The Devil's Trail

by Robert J Conley

  I stood beside Moose a-sipping my coffee and watching. Lulu poured herself a cup and stood to Moose’s other side. “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Could be anyone,” I said. “This here is a fairly goodtraveled road.”

  “You reckon it’s someone on your trail?” Moose asked me.

  “Might could be,” I said. “There’s a-plenty of them out there.”

  “If they come after you,” he said, “they’ll have me to deal with, too.”

  “I appreciate that, Moose,” I said, “but if it should come to a shooting, you just get Lulu and get off over there to one side outa the way. I don’t want neither one a you getting hurt in a fight a mine. I ain’t seed no two gunhands that I couldn’t take at the same time, nohow.”

  Them two riders come in close enough then to reckernize, but I didn’t know them none, only I heared Lulu give a kinda gasp and outa the corner a my eyeball I seed her grab tight onto ole Moose.

  “Moose,” she said, “I know them. They work for Harvey.”

  “It ain’t your fight, Kid,” Moose said. “It’s mine.”

  “How come?” I said. “Who the hell’s Harvey?”

  “Harvey owns the place where Lulu worked. He thinks he owns Lulu too, and all the girls that work there. I reckon he sent them two to bring her back.”

  Well, I started in to tell Moose again to move off to one side, but then it come to me that he wouldn’t do it, him a-thinking that this coming up was his fight and not mine, so ’stead a saying anything more, I kindly started in to sidling my own self away from ole Moose. He was a-standing to my right side, and I went to sidling off to my left, and I got myself several feet off to the side. Them two rid on up and stopped their horses. For a minute they just set there a-staring.

  “Lulu,” one of them final said, “you’re coming back with us.”

  Moose, he shoved Lulu back behind hisself, and he puffed up his chest real big, and he said, “She’s with me. She ain’t going back.”

  “Now, Moose,” the feller said, “we got no quarrel with you. Harvey sent us to fetch Lulu back. That’s all. You just step aside and stay out of this.”

  “No, sir,” said Moose. “I ain’t going to.”

  “Moose,” the second feller said, “don’t be a damn fool. We ain’t getting off these horses to do no fistfighting or wrassling with you, and you can’t beat either one of us, much less both, with a hand gun.”

  “I can take the both of you before either one gets a shooter out,” I said.

  Both a their heads turned and looked at me.

  “You got no call to interfere in this,” said the one guy. “Lulu belongs to Harvey.”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t know no Harvey, but I do know that no one belongs to no one else in this here free country. Lulu don’t want to go back, so you two just wasted a trip out here. Turn around and go back and won’t no one get hurt.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “I ain’t had my breakfast yet,” I said, “and I don’t really want to kill no one. Do you two fellers know who it is you’re a-messing with?”

  “Some punk kid.”

  “You got the ‘Kid’ right. I’m knowed as Kid Parmlee.”

  I seed them two exchange quick looks, and it sure looked to me like as if I seed a little fear and doubt in them looks, but then they both looked back at me with hard and mean stares. Then they swung their ass down outa the saddle right together, and they stepped out in front a their horses and then moved off to one side like as if they wanted to get them horses outa the line a fire. Whenever they done that, they moved over in my own direction away from Moose and Lulu, and I was glad a that.

  I stood there as calm as you please, and I seed them two a-flexing the fingers a their gun hands. Then they stepped away from each other in order to split my targets apart. I knowed what they was a-doing all right. I couldn’t keep my eyeballs on the both a them at once. That didn’t bother me none, though. I had faced men like that before. I was ready. I tell you what. I ain’t necessary proud a the fact, but I had come to be real casual when it come to a killing. I mean, if it was a man what was a-looking for it. Anyhow them two spread out real good so as to kindly split up my concentrating, you know.

  “Well,” I said, “is either one a you two shitty-ass fuckfaces going to do something, or do you think you can just stare me into the ground?”

