“Hey,” he said, “you. We’re a couple of travelers a looking for coffee and grub. You got any? Are we welcome here in your camp?”
I didn’t say nothing, and neither did ole Zeb. I wondered for a bit if he had fell off the side of the trail.
“Say,” the visitor called out, “anybody home at the camp? We can smell your coffee.”
“Clinch,” said the other one, keeping his voice kinda low, “they’re here all right. Unless they left a foot.” He pointed at Bernice Burro and ole horse. “They’re just hiding out on us is all.”
“Come on out,” said Clinch. “We’re just looking for a little hospitality is all. Some hot coffee on a cold night.”
“What you doing riding this mountain trail after dark?” Zeb said, and I couldn’t tell where his voice was a coming from. Clinch and his buddy couldn’t neither. They looked all around real surprised like.
“We’re just traveling,” Clinch said.
“Where to?” Zeb asked. “Ain’t nothing up there. You looking for gold?”
“Well—well, sure,” Clinch said. “Ain’t ever’one?”
“You ain’t outfitted to do no prospecting,” Zeb said. “I think you’re just a prospecting for someone to rob. Ain’t you? That’s what I think.”
“Now, wait a minute there, old timer,” Clinch said. “You got us all wrong. Why don’t you show yourself? Come on out and let’s set a spell and have us some coffee together. Get acquainted.”
“I seed you in town,” Zeb said. “You seed us too, didn’t you? You seed my pardner spend some cash money. You figger we still got some, and you’re aiming to kill us and ride out a here with it in your pockets. Well now, I recommend real strong that you two turn around and get your ass back down that trail, if you can do it without falling off the edge in this dark. Get going now. To answer your question, you ain’t welcome here.”
“Now wait a minute there, old man,” said Clinch.
“You can’t run us off a this mountain,” Clinch’s buddy said.
“I reckon my pardner kin,” Zeb said. “You likely heard about him. They call him the Kid. Billy the Kid.”
“Billy the Kid?” said Clinch. “I ain’t heard nothing about him being in these parts.”
“Well, you don’t hear ever’thing, now do you?” Zeb said.
Now I was getting tired of all this talk, and I had been standing there in the shadder long enough to calm down some and to get a look at who it was I might have to deal with. They didn’t look none too dangerous to me, not after the men I had already kilt and that ear I had shot off. I decided it was time for me to talk up.
“I don’t believe that you’re pardnering with no Billy the Kid,” Clinch said.
I stepped out of the shadder.
“Here I am,” I said.
Clinch and that other one kinda jumped a setting there in their saddles. They looked around at me. From where they was on the other side a the fire from me, they most likely never got a real good look. They was kinda silhouetty to me too, but at least I had been standing there looking at them for a spell, and I was used to it. I seed their outlines real good, and I figgered that was all I needed to see.
“You Billy the Kid?” Clinch asked me.
“Find out, chicken shit,” I said.
Both of them would-be road agents went for their guns at the same time, but I whupped mine out faster. I tuck Clinch with a shot in the head, and with my second shot, I hit his buddy right smack in the heart. They both tumbled outa their saddles and fell hard on the cold mountain trail just on the other side a the fire from where I was standing at. Their horses nickered and stomped around a bit, but then they settled down. Ole Zeb come a running out of the shadders a giggling like a crazy ole fart, which he sorta was.
“You tuck ‘em both,” he said. “You tuck ’em both. Hot ziggity. Hot damn.”
He danced a kinda little jig all around them two bodies for a spell, a carrying on like that. “Hot ziggity damn. Hi ho.” And then he’d give a little silly giggle. “Heh, heh, heh.” Kinda like that. Fin’ly he stopped dancing and talking silly and giggling, and he went over and dropped down on his knees beside ole Clinch. He went all through Clinch’s pockets a taking out ever’thing of any kinda value whatsoever. He tuck a pocket knife and a few coins. He tuck the gun and gun belt. When he seed there was nothing more to take, he dragged ole Clinch over to the far edge of the trail and just dumped him right off the side. I never even heard him hit bottom.
