Fugitive's Trail

by Robert J Conley

  “What do they call ye, young feller?” he said.

  “They call me Kid Parmlee,” I said, and I waited to see if the name meant anything to him, but I reckon he’d been in the mountains for so many years that he hadn’t heard no news since ole Tom Jefferson was President. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Zebulon Pike,” he said. “You heard of me?”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t guess I have.”

  “Why, hell, boy,” he said, “they named a mountain after me.”

  “A whole mountain?” I said.

  “Well, at least the top of it,” he said. “It’s over by old Cripple Creek, and they call it Pike’s Peak.”

  “Pike’s Peak,” I said with some wonderment.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “Is there usual snow on it?” I asked him.

  “Most all the time,” he said.

  “I’d sure admire to go see it,” I said.

  “Well, it just sets there,” he said. “Anytime you get there, it’ll be waiting.”

  He was eating some of my antelope meat by that time, and from the looks of it, he was really enjoying it. And the brew he had set on was starting to smell like coffee too. It sure flung a craving on me. In just a little while then, he had gone and dug two tin cups from out of the pack on the back of his ole burro, and then we each had us a cup a hot steaming coffee. By then the desert was starting in to cool off for the evening, and that coffee sure did taste real good.

  “Mr. Pike,” I said, but he interrupted me.

  “Call me Zeb,” he said. “Just ole Zeb.”

  “Zeb,” I said, “which way are you a headed?”

  “Ah,” he said, “any way the wind blows. Where my nose sniffles gold, that’s where I head. I mean to make a big strike and build me a mansion. Mebbe I’ll build me a opry house like some of them others has done and hire in some flimsy-dressed female singers. Maybe even some of them Shakespeare actors, you know.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know about them things.”

  “Well, it don’t matter none,” he said. “But I bet you know about getting rich.”

  “I worked on a ranch once,” I said, “where the owner had hisself a real big house—two stories tall it was, and it had a porch with a roof over it what went all the way around on all four walls. And his front gate had a big arching thing over it what you had to ride underneath it to get on into his property, and it had the name of his ranch writ right up there on it for ever’one to see it when they come in or even just passed by.”

  “Ah, well,” he said, “to folks like me and you, that seems rich all right, but it ain’t near like the kinda rich I’m talking about. I’m talking about getting rich enough to buy that there big ranch you worked on with just my pocket change. I’m talking about traveling around the whole damn world first class. Maybe buying my own railroad and riding in a private car. Drinking champagne all day long. Having three or four pretty little blondes hanging on my arms ever’where I go. Buying me a whole damn town and running it the way I want it to be run. Getting drunk as I want to get and never getting throwed in jail. How’s that kind a rich sound to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I ain’t never thought about nothing like that. Hell, all I want is just a good job where I can have me some money in my pockets at least most of the time. A place to sleep and three good meals a day. That’s all I want.”

  I reached over and poured myself another cup of ole Zeb’s hot coffee. He was still gnawing on my fresh meat.

  “You out a work then, are you?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “for right now. But I’ve worked on two big ranches, and I can get me another job, all right, just anytime I take a mind to.”

  “Where you headed for, Kid?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I was just kind a headed north. I might like to go see that there mountain a yours. That Pike’s Peak. Is there any big ranches close buy?”

  “Ah, you might find one or two thereabouts,” he said. “This is good meat, boy. I don’t see no rifle gun. You take this down with just that six-gun you’re packing?”

  “I sure did,” I said.

  “You must be pretty good with that thing,” he said.

  Well, I figgered he was working his way around to calling me some kind a gunfighter, and I was more than just a little bit uneasy about that, so I just said, “I get along.”

  “I bet you do,” he said. “I bet you do. Hunting with a six-gun. Ain’t many can handle that. Say, do you mind if I camp here with you tonight? You’d have yourself some coffee in the morning. Coffee’s real good first thing in the morning. I got the makings for biscuits too, and I can make them. Good’uns. We’d still have plenty of your meat.”