  Well, a good cussing almost always causes fast action, and both a them rannies went for their shooters. My trusty Colt was out in a split-up second, and I drilled the first one right through the middle a his chest. My second shot went right into the nose a the other’n, and he hadn’t even cleared leather yet. I don’t mean to brag, but I was sure enough fast when it come to using my Colt. They was both a-laying there dead.

  “I ain’t never seen nothing like that before,” said ole Moose.

  “It weren’t much,” I said. “They weren’t no shucks.”

  “Kid, thank you,” said Lulu. “I wasn’t going back with them no matter what. They’d’ve had to’ve killed me first.”

  “Ain’t nobody going to go killing my friends if I’m around to do something about it. But what I want to know is, do you reckon that there Harvey is a-fixing to let it go now?”

  Lulu kindly shuck her head. “I don’t know, Kid,” she said. “He’s not one to let go real easy.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Don’t let it worry you none. We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled for him or anyone what goes around licking his boots. That’s all.”

  Now, we had done started our breakfast whenever ole Moose had spotted them two a-riding towards us, and distasteful as it were, we went on ahead and finished it up even with them two a-laying dead not far from where we set down and et. When we finished our coffee and cleaned up our camp, I started in to getting us ready to move on out.

  “What about them?” Lulu said.

  “What about them?” I said back to her.

  “Shouldn’t we—do something?”

  I looked over at them two bodies, and then I looked at their two horses. “You’re right,” I said. “There is something we’d oughta do.” I walked over to the horses and pulled the saddles off and the bridles and slapped them on their ass. Then I walked on over to Ole Horse and clumb up on his back. “Y’all ready to ride?” I asked.

  The rest a the ride over to Fosterville was mostly just boring. We seed a few travelers and talked a little bit with them, but mostly we just rid along talking to each other now and then. One time whenever we stopped to let Lulu run off into the bushes for some privacy, me and ole Moose was a-setting there a-waiting. There had been something on my mind for a while, and I decided that was as good a time as any to get it said out loud.

  “Moose,” I said, “if I’d had me any idee how things was a going to turn out betwixt you and Lulu, I wouldn’t never a tuck her upstairs that one night. I feel awful bad about that, and I—”

  “Don’t feel bad,” he said, interrupting me. “She was doing what she was doing. She ain’t doing it no more, thanks to you. Besides, I’m just as glad that the last one in her old life was you. You’re my friend. I wouldn’t a wanted it to be no one else.”

  After three days a riding, we come onto Fosterville, and I tuck us to the stable first to get our horses fed and rubbed and put to bed for the night. Then I led the way over to the saloon, and soon as we walked in there I seed ole Chastain a-setting at a table with ole Red. Well, my anxious riz up seeing Red there like that, but I done my best to control myself. I tuck Moose and Lulu over to the table and interduced them all around. I told them how Moose had saved me that time from a back-shooting son of a bitch by cracking his skull bone, and I told them as how Moose and Lulu was fixing to get theirselfs hitched. Jim and ole Red congratulated them two real hearty. Then I throwed my saddlebags down on the table right under ole Jim’s nose. He looked up at me real curious.

  “That there’s what I went after,” I said. “Them that had it is dead.”

>   I tell you what, that was a great relief offa my mind and like a big weight tuck offa my shoulders all at the same time. I had did the job I set out to do, and all the stole money was now back where it belonged. The outlaws what stoled it was either dead or in jail waiting to get hanged up by their necks. I set down, and ole Jim grabbed up them saddlebags and opened up their flaps. He kindly shuffled through all that money in there, and then he smiled and looked up at me. He stuck a hand acrost the table for me to shake. I tuck it and shuck it.

  “Thanks, Kid,” he said. “You did a real fine job.”

  “All I done was just only what I said I would do,” I told him.

  Jim waved his hand and called for three more glasses, and the barkeep brung them over. Jim poured them each full a whiskey and shoved one at me, one at Moose, and one at Lulu. We all tuck them up real grateful and begun to slurp at that fine brown liquid. Then ole Jim looked around, and he spotted a feller a setting a couple a tables over from us. He motioned to the feller to come on over, and then he said, “Do you know where to find Mr. Throne?”

