Well, that done it. I whipped out my Colt and cocked it and pointed the barrel right square betwixt ole Zeb’s two beady eyes.
Chapter 18
So there I was, a-clinging for my very life to the same side a that straight-up-and-down side a that same goddamn mountain just in that same exact damn spot what had brung on me the single worst most humiliating experience a my whole entire young life, a thing what I hoped to forget about entire, but this here situation was bringing it all back to my mind in ever’ little detail just as clear as anything could ever be. There I was again a-pinching the hell outa them damn slick rocks with all a my desperate fingers till I knowed full well that my whole both hands was clear pale white with all the blood squeezed out of them, and I could feel my poor ole guts a-loosening up too, but I squinched my asshole up as tight shut as I ever could, and I gritted my teeth till I could hear them grinding. ’Course, really and truly, I had me two damn good reasons how come I hadn’t oughta been near as skeered as what I had been that other awful time. One was that I knowed from experience about that there ledge what I had fell down on before, or ruther, what that damned ole Raspberry had throwed me off on, so really, I knowed that I wouldn’t be kilt if I was to fall, at least not there in that very exact same spot where I had already fell to. I mean, I knowed it in my head, but that didn’t seem to help me none.
The other comfort what I shoulda had was that ole Zeb, he was a-going along right ahead a me, see, and he had went and tied a rope around his own waist and then tied the other end a the same rope to me in the same exact way. That there was s’posed to make me feel more safer, you know, but I didn’t rightly see it quite thataway. It looked to me more like if I was to fall, why, I’d just go on a-falling and then I’d pull ole Zeb right along with me ’stead a him a-holding me up. Even if his idee woulda worked, which I didn’t have no faith in, not even a little bit, I just couldn’t hardly see my ass a-dangling and a-swinging out over next to nothing on the end of a rope tied on to nothing else but just a crazy old man up there a-hanging on to the side of a cliff. I reckon you can somewhat understand my line a reasoning here.
“That’s the way mountain climbers does it, Kid,” was what ole Zeb had said to me whenever I expressed my doubts regarding his method, and I was s’posed to take them words for a full and total explanation a how come him to do it thataway.
So there we was, the two of us, me and my old pard, two damn fools, it seemed to me, and me the worstest a the two, just inching our slow and painful way over the hard way to the Morgan side a the mountain pass. I was a-thinking that I mighta could made it through that den a outlaws after all. Or maybe I coulda made my way down the south road and over to the north road and back up to the cross the mountain road all in good time. But it was too late for them kinda thoughts.
Well, I knowed it would happen, and it sure enough did. I friz up again. Total. Complete. I just couldn’t move. I couldn’t move even a finger. I was most skeered to breathe on account a that made my chest to heave. If a snake had a crawled outa one a them cracks in the rocks right in front a my nose, I wouldn’t a been able to move a single muscle on my whole entire body to defend myself. I’d a just had to a let him bite my nose, is all, and let it swell up on me. I felt the rope pull tight against me, and it skeered me that it was going to pull me off.
“Zeb,” I hollered. “Cut it out.”
“Come on, Kid,” Zeb said.
“I’m stuck,” I said.
“No you ain’t,” he said. “Come on.”
“I can’t move, Zeb,” I said. “I oughta know when I’m stuck.”
“You going to shit in your pants?” he said.
“Goddamn you, Zeb,” I said.
“Feel over thisaway with your right foot,” he said. “There’s a good stepping-on rock right there.”
“I can’t move.”
“Feel for it.”
“No. I can’t.”
“You little chicken shit,” he said. “I’m downright ashamed a you. It’s a good thing you done found yourself a new pardner, ’cause I’m dumping you. I can’t have no little chicken shit for a pardner. Not ole Zeb Pike. Me with a mountain named after me. I got my reputation to think about.”
Then I felt that rope drop from the other end, and it sure felt heavy when it stopped falling too. Ole Zeb, he had went and untied the damn thing off from around his own waist and just throwed it on down, and so there it was, just a-dangling off from me then and doing no good for no one.
“Zeb,” I said, “what’re you doing?”
