Howdy. My name is Huckleberry Finn. You probably don't know me, unless you read a book called "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," or its sequel, called "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Now, Mr. Mark Twain, who wrote those two, wasn't big on sequels. I can see why - the man had some serious mental blocks at times. It took him eight whole years to write my story, an' that was after I'd told it to him. So, when he decided not to write any more about me, I understood. Course, there is more to the story. So, sit back, and relax - it's pretty short. Not like those long, drawn out books like "War and Peace." If I'd been Mr. Tolstoy, I'd have just written about one of them. I ain't met nobody yet who'd read the whole thing in less than ten years.
Anyway, after me and Tom got Jim freed, even though he was free to begin with - wasn't that a hoot? - I lit out for Indian territory. This is where Mr. Twain ended his story. It took me longer than I thought it would till I got away from civilization, cause Arkansas had become a state, and it was pretty crowded. Not like St. Louis, but too much for my tastes. I wandered through the plains, hunting buffalo and just enjoyin' the great beauty of the frontier. I was what you might call a disaffected youth, a loner, a drifter. Cept, I wouldn't touch no alcohol, and I wouldn't hurt nobody for the world. I couldn't stand to be like my Pap.
I was really glad to be out of harm's way when that war came with Mexico; I saw the armies coming south and I went north, to the Kansas Territory. It started when some of their guys came over on our property, only they thought it was theirs. Now, I ain't no Marxist, but I wondered then, just why do we have wars. I mean, these are people on both sides, not animals, so why do we need national boundaries. And don't call me naive, neither; I was bout twenty then, or so my birth certificate said. Course, them things were faulty, you could easily be off a year or two, or ten or twenty if your doctor was drunk when he wrote the numbers.
So, I get into Kansas, and it seemed pretty peaceful for a coupla years Then, they started fightin' again. I don't know why - somethin' stupid like usual. I lit out for Colorado, which was American by this time. I guess the Mexicans were so mad at us whippin' them in the war they figured we deserved to have a bunch of mountains and a big desert in our country. Not the richest places, from what I knew - no so-called resources - but for once, a government had taken land for its scenic beauty. I mean, who wouldn't want the Rocky Mountains in their country, or the Grand Canyon, or that other amazing stuff. So, our country, while doin' somethin' ugly, wound up with somethin' beautiful. Go figure.
It was few years later - I forget when exactly, but there was another war on - when people started movin' into my little hideaway. At first it was just a few, but it got to be insane. Turns out, it would become the city of Pueblo, Colorado. I'd been living in an abandoned fort, and I didn't know it. Well, I wandered around about 50 miles before finding another place to stop, and wouldn't you know it, more people moved in after me. This time, there weren't so many, and I thought I'd tolerate a few dozen for a bit. Besides, I got to thinkin' with a war on, some of em just wanted to stay away from their real homes till the hostilities died down, then they'd go back. It didn't turn out that way, but how was I to know?
One day, when we'd got up to 80 or 90 people who'd settled down in the area, this rabble-rouser came into town wearing a black hat and a breath so bad you'd swear he had somebody decomposin' in his mouth. Either that, or he'd been swallowed by a fish. That's one thing I'll say about that Jonah, he sure knew how to convince people. All he had to do was say "God had me inside a fish for three days," and by golly folks figured he'd been sent by the Lord. He must have smelled like this guy.
His name was Butch Johnson, and he made that Duke and King we had on our raft - if y'all didn't read the story, tweren't much, just a couple slippery folks who swindled people - seem real decent. See, the Duke and King, they tricked people into believing them, and those people didn't have to believe em. But this Butch, he was mean, and he made people give him stuff with the barrel of a gun.
Now, I didn't have anything better to do, and seein' how there was no law around, I decided to tell this buzzard off real good. Some might say it was my way of gettin' back at my Pap. I don't think so; I knew he'd got what was comin' to him already, cause Jim had found him dead, shot in the back on a gambling boat. Anyway, Butch came in my shack, rantin' and ravin', and knocked over a couple tables I had in what folks liked to call my house.
"Hey, Mister," I challenged, "that ain't right, breakin' into other peoples' homes an' messin' up their stuff!" I stood up to the fella, who was maybe a few inches taller than me, with the same type of grizzly-bear beard and mustache, and stared at him.
"Who says?" came the man with a menacing laugh. "I'm Butch Johnson, and I can do what I dang well please!"
Now, this made me mad. As much as I hated civilization, I never tried to do stuff just for nothin', and like I said, I wouldn't hurt nobody. But, I just couldn't figure out how to respond to this contention, so I just said "no, you can't, it ain't right."
"Says who?!?!" came the stiff retort.
Suddenly, I was flummoxed. I didn't know why it warn't right, I just knew it warn't. "I don't know, there's just a right and a wrong out there." Where, I didn't know. But it was the same right and wrong that said people shouldn't act like Pap, or do the other dumb stuff like you remember from the folks I met in Mr. Twain's books.
"I'm gonna make the rules from now on in this here town," Butch commanded. "I can do anything I want!" I know, people have tried to read so much into Mr. Twain's other piece on me, you're bound to here unless I say not to. But, this was the first and only time he reminded me of Pap, so don't go thinkin' there was something psychological behind my next move.
There was no law in those days, as I said. We were a very small mining town, and folks had pretty much minded their own business till the last few days, when this Butch guy was around. We had a jail, but there wasn't anyone to enforce rules. We'd only begun talkin' about a government. So, I went in the opposite direction of Butch, to a local preacher, and asked him for some help. I figured with all that talkin' I knew preachers did, he could point out where this right and wrong was, an' I could go back an' tell Butch. Course, the first thing he did was act all excited because I'd come to see him. He'd been trying to get me to come hear him ever since this town found me sitting out in the wilderness and built itself around me.
"Preacher, I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't care. Right now, I just gotta figure out how to get this crazy Butch fella out of my hair," said I.
He smiled, the sort of smile a person would give if he could read your mind. "He's become a problem; you know, he's the kind of fellow who should be locked up."