  “Sure,” the feller said. “I think so.”

  “If you’ll fetch him over here to me,” said ole Jim, “I’ll buy the next round for your table.”

  “You got a deal, Sheriff,” the feller said, and he went a-hustling off outa there. I heared what Jim said, and I figgered he just only wanted to show off to ole Throne what I had did, and that was just fine with me. Mostly though I was happy for the time being a-setting back and sipping that good whiskey. Well, I’d had me two drinks by the time that feller come back with Throne, and that ole banker set down and Jim showed him the money, and ole Throne’s eyeballs like to a popped plumb out the front a his face. He counted that money, and then he tuck a little notebook outa his pocket and done some fast ciphering. Then he counted out my percentage right outa that there money on the table and give it to me. He writ out a paper and had me sign it that I had tuck that money. My deal was all did, and I was free to head on out to End a the Line and my new job. But I was sure a-ogling ole Red. Only thing was, I was a getting real hungry, and I was sure enough tired a all a that damned ole trail food.

  “Say,” I said, “how about we all go over to the eating house and have us some good steaks?”

  Well, ever’one agreed, even Jim and Red, and we adjourned our ass from the saloon and walked over to the eating place. We had us a fine steak dinner what I paid for all around, and now with my belly full a good food, I was a thinking more on ole Red, but another thought come into my head.

  “Jim,” I said, “can we scare us up a preacher at this time a night?”

  “I think so,” he said, and sure enough he done it, and we had us a wedding for Moose and Lulu. Then I give Moose some money for a wedding present and told him where to go to rent a nice room for the night. I told him to have a bath drawed for them and to take along some good whiskey and some good champagnee for them. Well, he blushed red, but he tuck the money and said that he would take all my suggestions for sure. Then them two went off to do their honeymooning.

  That there was my chance, I figgered. I was a fixing to make a move on ole Red. Me and her hadn’t never worried about no wedding bells nor nothing like that before, so I figgered I wouldn’t have no trouble a-getting together with her in a upstairs room at the saloon. I hadn’t never had no trouble along them lines before, but then just as I was a-fixing to come out with my most eloquentest words, ole Jim, he stood up and he tuck holt a Red’s arm. She looked up at him in that there special kinda way a woman can look and she stood up alongside of him, and then he said, “Well, Kid, I think me and Red are going to call it a night, too.”

  I think my face like to a fell down on the floor, but if Jim and Red noticed it, they never let on.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Kid,” Jim went on. “Thank you for what you done. By the way, there’s rewards for each of those Dawson brothers. Come by the office in the morning, and we’ll fill out some papers and see what we can do about it.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” I said. I just set there kindly dumbfloundered while ole Jim Chastain and my own sweet little ole Red walked outa there together like that without no word a explanation nor nothing. Like as if there weren’t nothing to it and it had been thataway all along, and I shouldn’t be surprised about it none. When they was gone out the door, and I was just a-standing there with my mouth a-hanging open, I said out loud but just only to my own self, “Well, I be God-diddly-damned right down to the bottomest floor a hell.”

  I walked on back over to the saloon with my head a-hanging down like a kicked dog, and I went inside and got me another bottle and a glass and went and set at a far back table with my back to the wall. I poured me a drink. I was a-thinking, there is other gals in this place, and I thunk about getting me one for the night, but I didn’t really feel like it no more. Not after ole Red a-walking off from me on the arm a ole Chastain the way she done and not saying nothing to me about it.

  ’Course, my plan, such as it were, had been to take her upstairs for a long night a fun, and then to just ride off from her the next morning and get my ass on back over to End a the Line and to my newest sweetie, ole Doc. I guess, thinking back on it, I was a-fixing to do her more dirtier than what she had did me, but just then I weren’t really a-thinking along them lines. I was a-feeling like as if I had been did dirty, and whatever it was that I had in my own mind to do weren’t really all that bad. You know, us human beans is like that.