“I’m going on,” he said. “I’ll find that Cherokee myself and give him a hand, since you’re just stuck here on the side a this mountain. I’ll have to tell him that you couldn’t make it.”
“Zeb, don’t leave me here like this.”
“Chicken shit.”
“Zeb, wait for me.”
It tuck all the willpower I had in my skinny little chicken-shit frame, but I went to inching my right foot over the way ole Zeb had told me to, and damned if I didn’t find that there rock he said was there.
“Zeb,” I hollered out. “Zeb. I found it.”
“All right, Kid,” he said. “Now turn a loose with your right hand and reach over thisaway.”
I done it, and I was sure a-trembling, I can tell you. I slapped at the side a that mountain, and I couldn’t feel nothing but smooth. I was most near in a for-real panic. I didn’t know if I’d be able to move my hand back where it come from even. My one hand was floundering around useless.
“A little higher, Kid,” said Zeb. “You’re just under it. Reach up just a little.”
I felt up a little, and then I come to the handholt. Well, ole Zeb, he talked me on across the flat side a that mountain just in that way, all the way across till we come to a place where the mountain sloped again, and it was a steep slope, but it sure did seem like a gentle one to me after that there flat place. I looked back over where I had just come from, and I seed that I had come right on over that ledge what I had fell down on before and then on across a place where the ledge wasn’t there no more, and if I’d a fell, I’d a fell plumb down to China for sure. I just couldn’t hardly believe what I had just did. Ole Zeb, he was resting there on that slope, and I set beside him to rest myself up some too. I looked over at him, and he was just a-smiling real big.
“You done it, Kid,” he said.
“I couldn’t a did it without you, Zeb,” I said.
“All I done was talk,” he said. “You done it.”
And I had did it. I knowed that I had. I had just gone and did the one thing that in my whole entire life I was the skeerdest a doing. I figgered that I would never be able to tell ole Zeb just how much it meant to me what he had helped me to do, but then, I kindly figgered he already knowed. Then he proved it to me that he knowed.
“How’s your britches, Kid?” he said.
I looked at him, and I grinned. I was so happy with myself what I had did that I almost laughed out loud.
“They’re dry,” I said.
“Let’s go find our new pard,” Zeb said. “You ready?”
Zeb knowed them mountains all right. Where we was, we was right up over the top a Morgan’s camp, and I even looked down in there a time or two, and I could see that Morgan and them was down there all right. I couldn’t set and study on them long enough to make out what was they up to, but they was there.
Me and Zeb crawled along that slope for a considerable time, and then we went down in a kinda groove, and I couldn’t see down into the camp no more, but it was a sorta relief to be in there, on account a we could stand up and walk. No one from down in the camp coulda seed us neither, so it was safe for us to do that. I couldn’t tell where we was a-going. I didn’t even know whether we was going north or south or up or down, but ole Zeb, he knowed. I follered him.
Final we come on to a place where ole Zeb started right up the side a that groove we was in. I follered him. It was steep, but it weren’t so steep you couldn’t climb i
t all right. We clumb for a while, ’cause we had gone down kindly deep into that groove. When we come to the top a that thing we was a-climbing, we was up high again, and then I seed that we had got plumb to the other side a ole Morgan’s camp. I couldn’t hardly believe it what we had did. I was real full a all kinds a new admiration for my ole pard, ole Zeb Pike. From where we stood, I could see Morgan’s camp, but just only enough to see where it was at. I couldn’t tell nothing more about it nor anyone in it than just only what I said. It was there and we was past it. That meant, a course, that we was safe from their prying eyeballs too. I could also see the mountain road a way off down there.
“What’re we going to do now, Zeb?” I asked.
“I thought you was the one was going to come over here without me and do ever’thing by your own self,” he said.
Well, I let that pass. After all, he had just done a-helping me come across that there cliff face what had humiliated me before, and I couldn’t never forget that. I give it a real hard thinking about before I even tried to answer him that one.
“Well, I woulda, Zeb,” I said, “on account a ole Churkee, you know, but since you’re here with me, I figger maybe you got a better head for it than what I do.”
