Fugitive's Trail

by Robert J Conley

  “Pocket change,” he said. “That’s all you’ll ever get that way.”

  He told me that he reckoned that we had us a couple thousand dollars in them bags. That sounded awful good to me, and I wondered why we didn’t just stick around and get us a few more thousand. It seemed like easy enough work for that much money, but ole Zeb, he weren’t interested. Now that some time has gone by since them days, and I look back on it, I think that he just plain got bored with it. I believe that for him, the finding of it was the most important thing, or leastwise, the most fun. And all that talk about getting rich, why, hell, I think that if ole Zeb had owned the whole entire wide world, he would still a gone wandering off into the mountains with his ole Bernice Burro a hunting for gold.

  Anyhow, he said that the dust we had panned was just only for pocket change, but what we were really after was a great big vein, a mother lode, he called it, something where we would have to get out the picks and hack great huge chunks a gold right out a the side a the mountain. And we wouldn’t be able to pack it off in little bags like what we was a doing with this dust, he said. The sacks a gold from out a the mother lode would be like big old tater sacks, and a burro like Bernice wouldn’t be able to haul but one or two of them at a time.

  “We got two extry horses,” I said.

  “They ain’t no good for nothing but ’cept to ride on maybe,” he said. “No sir, whenever the time comes, we’ll go down off a this mountain and buy us up a whole damn string a burros. Then when we ride down with all our gold, it’ll be just like a caravan. A caravan a gold. It’ll look like the King of Egypt is a coming down off a the mountain Then maybe we’ll take and buy Denver. I ain’t quite sure if I really want it though. Too many folks in it.”

  “I don’t rightly know what I’d do with it,” I said, “if I had it.”

  Well, for the next several weeks, I ain’t really sure for how long, me and old Zeb just rid them mountain trails. We done placer mining and crevicing. We panned out or dug out a little color most ever’where we went, ’cause ole Zeb, he really knowed his line of work. He just knowed if there was gold somewhere, so we never even went to work where there weren’t none. I begun to believe that he really did smell it. But it was all just only pocket change what we found, as he said. We never did come across that bonanza that he was a looking for, that mother lode.

  All that time, we lived mostly on beans and flapjacks and sourdough bread. That old man was a hell of a good cook too. Now and then we’d come across something that I could shoot so we’d have us some meat to eat. I’ll never forget the first time I seed one a them bighorn sheep. I hadn’t never seed nothing like that before, but Zeb said to shoot it, and I did, and be damned if it didn’t taste pretty good all cooked up. It kept us in meat for a few days.

  Then we was fin’ly getting low on coffee and beans and flour and such, and ole Zeb said it was time for us to go down amongst them again, much as he hated to, so we went on down, and where we come out was at another one a them mining towns, but only this one was bigger and more substantial than the last one I had saw. It was full a more people and horses and burros and dogs too. The first thing when we got there was we cashed in our gold, and sure enough, we had us a few thousand dollars for all our work. Ole Zeb’s pocket change made me feel pretty rich.

  Then we hunted us up a good place to eat. That was prob’ly the fanciest and finest meal I had ever et in my life, I can tell you. Ole Zeb had to tell them what to fix for me, ’cause I never even knowed what all them names meant. When we’d had our fill a that fine food, we walked on down the street to a saloon and gambling place. We had us a few drinks, and ole Zeb went to playing cards. I didn’t want to lose my money like that, so I stayed out of it. Besides, I had never played cards in my whole life, and I didn’t want to look ignernt, so I was just standing at the bar with a glass of rye whiskey when a pretty little redhead come up beside me.

  “Buy me a drink?” she said. I give her a quick look, and she weren’t bad.

  “I don’t mind,” I said, and I held up my hand to get the barkeep’s attention. While I was waiting for him to get around to me in that busy place, I tuck me a good look at the little gal. She was a cute one all right, but she did look to me as how she had been rode hard and put away wet, and not just one time neither. That was all right by me though, me what had kilt men and shot off a ear and been fired from two cowboying jobs.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “They just call me Kid,” I said. “That’s all. What’s yours?”

  “Red,” she said.

