Fugitive's Trail

by Robert J Conley

  At first I seen some eyes staring at me, and maybe some ole boy kind a pointing at me to show his buddies, but pretty soon they all seemed to forget all about me. I managed to sip down all a that whiskey and pour myself a second one. My head was feeling somewhat light, maybe even a bit dizzy. It come on me just then that it might not be such a good idea, me having just shot off a ear, to get myself too woozy in that place. I had poured myself a second drink, though, and I didn’t feel like I could walk off and leave it just a setting there. That wouldn’t look none too good. I figgered I’d have to sip at it real slow for some time. Just then I seen someone moving toward my back. I seen it in the mirror. But it weren’t no man looking to get hisself a gunslinger. No sir. It was a gal.

  She come up and sidled up beside me there at the bar and kind a snuggled herself right up against me. I glanced over at her, most embarrassed, and she looked right at me and smiled. She was most nearly as big as me, ’cause I never did get much growth on me. I could smell her sweet perfume, and I could feel her soft flesh pushing at my side. My God, I felt hot and flush just then. My legs turned some weak on me too, but I felt something ferocious stirring down there between my legs.

  “Buy me a drink, Kid?” she said.

  “I was just fixing to drink this one and then go on up to my room,” I said.

  “How about some company?” she said. “You can take the bottle and the glass with you. Hey, Jonah, give me a clean glass, will you?”

  The barkeep slid a glass along the bar, and she caught it. Then she looked into my face again, and she said, “Well, how about it?” Now, I ask you, what was I to do? I kinda nodded to her and turned away from the bar, and she turned with me, a holding onto my arm real tight, and it was a good thing she did too. I staggered just a little getting myself out a that there saloon and then crossing over to the stairway, but the gal held me up, and we made it up the stairs and on into my room. I put the bottle down on a small table in there, and then I set down real heavy on the side a the bed and tuck me a sip out of my glass. The room had commenced to swaying around a little. The gal set down beside me. I tried to say something, but I guess I just stammered.

  “Hey, Kid,” she said. “Is that the right name for me to call you? Kid?”

  “It’ll do,” I said.

  “Well, Kid,” she said, “I’m guessing that’s your first whiskey. Am I right?”

  “That’s right,” I said, and I remember wondering why I had admitted it to that gal. She put her arms around me and pulled my head down to lay it against her right side titty, and she just held on to me like that for a spell. It was real nice, and I was wishing that I hadn’t got myself so damn tiddly.

  “Am I your first gal too?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, and the only thing I could figger was that it was the whiskey making me so honest with her. I didn’t really like folks a knowing that I never had no whiskey nor no woman.

  “Well,” she said, “don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll look after you all right. I’ll look after you all night if you want me to.” I figgered I could afford that all right, ’cause I figgered that I would be getting me a job the next day, and so it wouldn’t matter too much if I was to spend even my very last penny.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Stay all night. Please.”

  She hugged me tighter against her, and she said, “I ain’t going nowhere, Kid. I’m right here, and I’m going to stay right here.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “I’m Sherry Chute,” she said. She tuck the glass out of my hand. “Here,” she said, “you’re about to spill that good whiskey on the floor.” Then she stood up, and I felt like I was weaving all over the place without her to lean on. She put the glass on the table beside the bottle, and then she come back on over to me. She knelt down and pulled the boots off a my feet. Then she stood up and commenced to pulling my shirt off a me. Well, I sure didn’t resist her none, and pretty damn soon, she had me all undressed nekkid and stretched out on the bed. “Just relax, Kid,” she said. “Sherry will take care of everything.”

  And oh, Lord A’mighty, but she did. She meant just what she said. First, she finished undressing herself, and I couldn’t help myself, I just stared straight at her. I think that my eyes was wide and my jaw had dropped down on my chest. I had never before saw a nekkid woman, much less been in the same room with one and me nekkid too. Well, I felt something on me snap right up to attention while I was staring at all the glories a her wonderful womanness. Then the next thing I knowed, she was laying right there on top a me, me just a feeling her flesh all up and down my body. Somehow the room quit spinning. All my concentration was on the lovely lady what was laying on me. I smooched on her for a spell, a running my hands up and down her back and butt and legs, and then she got real serious.

  What she done—well, what didn’t she do? I believe that woman done everything to my young virgin body that a woman can do to a man. When she fin’ly stopped, ’cause I couldn’t go no more, she went and got my glass a whiskey what was still mostly full. It was still that second glass I had poured for myself back down there at the bar. She brung it over to me and said, “Now sip a little of this, darlin’.” I sipped it some, and she said, “You want a smoke?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She found my makings and real quick like rolled two fine looking cigareets. She was good at that too. Then she lit one and tucked it in between my lips. She lit the second one and laid herself back down beside me. “You’re just about the most wonderful thing I ever come across,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said, “you weren’t so bad yourself. When I first brought you up here, I was afraid you were going to pass out on me, but you never, and what’s more, you got a lot of staying power, Kid.” I had to admit that I reckoned I did have, after all what I had just did. We finished them smokes, and I finished my second glass of whiskey. Sherry leaned over me and kissed me real sweet on the lips, and then she said: “You all right now?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I ain’t never been better. Not in my whole entire life.”