  I shrugged, and then I said, “I don’t mind.”

  Actual I was more than glad to have the old man’s company. Much as I had did it, I didn’t like being out on the trail all by my lonesome. So I was real glad a his company, for one thing, but for another thing, I sure did like his coffee, and biscuit for breakfast sounded pretty good to me too.

  Well, old Zeb was up early the next morning, way before me, and whenever I come awake, he already had them biscuit going and the coffee too. It sure did smell good, and I was tickled to death that I had let him stay with me in my camp. Whenever I rubbed my eyes and set up, he looked over at me and grinned, and I seed then that he had a few missing teeth in his head.

  “I was a wondering if you was still alive,” he said. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and I poured me some. It sure was good having it first thing in the morning like that. Anyhow, we et antelope meat and biscuit and drunk coffee till we was good and full, and then we set and jawed a bit. All that time ole horse and ole Zeb’s burro was gnawing at whatever it was they was a gnawing at. I reckon they got good and fed too. And ole Zeb made sure they each had a good drink a water too. Fin’ly I got up and started in to pack up my stuff.

  “You fixing to head out?” Zeb said.

  “Can’t stay here forever,” I said.

  “You say where you was headed?” he asked me.

  “Don’t rightly know,” I said. “I’m just kind a moving north, I guess.”

  “You could string along with me,” he said. “Turn west. We’ll head out for them Rockies. You wanting to see snow? You’ll see snow on them for sure. We might even work our way on up to ole Pike’s Peak thataway. Hell, you don’t need no job on no ranch. I lived out in them mountains for months at a time. I got a few supplies here. We’ll pick up some more along the way. Anything else we need, we can find it out there. And you can get us fresh meat whenever we need it with that six-gun a yours. What do you say?”

  “What’ll we be doing?” I asked him.

  “Hunting for gold a course,” he said. “Sniffing out the yella. Ain’t nothing else in this life worth the doing.”

  “Hunting for gold,” I said, just kinda muttering to myself. “I don’t know nothing about that.”

  “You don’t need to know,” Zeb said. “I know ever’ thing that’s to be knowed about it. I been at it longer than anyone else alive. I’m the world’s greatest expert at hunting and finding gold. I’ll teach you ever’thing you need to know. Well?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “We strike it rich, we’ll split ever’thing halfway down the middle. Fifty-fifty,” he said. “We’ll be pardners. What do you say? Hell, you ain’t got nothing else to do. Have ye? You ain’t got no coffee neither.”

  Well, I set back down on my saddle. I hadn’t throwed it up on ole horse yet, and I reached in my pocket for the makings and rolled myself a smoke. Ole Zeb, he got all excited. “You never told me you had none of that,” he said. I handed it over to him, and he rolled one for hisself. We each lit up and tuck a puff or two. I was thinking real hard. Fin’ly I said, “Zeb, I got to tell you something.”

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “No one ever asked
me to be his pardner before,” I said. “No one. I got to tell you something. You might not want me for a pardner. I got to tell you that I done a few killings. The first one I done, I done it because some ole bastard shot my dog. I was just only fourteen year old back then. I got real mad. I sort a seed red whenever he kilt my dog, and I hit him in the back a the head with a ax handle. Kilt him dead.”

  “Did you do it a purpose?” Zeb asked me. “I mean, did you kill him a purpose?”

  “I never had time to think that far,” I said. “I was just mad as hell ‘cause of what he done, and I hit him with the first thing I could get hold of. But when I knowed for sure he was dead, I weren’t sorry for it. I ain’t going to lie to you ’bout that.”

  “Well, hell,” he said, “any man hurt my Bernice Burro there, I’d kill him for it too. I’d do it a purpose. A man what would hurt a dumb animal like that, he ain’t worth a damn. You said you done some killings. What about the next one?”

