Well, it tuck a while, but I sure enough did commence to getting better. I was up and around before long, but my left shoulder and arm was sure enough stiff and useless. I used them a little bit each day just as much as I could till I was feeling most good as new. By God, I had been shit on and shot at and hit, and I was still alive, and I was getting well. I was a for real working cowhand, and I had killed myself two damn Piggses, and at just only sixteen years of age, I had just come to believe that I was one hell of a tough, gunfighting man. Then one morning, I was setting out on the front porch a the big house all by my lonesome a sipping at some nice hot coffee Mrs. O had give me, when Mr. 0 come out of the house with ole Rod, and then Mrs. 0 come right out behind them. They all had kind a long faces on them, but Mrs. O’s look was the longest.
“Parmlee,” said Mr. O, “generally I give unpleasant chores like this to Rod here to take care of, but in your case, I mean to talk to you direct.”
I looked up at him feeling right curious, and I said, “Yes sir?”
“I’m letting you go,” he said. “I have to. I think you’re about healed enough now to travel.” He handed me a roll of bills, which I tuck, but I really didn’t know why he was giving them to me or why I was a taking them, so I just set there staring at him and holding all that money out there in front of myself. “That’s all your back pay plus a little bonus,” he said. “Cut yourself out a good horse. Your choice. And take a saddle and tack. That’s all I can do for you. Rod tells me that you’ll make a good cowhand one of these days. You’re a hard worker. I’m sorry to have to do you this way, but I’ve always made it a policy to keep no wild hands on my place. You drew four gun hands onto my place after you. Then instead of hiding out a spell, you came right out to face them. We had four killings on the place as a result of that, right here in front of my own home. I got to let you go, boy.”
I looked over at Mrs. 0, and damn me if she didn’t have tears running right down her cheeks.
“Can’t we make this one exception?” she said. “He’s so young, and it really wasn’t his fault.”
“No, Mother,” the old man said. “We can’t.”
“Hey,” I said, standing up and setting my coffee cup aside. “I understand.” And I really did too. I thought about what a fine lady that Mrs. 0 was and how good she had been to me all the time I was laid up like that. She sure didn’t need no one like me hanging around her place and bringing my kind of trouble around. I was right proud of Mr. 0 for seeing it that way too. I was glad for her to know that he was taking good keer of her like that. “I don’t want to be the cause of no kind of trouble around here. You all have been real good to me. More than I reckon I deserve. I’ll just be pulling right on out, but first I just want to thank you all for everything you done for me.”
Well, I couldn’t say no more, without getting sappy, so I just tucked all that cash into my shirt pocket and turned away real quick and stepped down off a the porch and started in to make my way on over toward the corral. I was about halfway over there whenever ole Rod caught up with me and handed me my own gunbelt and my hat. I was glad he done that, ’cause I had knowed they was still back there inside the house, and I just felt real awkward about going back in there myself after I had just been told to move my young ass on out a there. I reckoned that either Mr. 0, or maybe his wife, had ducked back inside and got hold of them, then give them to Rod to take on out to me. Anyhow I tuck them from ole Rod and thanked him. I stuck the hat up on top a my head and strapped on my Colt. At the corral, Rod helped me catch up a good horse and saddle it up. It was a brown stallion, one I had rode before, and I liked him. We had got along good together. He didn’t have no name that I knowed about. I just called him “ole horse.” I led ole horse on over to the bunkhouse, tied him there to the hitch rail, and went inside to gather up my gear. I noticed that ole Rod had went back over to the big house.
Well, I made myself a blanket roll out a all my stuff and went outside to tie it on behind ole horse’s saddle. Then Cookie, he had picked up on what was going on with me, and he brung me along some trail food to pack in, and I made sure I had myself a couple of canteens full of water. I wasn’t about to get myself out on a long trail unprepared again, like I had did before. I had learned that lesson real good the last time. Fin’ly I mounted up on ole horse to ride on out of there. I was going out past the big house when Rod come a running out and waving to me. He had some kind a paper in his hand. I hauled up short, and he come on over. He held that paper up for me to take.