  “That’s great,” she said, and she commenced on me all over again. We done it all a second time around, and I think she pulled out one or two new ones on me. Anyhow, I don’t know what time it was, but we fin’ly got to sleep way into the night. Hell, it was morning. I know that much, but how far along the morning had got, I don’t know. I do know that it was bright sunlight whenever I woke up again, and old Sherry was laying right there beside me a sleeping like a baby. I thought that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever saw.

  Well, me getting out of the bed stirred her up. She looked at me real groggy like, but even so, she pulled me back into the bed, and we went at it yet again. When we was done that time, I asked her if she wanted to go get some breakfast with me, but she asked me to just leave her be right there in my bed. She needed her sleep. She did remember to make me pay up before I left the room. I paid her, and I still had a little money left. I thought about ole Sandy just then, and I sure did hope he’d come around with a job for me. I stepped out in the hall and stood there for a minute while I rolled me a smoke. Then I lit it and headed for the stairway. I found me a table in the eating place and set there a smoking and drinking coffee even after I had finished up my breakfast. I counted my money again, and I figgered that I could spend a while in the place and have me some more romps with Sherry. But sooner or later that and the meals I’d have to have would wipe me on out. I sure was anxious to see old Sandy.

  Chapter Five

  It was early the next morning, like he’d told me it would be, ’bout the same time I’d first saw him, when ole. Sandy come a riding back in to Ass Grove, and there was another feller riding alongside of him. I was just a standing there on the sidewalk smoking me a rolled cigareet, just like an old hand. I had got to be pretty good at it by then. Them two rid up and hauled their ass up right there in front of me. As they was dismounting, Sandy said to the other feller, “This is him right here.
” They both swung on down, lapped the reins of their horses around the hitching rail and then walked over toward me. I seed the other feller giving me a hard study.

  “Morning, Kid,” Sandy said, and he stuck his right hand out towards me. I tuck it and shuck it.

  “Morning, Sandy,” I said.

  “Holster,” Sandy said, “this here is the Kid I was telling you about. Kid, this here is my boss, Morgan Holster.”

  Holster stuck out his hand, and we shuck. “Howdy, Mr. Holster,” I said.

  “Just Holster,” he said. “Just call me Holster like everyone else does. Have you had your breakfast yit?”

  I had but I lied, ’cause I figgered that was a kind a invite, and I meant to get something out a ole Holster, whether it was a job or just only a free meal. “I reckon I could stand a bite,” I said.

  “Well, let’s go inside then,” Holster said, “and have us some eggs and coffee and talk some things over.”

  He started on in, and behind his back, ole Sandy give me a wink. We follered Holster on in and got us a table. Pretty soon we had us some coffee, and we was waiting for our meals. That waiter was all right. He never let on to Holster and Sandy that he had just served me up one platter of eggs and ham, and it weren’t all that long ago neither. He did give me a look though, whenever I ordered up a stack of flapjacks and some more ham to go with them.

  “Sandy tells me you’re looking for a job,” Holster said.

  “Yes sir,” I admitted. “That’s right.”

  “You done cow work before?” he asked me.

  “I worked for the Boxwood outfit down south a here for a spell,” I said. “I reckon ole Rod Chambers or even Mr. 0 hisself would speak a good word for me if they was to be asked.”

  “I know both of them,” he said. “They’re good men. How long was you with the Boxwood?”

  “Nigh onto two year,” I answered him. Then he asked me what I was askeered he was going to ask me, and I weren’t quite sure how I would answer it when it come.

  “How come you to leave Boxwood?” he said.

  I tuck a sip a my coffee and glanced over at ole Sandy, but he just only kinda raised his eyebrows like as if to say that he couldn’t be no help to me on that one. I was on my own. I thought it all over real quick in my head, and I told myself just then that the damn world surely wouldn’t come to no end if I weren’t to get that one job.

  “I kilt a man,” I said, “and Mr. 0 cut me a loose.”

  “You mind telling me the circumstances of the killing?” Holster said.

  So I told him all about the Pigg family, and how come me to leave home the way I done, and how I come to meet up with ole Rod Chambers and got signed on at the Boxwood, and how near two year later them Piggses come around to the ranch looking to kill me. I told him the whole truth. I didn’t leave nothing out.

  “Kid,” he said, “you got a name?”

  “Parmlee,” I said.

  “First name?” he asked.

  “Kid’ll do,” I said. I just really didn’t want to tell no one my give name was Melvin. It hadn’t never seemed like a real proper name to me, and especial it didn’t seem so now that I was a real cowhand and maybe even a gunfighter.

  “All right,” he said. “Kid’ll do. Sandy says you’ll do any kind of work around a ranch. That so?”

  “I done it all,” I said, “and I’ll do any of it again if it’s called for. If I work for a man, I’ll do what he pays me to do.”

  “That’s good,” Holster said, “but I got to be up front with you, Kid. There’s more to it than just that.”

  “I’m a listening,” I said.