"Dang right, cept we ain't got no sheriff around these parts, yet. So, how do I convince him that what he's doin' ain't proper?"
The preacher explained. "He doesn't want to recognize that there is an absolute right and wrong," he explained, flustering me all the more.
"What have I been trying to say to you," I spouted, "of course he don't!" I hope you'll excuse the fact I talk one way sometimes and another way others. I just noticed it again, but like Andrew Jackson once said, it's a pretty sorry soul who can't think of at least two ways to spell something - or to say something, as I put it. I further told the preacher that "I don't know how to tell him that cause I don't know where it would come from."
The preacher opened his Bible, confirming my thought that no preacher can speak for more than five minutes without using a Bible. I hadn't been to church since I left the widow's house, but I figured things hadn't changed. He started explaining how God is holy, and just, and God can do no wrong, but that the devil was in the world, and trying to control people.
"Dang," I cried out, "are you tryin' to tell me he's possessed by the devil?"
"We are all controlled by the devil, unless we turn to God," the minister explained.
I was really confused now. "Wait a minute, I'm controlled by nobody, I just live an' let live. Why, I ain't tried to be with the Lord or the devil." At least, I didn't think I had.
The preacher explained that "nobody is exempt. The devil is in all the world, and those who do not follow the Lord are automatically controlled by the devil." Seeing a look on my face that much have spoken great incredulity, he asked me: "Surely, you recall some time in your life when you've done bad things, hurt others, betrayed a friend..."
He trailed off at those words, which were kinda low to begin with, and I reckon he didn't know himself why he included that last part. And yet, while I knew I'd never hurt a fly - well, I take that back, flies are kinda annoying, and I do swat them - I reckon the Lord gave that to him and he didn't know why. Cause you see, I recalled one time when I did almost betray a friend. You remember, I'm sure. I was gonna turn Jim in to the authorities and earn some reward money. I'd wept bitterly about that, and it still bothered me. All the other stuff - the lies, the barroom brawls I'd been in (and I assure you someone else started it with some stupid act) - all that stuff I could rationalize, say it wasn't my fault, or I had my reasons.
Well, this betrayal thing ate at me for a couple minutes, and I recognized I couldn't excuse that for the world. Jim was a nice fella, and I often thought about him, hoping he'd made a decent life for himself. And, the more I reminisced, I felt somethin' even worse.
See, they was prob'ly gonna try Jim for my murder - which is kinda stupid, since I warn't dead, but I couldn't let Pap know that, not knowin' Pap was dead, so I still had to make folk think I was dead. You got all that? So, it would have been a terrible lie. I told the preacher that "I can excuse all the others, but there's one time when I didn't betray a friend, but I was so close, and it was so stupid of me to even think of it, cause he was innocent, but I was gonna turn him in as a criminal and get some reward money." It was the first time I'd ever spoken those words. They spewed from my mouth in a mix of disgust, anger, and hatred, mostly of myself.
"So you see," the preacher said, "you have sinned. But, it's okay, I have, too."
"You have?!" I was flabbergasted - I thought preachers were too close to this God of theirs to sin.
"I'm just a sinner, saved by grace. I had to ask Jesus to forgive me, just like you do." He was takin' a chance I'd never got my heart right with God, but he was right. Maybe it was that Holy Spirit he spoke about telling him that. "It's not any work we do ourselves that saves us, it's a blood of Jesus that was shed on the cross."
"Speak English, will ya," I ordered him.
The pastor smiled. He struggled momentarily, perhaps with how to explain it, but then the words meant so much to me, I couldn't believe it. "When you almost betrayed your friend, you followed the devil. You have followed him at other times, too, but he's very tricky, very subtle and sneaky, in how he tricks people. He doesn't go out and tell us to do bad things, he tricks us into thinking what we do is right, like with your betrayal." Or like the King and the Duke did, I considered. This really made sense to me!
He kept going. "We can't just say we'll ignore it because nobody can escape the spiritual battle that goes on all around us. There is only one way out of the devil's traps, and that is to follow the Lord. He will help you see what's right and what's wrong, but first you need to acknowledge you are a sinner who needs saved by Him, and repent."
I was beginning to understand - there were forces around me I couldn't see, sorta like those smallpox germs that went around from time to time, and you had to watch who you came in contact with. I asked the pastor: "Do I hafta apologize for all my sins; what if something was the devil making me do something and I don't know it."
"All you have to do is tell the Lord you've sinned, because He knows everything about you. Just admit that you deserve eternal punishment; you might mention the ones you're sure of, like the betrayal, but all you need to do is let Him know you deserve Hell." I could believe it then. I realize it lots more now. Before, I'd thought of Hell as a place for folks like Pap, or the Duke and King, but I'd been just as bad that one time, and - I'd begun to realize - other times, too. The Spirit was really workin' in me. As I nodded, I asked what was next.
"Next, Huck, you need to repent - turn away from that sin - and accept that God paid the whole price for you, took all your punishment for you. You need to see you can't get to Heaven through your own works, but that God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us."
That last struck me as pretty dumb. "That's crazy, why didn't He just come Himself."
"He did," the preacher reassured and stymied me. "Jesus was God in the flesh; He's called His Son because God is called our Father. Look, I have children, right." Yeah, I could see that, I told him as I spied toys laying around in a couple corners. "I am also somebody's son, as my father is living. So is my brother - hence, I am a father, son, and brother, even though I'm one man. It's a poor analogy of the Trinity, but nobody can truly understand God. I wish I could do better at explaining how God is three in one, and one in three. But, if I could explain how God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, it would take away much of His mystery and majesty."
The preacher added that Jesus suffered on purpose for me, died, and came back to life. His suffering took the place of my death and the horrible fate that was meant only for the devil and his angels, called Hell. Because of that, all I needed to do, once I admitted I was a sinner and repented, was believe on Jesus as Lord, and that He died on the cross to take the entire punishment for my sins and rose again, and ask Him to be my Savior; there is nothing I could or can do to save myself, I put my entire hope of eternal life in Heaven in His hands.
