THE MARTIANS AND THE COYS
By Mack Reynolds
Lem didn't like guarding the still while
Paw and the boys went feuding. He wanted to get
a shot at some Martins too! Yup, he sure did....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Maw Coy climbed the fence down at the end of the south pasture andstarted up the side of the creek, carrying her bundle over her shoulderand puffing slightly at her exertion.
She forded the creek there at the place where Hank's old coon dogJigger was killed by the boar three years ago come next hunting season.Jumping from rock to rock across the creek made her puff even harder;Maw Coy wasn't as young as she once was.
On the other side she rested a minute to light up her pipe and to lookcarefully about before heading up the draw. She didn't really expectto see any Martins around here, but you never knew. Besides, theremight've been a revenue agent. They were getting mighty thick andmighty uppity these days. You'd think the government'd have more to dothan bother honest folks trying to make an honest living.
The pipe lit, Maw swung the bundle back over her shoulder and startedup the draw. Paw and the boys, she reckoned were probably hungry as apassel of hound dogs by now. She'd have to hurry.
When she entered the far side of the clearing, she couldn't see anysigns of them so she yelled, "You Paw! You Hank and Zeke!" Maw Coyliked to give the men folks warning before she came up on the still.Hank, in particular, was mighty quick on the trigger sometimes.
But there wasn't any answer. She trudged across the clearing to wherethe still was hidden in a cluster of pines. Nobody was there but Lem.
She let the bundle down and glowered at him. "Lem, you no-account, whydidn't you answer me when I hollered?"
He grinned at her vacuously, not bothering to get up from where he satwhittling, his back to an old oak. "Huh?" he said. A thin trickle ofbrown ran down from the side of his mouth and through the stubble onhis chin.
"I said, how come you didn't answer when I hollered?"
He said, "You called Paw and Hank and Zeke, you didn't holler for me.What you got there, Maw, huh?" His watery eyes were fixed on the bundle.
Maw Coy sighed deeply and sat down on a tree stump. "Now what you thinkI got there, Lem? I been a bringing your vittles to you every day sincePaw and you boys started up this new still. Where's Paw and Zeke andHank?"
Lem scratched himself with the stick he'd been whittling on. "Theywent off scoutin' around for the revenooers or maybe the Martins." Helet his mouth fall open and peered wistfully into the woods. He added,"I wish I could shoot me a Martin, Maw. I wish I could. I sure wish Icould shoot me a Martin."
The idea excited him. He brought his hulking body to its feet and wentover to pick up an ancient shotgun from where it leaned against a mashbarrel.
Maw Coy was taking corn pone, some cold fried salt pork, and a quart ofblack-strap molasses from her bundle and arranging it on the top of anempty keg. "You mind yourself with that gun now, Lem. Mind how you shotup your foot that time."
Lem didn't hear her, he was stroking the stock of the shotgunabsently. "I could do it easy," he muttered. "I could shoot me a Martineasy. I sure could Maw. I'd show Hank and Zeke, I would."
"You forget about the Martins, son," Maw Coy said softly. "Yore mysimple son—there's at least one in every family, mostly more—andit ain't fittin' that you get into fights. You got a strong back,str