  “One of the main reasons I’m interested in you,” he said, “is what Sandy told me ’bout what you done here yesterday morning.”

  “You mean whenever I shot that feller’s ear off?” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I want cowhands, but I want cowhands who can also handle themselves in a fight if it comes to that. And I want hands who won’t mind getting in the middle of a fight if it happens.”

  “I can take keer a myself,” I said, “and I ain’t never yet run from no fight.”

  “But what if it ain’t your fight?” he said. “What if it’s my fight?”

  “I reckon if I was a working for you,” I said, “then your fight would be my fight.”

  Well, we finished up our breakfasts, my second one, and we had us some more coffee and chatted some. Holster told me then about the Lazy Snakes, but he never really told me no more than just the same thing what ole Sandy had done said about them. It was pretty damn clear, though, that they was the ones that Holster was a thinking we might have to shoot it out with one a these days. But the main thing is that I had myself a job when everything was all did and said. Whenever we got up from that table, I run up to my room and grabbed my few things up in there. I seed Sherry and told her a hurry-up good-bye. I told her ‘bout my new job, and I promised her that I’d be a coming in to see her ever’ chance I got. She was still groggy and never said much. Then I hurried on. Sandy and Holster was waiting for me downstairs.

  Once we was outside, they mounted up while I run down the street to the stable to get ole horse, and pretty damn soon the three of us was a riding along together out to the Three Forks Ranch. I felt pretty good, I can tell you. Hell, I had been run off from my own home a snot-nosed kid with hardly nothing to my name, and I had wound up working two years for a big ranch. I had learned the business pretty good and learned how to handle a gun. Then when I had lost my job, I picked up another one easy as falling off a horse. Yes sir, I felt good about my situation, but at the same time, ‘cause a my two breakfasts, I felt ’bout as full as a tick dug in between the eyeballs of an ole redbone hound. I was sure hoping I’d be able to make the ride out to the ranch without having to embarrass myself in some way.

  Well, luck was with me, ’cause I weren’t the first one to have to speak out for a stop along the way. They was some bushes beside the trail, and all three of us went into them bushes to relieve ourself in one way or another. I felt some better after I had stood up and rehitched my britches. We all mounted up again and commenced riding the rest of the way to the ranch house.

  I tell you what. The Three Forks was a fine spread. I had thought that the Boxwood was something else when I first seed it, but the Three Forks made the ole Boxwood look like a squatter’s nest. I got to thinking there was a whole lot more in this ole world than I ever even dreamed about when I was a growing up in that little shack my ole paw had nested us in back yonder just outside a Sneed, Texas. For just a minute then I wondered about what Maw and Paw might be doing and how they was getting along, but pretty quick I put them on out of my mind. I sure didn’t worry about them none.

  Anyhow, the first a the ranch I seed was when we come to a fence what run farther than I could see in both directions, and we come up to a wide gate. A big arch was up over the gate. It was made out a wood, and it had letters burned in it what read “Three Forks Ranch.” I tell you, it looked real elegant. We rid right under that big arch, and we still had us a long ride to go on down the lane what led on up to the main ranch house. It was a two-story house with a roofed-over porch wrapped all the way around it. I seed three or four chimbleys on the roof a that big house.

  When we come up right close to the front porch, ole Holster just stopped his horse and clumb down off its back. He handed the reins over to ole Sandy. “Take care of the kid,” he said, and he went right up on that porch and on into the big house. I give Sandy a quizzical look, and Sandy said, “It’s his house. He’s the boss. I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “You mean he owns the whole place?” I asked him.

  “Yeah,” Sandy said.

  “Hell,” I said, “I thought you meant he was the foreman or something.”

  “I’m the foreman,” Sandy said.

  “Well, I be damned,” I said.

  We rid on over to the corral then and put the horses away. Then Sandy tuck me on into the bunkh
ouse and interduced me around to the hands that was in there. He give me a bunk and a place to stash my belongings. It was already getting kind a late. The sun was down low, so he said that he’d get me started out proper first thing in the morning. I went on ahead and turned myself in for a good night’s sleep. I sure hadn’t had one the last two nights back in Ass Grove.

  Well, I worked for them people for about a year, and all that time I was seeing Sherry pretty regular. In fact, I was thinking that whenever I had saved me up enough money, I just might marry up with that little ole gal. I hadn’t said nothing like that to her nor to nobody else, but I was sure thinking a lot about it. The other thing that was going on was that we was constantly sparring with them Lazy Snakes boys. Always sizing one another up, you know. Whenever a Three Forks guy and a Snakes guy would meet up with one another in town, there’d be words passed between them. Once there was even a fistfight, but there weren’t no shots fired in all that year. I could see that it was a coming though. Sure as hell. Sooner or later. There was a big fight a coming. Maybe a full-out range war.

  Well, my ole brain was surely agitated most all the time, what with me having a full-time cowboying job, and being constantly on the guard for a range war what might be springing up on us just anytime, and then too thinking about Sherry and when would be the right time to pop the marrying question on her, and wondering too about what married life with ole Sherry would be like whenever I was to get around to it. I sure didn’t have no time to think about nothing else, I can tell you that for sure and certain.