A Cold Hard Trail

by Robert J Conley

  “Kid,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

  “Come on, Kid,” said Raspberry. “You’re all right. You can make it easy.”

  “I can’t make it atall,” I said. “There ain’t nothing easy about it neither. I’m friz solid here, damn it.”

  And I was too. My damned ole fingers was all ten dug deep into the side a that mountain, and my both feet was pressing down as hard as they could onto whatever toeholt they had found. Then the rest a me from top to bottom was smashed hard right up flat against the side a the mountain, and that was including the right side a my face. I couldn’t even move one finger, not if I’d a wanted to. I don’t think I could blink my eyes, and I was only just barely able to draw a breath.

  “What do you mean?” Weaver said. “You’ve got a good handhold just to your left. I can see it from here. Move your left hand over and you’ll find it.”

  “I ain’t moving nothing,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “Look, Kid,” Raspberry said. “We’ll talk you through it. One step at a time. I can see your whole way back from over here. Just move one hand. Then one foot. I’ll bring you right along. I can see the way.”

  “Well, I can’t see it, damn it,” I said. “Talk all you want to. I ain’t moving. I ain’t moving nothing.”

  “What are we going to do?” I heared Weaver ask Raspberry. I could hear them talking to each other just like as if they’d been right there beside a me.

  “I’ve seen it before, Willie,” Raspberry said. “It happens to some men like that. He’s right. It’s like he’s frozen there. He really can’t move.”

  “Kid,” Weaver said, raising his voice again, “can you move your left hand?”

  “No,” I said, “and I ain’t going to try neither.”

  “All right then,” Raspberry said. “It’s all right, Kid. Just hang on. Hold on tight. I’m coming after you.”

  I wondered just what the hell that meant. If I couldn’t move and was stuck to the side a the mountain like that, what the hell was he going to do whenever he come after me? I couldn’t figger out any way he could do nothing for me. I figgered I was just a goner and that was that, unless a course old Jesus was to decide to do what it was I had asked him to do.

  Now, you might be a-wondering just what kinda cowardly chicken shit am I after all, and I guess I couldn’t really blame you none for that with what I’m a-telling you about and all, but remember that I had done faced me a good many bad-ass gunslingers whose clear and often stated intention was to blow my ass all the way to hell, and I had faced them with a cool head, and I had always come out clean and clear too. There weren’t a man alive who could skeer me a-standing in front a me with a gun, long as I had my own Colt strapped on me. No sir.

  But what all it just goes to show is that I don’t keer who it is you want to talk about nor how big he is nor how many men has shot at him nor how many he has shot down and kilt and maybe had fistfights and all kinds a things like that a-happening to him all around and through the years, no matter how brave you think a man might be, nor how much you might look up to him or admire him or even be askeered of him, there is something somewhere that’ll skeer the shit outa him, and if he tells you different, he’s a ball-faced liar. Well, so what I’m a-telling you is just only that I had done come right smack up against what it is that skeers me, right there on the side a that mountain.

  “Hang on, Kid,” Weaver said. “Charlie’s coming for you. It won’t be long now. We’ll get you out of there.”

  “How?” I said. “Is he going to carry me on his back? Can he fly or something?”

  “Just hang on,” Weaver said. “Don’t panic. Try to think about something else.”

  Well, I commenced to thinking about Paw and Maw and even my poor ole dog Farty what had been shot dead by that bastard Joe Pigg what had set me off on my fugitive’s trail when I was only a snot-nosed kid fourteen year old. And then I wondered if anyone would bother to let Maw and Paw know it whenever I was dead, and if they would tell them how it was I come to die.

  I wondered, too, if I would go to heaven or hell and whichever one I was to wind up in, would I run into ole Farty there. I kinda hoped that I would and that we’d be able to go a-hunting for something together. I didn’t know if Maw or Paw would really give a shit was they to hear that I had give up the ghost, even in such a horrible way, but I figgered at least my pardner ole Zeb would keer and so would Red. I sure did hate it that I would never see them again. Then I felt a hand on my left shoulder, and it kinda startled me somewhat, and damned if ole Raspberry weren’t right there beside me and a-touching me.

  “All right, Kid,” he said. “Just relax. Let me take your left hand and move it. I’ll put it right over here where you can get a good hold. Okay?”

  “No,” I said. “I ain’t a-turning loose. I’ll fall all the way down to China if I do. I got aholt a something here, and I mean to keep aholt of it.”

  Raspberry moved his hand to my left wrist, and I hollered like I had been burnt.

  “Turn a loose a me, you son of a bitch,” I said. “Leave me be.”

  “Charlie,” I heared ole Weaver say from over there where he was at. “Charlie, there’s a dirt ledge just down below you. Not too far down. It’s plenty wide too. You can drop right down on it. Both of you.”

  “You hear that, Kid?” Raspberry said. “There’s a ledge right under us. All we have to do is just drop down.”

  “I ain’t dropping nowhere,” I said. “I’ll drop to China and get smashed to bits.”

  “Kid,” Raspberry said, and he was trying to keep his voice nice and calm and soothing. “You can’t just stay here like this. You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to get off this mountain somehow. Let me help you.”

