An Embarrassment of Riches by James Howard Kunstler Page A

between hilly, forested banks, sometimes abreast of steep gray bluffs. There were infrequent other craft upon the river, a keelboat like ours here, a gundalow there, a skiff, a broadhorn loaded with barrels, a scow full of hides, a lone Indian in his dugout. None of these could we hail, nor stop and parley with. The pretense of “partnership” aside, Bilbo hardly let us out of his sight a moment. Our relation of captives and captor went on as before. By day, we were confined within the limits of our boat; that is, free to roam its cramped deck. After supper each evening ashore, Uncle and I were bound back to back, at the wrists, with a leash run to the vigilant dwarf, and thus suffered to find sleep as we might. And not an hour of any day or night passed that I did not dream of escaping these scum. Sooner or later, of course, the mists of gullibility would disperse in Bilbo’s mind and our fountain of youth would stand unveiled for the hoax it was—which hour would bring leaden balls to both our brains.
    â€œUncle,” I whispered one night as the others snored symphonically across the dying fire. “Uncle, we must conceive some plan of escape!”
    â€œWas that not the idea behind thy fountain of youth ploy?”
    â€œâ€™Twas a mere buying of time. I beg you, sir. Rack your imagination!”
    â€œIf only we could lay our hands upon any of an hundred noxious herbs that abound in the woods,” Uncle mused, “and somehow contrive to slip a dose upon these wretches. But Sammy, I must tell thee, being a Quaker I could not make myself a murderer, even of these scum who would be ours.”
    â€œLet me do the job, then, Uncle, for I shall attend to it with relish.”
    â€œSammy!” he whispered, horrified. “To be thine accomplice would be one and the same thing. No, we must find some herb that is grossly incapacitating, yet not deadly, some—”
    â€œPhrensyweed?” I ventured.
    â€œExactly! Furor muscaetoxicus ,” Uncle agreed enthusiastically. “’Twould be ideal: incapacitating, yet not lethal. But, alack, ’tis such a rare and retiring little weed. Why, in complete freedom we would be hard-pressed to locate a patch. In our present confinement, I can’t see how—”
    â€œI think I know a way,” I said, a scheme taking shape in my mind requiring the amorous exploitation of that poor misbegotten creature, Bessie. Meanwhile, Uncle described for me in minute and vivid detail the characteristics of phrensyweed, that I might easily recognize it and snatch a handful before Bilbo took a notion to snatch our lives.
    Just after noon the following day a brief thundershower had sweetened the air by disuniting the noxious vapors that lay heavy upon the Ohio. I was sitting idly atop the cabin roof whilst Uncle leaned against a biscuit cask watching Neddy scratch behind his ear for fleas, as any mongrel might. Bilbo emerged from the companionway with a specimen jar of whiskey.
    â€œStudying my stalwart little companion?” Bilbo inquired, not impolitely. Though a villain through and through, he was a sociable villain. Our mode of travel, the scenery and teeming wildlife, failed to divert him, so he sought to enliven the hours of tedious flotation with palaver. Until now, he had found Uncle taciturn to one extreme and myself overlavish to the other extreme in scorn and effrontery. “Shall I tell you Neddy’s history?” he asked.
    â€œCan we prevent you?” I replied.
    â€œYou shall not regret it. The afternoon will take wing and fly.”
    â€œCaptain, the stage is yours.”
    He bowed, sipped his whiskey, cleared his throat, and blew his nose over the gunwale.
    â€œAre you ready?”
    â€œLet’s have it,” I said.
    â€œAbandoned in a wood outside of Pott’s Town, Pennsylvania, Neddy was raised among the wolves—”
    â€œWhat bosh!”
    â€œStrange but true. Taken into the pack by