  I looked at her hair.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I reckon.”

  The barkeep come up just then, and she told him to bring her usual. I wondered what that might be, but I didn’t say nothing. When he brought it, whatever it was, I had him pour me another shot of whiskey. We drank them drinks down and had us each another. She was holding on to my arm all the time, so that if anyone else should take a notion on her, he would see that she was occupied.

  “You want to go upstairs?” she said, and the suddenness of it kinda shocked me. Oh, I knowed what she was, but it still kinda tuck me by surprise. I hesitated, ’cause it brought to mind ole Sherry Chute and the effect she’d had on me and the way she had did me that time. I didn’t want to go through all that again. Then I said to myself, hell, I ain’t going to fall for no whore again, so why shouldn’t I have myself a good romp in her bed?

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  She pulled on my arm and led me up the stairs and down a hallway to a room at the far end. We went inside, and she locked the door. Then she walked over to stand beside the bed and commenced to taking off her clothes. Well, the more nekkid she got the better looking she got, and I told myself, you be keerful now. You don’t want to go falling in love and getting all calf-eyed again.

  So this time I clumb nekkid in bed with the right attitude, and I had myself a hell of a good time on ole Red, and her on me too, I think. If she didn’t, she sure as hell knowed how to act like it, but I think that she really did have most as good a time as me. I had such a good time that I decided to pay her for the entire night, and we sure did romp away most of it, not getting us much sleep.

  The next morning I got up and offered to buy her a breakfast, but she said that she’d just as soon sleep a while, so I left her there and went a hunting ole Zeb. I couldn’t find him nowhere, and I was getting awful hungry, so I went to a hash house for breakfast. I ordered up eggs and ham and taters and biscuit and gravy and coffee, and I et myself real full. I felt good. I felt good, but I was still kind a worried about ole Zeb. ’Course, he had got hisself old all right without me along to fuss over him, so I ain’t sure how come I was feeling thataway, but anyhow, I was.

  I was finishing up a last cup a coffee when I kind a recognized a feller setting across the room from me. He was a real slick one, with a dark suit and a fancy hat. Fin’ly I recollected that he had been at the card table the night before where ole Zeb had set in on the game. I finished my coffee and paid for my meal, and then I walked over to where this feller was setting.

  “’Scuse me, sir,” I said, “but I’m looking for my pardner, ole Zeb Pike. You was playing cards with him last night, and I was just wondering if you’d maybe saw him somewhere this morning.”

  “No, I haven’t,” the man said. “You mean that old sourdough that came in the game late?”

  “That’d be him,” I said.

  “What did you call him?” the man said.

  “Zeb Pike,” I said. “He’s the one what got a mountain named after him. After he clumb up it. You know, Pike’s Peak.”

  The slick feller looked at his buddy what was setting across from him, and the two of them laughed, not real raucous like, but pretty clear at my expense.

  “What’s wrong?” I said. “You ain’t seed him, have you? You said you ain’t.”

  “Sonny,” Slick’s pardner said, “that old lying fool has been pulling your leg. In the first place, Zeb
ulon Pike never even climbed the peak that carries his name. In the second place, he’s been dead for years. Hell, Pike was dead before you were born.”

  Well, I was flat embarrassed, and I was plumb humiliated too. I didn’t know what to say. I stood there looking dumb for what seemed to me a long damn time. Whenever I could bring myself to say something again, I just said, “Well, thank you, sir,” and I turned and walked out a there as fast as I could. If I coulda found ole Zeb, or whoever the hell he really was, just then, I reckon I’d a knocked the shit right out of him. I was calling him all kinds a names for making such a fool outa me. But I was too mad to go looking anymore. I was so mad I couldn’t think a doing nothing but just maybe getting drunk, early as it was, so I went on back to the saloon and bellied up to the bar.

  It was early, like I said, so there was just only a few customers in the place, but I bought myself a whole bottle a rye whiskey and tuck it and a glass over to a table and set down to commence on accomplishing my intention. I poured me a glass and drunk it pretty fast, and then I realized that if I was to do that again, I’d likely be falling down on the floor. So I poured me a second glass, but I just only kinda sipped at that one.