“Well, I reckon you’re learning something, Kid,” he said. Then he stood there a-looking around and a-studying things, you know. He kindly scratched his nasty old whiskers underneath his chin. “If it was to be me down there,” he said, “and I was a-wanting to keep a eye on them outlawyers but not get saw by them, and wait it out for the posse to get here, well, I reckon I’d plant myself somewheres right down yonder.”
He pointed down and to our right, a little betwixt us and the Morgan camp. They was a ridge down there alongside a the road. Whenever ole Zeb pointed it out to me, why, it become plumb obvious. I wondered how come me not to a come up with it my own self.
“Yeah,” I said. “That looks good, Zeb. That there’d be the place all right. Let’s go on down and find him.”
“Hold on now just a minute,” he said. “First off, we gotta study on the best way to get down there. Then we got to figger about where to slow down and be real keerful so that he won’t hear us coming up behind him and kill us dead before we can tell him that we’re his pardners a-coming. And it’s got to be you what he sees first on account a he don’t know me from a smelly skunk, and he might shoot me in the head, if he’s as good as you say he is.”
“He’s that good all right,” I said, and I shoulda added that I’d a never thunk about all them things what he had just said. I was sure glad ole Zeb had come along with me. I had learnt a whole lot from ole Zeb in the time me and him had been pardners, but I hadn’t never before felt like I was so lucky to have him on my side. Well, he done his figgering, ’cause of a sudden, without no leading in to it, he just said, “Foller me.”
He tuck out at a fair clip down that steep mountainside, and he looked for all to me like as if he had one short leg. He was a-walking kindly sideways, you know, going down the side there, but only he didn’t hardly bob up and down atall. That old man was like a damn mountain goat, a thing what I had never in my life seed before he had pointed one out to me once. I follered him, and I tried to manage the slope the same like he was a-doing, but I couldn’t do it. I staggered along and slud now and then, and where he walked smooth like, I did bob up and down like the way a damn chicken walks.
We went on down like that for a space, and then the ground leveled off, and we walked more or less normal and straight ahead till we come on to a sudden and right abrupt drop-off, and then I figgered that ole Zeb, he had done miscalculated somewhat after all. He stopped right at the edge of that thing. I waited a minute or so for him to say something about our new situation, and when he never, I said, “Well, what now, Zeb?”
“Well,” he said, “I know how I can go on down. I’m just a-trying to figger can you handle it thataway.”
That burned me a little bit, but then I figgered that after the way he’d had to work so to get my ass on across that there sheer mountain face just a little while earlier, I couldn’t really blame him for thinking like that the way he done.
“You just show me where to go, old man,” I said, “and I’ll foller you.”
I figgered that “old man” would burn him some, and I’d just get me a little even with him thataway. He give me a look, but he never said nothing about it. He just motioned me on over to his side, and I walked over by him and looked on down over the edge there.
“It ain’t too long a drop,” he said. “We kindly slip our ass off over the edge, and then we turn a loose and let go. When your feet hits the ground, bend your knees and roll. You’ll roll on down the slope yonder for a ways, and then you’ll stop there where it starts to level off again. You got it?”
“Sure,” I said, but I really couldn’t recollect even the first thing what he had just said. “You go first. I’ll watch you and I’ll foller you. I’ll do it just the way you do.”
Well, ole Zeb, he got down on his hands and knees with his ass pointed toward the edge, and then he went to backing off. Whenever his legs got to dangling off in the air, he got his belly down on the ground, and he just kept on a-wriggling backward. Pretty soon there wasn’t nothing of him a-showing up over the edge but just only his face and his arms. He kept on a-backing, and then he was just a-holding on by his fingertips. He turned a-loose. I looked over the edge right quick, and I seed him hit down there, and I felt a real funny feeling way down deep in the pit a my gut, most nearly clean down into my balls, and I seed his legs buckle and then him start in to rolling. He rolled over and over, and then he come to that leveling-off place what he had mentioned to me. He stopped rolling then, and he stood right up and waved at me. What could I do?