“It’s a bill of sale for the horse,” he said. “In case anyone ever challenges you on its ownership. This paper will prove he’s yours. Mr. O signed it and told me to give it to you. Kid, I’m sure sorry about this. I tried to talk him out of it.”
I tuck the paper and shoved it inside my shirt. “Thanks,” I said. “It’s all right. And he done the best thing. Tell him, and the Missus, tell them that I said thanks for everything, and say, will you tell ole Tex so long for me?”
“Sure I will,” he said.
I felt a kind a choking down in my throat, and I knowed that I was about to bawl again if I weren’t careful, so I never said another word. I just turned ole horse right smart and give him a little kick and rode off kind a quick like. I had a real kind a hurting feeling inside a me. It was like I was riding away from something I would never again find in my whole life. I had never felt thataway before. When I had rode off from home on ole Swayback, I had been skeered. Hell, I was a kid and didn’t know what in hell it was that might be fixing to become a me. I didn’t have no idea where I was a going or nothing, or even if I would ever make it there. I was skeered, but I wasn’t sad on account of leaving home or nothing like that.
But this time, riding off from Rod and Tex and all my other buddies at the Boxwood outfit, and especial that sweet Mrs. O, I felt real sad. I felt like, hell, they was my family. I felt like I reckon I should have felt when I had left Maw and Paw and Texas, but I didn’t never feel that way about them. I sure enough felt it, though, riding off from the ole Boxwood. I rode hard for a spell, and I was a crying hard at the same time. Looking back on it all, in spite of how much a man I thought I had become, I reckon I was just still a snot-nosed kid after all.
Chapter Four
Like I said before, I didn’t know where the hell I was headed. I did know that Texas was east of me, and I was real keerful not to ride east. I didn’t have no reason to take my ass back to Texas. So I headed north and maybe a little west. I spent a couple of lonely nights on the trail a thinking about all the boys back at the bunkhouse on the ole Boxwood, and maybe even I cried a little now and then. I thought some about Maw and Paw too, but I never cried when I was thinking about them. About all I could think a thinking about Maw was how she had slapped me hard across the face that last day I ever seed her. And whenever I thought about Paw, I just thought that after he knowed I had killed that man, he give me some money and a swaybacked horse and told me to skeedaddle on out a there, and that was the most generous day a his whole entire life that I knowed about.
Well fin’ly I stumbled onto a little town. It was called Ash Grove, and I found out right soon that most of the locals liked to call it Ass Grove, so I done the same thing. It weren’t much of a town. It had a saloon and a general store and a eating place all right under the same roof, and it was also the only place in the town what could sort of serve for a hotel, ’cause they did have rooms upstairs, but they wasn’t really meant to be hotel rooms. They was rooms for the gals to take their customers into to give them a quick romp for a few bucks is what they was. Well, I weren’t proud and I weren’t no prude, so I asked the man if I could rent me one a them rooms for a spell. He asked to see the color a my money, and I showed it to him and paid him in advance. Why, then he give me a room right fast.
I didn’t hardly get no sleep that first night for I could hear all the sounds coming from the next room to mine and maybe from other rooms as well. The walls wasn’t none too thick, and the sighing a
nd moaning and groaning and giggling, the gasps, the creaking bedsprings and such, just kept my full attention and kept me wide awake and a wondering just what was going on in them rooms with them gals. I sure did long to know, and I didn’t just want someone to tell me about it neither. I was longing to know all about it at first hand.
I reckon I did fin’ly get off to sleep, but I was so used to getting up early back at the Boxwood that I done it when I didn’t have no need to. So I was up the next morning without having had too much sleep. I went on downstairs and into the eating part a that there establishment, and in there I ordered myself up a good breakfast a chicken eggs, ham, ’taters, biscuit and gravy. I et that all up in a hurry and washed it down with about a pot of coffee, I guess. Then I paid for it all and went on outside.