  In my mind I was meeting up with ole Zeb again, and I was going over just what I would say to him whenever I seed him. Zeb Pike, I’d say. So you come back out a the grave to try to make a fool outa me, did you? You never even clumb that ole peak, you dirty old lying son of a bitch. Are you a lying son of a bitch, or are you just plain crazy? Do you really think you really are ole Zeb Pike? Well, damn it, you old bastard, you just find somebody else to do your lying to, ’cause I’m off on my own. I ain’t running around the damn mountains with you and letting you tell lies to me no more.

  That was the kind a speech I was making in my head and telling myself that I’d say to him just as soon as I seed him again. Then I got to wondering again, just where the hell could the old fart be anyhow. I tuck up my bottle and left the glass there on the table, and I walked on outside. The air was kinda crisp in the morning, but it weren’t nearly as cold as on up in the mountains.

  I went down the street to where we had left our horses and ole Bernice Burro the night before. They was all there all right. I asked the man if he’d seed ole Zeb, but he said he never. I walked the streets then, going into damn near ever’ place what didn’t have its door locked a looking for ole Zeb. I was beginning to worry something fierce. When I had finished going up and down the main street, I started on a side street to go over to the next row a buildings, and about halfway down, I glanced down the alley, and I seed someone just a laying there like as if he was dead. I run down there, my heart a pounding.

  I dropped down on my knees and rolled him over, and sure as hell, it was ole Zeb. I was about to think that he had passed out drunk, and then I seed all the blood on him. I lifted up his head and held it on my thigh.

  “Zeb,” I said. “Zeb. You ain’t dead are you? Zeb?”

  I laid my head down against his chest listening for a heartbeat, and fin’ly I heared one. He was still alive, but I couldn’t make him wake up. I even tried pouring a little whiskey in his mouth, but it just only dribbled out on his chin. I capped the bottle back and stuck it down in my coat pocket. Then I heaved ole Zeb up and got him onto my shoulder. I never thought the old bastard would be so damn heavy, but I managed to stagger back out to the main street.

  Well, I attracted some attention out there like that, and some feller kindly directed me to the doc’s office. He never offered to help me lug my load though, but I got ole Zeb over there, and I was sure relieved when the doc said that he’d be all right. It appeared, the doc said, that Zeb had got hisself some drunk last night, and then someone had stomped on his ass a bit. He had some cuts and bruises and maybe a busted rib or two, but that would all mend.

  “He’ll wake up and come around,” the doc said, “when he’s slept it off. Likely he’ll have a hangover, and his ribs’ll hurt like hell. But like I said, he’ll get over it all, and he’ll be all right.”

  I thanked the doc and paid him, and then I went out and found us a room in a real hotel, not no whorehouse, and I had ole Zeb hauled over there and put to bed. I figgered we’d be in town a spell while he mended, and we might just as well be comfy. I set in the room with him for a time, and when I fin’ly decided that he was for real okay, and he was just only sleeping off a drunk, I got to thinking again about the lies what he had told me, and I almost said that he deserved to get his old ass beat up like that for what he done to me.

  Then I had me another thought come into my head, and I got up and went over to the bed and checked his pockets. His cash was gone. Ever’ bit of it. Either he had lost it in that card game, or most likely, someone had seed him in the game and knowed that he had money and follered him outside, whopped him and tuck it. I wanted to know who it was that might have did that to my ole pardner, ’cause even though I had been thinking about knocking the shit out of him my own self, I sure didn’t want no one else a doing it. I was wishing that he’d come around and hoping that maybe he had got a look at the culprit.

  I meant to even things up for ole Zeb.

  Chapter Nine

  Well, ole Zeb, he fin’ly come on around, but his poor ole ribs was sore as hell, he said, and he couldn’t hardly set up or do nothing. He was grouchy as hell, just a setting there in the bed and being waited on and all, but I fetched him over a bottle of good whiskey, and that calmed him down some. I thought about accusing him a lying to me and making a fool outa me, but somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to getting on to the ole son of a bitch about that Zebulon Pike and Pike’s Peak business. Just then it all seemed kinda silly. Besides, I figgered that if his name weren’t really Zeb, then that meant he had to have some other name, like maybe John, or Charlie, or even Melvin. I didn’t think that I’d be able to call him by any name other than just ole Zeb, so I let it lay. I did ask him, though, if he’d got hisself a look at whoever it was that clobbered him.