I was skeered most to death, but I had said it, and I had to do it. I tried my best to do just exact what I had saw ole Zeb do. I got down on my hands and knees and then clean down on my belly, and I crawfished backwards over the edge a that drop-off. I can tell you, though, that whenever my legs went out in space, I got real wriggly-bellied. I kept on a-going though, and then I kindly fell down over the edge just a-hanging on with my hands. I tried to look back over my shoulder, but I couldn’t do it. My neck wouldn’t twist far enough. I weren’t sure atall what was down there underneath me. I didn’t know what the hell I was a-going to land on. It come into my head that there might be a big rock down there what I hadn’t noticed before. Then my hands commenced to getting real tired, almost sore, and I turned a-loose.
Good God A’mighty damn! I thunk that all a me except for my belly went a-dropping. And then whenever I hit bottom, it surprised the hell outa me. I had the presence a mind, though, to do just exact what ole Zeb had tole me to do, and I relaxed my legs just in time, and they doubled up underneath me, and I went down, and I went to rolling over and over so fast it like to made me dizzy with it. I thunk I would roll clean to China.
Of a sudden, I stopped. I was on that flat part. It had all happened just like ole Zeb said it would and just like it done for him. All ’cept for just one only thing. My belly hadn’t ketched up with the rest a me yet. I set up and waited for it to come on and get back in there where it belonged. Zeb come a-walking over beside a me, and he looked down at me with a kinda concerned look on his old face.
“You ain’t hurt, are you?” he said.
“I’m mostly all right,” I said. “I’m a-waiting on my belly, is all.”
Well, it come back, and I got up, and we started into walking upright again, and I was sure grateful for that. I tried to recall what this way down had looked like from up above so that I’d know what else there was a-coming up ahead a me and what else I might have to go through to get on past it, but I just couldn’t recall nothing about it. Not a damn thing, so I just follered ole Zeb along. We come to a long ridge then, and we was walking along on it, and ole Zeb, he turned and looked at me and give me a shoosh sign, and I figgered that meant that we was a-getting close. I walked easy, keeping as qu
iet as I knowed how to. Eventual ole Zeb stopped again, and he peeked over the edge a that ridge we was on. I come up beside of him and peeked over too. Down below us was another ridge and below that was the road. Zeb didn’t say nothing. He just pointed down to that next ridge. I nodded like as if I understood his meaning.
Zeb set down on his ass and slud off the edge, and he landed down on that lower ridge on his feet just as neat as a shot glass a good whiskey. I done the same but only when I hit, I fell over on my face. I was okay, but only it embarrassed me some, but at least I was a-keeping up with him. I guess I made a little noise, though, the way I landed, and he looked at me and shooshed me again. I stood up real easy and checked to make sure I hadn’t lost my Colt in the falling down, but it was okay. Zeb started walking ahead. I follered him.
I tried to see over ole Zeb’s shoulder to make out where we was headed, and of a sudden it looked to me like as if we was about to walk right offa the edge a the world, but it weren’t really so. What it was was there was a kindly sharp curve there a-going to our right. Zeb come to that curve, and he walked on around it and disappeared from my sight line. I wanted to holler out to him, but he had done shooshed me earlier, so I kept myself quiet. I just moved on ahead easy like. Then I heared a voice.
“Hold it right there, old man, or I’ll drop you in your tracks.”
I slipped out my shooter and held it ready but only I didn’t cock it yet on account a the noise it makes whenever you do that. I eased myself toward that curve.
“Don’t shoot, sonny,” I heared Zeb say. “I ain’t one a them owlhooters.”
“There’s two old men with them,” the other voice said. “You could be one of them.”
That there voice was kindly familiar to me. I was hoping, but I couldn’t take no chance. I moved myself on ahead slow and easy, and I was thinking that if that ridge line was too tight up there around the curve, I mightn’t be able to shoot real good over ole Zeb’s shoulder nor past him on either side. I was some nervous about that. I didn’t want to put Zeb in no danger. Then I eased my ass on around the curve and right up almost smack against ole Zeb’s backside, and I could see over his shoulder all right, but just barely on account a my height, you know, but I could see good enough, I reckon, and I was some relieved, I can tell you.
A Cold Hard Trail Page 18