  Anyhow, I was a-setting there a-feeling thataway and fixing to get good and sloppy drunk, when of a sudden in come a-walking ole Zeb Pike hisself. And he come in a roaring, too.

  “I hit it,” he hollered. “I hit the big bonanzy, by God. I done it. I hunted it all these years long, and be dagnabbed and befuzzled if I didn’t final at last sniff her out. Barkeep, buy eve’one in the place a drink on ole Zeb Pike.”

  Well, he went and slapped some money on the bar, and the whole place went up in a roar, and I couldn’t a got his attention in a million years just then. So I just set there a-feeling good for him. He had done did what he wanted to do most in his entire life. He had found his mother lode. That is, if he were a-telling the truth. You know, a course, the first thing he ever told me was a damn big lie whenever he said that he was ole Zeb Pike and had a mountain named after him. But I was a-hoping that he weren’t a-lying about his bonanzy. I waited till ever’one kindly settled down again with their fresh drinks what Zeb had just paid for, and then I stood up a-grinning. It tuck a little while, but he final looked in the right direction and seed me.

  “Kid,” he roared, and he come a-running for me. When he come to me, he throwed his arms around me, and I throwed mine around him, and when we final come apart and stepped back to get a look at each other, he said, “Kid, you little shit, you shoulda gone with me like I wanted you to do in the first place. I found her. I actual found her. The mother lode. The bonanzy of all bonanzies. I’m a rich son of a bitch.”

  Then he went to hopping and spinning around in circles and singing. “A rich son of a bitch. A rich son of a bitch.”

  Final he cut out the hopping and singing, and he set down a-panting for breath. I poured us each a drink.

  “I’m glad you found her, Zeb,” I said. “Who’s watching the place for you? Who’s working it?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t keer,” he said. “I found it and that’s all I give a damn about. Hell, Kid, I sold the claim.”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out wads a money, and it looked almost like that bank money or that payroll. Other than them two bunches a money, I never seed as much as what ole Zeb had on him.

  “Put that away, you silly old son of a bitch,” I said. “You want someone a-knocking you in the head?”

  “Oh, hell,” he said, “who’d dare to bother ole Zeb now with his pard Kid Parmlee back in town?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I said, “but don’t go showing it off like that. I might not be a-sticking around for too much longer, nohow.
”

  “Oh, I reckon you’ll stick all right,” he said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I reckon when you find out who’s over yonder in the jail, you’ll be a-wanting to do something about it.”

  “Who?” I said. “What the hell’re you a-talking about?”

  “Come back from Texas,” he said, kindly singing it. “Come back from Texas. Your ole paw, that’s who, come all the way back from Texas.”

  Chapter 22

  “You floor-flushing ole fart,” I said. “You’re a-trying to bluff my ass.”

  “I swear I ain’t,” Zeb said. “He come back from Texas, or else he never went back there in the first place. He’s over there, all right. Right now. Go look and see if you don’t believe your ole pard.”

  “Damn it,” I said. There weren’t a damn thing a-going the right way for me of a sudden. “How come him to be in the jail house? What the hell’d he do?”

  “Ah, not much. He got drunked up and he got mouthy with ole Chastain. Chastain throwed him in the jug for a few days since he didn’t have no money to pay his fine.”

  “You coulda paid it,” I said.

  “He ain’t my ole paw.”

  “Shit.”

  “You going to get him outa there?”

  “I oughtn’t to,” I said. “But I guess I will. Then I’m getting outa this damn town for good.”

  “You air? How come? Why, hell, I figgered this here was kindly like your home.”

  “Well, it ain’t no more.”

  Then I went and told ole Zeb how Red had went off away from me a-hanging onto ole Jim’s arm the way she done and never saying nary a word about it, and then ole Zeb, he said that while I was gone Jim and Red had married up.

  “What?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, how come they never told me?”

  “Maybe they just hadn’t figgered out the right words to use in the telling,” he said. “Or maybe they was afraid that you’d go to shooting or something. How the hell would I know?”