I couldn’t think of a damn thing to do with myself, so I walked back over to the stable where I had boarded ole horse and checked up on him. He was the one and only person I knowed in that town. He was just fine, so I only talked to him for a few minutes, and then I left again. I don’t know what’s worse: being out on a lonely trail without no particular destination in mind or being in a town with folks all around you and you not knowing none of them. I was really thinking about them gals, too, but none of them was nowhere in sight. I figgered that, having worked all night, you know, they was just natural sleeping the day away.
So I was just kind of lounging around lazy like outside when I seed a cowboy come a riding up. He tied his horse there at the right rail in front of the main establishment, the one where I was a living, and went on inside. Just then this here other cowhand come a sneaking out a somewheres and went right on over to the first ole boy’s horse. He looked around hisself kinda skulky like and didn’t see no one out loose but me. He give me a grin and a wink, like as if he was letting me in on a little joke a some kind, then he tuck and loosened up the cinch on that other ole boy’s horse. Well, he meant for that ole boy to take hisself a hard fall whenever he started to mount up. That’s what he meant to cause to happen.
I just acted like as how I never even noticed that grin and wink nor even what he done with the cinch. I was just minding my own business. By and by, the feller come out of the store, and he stood there on the sidewalk and rolled hisself a smoke. I guess that’s what he had gone inside there to buy. He poked that fresh rolled cigareet in between his lips and then he brung out a match and scratched it on the ass of his britches. He lit that smoke. Then he stepped on down to his horse and tuck ahold of the horn. His foot went up to the stirrup, and to this day I don’t know how come I didn’t just keep a minding my own business, but before I knowed what I had did, I said out loud, “I wouldn’t step up on that, mister. Someone has done loosened your cinch.”
He looked over at me, and then he checked the cinch, and he seed then that I weren’t lying to him. Not a bit of it. He tightened her back up again and swung up into the saddle. Then he looked over at me. “Thanks, kid,” he said. “Who done it?”
I give a shrug. “I don’t know no one in this town,” I said.
Just then the actual culprit stepped right on out into the open with a hard scowl on his ugly face, and he give me a sure enough mean ass look, and then he looked on over at the other feller, and he said, “I done it, Sandy. What about it?”
Sandy said, “I got orders not to fight with you Lazy Snakes, Cutter, but don’t push your luck.”
“Why, hell, Sandy,” Cutter said, “I was just playing a little joke. I wouldn’t try to start no fight with you. You know that. All us Lazy Snakes hands is peaceable. ’Course, I might just dust the britches of this busybody little brat here for messing up the fun.”
I stepped out then and faced that Cutter. “You can try it,” I said.
“Well, now,” said Cutter. “What do we have here? A new Billy the Kid?”
“Some folks do call me Kid,” I said, “but my name ain’t Billy.”
“Leave him alone, Cutter,” said Sandy. “Hell, he’s just a kid, like you said.”
“Stay out of it, Sandy,” I said. I told you I had been lonesome and bored, and so I was actual kind of enjoying this.
Cutter squared off facing me, and he kind a shuck his hands and arms to loosen them up. I seed that his Colt was a hanging low on his thigh. Right hand side. “You think you can take me, do you?” he said. “You know how to handle that iron you’re toting, baby face?”
“I aim to take off your left ear before you can clear leather,” I said.
Well, he didn’t say nothing to that. He just looked madder’n a bitch dog if you had picked up one a her sucking pups, and he went for his Colt real fast, but he weren’t fast enough. Ole Tex had taught me good. I jerked my own Colt out and triggered it before his was even clear, and it was either the best shot or the luckiest shot I ever made, ’cause I seed the blood fly when my bullet tore into his left ear, just like I had bragged it would. He shrieked something awful, turned a loose a his Colt and slapped at the side a his head with his left hand.
“Goddamn,” he said, “you shot off my fucking ear.”
“Told you I would,” I said.
Then he turned and run off to somewheres, still holding the side a his head and trailing a stream a blood all down the street. I ejected the spent shell out a the chamber a my Colt and put in a new one. Then I holstered the Colt. I give Sandy a nod and started to go back inside the establishment where I was a bunking. Sandy said, “Hold it a minute there, Kid.” I turned back to look at him. “That’s all right, ain’t it?” he said. “You said that some calls you kid.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “What is it you want?”
