That Sharp Yankee by Raymond S Read online

  All-Story Weekly, November 2, 1918

  ARRY POLRAY’S shanty-boat was

  He ran down the bank, along his

  tied in an eddy where a northwest wind

  gangplank onto the bow deck. His hand had L sweeping diagonally up the Ohio River reached to open the door by the latch, when he above Cairo could not hit it. The wind was heard a hail from the top of the bank. He raw and cold, so that when Polray went out to turned to look.

  look at his bow lines, he shivered from head to A little grizzly man, with long arms—

  foot.

  so long that a foot of wrist and forearm

  “It’s an awful day to be out!” he shook

  showed between hands and sleeves—was

  his head. “A man that’s got a good little standing on the brink, looking down. The shanty-boat sure is plumb comfortable! Time stranger had his face covered with a short, was when I was out in the bleak, turning shaggy beard; his eyes were pale, misty blue; round and round, so’s there’d be one side that he wore only a thin shirt, a pair of old blue wa’n’t quite so cold as the otheh!”

  overalls, and unmatched shoes.

  Years of saving, years of picking and

  “Could you let a feller wahm by yo’

  grubbing down the river had given him his fiah?” the little wretch whined. “I’m froze good little boat, with a good ax for wood and a up—an’ I yain’t no place to go!”

  good stove to burn either wood or coal—coal Polray hesitated. He scrutinized the

  from wrecked tow-barges. He paused in the man keenly. He did not like the looks of the gale to look with satisfaction at the blue film muddy complexion, the long hands, the flat of smoke curling out of his heater-stove pipe.

  countenance, the dull, animal stare— but as he

  “I’m plumb comfy,” he shook his looked he saw the human frame swept by a head, gratefully. “Seems like a man who’s shiver that it was hard to witness. The shiver faithful don’t get no worst off, but jes’ better was real, and the face pinched up grayishly in

  ’n’ better all the time. I slept up the bank and the cold.

  skiffed hit, many a year. Now I got a shanty-

  “Come aboard!” Polray invited. “I’d

  boat, an’ money to see me clear to hate to leave a dog out in this wind!”

  N’Orleans—sho!”

  The man dashed down the bank,

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  leaped nimbly to the deck and entered the

  “We’ll have something, d’rectly,”

  cabin. There he extended his hands, his arms, Polray said, turning to his kitchen.

  his very body over the hot stove, and there he He brought out of the grub box a

  reveled in the luxury of the warmth.

  catfish, all cleaned and skinned. He sliced off

  “Lawse! Lawse!” he chattered. “I been

  several steaks. He mixed a batch of biscuit tramplin’ down these yere bottoms, an’ like to dough. He set the table and put on it real froze to death. I ’low yo’-all’s trippin’?”

  butter, sorghum molasses, knives, forks, and

  “Yes—tripping

  down.”

  spoons. He put out a pot of coffee, which soon

  “Cl’ar down to N’Orleans?”

  was simmering, while the blue fish smoke

  “Likely

  so.”

  made the little man by the stove sniff and grin.

  “A Yankee, I bet!”

  Rapidly, with no waste motions, Polray

  “Yes, from New York. I was born prepared the meal.

  there—a long time ago.”

  They sat down, at last, to an ample

  “Some of my mother’s fambly was dinner, with condensed milk and sugar for the Yankees. Down East, suh—Utiky. Her name

  coffee. Curdle ate his full share, but he did not were Polray.”

  wolf the things to eat. It seemed to Polray as

  “Sho, that’s my name!”

  though he showed remarkable restraint. When

  “Yo’ mean that, suh? Yo’ name he urged the little man to eat more, the guest Polray?” the wretch asked, widening his eyes, replied:

  as if greatly surprised.

  “I don’ want to rob yo’, suh!”

  “Yes, Polray. I never knew there was

  Polray declared his indignation. After

  another one in the country. Just my father dinner, Polray brought out two pipes and a big come from France—”

  box full of tobacco, and they sat down by the

  “Likely hit weren’t the same fambly,”

  fire to smoke. They talked along, and toward the other shook his head. “My name’s Curdle, dark, Curdle looked out the window. The river Hess Curdle. I los’ my daddy an’ mammy

  was running yellow, and waves with dirty when the Mosden blowed up in Chickasaw

  white caps were breaking up-stream. Curdle Reach. A shanty-boater picked me up. I been shivered.

  on the riveh eveh sinst.”

  “I ’low I betteh be movin’ on,” he said.

  “A good place to be,” Polray “I don’t rightly know where’bouts I will lie in suggested.

  to-night, suh. A nice holler tree’s good, er

  “If yo’ got a shanty-boat an’ ’nough to

  under the floor of an old house.”

  eat,” the other added. “I been hongry. I ain’t Polray looked out the window. He saw

  now, not much. I had a fine big supper last a little motor-boat launch driving down in the night. Yassuh! Potatoes an’ salt, an’ a piece of edge of the current. Over the bow was a

  bacon. Yassuh! A fine supper!”

  canvas hood, and a sullen man crouched at the He smacked his lips, adding afterward:

  wheel in the cockpit. Curdle rose to his feet.

