A Cold Hard Trail

by Robert J Conley

  Just as I come back into the flickering campfire light, all three a them men stood up a-facing me. I stopped still, seeing that move as just a little bit threatening.

  “It come to us just now,” said the older one, “that you might be the one they call Kid Parmlee. They say you’re a regular Billy the Kid.”

  “So what if I am?” I said. “I ain’t the one what’s been doing all that robberying, and you done said you ain’t no lawmen.”

  “We ain’t no lawmen,” said the younger one.

  “And we know you ain’t the bank-robbing kid,” the older one said. “Back down the road in the last little town, we heard about how that old woman at Harry’s told the sheriff there all about you. She seen the other kid, and she seen you. She shot that other one in the ass too. She told the sheriff there that them that was looking for you was on the wrong trail.”

  Well, that come to me as a big relief, as I guess you would know. Now all it needed was for the sheriff what Gertie had told all that to in her town to get his ass on down to Fosterville and tell it to ole Chastain. But then, if they knowed I weren’t the outlaw, I wondered what the hell they was up to taking that there menacing stance in front a me.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Do they call you Kid Parmlee?”

  “That’s right,” I said, “They do. And there’s some that calls me that other thing you said too, only I don’t like that one too much. What of it? Just what is it that you fellers are a-getting at here?”

  Standing there a-yakking like that, I give them three a good looking over, and I seed something about their ugly faces that was somehow vague familiar. I couldn’t put a finger on it though. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t never saw none of them before. Then the third one a the bunch, the one what hadn’t said not one word up till then, he spoke up, and he kindly talked outa the side a his mouth.

  “You know them outlaw cousins of ours that was made mention of while ago?” he said. “The ones that’s all been killed? You’re the one that killed them. And just for that, we mean to kill you.”

  “Your names ain’t Pigg, is it?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “My name’s Elza Hook.”

  “I’m Clarence Hook,” the next one said.

  Then the oldest one, he hitched his britches up and give me a sneer, and he said, “I’m Jason Pigg.”

  Chapter 12

  “Oh shit,” I said, and I whopped my forehead with the palm a my left hand. “I can’t hardly believe this here thing is really a-happening to me.”

  “Skeered, are you?” Elza said. “You’d oughta be. You’re the one person in the whole world all of my family wants to see dead.”

  “Naw,” I said, “it ain’t that. I ain’t skeered none. It’s just that whenever I went and kilt ole Henry Pigg back yonder in Fosterville, I asked myself, ‘Ain’t there no end to them Piggses?’ And I was hoping they was, and that maybe he was the last one, but it looks to me now like there really ain’t no end to you bastards.”

  “We got a lot of kinfolk,” Jason said.

  “Only thing is some of us is Hooks, not Piggs,” said Elza.

  “Nobody alive in the wide world knows all that more than me,” I said. “How many more a you worthless shiteating son of a bitches has I got to kill before the rest a you leave me alone?”

  “We can’t never leave you alone, Kid,” Elza said. “Not till you’re dead and stinking. You done killed too many of our kinfolks for us to do that. We got to kill you. If we don’t, we’re shamed. We got to kill you.”

  “They’s been aplenty of you try it before,” I said. “They’re all dead and burried. Is that there what you want for your own selfs?”

  “They’s three of us here right now,” said Clarence. “You think you can take us all three and us all coming at you at once?”

  “It’s been did before,” I said. “I’ve tuck three at a time. You know what they say about me. They say—”

  “That you’re a regular Billy the Kid,” said Elza.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Maybe you’d oughta think somewhat about that before you get yourselfs kilt over nothing.”

  “It ain’t over nothing,” Jason said. “It’s over a matter of family honor. It’s over revenging our kinfolks.”

  “Besides, I don’t think you can take all three of us,” Clarence said.

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but two of you at least will go on along to hell with me. Y’all maybe wondering which two it might could turn out to be?”