I have never been more excited in my life. I prayed the sinner's prayer, as he called it, believed in Jesus, and suddenly I felt relieved of a heavy burden, actually many burdens that had been wedged in my heart. I now know I'm going to Heaven, and what's more, he took me to a basin out back the next Sunday, with a few other folk, and baptized us. It's a picture of what happened to me. I didn't understand that part, but I'm willing to just trust God on it.
***
I knew whereabouts that absolute right and wrong came from, but as I thought about it, the way I got there was pretty crazy. I went goin' for help with one guy for one time, and I found eternal life. And yet, I only had a slightly better hint of how to handle this Butch. In a way, though, I figured I'd been helpin' that Duke and King rob people by havin' em on our raft, and just the fact I was definitely gonna stand up to evildoers showed Jesus changed me on the inside.
Course, I might have anyways with what happened next. I heard a scream. Now, I didn't pack a gun, mind you, so I couldn't pull one out of my holster. However, I did charge into the door of the house where I'd heard it, and there was Butch, attacking this young lady of about 30, maybe a little less.
"In the name of Jesus, stop it right now, Butch," I bellowed. He turned forcefully and pointed a gun at me. I couldn't remember ever being in front of a gun. I didn't have no slingshot like David, but I did have God, and so I said to Him, silently, "I believe in You, show me what You can do to get me out of this."
Now, I swear that what happened next did happen. I was there. You believed the stuff with the Duke and King, after all. Ol' Butch had this gun out, and I shouted for him to leave this woman alone. He just seemed to get madder, of course. I said he had no right to do such things, and he fired his gun into the air as a warning and shouted at me.
Suddenly, the shot ricocheted off a spot high above the door, striking a wagon wheel hanging from the ceiling; it was from the stagecoach the woman rode out here. This wheel started rocking, and while Butch and me was arguing, I heard a rope snap, and the wheel came crashing down on his head, and broke into quite a few pieces. She stood there horrified, and I grabbed his gun. Of course, I emptied the bullets out - I didn't want to see anyone get hurt with it. Some people, they'd say I was foolish, like I should have held it on the guy, but suppose it had gone off? I didn't want him killed, just put in jail.
A couple neighbors ran in right about then, and saw me over Butch, and they acted like the fourth of July and New Year's Eve all rolled into one. They started yelling, and jumping up and down, and while I knew this Butch had been annoying the townsfolk for a while, I didn't think it could be this bad.
"Oh, Mister," the woman sobbed like in those mushy novels, "you saved my life."
I didn't tip my hat, but I did walk over and take her hand. "It's all right," I said as the neighbors tied Butch up and hauled him off to jail, "he ain't gonna bother you no more. Name's Huckleberry Finn, but you can call me Huck." Now, does that sound like I was flirting? No siree, it warn't no flirt. I just introduced myself. I even told her "what I did was just what any right-thinkin' person would. It was really nothin'."
I've found some people don't believe it when you say the truth, though - they think you're bein' modest. She said to me: "I'm Abby. Abby Porter. That was...really brave the way you stood up to him."
"Really brave," came my dumbfounded comment, "he got bonked with your wagon wheel."
"But you still captured him."
I'd WHAT?! That comment practically made me loony. Not only that, but I never could have aimed that shot at the right point. I told her so, too - it was all God's work. I heard an "amen" in the back of the room.
She smiled sweetly. "I like a man who's humble like that." Humble? It was just tellin' the truth, that was all. I couldn't imagine why she got all giddy, I guess some do no matter what.
Now, don't misunderstand, I was not undrawn by those of the female persuasion. I just didn't see much point in all that mushiness. Maybe that had to do with Pap, and with not really havin' no real family growin' up, but I just didn't want anyone gettin' real close to me. I was afraid for what they might do. Now, that one girl in Arkansas, whose name I forget - you could look it up - she was the kind I didn't mind. She wrote bad poetry, but she was sincere, and I didn't even mind her prayin' for me. But, she was the only girl who I coulda said I might have been able to fall in love with, I'd never found anyone like her.
I stood, stunned, and she said: "I bet you're a great guy. I haven't seen you before, have I?" Some guys might say that was supposed to be my line.
"Well, Abby, I kinda keep to myself. Cept for the fact I just got saved, I ain't done nothin' here. In fact, I was here first, and the town sorta grew around me."
She seemed to back away from her excessive charm, which I liked. "Well, I just got here a couple weeks ago." She sighed a little as she went over to a table and sat. I joined her, seein' as she seemed ready to just be herself. Part of that might have been the change Jesus made in me, too, makin' me ready to listen to others. "My daddy was killed in the war, at Antietam, and my Mama came out here with me. She got sick on the way out, though..." she began to weep. I put my arm on her back and rubbed it a little as she sniffled. "It's okay, it's just...I've been so alone, so scared." I don't know why, but something just reminded me of Jim. Of course, he'd had his family taken away by slavery, she by circumstance, but still, I felt sorry for her.
I decided there was no harm in offering a little help, so I said: "Well, if you need anything, let me know." Little did I know how often she'd start coming to me, and I to her. I don't need to tell you what happened next - it sounds cliche, and I'm still not one for revealing the sort of stuff that leads to love and then marriage. I had no experience whatsoever with it. It just sorta happened.
I know, if you've read Mr. Twain's books you think me bein' married's like a cow goin' cock-a-doodle-doo, or a cat oinking. But, you ain't heard the nuttiest part. The next day, the local paper ran this headline: "FINN APPREHENDS LOCAL VILLAIN." You'da thought I'd won the Battle of New Orleans with one hand behind my back. Soon, there was an election, and almost everybody voted for me as sheriff. Me!
I didn't want to accept, but I feared gettin' lynched if I didn't. Plus, I was startin' to like this Abby a lot.
***
I was a tough, no nonsense sheriff. I was also a judge - in those days the sheriff was the law out West. Folks liked me, they liked to say I was good at "knockin' heads together," which is like callin' a preacher a "fire an' brimstone preacher." I had three rules that were sittin' on my office door for all to see: "Treat everyone with love and respect." "Kids and women are as deserving of your respect as other men." "If you commit a crime you'll do the time." I often had a fourth: "Out to lunch."
