Vengeance Trail

Max Brand

Description

Young Johnnie Tanner didn't know how to shoot, camp out, or even ride a mule, but more than anything else he wanted to go to the Wild West... Then he got his chance. Along with Hank Raney, a grizzled, sharp-shooting cowboy who taught him Western ways, Johnnie hit the trail. Little did he know that he would soon find himself stalking a magnificent white buffalo worshipped by the Indians as a sacred beast, battling savage Pawnees who lusted for the white man's blood, and above all, hunting down a vicious thief called Pawnee Harry who had stolen a fabulous pearl from Johnnie and then escaped into the wild, untamable mountains of the American West!

Sujets

• Fiction
• Westerns

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 08 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774643648
• Langue: English

Extrait

Vengeance Trail
by Max Brand

First published in 1941
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Vengeance Trail


by

MAX BRAND

1 • A BOY’S DREAM
John had reached the princely age. He was fourteen.Ordinarily, at this age, a boy has most of the powers of aman and none of the responsibilities. But John Tannerhad had the responsibilities for several years. Since hewas eight, in fact, he had chopped kindling, washed anddried dishes, helped with the laundry on Mondays,scrubbed floors and windows. His aunt kept body andsoul together by running a boarding house and, if it hadnot been for the help which she received from youngJohn, she would have had to employ an experiencedservant.
She used to make a point of telling him that he amplyearned his board and lodging and his schooling. Hetook a stern pride in this knowledge, and the work madehim a little grimmer about the mouth and a little steadierin the eyes than are most boys of that age. Only on Sundayafternoons and for a few hours on holidays could heget out into the back yard and play Indian.
That was the passion of his heart. For in those daysstories of encounters with the plains Indians were comingin from the West. Buffalo robes and beaver poured infrom the distant wilderness of the green, treeless sea. Andonce, parading through the streets of New York to advertisea show in which they appeared, he had seen fourplains Indians, garbed and painted as for war.
An indecent exhibition, Aunt Maggie had called it. Butit gave to the imagination of the boy the wings whichwere sufficient to carry him into the land of his fondestdreams, not only when he lay awake staring at the darknessof the night, but also during every still moment ofthe day. If he paused in his dish-washing, if he leanedfor a moment on the handle of the spade with whichhe dug up the soil of the back yard to make the truckgarden, in that instant there streamed inward upon hissoul a picture of the stretching plains, the dark and thunderingbuffalo herds and the wild red riders which racedupon the stampeding flanks of the bison.
He thought of that far country not with an active hope,but as a child might dream his way into the fairyland ofthe “Arabian Nights.” Nevertheless, it was in his brainand in his blood.
The back yard of the house was deep. It stretchedstraight through the block, occupying the vacant lot onthe next street. That would be built upon, one day, butnow it was a tangle of shrubbery and young trees, andit made for John Tanner a very good imitation wildernessin which he pursued his games. A high board fence gavehim reasonable security against observation on any side,except for the upper windows of the neighboring houses,and these were mostly shuttered during the greater partof his play-day.
His outfit was very simple. It consisted of a very oldpair of overalls, which he himself had cut tight, so thathis leg was fitted as with deerskin leggings, a pair ofheavy socks with a leather sole sewed on, in lieu of moccasins,and a headdress made of some good-sized chickenfeathers, stained yellow, red and purple, with ink. Hehad for weapons a bow and a number of home-fashionedarrows, constructed with infinite patience, a worn-out, dullhatchet for a tomahawk, a hickory joint and branch asthe knobby war club and, above all, a discarded butcherknife, half of the blade of which had been broken away.
What remained, he had turned to a point on the grindstoneand made it as keen as a razor. Since it was thebest sort of Sheffield steel, it was a real weapon, and theheart of John Tanner used to leap when he so much asthought about it.
He spent a great part of his time with the knife, practicingthrows, and growing in the course of years soexpert that at twenty feet he could sink it almost withoutfail into a sapling not a span broad.
Of course, he delighted in his skill. He dared to tellhimself that in accomplishing this feat, he proved himselfto be a real plainsman or a mountain man.