Then ole Zeb commenced to doing the same thing with the other one. When he had stole ever’thing they had and dumped them both off the side, he went on over to their horses and pulled the blanket rolls and the saddles off a them. Then he put the two horses over with our own critters.
“What’re we going to do with them horses?” I asked him.
“Take them along,” he said. “Take them along.”
“What if someone finds them two dead men,” I said, “and then finds us with their horses?”
“Hah,” he said. “Ain’t no one what ever fell off that there trail ever been found. Like as not they fell all the way down to hell. Or China.”
He was unrolling the blanket rolls and checking to see if there was anything in there he wanted. I went on back over to the fire and set down again. I picked up my coffee cup, but the coffee had got cold. I pitched it out and poured me another cup. Whenever Clinch and that other feller had rode into our camp, I had been about ready to go to sleep, but after killing them and watching ole Zeb go through them antics, I was wide awake again. Fin’ly Zeb quit poking around in stuff and come back to set by the fire with me again. He was still a cackling like an old hen though.
“Zeb,” I said. “Don’t do that no more. Will you?”
“What?” he said. “Hell, boy, if you hadn’t a did what you did, they’d a killed us all for sure.”
“Not that,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“What then?” he asked me.
“Don’t go around telling folks that I’m Billy the Kid,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I ain’t no cold-blooded killer,” I said, “and I just don’t want it going around that I’m Billy the Kid, ’cause I ain’t. That’s all.”
Ole Zeb give his silly giggle, and then he said, “Kid, what I said just a while ago to them two road agents sure as hell ain’t going no farther, is it? Not unless they spread the rumor around hell. Or China. Wherever they might a landed at.”
“Well,” I said, kinda pouting, “just don’t do it no more. That’s all.”
“All right, Kid,” Zeb said. “I won’t never call you that no more. But damn me if you didn’t take them two slick. Slicker’n owl shit it was. It was just pretty to watch. Hell, it was downright bee-ootiful. Pow. Pow. Two shots. Just like that. Pow. Pow. Two of them down and dead. You’re good, Kid. You’re real good. Do I know how to pick me a pardner or what?”
“Is that how come you tuck me on?” I said. “Just so I could do your fighting and killing for you?”
“No,” he said. “Hell no. I like you, Kid. Hell, you fed me antelope. That’s how come me to take you on. But you being able to shoot like that, why, hell, it’s just icing on the cake, now, ain’t it? It’s a little something extry in a pardner. Ain’t nothing wrong with being happy about it, now is there? Listen here, we got us twelve dollars and thirty-seven cents off them two, and we got two extry horses and saddles. We got two more six-guns with belts and holsters. We got us a Winchester and a Henry rifle, four blankets, and—”
“I didn’t kill them to rob them,” I said.
“I know you didn’t Kid,” he said, “but listen to me now and listen good. You got to stop being so stiff-necked about this sort a thing. Listen. Two men rid in here to our camp after dark. They come to kill us and rob us. You kilt them first. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, is there? Now, once they’re dead, why waste the stuff they has on them? Why not take it and make use of it? Hell, if we was to just dump it over t
he side with them that’d be wasteful. Now wouldn’t it?”
Well, I couldn’t come up with no argument for all that, so I reckoned that he was right after all. I hadn’t never been no good at philosophising myself, and when he put it all like that, it did kinda make me feel better about the whole thing. You see, I hadn’t really toughened up as much as you might think. I could kill a man all right, but I still figgered I ought to have myself a real good reason for it. And after ole Zeb had finished in telling me all that, well, I reckoned I was still okay. I’d had me a good reason for the killing a them two after all, and ole Zeb, he’d had hisself a good reason for going through their pockets and all the way he done. Well, I finished off my coffee, and I rolled out my blankets, but I really weren’t terrible sleepy just yet. Not after all that excitement I had gone through for the evening.
