That Sharp Yankee by Raymond S Read online

  “Hit were you that were so ’fraid yo’

  it be known that he was after the boat. He dassen’t to hit!” Gurdle swore. “Yo’s a

  recognized it from the description of one of coward!”

  the men, and from the canvas hood launch-

  “An’ all I got to do is tell what I

  cover. At Reelfoot, he was only a day behind know—” the other hinted.

  them. When he passed under the shadow of There was a moment’s silence. Polray

  Fort Pillow he saw the boats in the morning drew up at the stern of his cabin-boat, stepped sunshine a mile ahead, floating down.

  aboard the deck, revolver in hand. He tiptoed He stopped his motor, and drifted with

  silently through the kitchen into the cabin. As the current, while he thought and planned. The he did so, he heard Gurdle say:

  pirates had figured that he was dead, and were

  “I kin kill yo’ same’s I killed othehs!”

  taking no precautions. They knew that he had

  “Yo’—”

  fallen overboard, but they had not counted on The two clashed, and with the

  the strength which accompanies clean living, smacking of fist blows, Polray heard a sharp,

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  double cracking stroke. He saw Gurdle crawled through barbed wire fences, and his standing over his victim, striking mad blows eyes bulging out of a gray, shrunken face.

  with a yellow slungshot.

  His gait was a jog-trot as he hitched

  “Stop! Stop it!” Polray gasped, horror-

  along, hardly three inches to a tired step.

  stricken, stepping into the doorway.

  Polray could hear him breathing, and he

  Gurdle looked up and staggered back.

  remembered that the victim of the Old Man of

  “Gawd! Gawd!” he choked. “Don’ the Sea must have breathed just like that.

  touch me, Mr. Ha’nt! Don’—don’ touch me, While not forgetting his own part in the affair, Mr. Ghostes—I—”

  Polray still pitied the poor devil of a pirate.

  The pirate turned, but Polray raised his But Gurdle, stumbling along hitch by hitch, hand to point at the other man.

  turned his gaze to where Polray stood, silent,

  “Take him with you!” Polray ordered.

  bright-eyed, and with an unconscious smile of

  “Yassuh!” the fellow whimpered, recognition on his lips—as though he would

  “Yas-suh!”

  greet the fellow and reassure him by good Without another word he seized his pal

  nature.

  by the collar and threw him over the rail, and For a moment Gurdle stopped and

  then sprang after. The two struck the cold started. To his countenance mortal fear of the water together. Gurdle let go, then, and started ghost of the man who had been his victim up to swim ashore.

  the Ohio added a bluer gray.

  “Come back!” Polray shouted, and

  “I’m takin’ ’im in!” Gurdle screamed,

  with his face twisting and frightened almost to like a lost soul. “I’m mos’ theh! Oh, le’ me death, the river rat returned to tow his pal go! Le’ me go!”

  toward shore, struggling with the rolling, And gathering what strength he had

  boiling current.

  left after that night of terror, toil, and despair,

  “Take him all the way!” Polray he started with a slow-gathering speed, like a demanded.

  tired horse lumbering under the lash in a The river rat landed on the bar at muddy road. Faster and faster he ran, while Squab Island. Polray saw him shoulder the the burden slumped upon his shoulders.

  limp burden and stagger up into the willows.

  He bounded along, swiftly, like a deer

  “Well, I suppose that taught the wretch

  wounded through the heart, seeming to gather a lesson!” the shanty-boater mused. “And I’ve strength. Behind him whooped the little mob, had one, too. What a mess to clean up!”

  trying to keep pace with the sensation.

  Polray found nothing on the dirty boat

  Two blocks further on, Gurdle crossed

  which he regarded as fit to eat, so he ran on Main Street diagonally and turned down Ferry down to Mendova eddy, where he landed on Street. Polray walked that way. As he did so, the following morning and went up Eddy two men spread behind him and came abreast.

  Street on his way to add to his meager

  “Howdy?” one greeted. “Off the

  supplies.

  riveh?”

