The Stingaree

Max Brand

• Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781774644843
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Westerns
• Index: Literature

When Alabama Joe drifted into Fort Anxious, he seemed to be a shiftless, easygoing tramp. But he didn't fool Stanley Parker. He'd gunned down the notorious Bob Dillman. He'd known that one day Dillman's outlaw partner would appear to avenge death. The Stingaree was fast on the draw and deadly as a snake. Parker knew he'd have to draw first, or die! Here are the perils of hired guns and wilderness traps and a bitter conflict with his own code of honor.

CHAPTER ONE

In the good old sententious style, there is the saying: “He is two men who has two languages.” Jimmy Green had three. He drove dogs in French-Canadian; he hunted in Cree; but he fought in English. He had other talents. He was only five feet and five and a half inches tall, but he could march on snowshoes with any man; he could shoot off the head of a red squirrel as it peeked among the upper branches of a great pine tree; he could make his own moccasins; he could skin a caribou, cure a beaver pelt, and trap a fox; and it was even said of him by the Crees—though this was perhaps more compliment than truth: “He can hunt moose!” Also, he could run like an Indian, use a knife like a Canuck, and hit like a white man with a straight-driving fist.

He was thirteen years old, and at that age, the Canadians forgave him for being an American. His parents, when Jimmy Green was two, had barely finished building a cabin on the side of Mount Crozier when an avalanche jumped down its side and pushed mother and father Green, their house, their household goods, their three dogs, their mule, and their string of traps into Lake Anxious. When the rescuers climbed up the hillside, they found two lives rubbed out, and the two-year-old sitting in the snow and laughing at the world.

He had kept on laughing ever since, and he had a good many reasons. The people of Fort Anxious adopted him. Not the Canadians alone, but the half-breeds, the random American traders with their red noses and long drawls, all the visitors, and even the Indians themselves. He was a part of the town and he belonged to it as a beaver belongs to its family.

When his toes were frostbitten and he hungered for sweet pemmican, he condescended to go to the house of the good old priest, Father Pierre, and there he was taught reading and writing and pushed gently along the road of learning; but his usual interests lay in other quarters. He used to be seen as a mere infant seated on the floor of a Cree lodge with his teeth fastened in a chunk of moose meat from which he patiently sawed off a bite with a knife a foot long. Then he learned to climb the stages and steal meat from them. There was not a man in the village who had not reached for him with a heavy boot.

Since the whole town was his mother, every one had to feed and clothe and amuse and cherish Jimmy Green. Since the entire fort was his father, every man who wanted to could discipline Jimmy; it was only necessary to catch him first, which was not much more difficult than to lay hands on something which possessed the mingled virtues and vices of a fisher, a greyhound, and a fox. When caught, he was all teeth and claws, but nevertheless, he received some hearty thrashings. He used to bawl out and whoop and scream in his misery in order to shorten these punishments, until one day—he was being flogged for stealing the whole of a great venison pie!—a Cree passed by and seeing what was happening, quickly lowered his head and strode away. After that, Jimmy Green never cried again.

He was all tooth and claw, hard muscle, and sharp wits. He had followed the wise trail of the grizzly and pursued the devious way of Reynard, the fox. He had seen otters fish and squirrels climb. He had watched the snowshoe rabbit run and the eagle soar. Indian boys had taught him how to steal; Indian braves had taught him how to hunt and how to endure the pinch of hunger and weariness. Wrestling, fighting, wrangling, bargaining, shooting, and truth-telling on important occasions, he knew from the whites. Therefore, his education was quite complete. He would have been at home in a New York slum, in a sailing ship’s forecastle, a Texas desert, or on a cake of ice. In a word, he was blamed and loved for every stroke of mischief in Fort Anxious.

He was not poor but had accumulated a treasure upon which he would not have known how to put a price. He had an old rifle which had been given him by a retiring trader at the fort; he had a knife which had been solemnly willed to him by François le Beau on his deathbed. He kept a leather sling, and a rubber-strung slingshot. He had twenty-seven marbles, one clouded agate, and one clear. He owned, furthermore, a broken awl, a one-legged pocketknife, a silver spoon with the brass showing through only in spots, half of a rawhide lariat, a working collar for a dog, a moosehide whip, a twist of wood that looked like a revolver, and a leaden horse with a leaden rider which only lacked a head to be perfect.

He loved an old man, a young man, and a girl.

The old man was Father Pierre, of course; the young man was Awaskees, the strong Cree who sometimes allowed him to go along on the moose hunt. But the secret love, the consuming desire, the profound emotion of his life, was Miss Paula Carson. She was twenty years old, as brown as a beaver, as rosy as a crushed berry, as delightful as a June day, and her smile and her pleasant laughter so dwelled in the mind of our hero that sometimes after he had gone to bed he lay with pain and yearning puckering his brow and could not sleep for five minutes, or even ten.

In all the world there was only one thing which Jimmy Green really hated, and that was the long, clear mirror which hung over the fireplace in the best room of the priest’s house, for in time he saw that his nose was short—stumpy, in fact!—and that it was more speckled than a trout. He could not help seeing, also, that his eyes were not set off by the penciling of brows; that lashes there appeared to be none, and that his bright eyes were of no particular color, but gray, green, washed-out blue, or pale amber, according as the light struck them. When he saw this face of his, Miss Paula Carson seemed farther removed from him. But he scorned doubt! And every time when he returned from the priest’s house to wherever he was making his home, he carefully looked through his list of treasures and told himself that he was a man.

