I said to Mitch, "Was Injun Joe ever in jail?" Mitch said: "Skeet, you don't act like sense sometimes. You know dern well he was in jail. How could he get into court if he wasn't in jail? Don't you remember when Tom was testifyin' agin him that he broke loose and jumped through the court house window and escaped, and nobody ever saw him again until Tom found his body at the door of McDougal's cave?"
"Well," says I, "he might have been out on bail." "What's that?" said Mitch. "I don't know," says I. "It's a way to keep from goin' to jail, and since the book don't say that Injun Joe was in jail, I'll bet you he never was. Poor old Muff Potter was in jail after the murder and he didn't kill anybody. It was Injun Joe that did the killin'. And don't you remember that Tom and Huck went to the jail one night and stood on each other's backs so they could talk to Muff through the bars?" "I have an idea," says Mitch, "let's go to the jail to-night and talk to Doc Lyon. Your pa and Jasper Rutledge, the sheriff, are friends, and he knows us. And besides, Joe Pink is in jail. Look at it: Joe Pink is Muff Potter and Doc Lyon is Injun Joe, and we'll go to see 'em just like Tom and Huck went to see Muff Potter. Only, as I said before, Skeet, you're no more like Huck than my pa is like Nigger Dick."
"Well," says I, "it makes no difference. We'll go. For you can bet Doc Lyon will never be free again, and we can look at him and ask him questions, and see what he has to say."
We got down to the jail about dusk, and Mitch insisted on rollin' a barl up to the window and climbin' up on it, so as to make it as much like Tom Sawyer as possible. The window was too high for us to stand on each other's backs. Just as we got the barl up, along comes Jasper Rutledge, the sheriff, and he says, "Hey, what you boys doin'?" "We want to talk to Doc Lyon," says I. "What about?" says he. "About my dog," says Mitch. The sheriff looked at us curious for a minute and says, "If I let you talk to him, will you promise not to tease him or get him mad?" "Yes, Mr. Rutledge," both of us said. "Well then," said the sheriff, "don't fool around with that barl; I'll let you inside the jail and you can stand comfortable and talk to him." Mitch didn't know what to say to this. He just toed the ground with his toe, and finally said, "We'd rather stand on the barl, Mr. Rutledge." I knew what he meant. It wouldn't be like Tom Sawyer to go inside. And the sheriff laughed and said, "Well, I'll swan, have it your way. But mind you, I'm going to hide and hear what is said, for I want to hear what he says about all this devilish work. But if you tease him or say anything out of the way, I'll stop it and drive you off."
So we promised and Mitch rolled the barl up to the winder and we both stood on it and looked in. First thing we see was Joe Pink. He was in there for bein' drunk, and beatin' his wife. And he went on to tell about his life, how he'd most worked himself to death tryin' to support her and the children, and how she couldn't cook, and how she never had the meals ready, and how he'd come home so hungry he could eat glue, and she'd be talkin' over the back fence with Laura Bates, and how he didn't like her any more anyway, because she had lost most of her teeth, and spluttered her words. Then he'd get drunk, he said, to forget. And just then a voice said, "No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven." It was Doc Lyon in a separate place, behind another iron door. And Joe Pink turned on him and said: "I suppose dog killers and house burners and cow-cutters and murderers get in. They do, do they? Well, you can send Joe Pink down to the devil. I don't want to go nowhere where you go—you can bet on that."
Doc Lyon
By this time we could see clear into the dark, and there stood Doc Lyon quiet like, his hands holding the bars, awful white hands, and his eyes bright like a snake's when it raises up to strike. Then Doc Lyon began to talk. First he was talking about Mitch's dog. He said it wasn't decent to have that dog around where children could see her, and that he had killed her because God told him to. Then he began to talk the Bible and talk about Ohalibah and say: "She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians, her neighbors, which were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal with thee in fury; they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy residue shall fall by the sword. They shall also strip thee of thy clothes and take away thy fair jewels." And so he went on for a long time. And Mitch whispered to me, "He's quoting from Ezekiel"—Mitch had heard his pa read it to his ma and he knew it.
Then Doc Lyon went on to talk about my ma, and to say that he didn't mean to kill her, but only to cut off her ears and her nose, because she was too pretty, and was an abomination to the Lord because she was so pretty, and the Lord had told him to do it. And then he said the Lord had told him to remove Nancy Allen because she lived with Old Bender and his wife, and it wasn't right. He was awful crazy; for if ever there was a harmless old couple and a harmless old woman, it was the Benders and Nancy Allen. And why did he want to kill her for livin' with the Benders? She had to live sommers, and didn't have any home of her own.