Now, that doesn't mean I was a slacker - I just didn't like paperwork. Puttin' me in an office was the worst thing they could do, and I told em so when I was inaugurated. "People," I shouted to the throng outside the courthouse steps, "I ain't an office person in any way - I'm gonna be outdoors as much as possible. I'll have a real good assistant who can take care of the little things, but if you got a complaint, you're just as likely to see me wanderin' the streets, or you can go to a fishing hole near here and find me. If you don't like that, tell me now." Nobody booed, so I figured they still wanted me to be sheriff. "I'm gonna have strict laws, but they're laws of common sense. You hurt someone you're gonna be workin' it off, that even includes beatin' up on members of your own family; families is to be respected, and that means men, women, and children. You keep that meanness up, you're gonna be locked up. We're gonna have peace in these parts!" The people cheered, though I didn't know why. Wasn't that what everyone wanted? I didn't think I had a unique perspective or anything, but maybe I did.
I only had a couple real problems. I had to take one couples' kids away due to what I termed "emotional abandonment" cause they were so nasty, drinkin' an' swearin' like Pap useta. Yeah, that caused a bit of a fight, but they wouldn't shape up, and pretty soon they were beatin' each other up in prison, anyway, and people sorta saw the sense of what I done. I still got re-elected, and folks still wanted to obey the laws, so it worked out okay.
Another time, I ran off with a few others in a posse chasing down a federal fugitive, and got shot in the arm. What I remember most about that was how the paper said I got hurt in the fracas, and I kept gettin' all these people asking where in the body was the fracas. I told em it was probably a bone in the arm, an' if you want specifics ask a doctor - I'm just a sheriff.
I wrote Tom Sawyer where I thought he was livin'. Missouri had its own little Civil War, of course, as he called it, though I never seen nothin' civil about a war. It thus took him a while to respond. What really floored me, though, was when I got a letter late in 1865 from Jim! He said he was doin' well, but his family was all raised and he had grandkids, an' his wife had just passed on, so with the war over, he was leadin' a bunch of ex-slaves and comin' out West. He hoped they could be free from the "nuttiness back East," in his words. He told me about this great preacher named John Jasper who was a former slave but who whites and blacks alike came from miles around to hear. He said he'd gone down from New York to hear him, and even included the plan of salvation in his letter to make sure I was saved.
It was the late summer of 1866 till they made it out, but then there was a whole wagon train of ex-slaves. I told the citizens "you better be nice," and they were, for the most part. We still had plenty of room to grow our town, and we'd seen a number of black cowboys in the last year, so the townspeople weren't too negative. Of course, I made an extra effort to welcome the group - I put clean overalls on before pinning on my star. The star goes on every morning, so people know I'm a sheriff. Kinda harebrained, if you ask me - I guess it does help outsiders, but nobody in our town needed to be reminded.
About a dozen blacks got off the wagon train at our place, and a couple more families were gonna head to the next town. I couldn't believe I'd recognize Jim, but there he was, really light gray hair, a slight limp. I don't know how anybody can recognize someone they haven't seen in almost thirty years, but I guess that's another reason why you can tell God made us. How else could something like that be?
"Huck! Huck Finn," he shouted jubilantly, running over and clasping my hand. Why was he so excited - it's not like I'd saved his life or anything. Heck, I'd nearly cost him his life. Still, I shook his hand mightily.
After a few seconds of staring at each other, he looked down at the star on my chest. The man of about sixty looked bewildered, as if he'd seen a two-headed man. Course, we did hear once of a farmer give birth to a two-headed calf; well, his cow did, anyway. I didn't see it, though, and the thing didn't live very long.
I figured what he was thinking. "Go ahead, say it, Jim. You - a sheriff?!?'"
"Promise you won't be insulted," Jim wondered, now smirking a little. When I told him to go ahead, he burst out in a fit of giggles. "I just can't believe you...I mean, you're not..."
"Well, tweren't none of my doin'," I informed him, telling him about Butch, and Abby, and the like. "And, I'm hardly ever in the office. I'd hightail it outta here, cept now people depend on me for help, and I do kinda like that. Brings some common sense to people. I'm a fire and brimstone type of sheriff," I remarked.
Jim laughed. "Say, you know how I knew your address? I saw Tom Sawyer recently, he said you'd written. You guys were the only whites to treat me like anything approaching a human," he concluded.
"That's what I've tried to get these people to do to everyone, treat em like people. It's dang near impossible, though. Trust me, Jim, from what I've seen, racism ain't nothin' personal. If they like your color, they'll find something else to hate about you." We began to walk to my house, where I was gonna introduce Jim to Abby. "What's Tom doin', still got that farm?"
"Yeah, he was just in New York cause he wanted to see the big city once, plus he'd been movin' around a lot to evade the draft. He's back at the farm now," Jim related.
I took Jim to our house, and he again expressed shock, this time in my bein' married. He was further stunned to learn Abby had given birth not too long ago. I told him I'd taken a week off for a honeymoon, which few people noticed since I was hardly ever in, and you can guess the rest. "Dangit, Jim, I just don't know how to be a father. I mean, I read the Bible a lot, and I see some important verses, like the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God,' and lead not your children to anger.' Stuff I know Pap never paid attention to."
"He was just too filled with drink to care, Huck," Jim remarked.
"Yeah, the Bible clearly speaks against bein' drunk, but folks'll do it anyway. I'm so glad I found Jesus a few years back, cause there's no way I could put up with all this nuttiness before, and I mighta turned out real bad if it kept followin' me around like that." Which it would have, I'm sure; everyone was movin' out West.
Jim nodded. "We won't have peace till the Millennial reign of Christ, then up in Heaven we can finally rest." I told him I couldn't wait.