  “I ain’t dropping and I ain’t moving,” I said.

  “Your muscles will give out on you sooner or later,” he said, “and then you’ll fall for sure.”

  “I bet I can hang on here till I starve to death,” I said. “Then I won’t know about it whenever I fall. I’ll done be dead.”

  “You’ll get weak and fall before you die,” he said.

  “Well, then, just shoot me offa here,” I said, “but shoot to kill.”

  Then by God, that son of a bitch Raspberry, of a sudden, without no kinda warning nor nothing, just tuck right aholt a my left wrist and plucked it right offa the side a that mountain, and I went to losing my balance and hollering and flailing around, and then I felt myself a-flying backward through midair, a-screaming all the way, and I could feel it whenever my belly and all my guts and even my private parts all went right up into my chest and somewhat into my throat, and I felt like as if I had been flying six hunnerd feet through the air, and then I hit the ground, and I weren’t broke to pieces atall. I was sure all outa breath though, and I tried to suck in some air.

  I was laying flat on my back on that ledge they had told me about. I looked up, and I could see ole Charlie Raspberry just about six feet up from me where I was at. He was still hanging on to the side a the mountain there where I had been stuck, and I knowed then that six foot or so was all the farther down I had actual fell. I set up then, and I felt around on me for all a my parts what had gone up into my chest and my throat, but they was all already back down where they had original come from. Then ole Raspberry, he dropped down onto the ledge beside me.

  “You all right?” he said.

  “I guess,” I said. “I ain’t dead.”

  “Well, look over there. Look ahead to where Willie’s waiting for us,” Raspberry said. “From here, we can stand up straight and just walk right back over there. Okay? You ready now?”

  “No,” I said. “You go on ahead.”

  “Now, Kid—”

  “No, really, Charlie,” I said. “I ain’t like I was up there no more. I’m okay now. Really. I just want to wait a bit. That’s all. Go on now.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, kinda aggravated. “I wanta set here a spell a
nd watch to make sure them Morgan bastards don’t come back up here for no more blasting. I’ll, keep watch on the place for a spell. You go on back. Both of you. Tell ever’ one what we done up here and that ever’ thing’s okay for now. I’ll be along directly. I’m just fine now. Go on.”

  Final, I convinced them that I was for-real okay, and they tuck off and left me there, but what they didn’t know, ’cause I hadn’t told them, was the for-real reason I had run them off like that. You see, whenever I had went flying through the air like that, and my guts had all come loose the way they had did, well, I had made myself a real embarrassing mess what I didn’t want to have to tell no one about, and I hadn’t wanted them two hanging around long enough to catch the hint of it from their nostrils neither. I didn’t know just what it was I was going to do about it, but I did know I was going to have to figger it out for myself.

  Well, I unbuckled my gun belt and laid it aside a good stretching arm’s length away. Then I pulled off my boots and set them over there too. The messy part come next when I slipped outa my ruint britches, and it like to a made me sick. The legs was mostly all right, though, and so I used them for rags to try to clean myself up the best way I could, and then I throwed them nasty britches off the side a the mountain.

  So there I was, a-setting half nekkid, and that the bottom half a me too, on a ledge up on the side a the damned ole mountain. It was still daylight, and I knowed I couldn’t just get up and walk back into the camp like that, with ever’thing I had a-hanging out like that and swinging loose. I didn’t want no one to see me like that, but even more, I didn’t want to have to tell no one how come me to be in that condition.

  Well then, I thunk about ole Chastain nekkid in his jail cell, and I knowed better then just what a bad thing I had did to him, but then I figgered that after all he had been better off than what I was at that moment, on account a at least he could tell folks that he had been forced into that humiliating condition at gunpoint. Me, I didn’t have no such good excuse as that.

  Well, I just had to come to grips with the situation I was in. That was all there was for it. I had to figger out how to deal with it. That’s what being a man is all about—figgering out how to deal with whatever situation you find yourself caught up in. I pondered my plight for a spell, and I decided that I would wait till nightfall right there on that ledge, and then I would go down and back into the camp. Thataway, there wouldn’t be as many folks likely to see me come a-walking in. Maybe a few. But if I was to wait long enough, maybe no one would see me. The only problem with that was that if I was to wait till dark time, I would have to make the rest a that climb back down to the camp in the dark, and that could be a little bit dangerous.

  That last part a the way back down weren’t real dangerous. It was a gradual slope, but in the dark it might could be a little tricky. I figgered it’d be worth a skint knee or two and maybe even a scratched-up ass, though, to keep from being saw the way I was. I kept my thought that I would wait for dark.

  Well, I set there with the pebbly ground a-digging into my bare ass and my knees drawed up against my chest, embarrassed even though I was setting there by my own self and no one nowhere around, and I sure was a-wishing the time would pass faster for me. I considered taking me a little nap to help the time to pass, but then I weren’t at all sleepy, and besides that, I was askeered that if I was to actual go to sleep, someone might come along a-checking up on me to be sure was I all right. I figgered I’d just have to set there and be bored.