  “Naw,” Elza said. “One of us maybe. The other two’ll drop you for sure.”

  I was about to tell them that I didn’t really want to kill no more Hookses nor Piggses on account a I felt like I had did me enough a that, but I never did get a chance. I had just only tuck me a breath in order to start in a-talking, whenever a voice come right outa the dark out there around us and surprised the hell outa all four of us. I stood still, but them others all looked around in all directions.

  “It looks to me like you’ll all three be dead before the first body hits the ground,” that there mysterious voice said. It was a smooth and clear voice, and it sounded like as if it come from someone who was a-standing right in there in the midst of us.

  “Who the hell is that?” said Clarence.

  “Never mind,” the mystery voice said. “Just get your horses and ride out of here. That way you’ll live a while longer.”

  “I got him pegged now,” Elza said, his voice real low. “I know where he’s at. I’ll take him. You two get the kid. Now.”

  Whenever he said that last word, he jerked out his shooter and whirled around to fire, but before he could even pull his trigger, a flash come outa the darkness back there behind them, and ole Elza spinned again, hit in the high left chest by that stranger’s bullet. I yanked my Colt out and shot ole Clarence right smack in the nose, and just about the same time a second shot come outa the dark and hit Jason in the back a the head. I tell you, they was blood and brains all over the place. Them three would-be killers was a-laying there deader’n shit. I stood there with my shooter in my hand, and the stranger, he come walking into the light a-putting his own gun away. He was a medium-height feller with long hair a-hanging down all over his both shoulders, and he was grinning real wide.

  “You don’t need to worry about me,” he said. “I’m not named Hook or Pigg, and I’m no lawman nor bounty hunter. None of my relatives have been killed in gunfights.”

  “I’m obliged to you, mister,” I said.

  “I was after those three anyway,” he said. “They stole my horse. Made me walk quite a ways.”

  “Then I reckon it might be just over yonder with their three and my own,” I said. “They come riding in here a-leading one extry horse.”

  “It’s mine,” he said. “I saw them ride in.”

  “You been a-watching all that time?”

  “And listening,” he said. “Is, there any of that coffee left?”

  “There sure enough is,” I said. “Here. I’ll pour you a cup.”

  I done that and handed it to him, and then I tuck me another look at the feller with him a-settling down by the fire there in a little bit a light. He was a young feller, maybe some older than me, and he was dressed real fine, but the thing what really kinda tuck me offa my guard was that his skin was dark like, and his features, they was, well, different.

  “Say,” I said, “are you a redskin?”

  “You mean am I an American Indian?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “a Injun.”

  “I’m a Cherokee,” he said.

  “Churkee,” I said. “I heared that name before. Well, I’m ole Kid Parmlee.”

  I stuck out my hand and he tuck it and shuck it.

  “What can I call you?” I asked him.

  “Cherokee will do,” he said.

  “All right, Churkee,” I said. “You can just call me Kid. Ever’one else does. Is your village around here somewheres?”

  “I come from Sacramento, California,
” ole Churkee said. “My parents went out there in 1850. A good many Cherokees went out with the forty-niners looking for gold. My folks didn’t find any, but they stayed in California anyway. So I was born out there.”

  “Well, I be damned,” I said. “I just thunk that all Injuns lived in villages out on the plains and—”

  “Lived in tipis with totem poles out front and ran the rivers in birchbark canoes,” Churkee said. “Well, it’s just not true, Kid.”

  “You got yourself a little lip whisker there too,” I said. “Injuns ain’t s’posed to have no whiskers.”

  “Really?” he said. “No one ever told me. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let them grow.”

  Well, I figgered he was putting me on then, and I could feel the skin a my face a-burning somewhat. I was glad it was after dark so he couldn’t see it none too good by just only the light from the little campfire.

  “I reckon I’m kinda ignernt,” I said. “I ain’t hardly got no book learning, and I for sure ain’t never met a Injun before. I heared people talk, is all. ’Course, I know that folks says all kinds a things, and it don’t pay to believe it all.”

