The Trail of the elusive...

[Nanuq]

Gents, I thought I'd carry this one forward from the old RWG to the new. This was posted

just after DW's mysterious disappearance, and the death of my plans with him to recreate

T39 clones identical to the original.

In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear

That who would wear the Thirty-Nine shall say good-bye to fear;

Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail--

In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"--

Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze,

Half round the world, if need there be, on bleeding hands and knees.

It's Rolex, Rolex, first and last, the Crimson Manual saith;

The Tropic Seeker makes reply: "It's duty--to the death."

And so they sweep the solitudes, free men from all the earth;

And so they sentinel the woods, the wilds that know their worth;

And so they scour the startled plains and mock at hurt and pain,

And read their Crimson Manual, and shun their crystals plain.

Knights of the lists of unrenown, born of the frontier's need,

Disdainful of the spoken word, exultant in the deed;

Unconscious heroes of the waste, proud players of the game,

Props of the power behind the throne, upholders of the name:

For thus the Great White Chief hath said, "In both my fists be dread",

And to maintain his word he gave the Rolex Double Red.

Livid-lipped was the valley, still as the grave of God;

Misty shadows of mountain thinned into mists of cloud;

Corpselike and stark was the land, with a quiet that crushed and awed,

And the stars of the weird sub-arctic glimmered over its shroud.

Deep in the trench of the valley two men stationed the Post,

Seymour and Nanuq the reckless, fresh from the long patrol;

Seymour, the sergeant, and Nanuq -- Nanuq who told his tale

He could cinch like a bronco the Northland,

and tame the wild killer whale.

Two lone men on detachment, standing for steel on the trail;

Undismayed in the vastness, wise with the wisdom of old--

Out of the night hailed a half-breed telling a pitiful tale,

"White man selling Tropics on the banks of the Nordenscold."

Up sprang the red-haired Nanuq, lean and squinty of eye;

Loaded the long toboggan, strapped each dog at its post;

Whirled his lash at the leader; then, with a whoop and a cry,

Into the Great White Silence faded away like a ghost.

The clouds were a misty shadow, the hills were a shadowy mist;

Sunless, voiceless and pulseless, the day was a dream of woe;

Through the ice-rifts the river smoked and bubbled and hissed;

Behind was a trail fresh broken, in front the untrodden snow.

Ahead of the dogs ploughed Nanuq, haloed by steaming breath;

Through peril of open water, through ache of insensate cold;

Up rivers wantonly winding in a land affianced to death,

Till he came to a cowering cabin on the banks of the Nordenscold.

Then Nanuq loosed his revolver, and he strode through the open door;

And there was the man he sought for, crouching beside the fire;

The hair of his beard was singeing, the frost on his back was hoar,

And ever he crooned and chanted as if he never would tire:--

"I panned and I panned in the shiny sand,

and I sniped on the river bar;

But I know, I know, that it's down below

that the crystal treasures are;

So I'll wait and wait till the floods abate,

and I'll play my bets in Nome,

And I'd like to bet that I'll go home yet

with a Thirty-Nine Superdome."

He was nigh as thin as a sliver, and he whined like a Moose-hide cur;

So Nanuq clothed him and nursed him as a mother nurses a child;

Lifted him on the toboggan, wrapped him in robes of fur,

Then with the dogs sore straining started to face the Wild.

Said the Wild, "I will crush this Nanuq, so fearless and insolent;

For him will I loose my fury, and blind and buffet and beat;

Pile up my snows to stay him; then when his strength is spent,

Leap on him from my ambush, crush his crystal under my feet.

"Him will I ring with my silence, compass him with my cold;

Closer and closer clutch him unto mine icy breast;

Buffet him with my blizzards, deep in my snows enfold,

Claiming his life as my tribute, giving my wolves the rest."

Nanuq crawled through the vastness; o'er him the hate of the Wild;

Full on his face fell the blizzard; cheering his huskies he ran;

Fighting, fierce-hearted and tireless, snows that drifted and piled,

With ever and ever behind him singing the crazy man.

"Sing hey, sing ho, for the ice and snow,

And a watch that's ever ticking;

Let us trim and square with a lover's care

(For why should the bezel be sticking?)

A grave deep, deep, with the moon a-peep,

A grave in the frozen mould.

Sing hey, sing ho, for the winds that blow,

And a grave deep down in the ice and snow,

Thirty-Nines in the Land of Gold."

Day after day of darkness, the whirl of the seething snows;

Day after day of blindness, the swoop of the stinging blast;

On through a blur of fury the swing of staggering blows;

On through a world of turmoil, empty, inane and vast.

Night with its writhing storm-whirl, night despairingly black;

Night with its hours of terror, numb and endlessly long;

Night with its weary waiting, fighting the shadows back,

And ever the crouching madman singing his crazy song.

Cold with its creeping terror, cold with its sudden clinch;

Cold so utter you wonder if 'twill ever again be warm;

Nanuq grinned as he shuddered, "Surely it isn't a cinch

Being wet-nurse to a looney in the teeth of an arctic storm."

The blizzard passed and the dawn broke, knife-edged and crystal clear;

The sky was a blue-domed iceberg, sunshine outlawed away;

Ever by snowslide and ice-rip haunted and hovered the Fear;

Ever the Wild malignant poised and panted to slay.

The lead-dog freezes in harness--cut him out of the team!

The lung of the wheel-dog's bleeding--shoot him and let him lie!

On and on with the others--lash them until they scream!

"Pull for your lives, you devils! On! To halt is to die."

There in the frozen vastness Nanuq fought with his foes;

The ache of the stiffened fingers, the cut of the snowshoe thong;

Cheeks black-raw through the hood-flap, eyes that tingled and closed,

And ever to urge and cheer him quavered the madman's song.

Colder it grew and colder, till the last heat left the earth,

And there in the great stark stillness the Superdome glinted and gleamed,

And the Wild all around exulted and shook with a devilish mirth,

And life was far and forgotten, the ghost of a joy once dreamed.

Death! And one who defied it, a man of the Sea Dweller Squad;

Fought it there to a standstill long after hope was gone;

Grinned through his bitter anguish, fought with the Vengeance of God,

Suffering, straining, striving, stumbling, struggling on.

Till the dogs lay down in their traces, and rose and staggered and fell;

Till the eyes of him dimmed with shadows, and the trail was so hard to see;

Till the Wild howled out triumphant, and the world was a frozen hell--

Then said Fearless Nanuq: "I guess that it's up to me."

Far down the trail they saw him,

and his hands they were blanched like bone;

His face was a blackened horror, from his eyelids the salt rheum blotched;

His feet he was lifting strangely, as if they were made of stone,

But safe in his hands and ticking he carried a stainless watch.

So Nanuq got into the barracks, and the boys made rather a scene;

And the O. C. called him a hero, and was nice as a man could be;

But Nanuq gazed down his trousers at the place where his toes had been,

And then he howled like a husky, and sang in a shaky key:

"When I go back to the RWG gang that's true to the deep blue sky,

I'll say: `There were no Thirty-Nines, me lads,'

and I'll hang my head and cry;

`I'd give them to you, to have and to hold,'

But a sad, sad boy I'll be,

When I go back to the faithful few that've waited so long for me."

[docblackrock]

Does this T39 look familiar?.....mwahahahaaaaaaa....

Edited March 17, 2006 by docblackrock

[docblackrock]

I guess it would be cruel to mention she has an identical twin sister (separated at birth now living in Germany) then....

Or maybe it's triplets? :cloud9:

Edited March 17, 2006 by docblackrock