It was Silas and a Chinese-looking man in a large boat. It had a motor on it, but they were paddling very deliberately, and they were right on top of us when we first saw them. However, as a result of our good hiding place, they hadn’t seen us as we observed them.
The Chinese man wore a loose black shirt, and his hair was in a long plait down his back. Below his cold eyes, a long, thin, and limp moustache drooped over the corners of his mouth.
“That must be Mr. Kim,” Poudlum whispered. “The one who wanted to buy us for two hundred dollars and make us into ship slaves.”
“I think you are right about that,” I whispered back. “Silas don’t look too happy about losing his investment, either.”
We continued conversing in whispers because we knew how sound carried better over water than it did over land.
“They are definitely looking for us,” I said. “See how they’re looking for a landing spot on the bank?”
“Uh-huh, and if we had found us a nice clear spot to land instead of crashing into these thick limbs, they probably would’ve found us. Like I told you, the Good Lord is looking out for us.”
We watched until they disappeared around the next bend in the river. Then we retreated back to our sanctuary under the giant tree, where we sat down and leaned our backs against its massive trunk while we contemplated our situation.
“This mess we in reminds me of one of my momma’s favorite sayings,” Poudlum said.
“What’s that?”
“I believe we are in between the devil and the deep blue sea, but in this case, between the devil and the river.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“The Klan’s looking for us upriver, and the slavers are looking for us downriver.”
“You know what, Poudlum?”
“What?”
“That does ring true if you consider the Klan to be the devil and the slavers to be the deep blue sea.”
“So what we gonna do?”
“Well, it’s for sure we can’t paddle up to Jackson in the daylight. If we take to the water, it’ll have to be after dark.”
“We could just take to the woods and walk up to Jackson,” Poudlum suggested.
“I guess we could, but what if it got dark on us before we there? I would hate to be caught out in the deep woods at night. Plus there’s probably a lot of swamps between here and there. And if we had to spend the night in the woods, how would we know which way to go in the morning?”
“Okay,” Poudlum said. “Forget traveling through the woods and the swamps. Probably a lot of quicksand and snakes in them swamps. We best stick to the river.”
“I think you are right, Poudlum. Remember, we don’t have any food, and at least here on the river, we can get fish to eat.”
“Speaking of that,” Poudlum said. “We better go bait and set out some lines since we gonna be here until after dark.”
While we were setting lines out to catch us some dinner, it occurred to me that if we didn’t show up at Jackson today, my uncle would probably sound the alarm, and folks would start looking for us.
When I told Poudlum this, he said, “You think they’ll think we drowned and go out on the water and fire cannons to see if our bodies will float up like they did when Huck Finn disappeared?”
We had both recently finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which my brother Fred had given to us as gifts. I read one and Poudlum read the other, and then we traded.
“I doubt if they’ll do that, but by the time dark comes tonight and we don’t show up, I’ll guarantee Uncle Curvin will have a lot of folks out on the river looking for us tomorrow.”
Poudlum sighed and said, “That means we got to hide out till then with nothing to eat.”
“We can get fish,” I told him.
“You know what?” he said.
“What?”
“I never thought I would live to say it, but I’m about done got myself a bait of catfish.”
“What! You don’t want no more catfish?”
“Oh, I’ll eat it and be thankful for it, but I got myself a hankering for some fried chicken, mashed taters, and some fried okra.”
“I know what you mean,” I told Poudlum as my mouth watered thinking about the food he had mentioned.
When midday came, we shared the last piece of fish from last night, and it was still tasty even though we were tired of it. Just before dusk dark, we made a small fire and fried up our catch of the day, enough to last us another day. I fanned the smoke to spread it out while Poudlum did the cooking.
We let our fire die out and sat in the darkness until the moon appeared. The full one had gone, and all the sky could boast of was a dim crescent moon.
It was darker than it had been on the previous nights on the river, but we managed to get our boat in the water in the dimness and began paddling upstream toward Jackson.