Well, it wasn't long till I'd begun to get tired of bein' in the same place - I was in that little village a little over ten years, longer than I'd been anywhere. The Lord's got a place for all of us, and mine wasn't there but for a little while. By 1870 or so, I'd just got too tired of that part of civilization. There's an old hymn - it goes "some call it Heaven, but I call it home." It really expresses my attitude; I didn't like the world, or anything in it, outside of a few people, like Abby an' my boy. The fact I could now explain what it was I didn't like didn't help me learn to like it any better. It just made me more desperate to make people behave, which in turn made me realize how fruitless it was unless they had some real love backing up my efforts. And, that wasn't gonna come just from my makin' em obey human laws, though that helped for a bit. There was only one place they could find that - a church. And, nothin' I was doin' was gettin' em saved. They was just obeyin' the law.
It was shortly after my Abby and our little Jimmy died - nothing special, just the usual smallpox - I got itchin' to leave.. The scourge of mankind, smallpox has probably taken hundreds of millions of people since Adam and Eve defied God and introduced sin into the world. Two of them were laid to rest one Sunday, and I got to thinkin' about how they were in Glory, cause Abby'd asked Jesus to be her Savior, and so had Jimmy. Now, maybe he didn't understand all of it, bein' only four, but even so, Jesus said of little children that "their angels always see My Father's face," so he's got it made either way.
Anyway, that, on top of some other stuff, nasty stuff I'd seen as sheriff, was really buggin' me an' Jim, who'd set up shop as a trail and map maker. Our pastor preached a message one Sunday about how the Lord would come and end this whole mess - my words, not his - only when the Gospel had been "preached to all the nations," and that laid on my heart like a really bad piece of cornbread - the kind that makes you feel like you just ate a rock. I got to prayin', and I learned Jim - the one you're familiar with - had been doin' the same exact thing. What better way was there, we realized, to end this idiocy some call life than to reach everyone? It had all been laid out how to end this misery, and everyone had been missin' it.
Me and Jim lit out for work as missionaries - we just didn't know where. My assistant had become so good he easily stepped into my shoes as sheriff, and off we went, wherever the Lord would take us. Just like on the raft.
***
If you're reading this, you know we didn't reach the whole world. We sure tried, though - we were determined to tell everyone about Jesus because we knew then Jesus would come again, and there wouldn't be no more racism, or folks like my Pap who drank and beat up on others, or liars like the King and Duke.
We started off with a couple King James Version Bibles and the clothes on our backs. No maps, no nothin'. I had money laid away we could spend on an ocean liner, and all we had to do was call our church and they'd send us some money from their tiny missions fund. We didn't really need anything else, though. We could find enough to eat, and we'd spent our nights on a raft at one time, so we knew we could live in the wilderness.
I couldn't believe the freedom I felt the day I walked out of that town. Folks said the normal things - "He's finding it too hard to stay because he lost his family," "He just needs to find himself," "He was never meant to be a sheriff or any one thing, he's just a wanderer" - that people say when they can't figure out what the heck you're doin'. The first two weren't true at all - I hadn't lost em, I knew right where they were; with Jesus. I knew where I was, too. Only the third part felt true - only sort of, though, and even then, not really. I mean, I'd been makin' a little headway as a sheriff, and it wasn't so bad I couldn't stand it; I let em keep me for the better part of a decade before I left, after all. The Lord did mean for me to be that for a while.
We went out walkin', and pretty soon decided to get us some horses, so we could make headway. We felt led to go to Africa - seeing as how Jim was black, we could reach both races really well. So, we went east, and hopped a boat from New Orleans - the city we never did get to on our original raft.
The continent featured lots of people who'd never seen a white man till recently. At that point it was being flooded with missionaries, and the Lord had the two of us joining this crusade of sorts. I felt glad we weren't alone; I've heard where some missionaries go years before winning someone to Christ. One man in China went 28 years! Bein' in his sixties, Jim didn't have near that long, and I thought I might not, either.
We started down the Nile, quite often by raft as we was used to it. We wandered through what some call the Sudan at first. It was a huge place, much like the Mississippi Valley cept there were no cities. With no city lights anywhere, the moon looked almost as big as the sun when it was full. The many different creatures and quaint solitude sang the Lord's praise like nothing man-made ever could, and it allowed Jim and me to spend much time in quiet, blissful prayer. I wished we coulda stayed there the whole time, but we had work to do if we was gonna make Jesus come an' end the world. We saw quite a few people, and actually won our first souls pretty fast, within a few weeks of our arrival.
We had some funny times, of course. The best one, we were walkin' around a while, winnin' a few converts a week - the people in that part hadn't been exposed to the Muhammadans like up north, so it was a touch easier. We was tryin' real hard to avoid malaria, yellow fever, and all those other diseases that drove people crazy, when we spotted the first white guy we'd seen in months. I couldn't believe it - I told Jim how I'd learned how he felt, cause I was the only white around, just like he was the only black around our area at times. Course, these people treated me much more proper than we'd treated Jim and his kind. It made me feel guilty, but that's the kinda stuff we was tryin' to end.
This white fellow with a buncha soldiers or somethin' behind him got this excited look on his face, then as he got closer he became kinda puzzled. I looked around, thinking maybe there was some new animal lurking behind us. That happened a few times, we'd see these wild animals and not know what they were. Others did, but it was a whole new experience for us. Zebras, lions, giraffes, and the like all came within a few yards of us at times.
This guy walked up to me and extended a hand. "Doctor Livingstone," he asks me in a perplexed sort of way.
"Sorry," I answered, "I ain't no doctor, but Jim here and me have caught about everything you can catch here, so maybe we can help. What are your symptoms?" I figured he was looking for his doctor, but I couldn't understand why he didn't just go to a fellow closer to home.
"Ah, forgive me, I'm looking for a British chap, I can tell you are American," he told me.
"That's right. Huckleberry Finn's the name, and this here's Jim." At that point, it hit me - I had never heard Jim's last name. He always used a simple "Jim" in business dealings out West. He signed his own stuff to get on the boat, so I didn't know his last name from anyone's. I felt kinda bad that way, then decided since we was already on a first name basis, what was the use?
