7
___________________
___________________________________________
Sam's Cooking—Sabotage—Chinese Dresses
Sam busied himself with cooking something odd over the fire. I saw the rice in there but there were some strange odd shaped things in there which he had stuffed some mixture in before droppin' them in the pot.
"Ah, my good wife, she make best jiaozi in province. You like, you no had before. Not like wife make them, but still good. You like," he said, smiling to himself, remembering his wife I reckon. Huck looked sadly at the man, wearing the same look as when he looked at Jim, though I couldn't figure why. I reckoned we aughta tie all the Parkersons to their beds. Then, while Huck threatened to cut their throats, I'd make off with the paper sayin' who owned it. Huck had to point out though, that he couldn't very well hold a knife to all four brothers at once And how would I find the paper fast enough without having the brothers raise the alarm?
"Most likely the brothers'll go celebrate gettin' a claim without havin' to pay the land claim office for it," said Huck. "It's a mighty sad thing that the land office forgot to put the chink's name on the slip. Maybe they didn't forget at all."
"In either case, it doesn't get us any closer to gettin' that slip back," I said, uncomfortable thinkin' about what Huck just said. He has the worst habit of sayin' some of the worst things about other people till a body feels you can't trust no one.
"Well, if the Parkersons are out, we can get to their room and get the slip," said Huck, "We can then take it to the land office, get it in our name, and share it with Sam. That way, I reckon, all of us win, 'cept, of course, the Parkersons".
I agreed it were a mighty good plan, 'cept I wanted to do somethin' to get back at the Parkersons for cheatin' us outta the hotel room. I remembered I had that knife from the Injun and Huck had the tomahawk.
"Huck" I said, "We could use the stuff from the Injun to wreak the hotel room. The tomahawk could smash up their beds, and I could slash up the beddin' and then they'd have to pay for all the damage in the mornin'".
"Why not just take their money instead?" said Huck.
"Huck, don't you use that brain you got?" I said, "This they'd notice right away and wouldn't get a good night sleep, but with your plan they wouldn't notice 'til mornin'".
"Maybe that wouldn't be so bad," said Huck.
"Yes it would," I said "Cause they'd just have a bad mornin' not payin' and all. With this plan they'd have a bad night's rest and not be able to pay for all the damage in the mornin'".
Eventually Huck agreed, and we sat down to eat what the chink had made. It actually was quite good, though when I asked what was in it, the chink just kinda winked at me and gave me a you-don't-want-to-know look. Huck and me reckon'd we aughta head to the hotel 'round the time 'tween the moon rising and being at its highest. So after telling the chinaman we was going to get back the paper, he protested, saying "You in danger if go, good boy no go". But we told him it were the only way, so he let us go.
Getting in the room warn't hard, as the Parkersons left the window to their room wide open. It were the same room Huck and me cleared outta, on the second floor. There were a ladder nearby that Huck wanted to climb, but I knew that weren't the proper way.
"Huck," I whispers, as when you break in somewheres, you whisper the entire time, "We gotta climb up the logs, you can't just climb a ladder. It ain't done that way."
With that, I climbed up, and Huck eventually followed, saying I could go down first when we got out. We surveyed the room, with the four beds, we havin' cleared out our stuff when we'd left. They said they'd sleep two to a bed and we'd each get our own bed, for frontin' some money, but we now doubted that considerable. So Huck went to work with the tomahawk while I slashed up the bedding on the opposite bed. When we'd done all the damage we could to the beds, I looked at their packs and saw some kerosene in the packs.
"Huck," I said, "We could douse ev'rything with this," holding the kerosene can, "And then they can't even sleep in this room. They'd have to sleep outside!"
Huck says, "Well, what if a spark hits it and ev'ryone else burns up in the fire 'cept those four, then wouldn't we have saved their lives and murdered all the rest?"
I had to admit, for once, Huck had a point. I guess he'd started usin' his head, so I had to rethink the plan. I found molasses in Buck's pack and so with the tomahawk, hacked it open, though Huck complained considerable that it would forever stick to the blade. We spread it all over all the beds. Huck was pretty powerful upset about the molasses on his tomahawk, as it rather got on the feathers, and they looked like dirty old fluff. I said he should stop complaining as it was all for the chinaman. We needed to find the slip. Huck found it quickly enough, but I figured since we'd destroyed the beds, we'd aughta slash the bags too. Huck was set against it, telling me to quit it as I emptied out the bags, starting with Buck's. I found two dresses in it, different from any I'd ever seen. Huck reckoned they was Chinese.
"I'se talkin' to Sam, and he talked about his wife's gowns, and these things remind me of what he was agoin' on about" said Huck. Well, I was just powerful curious 'bout how them dresses found their ways into Buck's pack when I could hear shouting and footsteps heading our way. Huck heard 'em too and looked under the door. When he came up, he looked right scared.
"It's them!" he cried, "What're we gonner to do? They'll kill us for sure!"
I looked around, seeing them foreign gowns and put one on. I then put on a kerchief round my head to look like a maid. Huck stared at me, shaking his head saying "It won't do no good Tom, I tried it once, it don't do no good, they won't be fooled." I told him we didn't have much of a choice, as we still had to cut up the bags, so he quick got on the other gown and wrapped round hi head a kerchief, stuffing away the tomahawk and land slip and grabbing a rag lookin' like he were a maid lookin' to dust a room. I grabbed another rag just as the Parkersons came in.