“What we gonna do when we get to the bridge?” Poudlum asked.
“I think we ought to hide in the woods in sight of the bridge, and when we see Uncle Curvin, make a break for it.”
“That sounds good to me,” Poudlum said as we dug our paddles deep.
It was only a moment after Poudlum said, “We ought to get there before daylight,” when a false daylight suddenly descended upon us.
We froze when the light hit us and illuminated our boat and the river around us. We were shocked into inaction, and before we could react, Silas and Mr. Kim’s boat collided with ours while they held a carbide lantern on our faces.
“Hey, boys,” Silas said gleefully. “Glad to see y’all again. It hurt my feelings that y’all left in such a hurry, ’specially after I took the two of you in after the storm.”
Before we could react in any way, they grabbed the side of our boat, and Mr. Kim stepped aboard with a rope and lashed it to our boat.
He never said a word. Silas did all the talking. “We gonna take you boys down the river a ways and introduce you to some friends who want to take y’all on a real long trip, but first we gonna make a quick stop by my place. Now y’all just sit still while we get our motor started.”
Poudlum and I were in shock, and before we could dive overboard, Mr. Kim had our hands and feet tied.
I felt helpless as Silas started the motor, turned us back downstream and began speeding away toward our proposed enslavement.
With their boat in front and ours tied behind, the wind hit us squarely in our helpless faces as we sped downriver toward unknown horrors.
Before we got back to Silas’s cabin, I managed to work my knife out of my pocket and slip it inside of my sock.
Their motor slacked off, and it wasn’t long before we slid onto the landing at the familiar site of Silas and Dudley’s place.
They loosened the bonds on our feet and led us up the shore and back into the cabin we had escaped from the night before.
Dudley stared at us with his dull eyes like he was mad with us for escaping. He shoved us against the wall and finally said in a gruff tone, “Y’all sit down there and keep your traps shut.”
Silas and Mr. Kim went into the back room and started hauling boxes of whiskey out and stacking them on the front porch.
After several trips Silas stepped back inside, stopped in front of us, looked down and said, “You young rascals cost me some money. We lost six quarts of shine when that stack y’all made got pushed over. That’s all right though; I’ll get it back plus a lot more when we get downriver.”
Then he turned to Dudley and said, “Me and Mr. Kim got to deliver the rest of this shine. We’ll be back by dawn. You let these boys get away again, and I’ll skin you alive. Soon as we get back, we’ll be heading down the river for good.”
Mr. Kim never spoke at all. He did his talking with his eyes as he gave us a piercing and threatening look before he walked out the door with Silas.
The shock of our capture had dissipated, and Poudlum and I were talking with our eyes also, while Dudley sat there slack-jawed staring at us.
Now it was just us and Dudley, and I could tell by the look in Poudlum’s eyes that he was formulating a plan to outwit him.
“Y’all think you real smart, don’t you?” Dudley said. “Busting out of here like y’all did. It made me look real bad, and got Silas real mad with me.”
Poudlum spoke first. “It wasn’t your fault, Dudley. It was Silas’s fault for not taking our knives away from us.”
Dudley looked at me and said, “How come yore little colored friend is talkin’ like a white person?”
Poudlum answered for me. “You wants me to talk like a colored person, Dudley. I will if you wants me to. I’ll say dis and dat and dem and dose if you wants me to, ’’cause I speaks two languages.”
Dudley was dumbfounded by what Poudlum said, but I knew Poudlum was just trying to get him bumfuzzled.
Now it was my turn. “We awful hungry, Dudley. You think we could have some beans and sardines from the food we left here?”
He lowered his eyes in shame and said, “I done et up all that stuff.”
“Well, do you have anything to eat?” I asked him.
“All I got is some biscuits and some side meat,” he said.
“Hey, that sounds mighty good. You think we could have a bite? We ain’t had nothing to eat for two days,” I lied.
“I reckon it’ll be all right to give y’all a biscuit,” he conceded.
“Well, we can’t eat with our hands tied.”