On this morning he rose to work. His job was the taming of a huge hundred-and-sixty-pound beast which was nine tenths wolf and the other tenth dynamite, and gentling this monster so that it would stand in harness and not try to take off the leg of every creature that passed by. It was called a Mackenzie husky, but the boy was sure that it was misnamed, for it had the look, the talents, and the tameless ferocity of a timber wolf.

These qualities in it did not overawe the boy. He was merely annoyed by them, but was determined to win the battle, for he had been promised by Kite Larkin ten cents and an old pair of fur mittens from which only the thumbs and the finger tips had been worn away.

On his way down from the attic, he prepared himself for the battle by practicing his most formidable scowl. He had his moosehide whip in his hand, the butt of it loaded with leaden shot, the thong coiled around his arm. When he went out to see the dog, it greeted him by leaping to the end of its chain, a section of which it had been polishing with patient chewing, for hours on hours. Jimmy Green was well inside of its leaping distance, but he measured the target perfectly and crashed the heavy butt of the whip with all his might squarely between the eyes of Mishe Mukwa. That is Ojibway for “grizzly bear,” and the dog got his name from the bear look of his short, furry ears, and a misguiding expression of mingled wisdom and humor which sat in his face. Jim had shortened this name to Mishie, and the name stuck.

That club stroke dropped Mishe Mukwa senseless to the ground, after which the boy hitched a muzzle to the great head, unhooked the chain from the big iron staple to which it was anchored, and when Mishie wakened with a snarl, he herded the big brute before him to the street. Mishe Mukwa wanted to turn and fight. He champed until foam flew from his curling lips. His eyes turned red. His mane lifted. To the boy, he looked as big as his namesake. But still Jimmy enjoyed this daily walk, for on every hand eyes glanced at him and heads nodded, as much as to say: “The kid is growing up!”

He steered Mishie into the lodge of the first Cree family that neighbored the street. Grandmother, mother, two or three tough-bodied youngsters, and a crawling infant were in the tepee. But the boy went in with the huge dog and stood by the meat pot which hung over the central fire. From this he helped himself plentifully. The whole Cree family began to scream at him. The grandmother rescued the baby from the floor, the wolf dog kicked over a back rest and began to howl.

“I don’t hear you,” said the boy patiently.

That was almost true, because the dog was making enough noise to drown even war whoops. So Jimmy Green remained in that lodge until he had eaten his fill, and then he departed, unmolested.

He walked on, fingering the weight of the loaded whip-end, and seeing before him Sam Ward in company with a sturdy half-breed boy, he loftily prepared to receive their admiration of the size of Mishie and his own dauntless courage in attempting to subdue such a brute. But they came on with heads close together, unseeing, as it appeared. They did not even hear his salutation, but as they went by the half-breed was saying with unnecessary loudness:

“What’s a pug nose good for?”

“Aw,” said Sam, “it’s handy to hang a hat on!”

CHAPTER TWO

The dignity of Jimmy Green was not to be lightly taken.

What he heard from the pair of them made his head swim. It was as though his innumerable battles with sticks, stones, and fists had been no more than the triumphs of dreams. It was as though some other lad in Fort Anxious were able to run faster, shoot straighter, hit harder.

He turned, infuriated as he realized that all these things were true about himself alone. He shouted in a ringing voice:

“Hey, Sammy! Hey, Sam!”

But Sam and the half-breed walked on, their heads close together, still enchanted, as it were, by the same topic.

“What is a pug nose good for?”

Jimmy Green, breathing very hard, stared after them for some time. He could not understand it. Was not this his town? According to his royal pleasure the lives of boys became acceptable or noxious. Even the sons of the richest men at the fort hastened at the call of Jimmy Green.

Slowly, therefore, he wondered what madness could have possessed Sam Ward, otherwise not an unworthy boy. And he turned upon his bare foot again, grimly promising to himself the luxury and the delight of knocking holes through Sammy.

Ahead, he heard an outbreak of violent voices, turning a corner. They were on his side of the street. Young Jimmy turned instantly to the farther side. He kicked the ribs of the wolf dog and whanged him two or three times with the loaded butt of the whip just to assure the brute that he, Jimmy Green, was on hand and was master.

The cause which made the dog skulk so far away now came around the corner. Jimmy saw in the lead four trappers, the sweeping manes and tails of their horses braided with stained shells, with feathers, and with glittering trinkets; and their clothes, especially the soft deerskin trousers, covered with decorations. They wore long hair that swept about their shoulders. Their hats were off and hanging on the sides of their saddles. Their horses were not large, but finely formed, with eyes that shone with high spirits and mischief—true mustangs. Every movement they made flashed with their golden and silver ornaments.

The boy could have stood and enjoyed the sight of them, another day. He could even have run along beside them and laughed and joked with them. But now it was very different, for he had with him a thing which every eye in that train could appraise and rightly value—such a dog as never had leaned against a collar in any freight train that ever hauled over the whiter snows into Fort Anxious. So he kept the dog well to one side on short chain as the cavalcade went by.

They saw him at once. Or rather, they saw the dog, and they came with a whoop. They could take now, and pay next winter. That was their usual system! They came yelling. They raced for a prize, and the first one to touch the dog would be its owner. That agreement was understood as they jammed the spurs into their horses.

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