  “It were two years later,” I said. “A kin a his come looking to kill me ’cause a what I done, and I shot him first. He was drawing down on me though.”

  “That’s all right then,” he said.

  “I lost my job over it though,” I said.

  Then I told him about shooting ole Hook while he was nekkid, but even though he was nekkid, he had got hold a his revolver and had it cocked and aimed right at me, and I added that I had lost me another job over that one. When I was all done with all my confessing, ole Zeb, he tuck a deep draw on his cigareet and then let the smoke out real slow. He looked like he was cogitating real hard.

  “Kid, it sounds to me like you never had no choice in none of them killings,” he said. “You never done no deliberate murders. Is that all it was you was wanting to tell me about?”

  “There’s more,” I said.

  “I’m a listening,” he said.

  “I shot off a man’s left ear one time,” I told him.

  Chapter Seven

  Me and ole horse and Zeb and his Bernice Burro headed west, and we moved on into some desolate country, I can tell you. But I had sure as hell picked me the best pardner for it, ‘cause I’m damned if ole Zeb didn’t know where ever’ water hole was located at along the way. We et jackrabbit and rattlesnake and now and then another antelope as we made our way towards them mountains, and ever’ day I longed more and more to see that snow up there, but I begun to wonder if it was all just a dream and ole Zeb was just a crazy lying old coot. Then fin’ly one day we seed them.

  It was like as if a great jaggedy wall was stretched out across the whole entire world out there in the distance in front of us, and they was kinda purply except way up on top, sure enough, they was white. I seed that snow. I wanted to run ahead and climb up on there, but Zeb, he told me that they was still some days off the pace we was a moving at. And he told me that we sure as hell wouldn’t climb up on there in no hurry neither. I had to have me some patience. It sure was hard to be patient though, for I had never in my whole life seed a sight such as that. It like to tuck my breath away. I almost believed in God just then, and I figgered that maybe he lived up there in that snow.

  We kept on and kept on, and after a couple a more days a slow traveling, I begun to wonder if we’d ever get there. I thought that maybe it was all some kinda great big trick on ordinary folks. You know, like you can see it, but you can’t have it. Something like that. But by God, we eventual got there. We got to them mountains. But there was a little town there kinda down at the base of the mountains. Ole Zeb told me that it was a mining town. Most ever’one there was a looking for gold or else they was making their living off the ones that was looking. He didn’t keer too much for them last kind, but he opined as how he guessed they was sort a necessary. After all, he said, we had to get our coffee and tobaccy and that sort of stuff from somewhere.

  I never seed nothing like it before. There was some buildings, a course, but there was also a whole mess a great big canvas tents, tents the size a buildings. There was smoke coming out of all the chimbleys. But the thing that struck me the most was how many people and dogs and horses and mules and burros was crowding the street, which was nothing but a long mud hole. Why, it was all you could do to keep from running over someone or to keep your own self from getting runned over and to keep from getting stuck in the mud. I bet my eyeballs was opened as wide as a couple of cow pies, well, at least as if they was just dropped by yearling calfs.

  Well, the first thing we done in that town was we looked up the first saloon we could find, and we hitched our critters up outside and went on in. It sure was crowded in there, but we managed to belly on up to the bar and order us some good whiskey. I paid for it, and me and ole Zeb commenced to putting it away. It was just a little bit after that when a couple a gals come a rubbing on us, and the one that was petting on me put me in the mood right away, I can tell you. I never thought that ole Zeb would a had it in him no more, but he surprised me, so we both went out the back door and into a couple a little shacks with them two gals, and we had us a hell of a good time. At least I did, and judging from the possum grin on ole Zeb’s face whenever he come outa that shack, I’m pretty sure for certain that he did too.

  Anyhow, I paid both gals, ’cause ole Zeb, he didn’t have no cash, and I did. Well, I rolled me a smoke, and I handed ole Zeb the makings, and then I struck a match on the ass of my britches the way I’d seed ole Sandy do it, you know, and me and Zeb both lit our cigareets off of it. We strutted back through the rear door a that saloon like two old bulls what had just made some new calfs on a couple of heifers, and we went back to the bar and had us some more whiskey.