Our new friend helped me out of that mess as a hyena brayed, or whinnied, or whatever. I find it very hard to say them things are laughing; they don't know when something's funny. "Henry Stanley's the name," he explained to me. "I'm looking for a fellow named David Livingstone."
I nodded. The name sounded familiar, but I didn't know from where. "Oh, yeah," Jim spoke up, "he's that missionary who's been lost for a while, we heard about him on the way over."
Stanley remarked that "I'm a reporter, but I've been sent to find Livingstone, his whereabouts are totally unknown. If not from disease, there are so many wild creatures here which could hunt down an injured man..." he trailed off.
"I'll say, why we've seen so many animals sometimes I feel like it's the Millennial Kingdom already, and we can just lay down with the lions and elephants and be okay," I announced, stunned at all we'd seen. I then decided I oughta ask him if he knew what we was sayin' - after all, he didn't say he was a missionary. "Did you know Jesus is gonna come down and rule the world? Do you know who Jesus is?"
"If you're asking me am I saved, yes," he commented quickly. I tried to determine if it was too fast, then decided against it. I figured he was prob'ly just anxious to find this Livingstone, with all those people with him. It's a good thing Jim knew who he was, or I'da thought it was another posse out huntin' someone. He concluded that "I asked Jesus to be my Savior quite early in life, but I don't feel missionary work is my calling,. I love being a reporter and explorer, the latter of which has gained Mr. Livingstone much fame in this world."
"Well, we became missionaries late in life, so after you've seen all I've seen, you'll prob'ly decide life's crazy and wanna end the world by tellin' every person about Jesus like we do," came my rant. The more I thought about it, the more I determined anyone who really saw this world for what it was worth wouldn't waste two seconds to try and end it. I figured Mr. Stanley would, too. And, as it turned out, Livingstone's work would so impress Mr. Stanley he would continue it, leading the King of Bugunda to Christ, for one.
He shrugged his shoulders, which I admit I woulda done twenty years before that. "People like you and Dr. Livingstone do a fine job" was all he would say.
"You see what I mean, though, if he was a doctor and gave it all up," I commented.
"I don't think he means a medical doctor, Huck," Jim remarked. "I reckon he means a doctor of divinity. Don't you," he wondered, looking at Mr. Stanley.
I shook my head dumbfounded at my friend's assertion. To me, it sounded ludicrous.. "Come on, Jim, a doctor's a doctor, you don't hear anyone calling themselves a doctor back home unless they're advertising they can heal people."
Stanley remarked that "he was a medical doctor, but he doesn't do that for a living." Stanley further noted of himself that "I may be closer to Chinese Gordon as far as my reason for exploring - I do it because it's there, and so we can bear our burden as a people."
I didn't know what kind of burden he was talkin' about, since soulwinning sure ain't no burden - it's a privilege - but Jim clearly did, cause he said real spiritual-like that "the burden we have is not just a white man's burden, it's my race's burden, too. It's meant for everyone to spread the word of how we've got to love everyone as equals, and not worry about petty little things like race or anything. We're all just beggars tellin' other beggars where to find bread." Stanley nodded happily, so I let the subject drop.
I decided to make small talk, which might have looked normal between a couple strangers on a train but which I later realized looked real foolish standing out in the middle of a jungle, with wildebeests running to our right. "This Chinese fellow, that's good to get someone like that. I heard one missionary went 28 years there before winning anyone to Christ."
Stanley snickered. "No, Chinese Gordon is English."
"Then why do they call him Chinese," I wondered, shocked. As we spoke, Jim surveyed the landscape and seemed to be makin' a prayer of thanks to the Lord for the natural splendor. I couldn't have agreed more. I continued my comments to Stanley by stated that "I guess he coulda been born in China, but still..."
"No, he was born in England, he just gained fame in China," the reporter told me.
"Would you call President Jackson New Orleans' Jackson," I retorted. I could tell I'd stumped the man, he didn't respond. We spoke a little more about Dr. Livingstone, and how the whole world was afraid for him, and we said a prayer for him. I don't think Stanley remembered us, but he did find the good doctor, and it made world headlines. I don't think anything will make all the papers till the Lord comes again, though I suppose something could once, maybe twice, with all the great inventions we're makin'. Livingstone was safe, and died a couple years later while praying. I always thought that was so swell - you're here talking to God through prayer, and the next thing you know, there you are lookin' right at Him.
Jim died a few years after that. He didn't die prayin' or nothin', but it was peaceful - malaria, I think. He was in his seventies by this time, so he'd gotten weaker. I was put off by this, and didn't know what to do without my longtime companion. Then, after a week or so of brooding, I found myself turning to the Lord, and He showed me a verse - "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." I realized the Lord had always been with me. Lately, it was through Jim. For a while, it was Abby. But, even when I was alone, He was helpin' me, leadin' me to where I'd get saved. Now, I needed to trust Him, goin' His way, but on my own the way I had when I lit out for the wilderness in the end of Mr. Twain's second piece.
I spent a few more years in Africa, goin' around the continent. I'd given the message of hope to lots of people, but I began to get frustrated again, what with Europeans comin' in and makin' all these people colonists of theirs. Didn't anyone know to live an' let live, I wondered. I made extra sure it wasn't the devil tryin' to push me out, then I hopped a boat back to the U.S.A.
There'd been some changes, but still lots of stuff I didn't like, like segregation. I really couldn't see why nobody read Galatians 3:28, it's in there just like all the rest of God's word, how there's no Jews or Greeks, or men or women, but how we're all one under Christ. There shouldn't be any race or gender problems.
Another thing that made me wonder why I came back was the city. When I landed in New York, all these buildings several stories high, and all these huge crowds, made me wanna puke. I tried tellin' em about Jesus, but it was harder here than with what some people called savages. These were the real savages, always drinkin', and bein' foul-mouthed, and hurtin' others, an' lyin', all sorts of sins. It's us as much as anyone that's savages.
I learned we had a President who'd been shot by one of them white savages, one who didn't like bein' passed over for a job. Heck, ain't nobody ever told people you get a job based on whether you can do it? Well, okay, that wasn't why I got picked as sheriff, but some folks thought I could do it, and I guess I did okay, though I hadn't had no trainin' in it.