  Now and then I looked back towards where them bastards a Morgan’s had been blasting to see if any of them was coming back around, but they never. Most a the time I stared over there at where Raspberry and Weaver had been at. That was the direction I was really worried about. No one come around though.

  I got boreder and boreder, and then I commenced to getting real hungry too. As the sun final got kinda low in the sky and I figgered I didn’t have too much longer to set out there, I started into getting cold on account a my bare nekkid legs and ass being exposed to that cool night mountain air like that. I went to shivering some. I heared the noise a someone a-coming up the mountain. You know, they kick loose rocks and such, and you can hear it, and I got real nervous and panicky.

  “Who’s there?” I hollered out.

  “It’s me, ole Zeb.”

  “Don’t come up here, Zeb,” I yelled. “I’ll be down directly. You go on back down right now.”

  “You all right, Kid?”

  “I’m just fine,” I said, “but you do like I say and get your ass on back down there.”

  Well, he did all right. He never even poked his head up over the edge, and I was grateful for that, I can tell you. But I still had to set there and wait for dark to fall. I considered praying to Jesus again, but then I reminded myself that he hadn’t did nothing for me the other time, so I let that thought go. I tried thinking on something nice and pleasant, like the time I had just recent spent with ole Red, but that didn’t work neither, ’cause all it done was make me worry that Red might somehow find out about this embarrassing fix I had got myself into. There just weren’t nothing for it but only to set there and be miserable and wait.

  The sun did final go down, and the precious darkness come. I pulled my boots back on and stood up. I picked up my gun belt and thunk for a minute about what to do with it. Then I put it back down, and I tuck off my shirt, and I tied it around my middle like a apron or something. It covered me up, but even so, anyone who might happen to see me would know that I had lost my britches. Then I picked up my gun belt again, and I strapped it on around me over the shirt where it was tied. I headed on back to the camp.

  I done a little slipping and sliding going down that there trail, but I didn’t scratch my ass up too bad. I was some surprised, though, at just how different it was going down it in the dark than it had been going up in daylight, and even then I’d had me someone to foller. I made it though, and then I stood still with my heart a-thumping looking into the camp to see was anyone out walking around. I seed ole Myrtle, but in a minute, she ducked into the big tent.

  I tuck off at a run towards the little tent where me and ole Zeb was a-staying, and then I seed a man come outa a shack, and I ducked real fast behind a barrel and crouched down there till he went on his way. Then I tuck up my run again, and this time I made it all the way. I went inside under the flap door as fast as I could, and there set ole Zeb and a lit lantern a-setting on the table and him looking square at me.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he said.

  “Zeb,” I said, “don’t ask no questions. Just fetch me a bath.”

  “But what the hell happened?” he said.

  Then of a sudden the tears just come a-streaming outa my eyes like from a bawling baby, and they just run down the sides a my face like little rivers, and I didn’t wanta say nothing about it, but I just couldn’t help myself, and then before I knowed what I was a-doing or a-saying or had time to give it no thought atall, I just blurted out loud, “Charlie Raspberry throwed me offa the side a the mountain, and I shit my britches.”

  Ole Zeb, he never laughed at me. He never even said nothing. He stared at me for a minute or so kinda like he couldn’t hardly believe what I had just tole him, and then he popped up and run for the door. He was a-going to fetch me my bath. He didn’t say that, but it was what I had asked him to do, and I knowed he was a-doing it. But me, I just stood there a-waiting on account a I was askeered to sit down on anything, and I was shaking all over and still running them salty tears.

  Chapter 9

  Come morning, I was all cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes, on account a ole Zeb, he had managed to get a bucket a hot water into the tent the night before, and even though it had tuck him a while to do it, I had managed to get my bath all right. Now, if you recall, I had got hungry a-setting on that ledge, and here it was the next morning, and I still hadn’t had nothing to eat, so my belly was a-growling something fierce for food. I knowed I would have to go on over
to the big tent and have myself some breakfast. They was just two problems.

  Ole Zeb, he knowed about the terrible thing I had did. I thunk I had solved that problem, though, ’cause I had done told him that if he was ever to breathe out one little tiny word about that humiliating incident, that no matter where we was at nor how many witnesses there might be, I would just shoot him dead, even though he was my pardner and all that. I know he believed me what I said too, so I felt pretty safe that Zeb would keep his mouth shut about that.

  The other thing worried me some more though, and that was that Weaver and Raspberry had been there to see me freeze up the way I done on that mountainside. Well, I’d just have to take my chances on that one. I braced myself up and walked on over to the big tent with ole Zeb, and whenever we went inside, there was a big cheer went up, and folks come a-running and mobbing all around me and patting me on the back and ever’thing like that, and then they practical carried me over and set me down at the table, and someone come a-fetching me a breakfast plate all piled up with flapjacks and eggs and ham and such. Someone else fetched me my coffee. They final kinda settled down.

  I couldn’t figger what that was all about, but I could feel my face kinda heating up like as if I was a-blushing, and I knowed that was on account a I found myself a-setting right beside ole Willie Weaver and looking across the table straight at ole Charlie Raspberry. I only looked down at my plate and started in to eating.

  “We told them about how you ran off that bunch with the dynamite,” Raspberry said.