“All right, I’ll untie yo’ hands so you can eat, but I’ll do it one at a time. First y’all stand up so I can take them knives off you.”
I stood up first, and Dudley went through my pockets before asking, “Where’s that pocket knife?”
“I think I lost it cleaning fish,” I lied again.
After Dudley untied my hands but not my feet, he brought me a biscuit with a slice of side meat in it, and it was mighty tasty.
When he had retied my hands, he ordered Poudlum to stand up, after which he removed his Barlow and a little snuff can from his pockets and placed them on the table.
“You know you too young to be dipping snuff, boy,” Dudley lectured him.
“I reckon you right, Dudley, but I sure do love my snuff.”
After Poudlum had eaten his biscuit, Dudley told him to turn around so he could retie his hands.
“I really do enjoy a good dip of snuff after my meal, Dudley. Do you mind if I get myself a dip before you tie me back up?”
“I don’t reckon I see no harm in that,” Dudley said as he handed Poudlum the snuff can.
I watched as Poudlum carefully removed the lid from the can and opened his mouth like he was going to take a dip. Then in one swift motion, he slung the little can of ground-up red peppers into Dudley’s face.
I was astounded at the effect it had on him. He took a tremendous intake of breath, which was the worst thing he could have done. Then he screamed and clutched at his eyes before he staggered backwards, crashed into the wall and fell to the floor. The screaming turned into choking and gagging sounds as he lay there jerking and twisting, first rubbing his eyes, then grabbing at his throat.
Meanwhile, Poudlum hadn’t wasted any time. By the time Dudley had hit the floor, he had gotten busy at untying his feet, and now he was loosening the ropes on my hands.
“Oh, Lord, y’all done kilt me,” Dudley moaned
“You ain’t gonna die, Dudley,” Poudlum called out over his shoulder as he finished untying me.
“Good move!” I told him.
“I knew that pepper would come in handy one day. When you finish untying your feet bring the rope over so we can tie Dudley up.”
“I’m blinded!” Dudley called out in agony as he groped about and attempted to sit up.
“You’ll be able to see again if you listen to me,” Poudlum told him.
“Oh yes, I’ll listen,” Dudley whimpered. “Please get me some water.”
“Got to tie you up first. Stick your hands out in front of yourself.”
I went out on the porch to get a bucket of water and the dipper when I saw Poudlum was well along into tying up a defeated Dudley. While I was out there, I looked down toward the dark edge of the river, and I could see the dim outline of our boat, our vehicle of escape.
When I got back inside, Poudlum had Dudley propped up against the wall and was binding his ankles while he continued to blubber and blink his red and swollen eyes. When Poudlum finished, he tied another length of rope from his feet and secured it up over a rafter so Dudley couldn’t crawl outside.
Then I held the bucket while Poudlum took a dipper full of water and dashed it into Dudley’s face.
“Oh, bless you, bless you!” Dudley sputtered. “Do it again, please.”
After another dipper full in the face from Poudlum, I took a full dipper and held it to his lips and watched him guzzle it down like a thirsty mule.
When I looked up, I saw Poudlum placing slices of side meat into several biscuits, which he jammed into a brown paper bag before rolling down the top.
I gathered up our blankets, and we headed for the door. Just as we got to it, Dudley called out, “Y’all know Silas and Mr. Kim is gonna kill me, don’t you?”
I found myself feeling sorry for him, all hogtied up there on the floor, still blubbering, so I told him, “Just tell ’em several of our friends busted in and overpowered you.”
Poudlum added, “Tell ’em they’ll be waiting outside for them, too. And one other thing, Dudley, if you make a sound we’ll come back in here and give you another dose of that snuff.”
With that, we dashed out the door, ran across the porch and hit the ground running. When we got to the river, we tossed the biscuits and our blankets in our boat.
As we were just about ready to launch the boat, Poudlum said, “You know, we could run into ’em again, and they could chase us down with their motor.”
“Hold on then,” I told him. “I think I got a better idea!”