“Hey, Zeb,” I said.
“What is it, Kid?” he said.
“How about we have us a drink a whiskey before we turn in?” I said.
“By God, Kid,” he said, “that’s a hell of a good idea. I knowed all along that I liked you for some reason. Yes sir. Let’s just have us that little drinkee.”
Well, we popped that cork and poured us each a snort. After I had drunk about half a mine, I begun to feel a little drowsy.
“Zeb,” I said.
“Yeah?” he said.
“When we gonna reach that snow up there?” I asked him.
“I’d say two more days a climbing,” he said. “We’ll get to it then.”
I tuck myself another drink. My belly was warm, and my head was beginning to feel some light.
“Zeb?” I said.
“What?” he said.
“Where’s Pike’s Peak?” I said. “I’d kinda like to see that Pike’s Peak.”
“It’s some north of us,” he said. “Maybe we’ll work our way up to it. Yeah. We’ll work our way on up there, and I’ll show it to you. It’s got a regular sign down at the bottom. Says Pike’s Peak on it, it does. We’ll climb up to the top of it. I know the best way. Hell, I was the first man to ever go up there. First white man leastways. That’s how come it to be named after me. We’ll climb right on up to the top.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’ll be nice. I’d like to do that. Zeb?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Well, we’ll do her.”
“Are we going to strike it rich, Zeb?” I asked him.
“Kid,” he said, “we’re going to be so rich we’ll have to open us our own banks. One for me and one for you. Ain’t no way we could carry all that richness around with us. And there ain’t no way one bank could handle it. ’Course, we’ll carry us around maybe a million each for pocket spending money, but we’ll leave the rest of it in our banks for safekeeping. We’ll hire us a small army a gunfighters, most nearly as good as you, just to guard our banks. We’ll go plumb all the way to New York City just to buy our clothes. We’ll even buy us our own railroad car and ride in it from New York to San Francisco. We’ll have cooks and servants and pretty gals all around us. We’ll—”
I don’t know how much more he said about what we’d do whenever we got rich, ‘cause right about then, I just kinda drifted off to sleep. Whenever I woke up the next morning, I was under two blankets. I guess ole Zeb had put an extry one over me, ’cause it got kinda cold that night way up there on that ole mountain.
Chapter Eight
Fin’ly we got plumb up to where that cold, white snow was at, real high up that mountainside, and I guess I musta acted like about five times a damn fool or at least a dumb kid. I got down off ole horse, and I just run right into that stuff, but it was slick, and I weren’t ready for that, and my ole feet just come a flying right out from under me, and I landed smack down on my ass. Ole Zeb, he laughed like hell, a rocking back and forth in his saddle. I stood on back up again, laughing myself, and then I slipped and fell down again, and he laughed all the harder and me too, Fin’ly he quit though and caught his breath.
“Now, listen here, Kid,” he said. “You watch out just where you go to sliding down like that, ’cause you could real easy slide your young ass right on down off the side a this here mountain. I sure don’t want to lose you thataway.”
I recalled then about them two corpuses ole Zeb had tossed over the side, and that was even down lower than where we was at, and I hadn’t never heared them hit bottom. I looked around me then real keerful like to make for sure that I weren’t no place where that could happen to me, and then I tuck and commenced to just rolling over and over in that cold white stuff. It ain’t that I hadn’t never seed no snow before. I’d saw it, a course, several times, but this here was smack in the middle a hot summer, and it was more snow than I had ever saw at once even in the wintertime. Well, I stuck my face down in it, and I made snowballs, and I even rolled up some great big snowballs and made me a snowman up there. Zeb, he got to shaking his head like as if he didn’t quite know what to make out of me.
“I hope no one comes along,” he said. “I don’t rightly know how I’d explain you to them. Likely they’d want to take you down below to one of them nuthouses over in Denver or some such place and lock you up in it for the rest a your natural life.”