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
He clumb back down out a his saddle again, and he walked on over to where I was a standing. “I didn’t mean for you to get in no fight over me,” he said, “but I do appreciate your warning about the cinch.”
“It weren’t nothing,” I said. “I just didn’t think the man’s joke was none too funny, that’s all.”
We went on inside and got ourselves a table and some coffee. Sandy offered me the makings of a cigareet, but I told him no thanks. I never told him that I didn’t know how to roll them things. He finished off the one he was smoking on and snubbed it out in a ashtray what was setting there on the table.
“Old Cutter,” he said, “works for the Lazy Snakes Ranch just east of here. I work for the Three Forks outfit. Them’s the two biggest operations for hundreds of miles around here, and they’re pretty much rivals in the business. There’s been trouble brewing for years. It’s bound to break out into a real fight sooner or later.”
“Pretty big outfits, are they?” I asked him. I knowed the answer, but I couldn’t think a nothing else to say, so I just went and said that dumb question.
“You could say so,” he said. “And I reckon each one thinks the other’n is too big and would like to cut it down to size.”
“Couldn’t be your Three Forks outfit could use another hand, could it?” I asked him. “I can do any kind of ranch work what needs to be did, and I ain’t too proud.”
Sandy give me a look and kind a squinted his face up. “Well, I don’t know, Kid,” he said, “but I’ll check on it. I’ll ride back in here tomorrow and let you know. Where you staying?”
I thumbed in the direction a the stairway, and Sandy grinned. “You mean, up with the whores?” he said.
I kind a laughed, and then he did too. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s pretty lively up there too.”
“I bet it is,” he said.
Pretty soon after that he excused hisself and said that he had to get on back out to the ranch, but he promised me again that he’d come back into Ass Grove the next day and let me know if they might have a spot for me out at the ole Three Forks. I thanked him kindly for that, and he left. Well, I felt pretty good. I felt like I had just made myself a new friend, and I might even get myself a job out of it. I give him a few minutes to get on out
of town, and then I walked into the store part of the establishment and bought myself the makings. I went upstairs to my room and commenced to practicing on rolling them cigareets.
Well, I used up damn near all the tobaccy and all but two a the papers before I got one to hold together, and it weren’t none too pretty neither, but I went and smoked it just the same. It made me cough a bit, and the smoke got into my eyes and made them water some, but I had rolled me a smoke and smoked it. I went on ahead then and rolled up the last one and lit it, and then I left the room, smoking my cigareet as I walked down the hallway, down the stairs and back into the store to buy more makings. I got them and put them in my pocket, puffing all the while, just as if I had been a doing it for years, and then I went into the saloon and stepped right up to the bar. The barkeep come walking over to where I was at, and he give me a look that there weren’t no mistake about. I knowed he was fixing to say something about how young I was and then tell me to get the hell out. But before he could open his mouth to start in, the feller setting about two bar stools down from me piped up with, “Say, that’s the kid what shot off old Cutter’s ear. Damn good shooting, Kid.”
“Thanks, mister,” I said.
“What’ll you have?” the barkeep said.
“Give me a rye whiskey,” I said, and by God, he brung it. He poured me a little short glass full and then left the bottle setting right there in front of me. Now I was just a snot-nosed kid, like I done told you, but I weren’t too stupid, not even back then. I didn’t want to look like no fool with my first ever drink a whiskey, so I just picked it up and tuck me a little sip a the stuff, and, damn, but it burned my throat a going down. I sipped at it ever now and then, real keerful, and all the time I watched the crowd behind me in the big mirror what hung up over the bar back on the wall behind it, that is. I had always heard tell that once you start in acting like a gunslinger, folks will be after your hide, and I had kilt myself two men now and shot off a left ear, so I weren’t taking no chances. I was just a little bit nervous, but I was trying hard not to show it.
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