We had a whole system like that, gettin' jobs based on your friends an' stuff. Now, you gotta be nice, but that don't mean givin' em stuff they can't do. Why, that oughta make em mad, puttin' em where they mess up, cause if they keep messin' up they don't feel good about themselves. Bein' what some called an evangelist, I was able to get in to talk with one of our leaders about this. Course, it was just the Vice President, but somethin' told me Garfield wouldn't live much longer, and he didn't, though he did hold out another month.
Anyway, I met Vice President Arthur one warm and muggy day, the kind that were common back in Africa. Now, I don't reckon I would just go up to someone like that before I got saved, but the Lord changes you, and one thing he gave me was the gift of boldness. I always believed in bein' myself, as well, though I did trim my grizzly beard and mustache so the hairs all looked even. My dapper new acquaintance looked like he'd stepped outta some royal court, though, with his fancy get-up, his curled mustache and clean chin, and his top hat. I was surprised he didn't wear a powdered wig. Good grief, I thought, what kinda President would this be?
"Mr. Arthur. I wanna thank you for seein' me today," I commented as we sat on his patio. I wasn't always that civilized an' polite, even after I'd been saved, but this guy was pretty important. I bet he's glad he didn't see me before, though.
He nodded. "It is always fun to meet people, especially such an explorer as yourself." Here we go again, thought I, someone's buildin' me up just like when they made me sheriff. "I understand you're a missionary." I nodded. I then considered how I'd told his aides that I oughta be able to see the man because he was just another person like me, he just happened to have a political office. I'd mentioned my missionary work simply because I wanted to tell them about Christ. It seemed like they figured he was better than everyone else, though. I made a mental note to talk to this here Vice President about what his workers were doin'.
To him, I remarked that "I just got back to our country about a month ago, I got to New York an' I heard the President had been shot. Makes me wonder why we call others savages an' not ourselves." He grinned somewhat sadly, and bowed his head.
Then, he told me the darn'dest things. I was sworn to secrecy on quite a bit, evidence of which was burned with the rest of his papers, at his request, when he died. I know, it sounds nutty, but you could look it up, he ordered his stuff destroyed. I learned how this man had been involved in graft, bribery, and corruption, workin' for what was known as a political machine. Mr. Twain called this "the gilded age," and while I don't know what "gilded" means, I think it's just a fancy way of sayin' "guilty." This man next in line to be President had wielded lotsa influence unfairly, that much historians know; whatever he did personally was in those papers he had burned. I realized why most people expected a very uncouth administration.
I wasn't gonna let that happen if I could help it. I didn't like a lot of the people, but I still loved the country. So I commented that "it must give you some misgivings about all that, seein' as how someone shot the President just because he didn't get a job."
"Ever since my wife passed away last year," the fellow recalled, "I have been troubled over my actions. I have made many friendships, but somehow, I realize life is very fleeting."
"Indeed," quoth I, " what does it profit a man to gain the world, and lose his immortal soul.'"
"Exactly. My father was a minister," he remarked, givin' me the willies. How did a preacher's son turn out like that, I wanted to know. He kept talkin' though, so I never did learn "It always seemed so...I don't know, I just wanted to experiment, see how much I could do with life.. Life seemed so full, there was so much to acquire, not just in power but in things. I own eighty pairs of slacks, I dress in the finest clothes, if I become President I could have everything, control lots of people, bribe anyone. And yet..." he trailed off, clearly disturbed
"It can't bring your wife back," was all I could think of, considering my own dear Abby.
"Precisely."
You can prob'ly guess what happened next. It didn't seem quite like when I went for help, but maybe it was. After all, I'd come across a problem I couldn't handle. I thought runnin' away from my anger over Pap beatin' me up anytime he felt like gettin' drunk and other bad stuff I'd seen would solve things, but it didn't. I'd spent too long fightin' or fleein' my demons, instead of lettin' the Lord take em out of me. I'd never had the proper upbringin' this Arthur fella prob'ly had, but I mighta just rebelled against it more, an' maybe never come back to it.
This Mr. Arthur, he wasn't rebellin' against civilization like I was. He was ready to return - we had a soon-to-be President who'd lived the life of the Prodigal Son. The history books don't touch on this - they hardly even mention we had a President Arthur - but that's the only way to explain what happened.
First, I discussed how we were all sinners, and even shared a bit of how I'd been changed by the Lord. I told him he was only gonna get to Heaven if he let Jesus live through him, instead of only living for material gain. I showed him in my Bible the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector who'd become really rich stealing from others, and who gave it all back and stopped being corrupt, seeing that if he followed Jesus he could have a thousand years of happiness in a perfect world in the Millennial Kingdom, and get to Heaven as well.
Pretty soon, Arthur was weeping over his unscrupulous ways, and praying, admitting he was a sinner on his way to Hell. He trusted in Jesus' death on the cross as penalty for his sins, and that the Lord raised Him from the dead just as he would one day be raised. And, he chose to accept Jesus as his Savior, so he could have everlasting life, instead of everlasting torment. The Lord desires that all people be saved, it's just that we reject that salvation when we don't accept Jesus. He is always waiting for us to come to Him.
Mr. Arthur became President a month later, and his administration was one of the most honest of any. He prosecuted quite a few friends who worked in the graft business with him, and signed the Civil Service Act, which led to governments hiring people based on ability, not on friendship. There is no way a leopard can change his own spots - take it from someone who's seen em. He might have turned from his ways for a few months, but he would have kept going back to sin, bribery, and corruption because that was his nature, were it not for the saving grace of God. Look it up, there was no corruption in his administration, but the man was very corrupt before he became President. The only way that could be is if he asked Jesus into his heart.