  “Oh, it’s not your fault, Kid,” he said, “and if you did have some ‘book learning,’ you wouldn’t have read the truth.”

  “No.”

  “No way,” he said. “What few books there are about American Indians are all full of shit. Let me tell you about my own people. The Cherokees used to live back East where the states of North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama are now.”

  “I ain’t never seed them places,” I said, “but it sounds like a whole lot a land.”

  “Well, it is,” he said, “and we owned it all, but then the white man came, and he started in taking a little bit here and a little bit there and then finally he wanted it all. They decided to move us all out west, and when we put up a kind of a passive resistance, you might call it, they sent the army to round us up and move us out. They marched us all out to some land west of Arkansas, north of Texas. They call that forced march the Trail of Tears. We lost many of our people on that move.”

  “You mean, they just prodded all the Churkees outa there all at once on account a they wanted to get your land for theirself?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Anyhow, we built a new Cherokee Nation out there. We have a brick capitol building, schools, stores, roads, our own newspaper. We have everything the white man has, only ours is usually better.”

  “Well, I be damned,” I said. “I ain’t never heared a that. I didn’t know Injuns went and hunted gold neither.”

  “Many Cherokees did,” he said. “Like I told you, my parents didn’t find any gold, but they stayed in California anyway. My father became a merchant in Sacramento. I was born out there.”

  “My pardner, ole Zeb Pike,” I said, “he’s a gold-hunting man. He learnt me a little bit about hunting gold.”

  “Where is he?” Churkee asked me.

  “I left him up in the mountains with some folks,” I said, and I toyed around in my head with telling ole Churkee the whole tale, but only I managed to keep myself from doing it. After all, I didn’t hardly know the feller, and he was a Injun. He sure did look good and talk smart though, and he had maybe saved my worthless ole life. ’Course, he mighta only did that on account a his horse.

  “What’re you doing out thisaway?” I asked him.

  He sipped on his coffee and didn’t say nothing, not for a while. I figgered that maybe he was a-doing like me and a-wondering if he should oughta tell me much of anything on account a he didn’t really know me atall. Final, he went on ahead and spoke up though, and what he had to say sure enough did surprise me right smart.

  “I’m looking for a man,” he said. “A white man. I mean to kill him.”

  “Well,” I said, “do you mean a perticular white man or will just any ole white man do for you?”

  “This is a particular white man,” he said. “His name is Randall Morgan.”

  Well, I reckon my jaw musta dropped on down and my ole eyeballs popped wide open or something, ’cause the very next thing he said was he said, “Do you know him?”

  “I know him,” I said.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Not hardly,” I said. With what he had just told me, I reckoned then that it would be okay for me to just go on ahead and tell ole Churkee my whole sad tale, so I done just that, commencing with the day me and Paw and ole Zeb rid down into Fosterville and got our ass throwed in jail. I went on from there up to where we run into Weaver and them and then how ole Morgan was a-giving them so much shit. I told him how we had wiped out Morgan’s place up there but ole Morgan and his henchman Shark had rid off and got away from us. Well, then, he knowed it all. The whole story. He sure knowed that old Morgan weren’t no friend a mine. He just set there a-thinking for a spell. By and by, he spoke up again.

  “Morgan was my father’s business partner,” he said. “It’s a long story, and even I don’t know or understand all the details, but Morgan robbed my father blind. He got away with all the money and left Father broke and ruined. The business is gone. I won’t let Morgan get away with that. We Cherokees have been robbed enough by white men. If it takes the rest of my life, I’ll find Morgan. I’ll kill him.”

  “You mean, your old folks is out there in Californy without no way to make a living?” I said.

  “My father found a job,” Churkee said. “He’s working for another store owner, so at least he’s not starving. I wouldn’t have left them destitute.”

