Well, me and ole Dick Cherry, we tuck and built us up a little fire and cooked some food and boiled some coffee, and then we et. We seed to it first, a course, that our horses was all staked out with a plenty a grass to graze on and near enough to the water. We was kindly tired out from the long day’s riding, but it was still some early for sleeping, so we set up a-drinking coffee and a-chattering some.
“Whenever we come on them Dawsons up yonder at Snake Crick,” I said, “how you reckon we had oughta play it? You got some idee along them lines?”
“They don’t know you, do they?”
“They never seed me in their life far as I know. I seed them once though. I was upstairs a looking out a winder whenever they robbed the bank in Fosterville. I seed them a coming outa the bank and riding outa town.”
“Well, they don’t know me, either,” Cherry said. “It ought to be easy for us. I figure we’ll just play it by ear. Maybe we catch them one at a time apart from each other. I say we just see what happens and take it from there.”
“Sounds all right to me,” I said. “Anything you say, why, I’ll go along with it. Say, you been in this bounty hunting business for long?”
“Couple of years,” he said. “I didn’t plan it. It just sort of happened. I worked as a cowboy for a while when I was a kid. Then I got kind of handy with a six-gun and hired on as a gunhand in the middle of a range war. The way things turned out, I gunned a man who was wanted. When I collected the reward, it came to me that there were a lot more men on those dodgers with prices on their heads. It just seemed like the thing to do.”
“I reckon so,” I said. And it did seem reasonable enough, and I was a-thinking on it for my own self. The only thing was that it was still somewhat distasteful in me to think on shooting someone down what I didn’t know just on accounta someone would pay me money for the doing of it. With the Dawsons it was different. I kept on a telling myself that I was a-doing that for ole Jim Chastain and for Fosterville what had sorta become my own home town. Well, it was the most home town I ever knowed.
Anyhow, we give it up just a little after that and turned our ass in for the night. It come a little cool before the night was over, and we come out from under them blankets early and made us some coffee, but we hit the trail without no breakfast in our bellies. Cherry said that we wasn’t none too far from Snake Crick, and we could wait till we got there and get us a full-cooked meal for a change. I went along with that, but then it was damn near noon whenever we final seed that little ole town up ahead of us, and my belly was grumbling something fierce.
Of a sudden, I hauled up on my reins and pulled Ole Horse to a dead stop.
“What’s wrong, Kid?” Cherry asked.
“It just come to me,” I told him, “that we’re stringing along them three horses what them Dawsons left behind on the trail. If we was to ride on into town with them, them outlaws is bound to reckanize them, and that might could make them some suspicious of you and me a-coming in with their horses like that.”
“Hell,” he said, “anyone could’ve come across the horses along the way and picked them up as strays.”
“That’s right true enough,” I said, “but still, it ain’t worth taking no chance with. Besides, we don’t need them no more. I’m a-turning them loose.”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
So we rid on into Snake Crick just the two of us on our two riding horses. I was kindly sneaking my eyeballs around a-looking over the town and the folks what was out on the street, but I never seed no Dawsons out there, and looking over the horses at the hitch rails wouldn’t do no good, on accounta I hadn’t never saw the horses what they was a-riding after they had made their switch. Well, we hauled our ass up in front of a rooming house and went in and got us a room. After we stowed our gear, we tuck our horses to a stable at the far end a the street. It weren’t too far, though. There weren’t much to that there Snake Crick. From the stable we walked on down to a eating place and went inside.
It was crowded in there on accounta it was just about the only place in town to get grub, and it was noontime. We managed to find a table though, and we ordered us up some eggs and stuff. The feller in the dirty apron what tuck our order argued some with us. He said that it was long past breakfast time, and the cook was a-whomping up steaks and beans and such, but we argued right back, and we final got our way. Well, the way it come about was like this here.
“It’s noon,” the man said. “He’s done quit cooking eggs. Have a steak like ever’one else.”
Then ole Cherry, I coulda shot his ear off, he said, “Listen, friend, my partner here is none other than Kid Parmlee, and he’s a regular Billy the Kid. If he wants eggs, I’d fix him some eggs.”
Well, that done the trick but only what else it done was it let ever’one in the whole damn town know just who the hell I was and that in a real short time. It don’t take long in a one-horse town for word to spread, you know. I wanted to cuss ole Cherry real good, but only they was all kinds a ears a-listening, so I just kept quiet, and since the secret was done let out, I closed my eyes down to slits to look my most meanest.
So we finished our breakfasts and paid and left that place, and I tell you what, folks give us plenty a room whenever they seed us a coming their way. I never realized till just then how well I was knowed. There we was a ways from the mountains and from Fosterville where most a my activities had tuck place, but them folks in Snake Crick had heared about me all right. To tell the truth a the matter, it kindly puffed me up some, and I begin to strut pretty fine.
“Let’s check out the saloon,” Cherry said. I said that sounded okay to me, and so we went on over there. It weren’t far. It was crowded pretty good, too, and before you go to thinking that Snake Crick was bigger’n what I said it was on accounta I keep on a saying that we run into crowds, well, they wasn’t all that many folks. It’s just that they was only one eating place and just only one saloon, so ever’one in town had to go to the same places, you see.