  As he turned into Main Street, he saw

  “Yes.”

  a crowd of people coming. In the lead by

  “Yankee, I expect?”

  twenty yards was Gurdle, still packing the

  “Yes—down-easter.”

  grisly burden on his shoulder like a bag. He

  “Know that riveh rat?”

  was staggering and crying along, his clothes

  “Up the riveh—I’d seen them.”

  torn to rags, his face scratched where he had

  “That feller knowed you, all right.

  That Sharp Yankee

  7

  What’s your name?”

  The two detectives and Polray walked

  “Polray.”

  down the grade, followed doubtfully by the

  “How come hit he knows you?”

  mob.

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “Well, skipper?” a detective greeted

  Polray demanded.

  the man.

  “Don’t you git excited, Polray. We’re

  “I seen ’em comin’,” the morgue

  bulls, understand?”

  keeper shook his head. “I thought the live man

  “Well, what do you want of me?”

  was the deadest, ’cordin’ to hisn’s face.

  “Witness—that ’ll do to hold you!”

  Lawse! I bet Wagon ’11 be mad!”

  Polray glanced down Skiff Street “Why?”

  toward the river as they crossed on their way

  “He gets two dollars fer bringing in

  to Ferry Street, where the mob was hesitating anybody that’s daid. Hyar’s two—that’s fo’r at the head of the lane.

  dollars. An’ they don’ need Wagon!”

  “I reckon I’ll make a good witness, for

  “Po’r Wagon!” one of the detectives

  a fact,” Polray admitted.

  murmured, sympathetically.

  “Yeh? How come hit?”

  “I’ll bring the blanket out, an’ coveh

  “Gurdle batted me over the head—see

  ’em,” skipper said. “Hit ain’t legal to touch that lump?—and I fell overboard. He thought I

  ’em tell the coroner’s had his little look.

  was dead. He took my shanty-boat, but I Friend of the deceased, suh?”

  followed him and his pal down. I happened Polray

  started.

  along, just when Gurdle killed that other

  “Not so’s yo’d notice hit, skipper,” one fellow with his slungshot. Gurdle ’lowed I of the detectives chuckled. “He’s got a lump was dead, and I told him to take the—the body big’s a coconut behind his ear where them with him. I see he’s done it!”

  pirates swatted ’im. He’s kind of a witness

  “When was that?”

  into the case.”

  “Yesterday evening, toward sunset—

  “Sho!” the skipper of the morgue

  up by Squab Island.”

  remarked regretfully, “I ’lowed, likely, they’d

  “He’s toted that thing down here—

  get to be buried honorable, ’stid of goin’ on twenty-five miles down the levee!” one of the the table!”

  detectives exclaimed. “Gawd—what a pack to Polray

 
; looked

  along the street and

  carry all night!”

  across the Mississippi River. He no longer had

  “He’s headed for the morgue,” the any bitterness in his heart; he had entirely other plain-clothes man observed.

  forgotten his hurt, and he remembered only

  “He neveh got there!” the other replied

  that he had survived a needed lesson.

  as they turned at the head of the street, where

  “I couldn’t let a good teacher—” he

  the mob had halted.

  murmured half aloud.

  Half way down the block, in front of

  “One of them a school teacher?” a

  the dirty, dingy, little building for the detective asked, quickly. “Lawse! Old unclaimed dead was a kind of bundle on the Mississipp’ takes ’em a long ways down,

  sidewalk, motionless. The morgue keeper sometimes! One used to be yo’ teacher, walked down the steps, packing a smoke in his Polray?”

  goose-neck pipe. He stooped over the figures,

  “I was just thinking,” Polray replied,

  to draw a match across his hip, as he studied

  “perhaps I owe them something!”

  the situation, which was unique even in his Within an hour the coroner had

  long experience.

  disposed of the case, lumping autopsy,

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  inquest, and decision all in one. Polray’s story the way for him to pay the burial expenses of was all there was to it. He was frank about it, his fellow river men, wretches though they and no one accused him for his involuntary were, and he paid without protest, remarking: play of ghost.

  “A man sure owes his teachers

  Still, they couldn’t make it seem out of something!”