  “What’ll we do now, Zeb?” I asked him. “Get us a room for the night?”

  “Hell, no,” he said. “Not in a place like this here. We’d wake up in the morning with our throats cut and all your money gone for good and ever. What we’ll do, see, is we’ll just have us all the whiskey we want, which is likely just one more drink after this here, and then we’ll buy us up some more coffee and beans and tobaccy and such and shuck this town.”

  I didn’t argue with him none, ’cause I reckoned as how I had me a lot to learn yet about the ways a the world, and ole Zeb, he’d been around some in all his years. We had us one more whiskey each, and then we bought us a bottle to take along with us. We found a store just down the street, after dodging all kinds a rifraff and dogs and such, and we stocked up on all the stuff we might need once we got our ass out away from civilization, if you could call it that. Then fin’ly we headed on outa town and up into the mountains. I was sure anxious to get up to all that snow up there.

  Ole Zeb knowed all them mountain trails, but I tell you what—it was steep going, and it was slow, ‘cause, a course, Zeb was walking and leading Bernice Burro, and so I wouldn’t get ahead of him, ’cause I sure didn’t have no idea where we was going, well, I just naturally had to walk along and lead ole horse. Ever since I had run away from home on ole Swayback, I had rid horses most ever’where I went, and only since I pardnered up with Zeb had I been walking again. But we had walked enough already that I begun to get used to it again. But not walking near straight up like heading up for that snow. Oh, my legs was a hurting me.

  I did notice, though, that the air was getting kinda thin and crisp and cold, so I figgered that we really was sure enough going to find that snow. I was thinking that the first thing I’d do was I would get me a handful of it and eat it. After that I thought that I’d prob’ly roll around in it some. I was sure getting anxious, but we still hadn’t come to it when Zeb said that we had oughta stop for the night. We had come to a place where there was a kinda wide and sort a flat spot there beside the trail.

  “Ain’t no other good camping site for a ways,” he said, “and we don’t want to be climbing this trail after dark. Folks have fell off the side of this here trail and never been seed again in this world.”

  I tuck his word for it, and we made us a camp. We had a nice little fire, and we cooked up some beans and brewed
some coffee. We et hardtack for bread and chewed on jerky for meat. I was just settling down for the night a sipping myself another cup a hot coffee, when ole Zeb kinda leaned across the fire and near whispered to me.

  “Don’t look around, Kid,” he said, “but I think we got uninvited company a coming.”

  Well, I kinda stiffened up at them words, but I tried to stay cool. “Who?” I said.

  “I ain’t for sure,” he said. “My guess is someone follered us outa that mining town after they seed us spending your cash around.”

  I stammered a bit. “Well, what’ll we do?” I said.

  “Just kinda casual like,” he said, “you get up and get yourself over against them rocks in that shadder. You see?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and my voice sounded nervous and quaky. I could tell. “Now?”

  “Now’s as good a time as any,” Zeb said, so I tuck me another sip of coffee, then put the cup down by the fire. I stood up and hitched my britches, casual like, the way he’d said, and I strolled away from the fire. I got in that dark shadder against the rock, and I just leaned back there against the cold rock wall and tried to be ready for most anything that might come up. Ole Zeb, he built the fire up some, more than what we needed, and then he moved away from it, and I lost sight a him in the dark. By and by, he come back, and he tossed something into the fire, more twigs, I guessed. Then he wandered off again.

  I was beginning to think he was crazy when I heared the noise of a couple a horses a riding up the trail coming toward us. It was kinda late for anybody to be riding up that mountain trail, like ole Zeb had tole me earlier. I got nervous then, and I could feel my ole heart a pounding in my chest. Pretty soon two riders come up to the fire and stopped. They looked around some. Then one of them yelled out.