Anyhow, we bellied up to the bar and ordered us up a bottle and two glasses. We had us a drink a standing there, and then we hunted around the room for a table. We found one back against the far wall, and we went over to it and plopped our ass down there. We poured us another drink, and while we was a-sipping at our whiskey, I was a searching the room a looking at all the faces in there. Then I seed them.
They was clean across the room from us, but I could tell it was them Dawsons all right. They was doing just like what me and Cherry was a doing. I thunk about it, and I figgered we coulda kilt the three of them right then without no problems, ’cept only that the place was so crowded, we might get some innocent folks kilt in the process. I sipped some more whiskey. Then I said to Cherry in a most near whisper, “Anyone in here look familiar to you?”
“I can’t say they do,” he said. ’Course he had never saw the Dawsons, just only their pictures on that there dodger he had stole offa the wall that time I first met up with him. Me, I had saw them in the flesh.
“Well,” I said, “they’s in here all right, but afore I point them out to you, I want you to agree with me that this here ain’t the time nor place to do nothing about it. They’s too many folks in here.”
“I agree,” he said. “Now where are they?”
I give him a quick description and told him whichaway to look, and he seed them all right without calling no attention to the looking, so then we both knowed for sure that they was in town, and we both knowed what they was a-looking like. We agreed then, still a talking in low voices a course, that we’d keep our eye on them, and that if either one of us was to ketch ary one a them out alone, why, we’d just go on ahead and deal with it and tell the other’n later. I was worried that they was a-spending that there bank money, and I decided to go on ahead and say something about it to ole Cherry.
“You know, ever’ damn time they buys a drink, they’re a spending a little more a that there bank money.”
“They might have had a little money in t
heir jeans before they robbed the bank,” Cherry said, “but chances are, you’re right.”
“The more of it they spend, the less we get to take back to the bank,” I said, “and the reeward for the money is a percent. You know what that there means, I reckon.”
“The more they spend, the less we recover, and the less we recover, the smaller the reward.”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“Well, Kid, you’re the one that said not to start anything in here. We could take them easy right now and stop all that spending. But you’re calling the shots.”
“I don’t like it none,” I said, “but we got to wait for a better time and place.”
He give a shrug and picked up his glass and tuck a little bitty sip a whiskey. I done the same thing.
“I got me an idea, Kid,” Cherry said.
“What’s that?”
Well, he whispered his idee into the side a my head, and it sounded like a pretty good one to me, ’cept only for one thing.
“You done let the whole town know just who the hell I am,” I said, “and we done been seed together.”
“Men have falling outs all the time,” he said. “No one will think anything about it.”
I thunk on it a bit more, and he seemed to make sense, so I agreed to it. He tuck hisself another sip a whiskey, then got up and left the place, both of us a-hoping that them Dawsons hadn’t noticed nothing. We figgered that our chances was pretty good on accounta them not knowing us atall and the place being as crowded as what it was. I sipped on my drink a little more, and then I got up and walked back to the bar. I tuck my bottle and glass with me, and I stood there with my back to the bar a-looking out over the crowd. I put on my meanest and cockiest look.
In another minute or so, here come ole Cherry back into the bar, and he made a big show a spotting me there. He stopped still. He looked mean and mad. He crouched down like a pissed-off panther, and he held his hands out ready for a fast draw.
“Kid Parmlee,” he called out in a loud voice, and the whole place got real quiet of a sudden.
I looked over at him real casual-like and most unconcerned. “You a-talking to me?” I said.
“That’s your name I called, ain’t it?”
“That’s what some calls me,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”
“A killing,” he said.
“One that’s been did?”
“One that you did,” he said, “and another one. One that’s about to happen. Step out away from that bar.”
I stepped out and faced him square. “You oughta give that there some more thought,” I said. “For one thing, if you go to shooting in here, someone innocent is liable to get hurt. For another, I don’t even know you, and that means I don’t really want to kill you, but if you don’t back off, I will.”
“I ain’t backing off.”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
“Hell, I know all about you. They call you a regular Billy the Kid. I guess you’re the same kind of back-shooting bastard as he is. You don’t scare me.”
“All right, mister,” I said. “Make your play.”
Ole Cherry went for his shooter real fast, but I was some faster. My Colt was cocked and pointed right smack at his heart, and he kindly friz up with his drawed but not hauled up level yet. It was pointed at the floor about halfway betwixt the two of us. We just stood there for a long pause like that, him a-looking real skeered-like.
“You gonna raise up that there shooter or put it away?” I asked him.
“You got me, Kid,” he said. “I never believed you were really that fast. I’ll put it away.”
“I could go on ahead and kill you,” I said. “I got me a whole room a witnesses what seed you go for your gun first. You aiming to slip up behind me one a these times and do me in thataway?”
“No,” he said. “You beat me square. I give it up.”
“Then go on and put your gun away.”
