo empezaba a sentir dudas. Me empezaba a dar miedo haber venido; la gente podra reconocerme por la voz. Pero si aquella mujer llevaba en un pueblo tan pequeo slo dos das podra contarme todo lo que yo quisiera saber, as que llam a la puerta y decid no olvidar que era una nia. |
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