I'm not sayin' I'm the one who led him to Christ - he wanted to come to the Lord, and coulda done it himself. And, he kept all those slacks, and kept dressin' real dapper, but I got a feeling his attitude toward that changed. You can wear good clothes an' eat good food, unless the Lord wants you to stop, once you get saved. Your attitude changes when you become a child of God, and you give it to the Lord, tellin' Him everything is His. Then, if He wants to dress you in 80 pairs of pants, He can, but if He wants you to give em to the poor, you gotta do that, too. The Lord just wanted Mr. Arthur to do the former, I think.
I guess the Lord just had me there for that, cause I felt the need to leave again. I did see Mr. Twain an' filled him in on little bits bout the King an' Duke, an' how we got freed, so he could write his book on me, but I figured this stuff you oughta hear firsthand. I stopped at Tom's one afternoon while in Missouri. Everyone else I knew there an' in Arkansas was long since dead, of course, cept nobody knew bout Becky Thatcher.
Tom Sawyer was a farmer, an' had been saved for a while; he loved not havin' to work at it, that Jesus was God come down to Earth as a man to do all the work to get him to Heaven. My problem with him was he spoke perfect English, was a church deacon, was very active in local politics, an' thought of runnin' for Congress! All that civilization made me mad. Tom didn't have none of his old ways, an' just described himself as an extra wild kid. I couldn't stand his clean-cut, well-dressed look. I stood it on Mr. Arthur only cause I knew he was a sinner who needed saved. It just looked horrible on Tom. One thing I'll grant him, though, he never did marry; that never woulda been like Tom. Course, I reckon if he'd had a woman fall in love with him after some bad guy's bullet bounced off her wagon wheel and knocked the bad guy out, I couldn't have blamed him. Then, you can see it's fate.
Me, I preferred what Tom called the "John the Baptist" look. I also preferred to avoid civilization, so I lit out west to my old town, an' related what I'd seen an' done. They were proud of me, an' the pastor - same one as led me to Jesus - wanted to send me on another mission trip. Some said it was cause my wild look was more suited for the jungle, but I figure when you get someone who likes to stay away from civilization, it's not hard to send em places.
***
Now, I'm readin' of another war, an' glad I don't hafta fight nobody. I thought I'd better write now an' tell y'all just what happened to ol' Huckleberry Finn, not to mention a few other folk. I'm on a raft floatin' down one of the rivers that goes into the great Amazon River, second largest in the world. I been in Brazil an', mostly, sailin' the Amazon and its tributaries for over fifteen years. It's really peaceful, there's almost nobody in the forest, so no lyin', cheatin', drunkenness, hatred, nothin'. I tell everyone about Jesus. Sometimes natives chase me away with spears, but sometimes they listen, and some get saved. I get a real kick out of that. This is the place for me, cause this forest's so dense I don't hafta see lots of other people, but I see a few, and when they treat me nice I get thinkin' maybe some civilization's okay.
Other times, I sail on the Amazon and its branches, just enjoyin' nature, an' feelin' mad at the world cause there's so much nastiness, an' hatred, an' other stupid stuff. Somethin' reminds me of Pap, or of how white folk treated Jim, or of them crazy family feuds in Arkansas, or somethin' else dumb from back in "civilization." Then, I get so disturbed at how bad the world is, it looks like Satan has us over a barrel, an' there's no hope. That's when I read the Bible bout others who have felt that way, an' write to people whom I've led to the Lord. Some of them have their own churches, some are missionaries, and some are in Heaven now, just waitin' to welcome me home, like Abby, little Jimmy, Jim, and a number of others. It's ones like that who help me see there's a few nice souls in the world, outta many who could be if they wanted. That makes me willin' to try an' reach a few more with the Gospel. I've found a few others like me, and they've felt so much more at peace since they've asked Jesus to be their savior, it's incredible.
I praise the Lord for His majesty, like the water lilies here, some of which grow leaves up to six feet long. I sometimes feel like I'm the first man ever to see these things, but that don't make me feel like a great explorer, just like someone who's seein' a little piece of the Lord's beauty before I get to Heaven. And, quite a bit of it is along this river.
I've always had a love for rivers - the Mississippi, then the Nile, now me, a missionary in his seventies, here on the Amazon. I could stay in the jungle eatin' berries an' fishin' all the time, an' never come in contact with another person, let alone with civilization. I would have if the Lord hadn't reached down an' got me. I don't, however. I know there are souls to be won, so I leave my raft from time to time, goin' to diff'rent cities or tribes an' puttin' up with stuff. I remind myself I'm helpin' everyone by reachin' these last few with the Gospel, so the world can end faster. I keep comin' back to my raft, and I wish I could just be on my own all the time. I got somethin' better comin', though.
You see, my fondness for rivers isn't just a desire to avoid people, though it useta be that. I'm seein' now it's a symbol of how we're all on this boundary between Heaven an' Hell. I was a wretched sinner, in the grips of folks like my Pap - whom I forgive, an' whom I actually feel sorry for. He was shot in the back, I'm sure he never had time to repent, but I wish I'd been able to teach him about Jesus, an' get him saved an' sober. Pap would have loved Heaven, but alcohol was his god, an' there ain't no god but God who can get you to the Promised Land.
Remember how we never crossed the Mississippi an' got to Cairo, Illinois and free country? Well, I was a sinner then. I couldn't work my way to freedom, neither could Jim. It woulda been a fake freedom then. On the Nile, Jim an' I would get out on both sides, cause we was leadin' people from the Hellish world to the loving side, with Jesus. And now, as the end nears, I know only because of my faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, I'll finally cross that great river between us an' God. And there, Jesus will say to me "well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful in a few things, I will make you master over many."
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To: The pastor and members of Grace Baptist Church, Oresville, Colorado, USA:
From: Father Raul Sanches, Christ Church, Manaus, Brazil
These notes were found on a raft, next to a body which lay peacefully on it for a month, perhaps longer. All indications are that the body is that of your missionary and was hence the author of these notes, which we are sending to you. I am sure that whatever worldly troubles he refers to, the man so bothered by "civilization," having been reborn in Christ, has shed his worldly traumas, and found the peace he longed for, together with rich rewards, which Christ the Lord promises to all who believe. Praise be to God.