He did, and he turned around a-hanging his head and walked on outa there. It sounded like as if ever’one in the place let out all the breath they had been a-holding all at one time, and then they all commenced to talking again, but only they was most a them a-looking right at me. I tried to ignore it by turning around belly to the bar and picking up my glass to sip at it. Almost immediate, one a them little whore gals was a-hanging onto my left arm. I turned my head to give her a look at, and she weren’t bad if she hadn’t a been painted on so thick. She was a-looking up at me with great big blue eyes.
“Kid Parmlee,” she said. “I’ve heard of you. I’m Sparky.”
“I bet you are,” I said. “Buy you a drink?”
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
She called for a glass, and the barkeep brung her one, but I never poured none a my whiskey in it. Instead, I picked up the bottle and my glass. “Not here,” I said.
“I have a room upstairs,” she said. “You want to go up?”
“Let’s go.”
We turned away from the bar and headed for the stairs, her still a-hanging onto my arm. I handed her the bottle. She done had the fresh glass, and that meant that all I was a-toting was my own glass what I had in my left hand. I was a-keeping my right free just in case, you know. Whenever we come to the stairs, I stopped and tuck me a look around the room, like as if I was a-making sure that no one was fixing to try to get the drop on me. Then I turned back and me and that gal went on up to her room.
It was nice furnished with all kinds a pink and frilly stuff in it. She tuck the glass outa my hand and put it and the other glass and the bottle on a table what was there by the bed. Then she give me a look that had questions in it. I said, “Let’s have us a smoke and a drink.”
I tuck the makings outa my pocket while she poured the two glasses full, and I was just about to pour some terbaccy onto the paper, but she come and tuck it all away from me, and then she rolled up the best looking cigareet I had ever seed rolled, and she licked it real good, too. Then she tucked it in betwixt my lips. I pulled a wooden sulfur match outa my pocket, and she tuck that and struck it and held the fire to my cigareet. I sucked it started, and she blowed out the flame on that match, and her lips did pucker real pretty. She tucked the makings back into my pocket. Then she tuck the cigareet outa my mouth and had herself a puff on it before she give it back to me. We was a-setting side by side on the edge a the bed by that time.
Well, I finished up my drink, and she finished hers, and we put the glasses down on the table there. Then we passed that there smoke back and forth till it was might near burned up. She tuck the butt and snubbed it out in a tray there on the table.
“Sparky, huh?” I said. “That don’t sound to me like a right name.”
“Kid don’t sound like a right name to me, neither,” she said.
I grinned at her. “You got me there.”
Then she leaned in towards me with her eyes most nearly closed and that there real inviting pucker on her lips again, and I couldn’t help myself. Ole Red come to mind, and I felt a real sharp pang a guilt come on me. It tuck a powerful effort on my part, but I forced that guilt and them thoughts about ole Red right outa my head, and I went for them luscious lips. My, my, but she was sure sweet. After we had drooled all over each other real good, I broke loose a her bear hug and went over to check if the door was locked real good. It were. It had a bolt on the inside what was slud home. I turned back around, and ole Sparky was a-standing up beside the bed and stripping off her clothes. I walked back over there and tuck off my gunbelt. I hung it up there on the post a the bed, and I tossed my hat off. Then I set down on the edge a the bed again and pulled off my boots. When I looked up again, ole Sparky was stark-staring nekkid. She come at me.
I tell you what, I never had no better time in my life than what I had that time with ole Sparky. She sure enough lived up to her name. Whenever we was final all done, and it were a while, I was all wrung out like a bandanna what had been a mopping a sweaty brow all day long out on the hot prairie. I
wasn’t having no thoughts about ole Red nor no other gals nor nothing, not ole Cherry, nor the Dawsons, nor no bank money. There wasn’t nothing in my mind but just how I was a-feeling and what wonderful things had just been did to me. That’s all.
Well, it were quite a spell, but final I was up and dressed again, and I went back down the stairs into the saloon. Ole Sparky, she had done gone down ahead a me, and by the time I got down to the bar, she was a making up to some cowhand there. She seed me though, and give me a wink. I had come outa that room up there so dizzy with wondrous feeling, that I had went and left my whiskey bottle behind. Whenever I got to the bar, that thought come to me. I was trying to decide was it worth it to go back for it, or should I just buy myself another drink at the bar. I hadn’t made my mind up yet whenever someone stepped up beside me right close. Well, that always makes me some nervous, and I turned right quick and give a look.
“Can I buy you a drink, Kid?”
I’ll be goddamned if it weren’t one a them Dawsons.
Chapter 5
Now that what had just happened was just exact what ole Dick Cherry had planned on a-happening, but then it had come about so fast that it tuck me plumb by surprise. I was a-fixing to answer ole Dawson, but he talked again afore I could form me any words to say.
“I got two brothers setting over yonder,” he said. “We’d be proud if you was to join us. We got a bottle. Good whiskey.”
“Well,” I said, “you got the advantage on me, mister. You know my name.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry ’bout that. I’m Clem Dawson.” So we shuck hands, and I said, “I don’t see no reason why I can’t take advantage a your kind hospitality.”
“Good,” he said. “Come on over.”
The Devil's Trail Page 4