  “Why, I et ’nough to last two, three

  “I betteh be goin’,” he said. “Who yo’

  days!”

  reckon that feller is, theh?”

  “You haven’t had anything to eat since

  “I don’ know,” Polray shook his head,

  last night?” Polray asked, staring, and for the leaning to look more keenly, “I never ’ve se—

  minute forgetting some of his own ”

  experiences.

  The little man had moved around a bit,

  “Hit’s

  seo!”

  leaning to look. He glared at Polray’s head,

  That Sharp Yankee

  3

  and then deftly lifted out of his hip pocket a Betteh drap him ovehbo’d now, Jim?”

  yellow slungshot. Just behind the ear, he

  “No hurry. Mus’ of rapped him

  landed on the skull of the man who had taken tol’able hard!”

  him in, fed him, and would shortly have

  “I neveh take no chances,” Gurdle

  invited him to sleep in a hammock swung

  grinned.

  across the cabin.

  “Ner I,” the other shook his head.

  Polray’s light went out. His word was

  “Reckon I’ll jes’ sip some coffee.”

  cut in two by the foul blow. He dropped to his They each took a cup of coffee. As

  hands and knees, crying and choking. He fell they sipped it, they looked with fishy eyes at with a sigh on his side. But ere he lost that last their victim. Colder blooded men there never glimmer of consciousness, he realized what were than river pirates, and these two were the had happened, struggled against it and then coldest of their crew.

  gave over.

  They went out on the bow deck to look
r />   The little man stepped lightly to the

  at the bank and stream. The clouds were

  bow deck, and waved his hand to the gasoline rolling overhead, and stars were shining boat which was driving by. Instantly, the frostily out of the sky in the straits between launch turned into the eddy. On it shone a bar the clouds. Their boats were in midstream, of sunlight, the last straight rays of the hour gliding with the current. They spoke in voices before dark.

  so low that a hissing whisper would seem like The launch swung in beside the cabin

  a shout.

  boat, and the steersman made fast to it with

  “Where ’ll we drap him oveh?” Gurdle

  ropes, while Curdle ran up the bank and cast asked, anxiously.

  off the mooring lines. In the twilight, they

  “No hurry,” Jim replied, impatiently.

  towed the boat out into the stream and

  “He mout come to.”

  pounded into the wind, bound downriver. The

  “Agin, he moutn’t. Hit’d take ’im a

  wind was falling at the end of the day, as week jes’ to sit up!” Jim jeered. “What ails commonly happens. By dark the gale had yo’?”

  blown itself out.

  “Nuthin’,” Gurdle replied, “I don’ cyar

  Polray lay where he had fallen. The

  no more’n yo’ do.”

  two men, river pirates, sat by the stove, They pulled the curtains down and

  holding their hands over the fire, to warm lighted one of the big, broad-based lamps. By them.

  its light they searched the prostrate man,

  “Nice little boat,” Gurdle nodded. methodically, from pocket to pocket. They

  “Don’t no wind come through the sides—

  found his money belt, and extracted, with Gawd! I like to froze, waitin’ to be took on satisfaction, one hundred and fifty dollars. His board! The scoundrel wa’n’t in no hurry to pocketbook contained a five-dollar bill and take me.”

  some change. On his finger was a plain gold

  “He got his, all right,” the other ring, which they took off.

  growled. “River man?”

  The loot was satisfactory. Having so

  “Yeh—Yankee,” the other cackled. “I

  much, they began to talk of hurrying to

  don’t see what they call them Yankees sharp Memphis, or Helena, or Arkansas City. They for, d’you?”

  told one another what that much money would

  “No—they fall fer anything. ’Member

  purchase. Best of all, to their minds, was the that feller in mouth of White River?”

  whisky they would take on board.

  “Had two hundred onto him—sho!

  Casually, while arguing the subject of

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  what would be the most fun, Jim dragged the bank. He climbed to the river bottom, and prostrate figure out the front door onto, the surged across the level, hunting for a hole to deck. He glanced around, and whispered:

  crawl into, out of the cold. He found a straw

  “Too near the bank yere!”

  stack, and bored into it. There he warmed his He threw a piece of canvas over the

  own den. There he cleared his mind.

  body, remarking that if a steamboat happened He felt for his money belt; it was gone.

  along and threw the search-light on them, he He had expected that. He felt for his

  didn’t want any one to see anything. There waistcoat, and found it. He had hoped for that.

  was a freezing tang in the air. He entered and He ran his fingers over the back and over the closed the door.

  wet lining. He could feel lines of sewed places Then they debated their good fortune,

  and lumps between them.

  and what was ahead of them. Fortune had

  “They got some of it,” he muttered.

  favored them; good luck was coming their

  “They didn’t get it all! A man learns not to way; they could see good times ahead; the cup carry all he’s got into one place! Them danged of pleasure was full; of course, some people scoundrels! Likely I won’t neveh see them might not think as they did, but the world agin—but if I do! They’s down b’low, and if I owed them a living.

  do!”