  “I seed them all right,” he said. “Slick bastards, they was. Two of them. I knowed them too. Played cards with them.”

  “Did you lose all your money in the card game?” I asked him.

  “Lose?” he said, real loud and indignant like. “Lose? Hell, boy, I won. I won big too. That’s how come the slickery shits to come after me. Bad losers, they was, them two. A man can’t afford to lose his money hadn’t ought to play cards.”

  “So they was two of them,” I said, “and they jumped you ’cause you won their money. Do you know their names? Or what they look like?”

  “All I caught was just first names,” Zeb said. “They was called Asa and Clell. I never heared no last names. Asa and Clell. Asa, he was a slick dresser. Black suit and fancy vest. String tie. Had all the look of a gambler about him. You know? He sure ain’t got the right disposition for it though. A man can’t lose, he hadn’t ought to gamble. Sorry no-good son of a bitch.”

  Well, I couldn’t help it, but whenever ole Zeb described Asa to me, I thought about that feller in the eating place what him and his pardner laughed at me for believing that ole Zeb was really Zeb Pike whenever the real Zeb Pike was long dead. I had saw them two in the game anyhow. I remembered them. I figgered that he must be Asa. I wondered if his buddy was Clell. It seemed likely.

  “What’d the other’n look like, Zeb?” I asked. “The one called Clell. What’d he look like?”

  “Not so fancy as Asa,” he said. “Still slick-looking, but he weren’t wearing no suit though. Just a shirt and vest. No tie. Them two looked kindly alike in the face like they might a been brothers or cousins or some damn thing like that. Only thing is, Asa has black hair and Clell’s is yella.”

  “By God,” I said to Zeb, “I seed them. I seed them together the next morning. The morning after they beat you up. Hell, I even asked them if they had saw you around that morning. They even laughed at me ’cause—Well, never mind that. I’ll get them for you, pardner. I promise you that.”

  “Well,
” he said, “if I was a big enough man, I’d tell you to forget it, but I ain’t. I want you to get them, and I know you can handle them too. Only thing, just be careful. I don’t want nothing bad happening to you.”

  Well, that might near brung tears into my eyes, and I didn’t keer no more about ole Zeb’s name. Not a bit. By God, if he said he was Zeb Pike, then he was Zeb Pike, and them others just only thought that he was dead. Hell, maybe he was old as the hills. And maybe he had gone back to that ole peak and clumb it when no one was around to see. And I swore to myself that the next man what told me that ole Zeb was a liar and a fool, well, hell, I’d just kill the son of a bitch. That’s all.

  I made sure that ole Zeb had ever’thing he needed, and then I went out a looking for Clell and Asa. I spent the whole rest of that day wandering around that town, but I never seed them. Now and then I checked back on ole Zeb, and I made sure that he had his meals whenever he got hungry, and I made damn sure that he had plenty a good whiskey. Late that evening I was back in the same saloon where I had original met up with ole Red, and I was looking around for Asa and Clell, and damned if ole Red didn’t come a sidling back up to me. To tell the truth, I was kinda glad to see her again.

  Well, to cut this short, me and her had us a drink and went on upstairs and had us another good time, and when we was done, she got kinda quiet. She was kinda setting up there on the bed, and she looked to me like as if her mind was off somewheres else. That didn’t set real well with me, ’cause my mind weren’t nowhere except on her pretty nekkid body and what all we had just did with one another.

  “Something wrong, Red?” I asked her. I just come right out and asked her that. She waited a minute and then she looked at me.

  “Kid,” she said, “is your last name Parmlee?”

  That kinda surprised me. I didn’t recall that I had ever said nothing about my full name in this damn town, and I sorta wondered how come her to have heared it and where it was or who it was from that she had got hold of it like that.