As has been said, there was not a great deal of timefor these sports, but he did trailing, imaginary and otherwise,in that vacant lot. He aimed his wooden rifle manya time and hurled his keen knife a thousand thousandtimes into the heart of brutal enemies. He took imaginaryscalps, backed imaginary wild stallions, and conquered ina hundred wars.
Furthermore, and perhaps best of all, sometimes hewould rest a moment during his play and then, perhaps,small sights and sounds of true wild life would come tohim, and always out of the air. There would be the whirof wings and the whistle of birds, with the full song ofthe springtime. He used to go out and stalk the singer withsuch pains and secrecy, it might have been thought thathe was striving to come at not only the singer but thejoyousness of the song itself.
So for six years he had lived with Aunt Maggie. Thenhis father came home and all was changed.
He had not heard very much about his father. He onlyknew that his mother had died shortly after his birth andthat when his father was mentioned a hard, bitter lookappeared upon Aunt Maggie’s face.
Then home came Gilbert Tanner from the East, wherehe had been traveler, adventurer, trader, during those tenyears. He had sent home money now and again, butnever very much, so that his appearance amazed bothAunt Maggie and the boy.
In looks he resembled his son. He was of middle height,strongly and yet actively made, with a good, gray-greeneye and tawny hair. But he had been burned a sort ofsallow brown in the Orient. And the marks of sufferingwere in his face.
It was not in his person, however, that he astonishedthe two at home. It was in his wealth!
He was dressed, in the first place, quietly, but like agentleman of means. He carried a stick, and the mannerin which he used it turned the cane almost into a scepter.His neck scarf, which fitted well up under his chin, seemedto add to the haughtiness of his manner.
He had six large trunks! They filled the whole attic ofthe boarding house. They crammed it from end to end,together with certain carryalls and numbers of bagswhich were also parts of his luggage.
He came in the evening. And they sat up till midnight.
“Maggie,” he said to John’s aunt, “you’ll send yourboarders away as soon as possible. Pay them back everythingthey’ve advanced for this month, and get them out.Then we’ll furbish up the old house a bit. The hull seemsto be sound, but the cabins ought to be rebuilt, I’d say,and the top-hamper should be replaced, too.”
“Gilbert,” said she, sitting up with her work-reddenedhands gripped hard together in her lap, “will you tell mewhat it means? Are you rich, Gilbert?”
He looked thoughtfully at her, with the eye of onewho computes.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m rich. I think I can say that, asmoney goes in the world. There’s to be no more work foryou, my dear. You’ve done your share of it, both on yourown account and for my boy.”
“He’s been no care. He’s been a joy and a profit tome,” said Aunt Maggie, with tears in her eyes.
Gilbert raised his hand and overawed her to silence.“I want you to try to forget these years,” said he. “I’mgoing to try to give you happiness that will enable youto forget them. For my part, I shall always remember.”
He turned to his son.
“You’ll learn to forgive me, John,” said he.
John Tanner turned crimson. It had never occurred tohim that he had a right to make demands upon his father.He never would have dreamed of accusing him ofanything whatever. So now he could only blush with violenceand look miserably down to the floor.
But, the very next day, he had the first glimpse ofheaven. He was taken downtown, he was clad from headto foot in the best of clothes.
“This stuff will do until the tailor can turn you out,”said his father. “Now, you tell me what you’re most interestedin.”
“Indians,” said the boy, and then blushed once more,after he had blurted out the word.
His father looked sharply askance at him with an eyesuddenly cold, keen, critical.
Then he said: “Well, you mean the redskins, by that,eh?”
“Yes,” said John.
“You want to take scalps, I suppose, and have a herdof ponies?”
John looked at him wistfully. A boy’s confidence maybe won, but it cannot be forced.
“I used to want to do the same thing,” said the father.
“You know,” said John, “I just think about it a little.”
“It’s the shortest way through the winter evenings,” rejoinedGilbert Tanner. “I suppose that you have a rifle,my boy?”
“Oh, no! Of course not.”
“Never shot one?”
“Yes, quite a lot. Aunt Maggie gives me a little moneyfor birthdays and Christmas, now and then. And I godown to the ranges and shoot at the targets.”
“You like that?”
“More than anything, mostly.”
“You shall have rifles,” said the father. “Horses, too.Depend on that! Rifles, pistols, horses, and everythingthat you want. You might make a list. You’re going tosta