  Suddenly, a shiver and a tremor went

  A painful day arrived. He stumbled on

  through the boat. The two froze where they down the river bank. He found a little shanty-sat, askant. They heard a click and felt a throb.

  boat town. He knew some of the river people

  “He’s wrigglin’!” Gurdle exclaimed. there. They took him in, and a woman shaved

  “He’s comin’ to!”

  and dressed the lump-wound on his head.

  Like a shadow, Gurdle leaped toward

  “Who done hit?” she asked.

  the door, but before he could reach it, the bow He told her all that had happened.

  of the boat lifted, and they heard a sharp

  “An’ when yo’d took ’em in, they

  splash. Jim blew out the light, and they rushed robbed yo’! I bet that feller in the launch was onto the platform. The bank was right at hand, Gurdie’s pal, yassuh.”

  as they flanked a bend. Within a yard was the

  “Like ‘s not. He looked sharp. I seen

  edge of the eddy and the eddy was only a few

  ’m—to’d my boat.”

  yards wide.

  “If yo’ had a launch, likely yo’ could

  “I don’t see ’im!” Gurdle exclaimed.

  get them fellers!” she suggested.

  “He’s drawed down in the sucks,” Jim

  “Likely!” he admitted. “But they’ll

  declared. “Save us botherin’ to drap him hide in their holes.”

  oveh!”

  “Er trip, night an’ day, for a week!”

  “That’s right,” Gurdle grinned.

  she said. “Yo’ cayn’t get out with that head, With the shanty-boat oars, they rowed

  not in days!”

  the boats out into the stream in the channel.

  “I’ll thank you kindly, and pay my

  Little by little they drifted into mid-current board,” he said. “I’m peaceable—but—”

  and went on their way.

  “I wouldn’t blame yo’, not if yo’ shot

  Polray, dazed and blinded, his head aflame, them fellers down in cold blood!” she

  rejoiced in the sting of the cold water. It exclaimed, angrily. “They should be, like dashed his eyes open, and it cleared his mind.

  dogs!”

  He struggled with the river, gaining strength.

  A week later, Polray ran out of the

  He washed into the eddy, and crawled up the eddy in a twenty-two foot gasoline launch,

  That Sharp Yankee

  5

  with a cabin clear back to the stern. It was a the endurance which is the reward of taking wide boat, and not high in the wind. He care of, oneself. He knew that they believed steered down-stream, the little motor running he was dead. The knowledge made him smile.

  freely.

  All day long he floated, sometimes two

  “He’s got a good rifle,” the shanty-

  miles astern; sometimes hardy a mile; he saw boaters repeated among themselves, “and a other cabin-boats drifting down. He would good six-shooter. Them fellers wants to keep attract little attention in the migration flight of clear an’ shet of him!”

  shanty-boaters, before the winter which was at Up to this time Polray had made no

  hand.

  threats; in his own mind he had failed to Toward night, he came to within a few

  register any vows or harbor thoughts of hundred feet of the shanty-boat. Gurdle was vengeance. He regarded the matter of the on the bow, handling the sweeps. He was piracy as “trifling,” compared to his own smoking a pipe—Polray’s o
wn pipe, the peace of mind. If he worried, his comfort was pursuer thought. In the sunset, Gurdle was gone, and he lived on the river for comfort.

  silhouetted against the western sky, a thin, Yet he was ready for trouble, now. Deep in his shrunken little figure, huddling over the oars.

  soul was an indignation against the abuse of The other man stepped out on the bow

  his good nature, kindliness, hospitality.

  deck. Apparently for no reason, he stumbled

  “They need killing!” he said to as he stood there, lurching against Gurdle, himself. “I never killed anybody, and I never who turned on him savagely. There was

  wanted to kill anybody. But they need feeling between them, that was plain. The killing!”

  fellow whom Polray had seen on the launch The ache and pain in his head were

  was drinking, but Gurdle was sober.

  constant reminders of the foul blow. Yet the The two began to quarrel; their voices

  suffering from the pain was less than the other were lifted in vituperation; they faced each suffering, the feeling that he had been other, like spitting cats. Polray, seeing them imposed upon. He watched ahead, now, and thus oblivious to their surroundings, glided he searched the river banks as he went down, down close to the stern.

  looking for his cabin-boat.

  “If they hang me they’ll burn you

  In New Madrid shanty-boat eddy, he

  alive!” Polray heard one say. “Who was it learned that his boat had dropped by there always done the hittin’ on the haid?”

  several days before. He knew better than to let