  I didn’t know what that there word meant, but I didn’t ask. I had a kinda idea what he meant by it. I was just setting kinda stunned on account a him being after that same damn Morgan what I had been at war with, and I was feeling kinda bad on account a white people being so mean and bad, but then, I had knowed some pretty bad ones my own self.

  “Which way you going from here?” I asked him.

  “I really didn’t have any idea,” he said, “until just now.”

  “Just now?”

  “You just now told me that you and your friends ran Morgan down out of the mountains,” he said. “I didn’t even know he was around these parts for sure. You’ve ridden up here from down south, and you didn’t come across him on the way. That probably means I’ve got to look north or east in order to find him. I don’t know what he’d be doing east of here, so I guess I’ll look north.”

  Well, I liked the sound a that, on account a I was headed north my own self a-looking for them three outlaws, so now I figgered that maybe I could have myself some company along the way in my search. I didn’t really too much like being all by my lonesome like I was and trouble ahead, and a feller like ole Churkee what seemed to be most as handy with his shooter as I was my own self with my Colt seemed like he’d make a hell of a good pardner if I was to run across them tough nuts. The other thing was that if they was still any lawmen a-looking for me and Zeb and Paw, they wouldn’t look near as hard at scrawny little ole me if they seed me in the company of ole Churkee, a Injun, instead a two old fart white men. I thunk that all over in my head right quick like, and I come to a decision.

  “Churkee,” I said, “I’m a-riding north a-hunting them three owlhoots what folks tuck for me and my paw and ole Zeb. You’re fixing to look north for ole Morgan. You wanta ride along with me for a spell?”

  “I don’t mind if I do,” he said, and that was the commencement of a good friendship and worthwhile joining up between two men. I’ll tell you right now, I never was sorry I hooked up with ole Churkee. He become my faithful Injun companion for a spell. Well, we come right off to a agreement a mutual benefit for our future pardnering, and that was that if we was to come onto ole Morgan and Shark, why, I would help him in his gettingeven business for his daddy, and if we was to come across them three outlaws what me and Zeb and Paw had been mistook for, then Churkee would help me in getting them three rounded up. It was a good deal for the both of us, and th
en we final decided that it was time for us to get some sleep, but only them three dead avenging Piggses and Hookses was a-laying just a few feet away and some splattered brains and blood around too.

  We talked about dragging the bodies off, but we final decided to move the camp instead. Churkee said he seed another good place just a little ways down the road, so we fetched up the horses and loaded up my cooking stuff and put out the fire and moved on down there. We picketed the horses, fixed us up a new fire for the night, and made our beds. Then we went on to sleep that night feeling pretty good about the whole situation. Least, I know that I did, and I believe he did too. And ole Churkee, just before I dropped off to sleep, he said one last thing to me.

  “Kid,” he said, “our partnership deal includes any Piggs or Hooks we might come across along the way.”

  I slept real good on that thought.

  In the morning, we had us some biscuit and beans and coffee, and then we put out the fire and cleaned the place up. We saddled up all a the horses, packed up our stuff, and mounted up. We was both mounted, and we was leading along three extry saddle horses with their saddles. We figgered we’d just sell them extry horses and saddles somewheres along the way. It was long about noon that day when we final come to a little town. It was called Nugget. We rid on in there and tied our horses to the rail out front of a place called the Miner’s Saloon. We went inside and went right up to the bar. I ordered us up a glass a whiskey each, and while we was waiting for the barkeep to fetch it on over, I rolled me a cigareet and offered the makings to ole Churkee. He tuck them and rolled him one real easy. I dug out a match and we lit up, and the barkeep brung our drinks. I paid him.

  A big feller at a table was giving us a hard look. I could see him in the mirrer behind the bar. Churkee seed him too. We finished our whiskeys, and just then the big feller got up and come a-walking our way. He pushed his way right in between me and Churkee, and then he give ole Churkee a real hard look.