Eventual, I got tuckered out, and then I just set there till I started in to feel my britches butt getting cold and soggy. I decided I better get up and stop playing like some little kid, but to tell the truth, I reckon I wasn’t much more than that really. I was just a snot-nosed kid what had kilt me some men and shot a feller’s ear off, and that’s how come some of them went to trying to make me out to be some kinda Billy the Kid, but like you already know, I always done my best to try to put a stop to that kinda foolish talk ever’ chance I got.
Then Zeb went and said that we had ought to go on back down the mountain a little bit. He had only just brought me up that far ’cause he knowed I wanted to see that snow so bad, but it weren’t no place to be camping for the night, he said. So we turned around and rode back on down a ways, and then we made us a little camp, and right then’s when I realized just how much of a fool I was, ’cause I was starting in to chill more than just a bit from my cold and wet clothes, but pretty soon we had us a camp and a fire, and while ole Zeb commenced to fixing up our meal, I sidled myself on up to that fire and changed my clothes—ever’ stitch. Well, I felt all right again after that, with dry clothes on and that fire a warming me, and I was just as glad that I had gone on ahead and had myself a fine romp in that there pretty white snow.
We et that evening and sipped a little whiskey, and then we spent the night at that camp, and in the morning we packed up and mosied on back down lower on the edge of the mountain till we come to a place where the trail almost become a road, and it meandered alongside a real pretty, fast-running, cold-water mountain stream. I seen that ole Zeb was a moving slow and squinting his eyes and craning his neck, watching that stream real close like. I wondered what the hell he was up to, but I never asked him no questions. Then he spotted a gravel bar out in the water, and he stopped.
“Right here we’ll make us some pocket money,” he said.
“How?” I said.
“Set up camp,” he said, not answering my damnfool question. “I got work to do.”
I set up the camp while ole Zeb went out to the bar with a shallow pan. I tried to watch him while I was a working, but I tripped over a rock and fell on my face, so I decided I’d best mind my own business and let Zeb mind his. When I fin’ly had the camp all set up and the fire built and nothing else to do, I went on out there where he was at. He was squatted down on his haunches a swirling water and sand around in that little pan of his. I squatted down next to him and looked at the swirling water in his pan for a bit. Then, “What the hell are you doing?” I asked him.
“Ain’t you never panned for gold?” he said.
“No,” I admitted, feeling somewhat ignorant. “I ain’t. I done told you I don’t know nothing about this gold-hunting business, didn’t I?”
“Never even seed it don
e?” he asked me.
“I guess not,” I said. “If that’s what you’re a doing, I ain’t never seed it before this.”
“Well, looky here at this,” he said, and he held that pan over for me to look in it, and I seed that fine gold dust just a shining down there on the bottom of the pan.
“Is that there real gold?” I said, and I think that my eyeballs was kinda popping out at the sight of it. “Real gold?”
“It ain’t no fool’s gold,” he said. “Do I know gold when I see it? Why, hell, I don’t need to see it. I can smell it. It’s real, all right. It’s the most real thing in this whole world. There ain’t nothing on God’s earth more real than gold.”
He went on then and explained to me how the gold dust and little bitty nuggets gets washed down the stream from somewheres up on the mountain, and then they get caught up on sand and gravel bars like the one we was a squatting on. That’s how come him to stop us there in the first place. If you get a panful a that sand and gravel and water and swish it around the way he was doing, he told me, the sand washes out and the gold, what’s heavier, settles down in the bottom a the pan.
So I went and got me a pan, and I joined him there. I wanted to get me some a that gold, just the way he had did it. I watched him real close and done my best to do it just like he was a doing it, and it weren’t long till I got the hang of it all right. Well, we panned up a fair amount that first day. Then we put it away in little sacks what ole Zeb had brung along with him for just such a purpose, and we stashed it all under a big rock. We et us a good meal that evening, drank us a little whiskey to celebrate our good fortune, then slept the night there in our little camp. After breakfast the next morning, we went right back to panning. After a few days of that and several full bags of gold dust, Zeb said that was enough.
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