The Old Jacksonville Bar at Jacksonville, Oregon as it was in the 1880's.
Courtesy: Oregon State Library

Back Trail
by Kerby Jackson

Jim Blake had not been in the saloon for but a half hour when he heard the thump of boots sound on the boardwalk outside, followed by the low pitched whine of the bat wing doors being pushed in.

For a moment, he looked up from his drink and in the mirror on the back of the bar, he took in the image of the man who had just stepped through the door. In the reflection he could see a man about half his junior carefully studying the inside of the room. He must have been about twenty, or maybe even younger, but it was difficult to gage for the room was only dimly lit by a kerosene lamp and behind the man was the pitch black of night. For a moment, the man just stood there in the doorway with a big hand resting atop one of the swinging doors and took in the contents of the bar that was devoid of life apart from Blake and the bar keeper who was busy sweeping up for the night. He was a careful sort of man, Blake thought; either that, or he was looking for someone.

Having taken in the mostly empty room, the man stepped forward, his worn out big boots sounding on the rough planks of the floor. He then stopped and fished a bag of cigarette makings from his front pocket, while Blake continued to watch him in the mirror. Blake reckoned that he had the age about right, for despite the man's sun-baked skin and the deep lines in his face, there was still a hint of boyishness in the man, particularly around his eyes which still had the smoothness of youth. Blake looked him up and down, taking in the rough worn boots and thick layer of alkali dust that coated the man from hat to toes. Slung low on the man's left hip in an old tattered holster was an old cap and ball Remington, which from what Blake could see of it looked to have been converted for cartridges due to a rough groove that had been cut into the gun's frame for a loading gate.

"Young cowpuncher with his granddaddy's old rig and lookin' for a place to fit in." Blake thought to himself after assessing him.

As the man stepped forward to the bar and began to roll a cigarette, Blake looked back to his drink and then picked it up and took a swallow of it.

The bar man stopped his sweeping, leaned his broom against one of the card tables and stepped toward the bar.

"Right bustlin' in here, ain't it?" the young man remarked.

"They've all gone home," the bar keeper told him. "It's Sunday night and work comes early at the ranches out there."

An old grandfather clock in the corner that looked like it had been over the Oregon Trail and maybe even back again due to the gouges in its faded varnish, promptly broke into their conversation and chimed midnight.

"I guess it's actually Monday," the bar man said.

The younger man nodded.

"You lose track of the days of the week when you just wander," he said.

"It's bed time," the bar keep told him. "Last call, boys. What'll it be?"

"I'll take another one of these bottles for the trail," Blake told him and he pushed a couple fifty cent pieces from a pile of coins in front of him toward the back of the bar.

The man took a bottle off the back wall and set it next to the half empty bottle that was already in front of Blake.

"What about you?" the man said to the newcomer.

The young man reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a scant handful of coins. He looked over what little was there.

"I guess I only got about two bits here," he said with embarrassment. "Not much work out there right now. Was hopin' to get some more tobacco and maybe a drink or two. Guess I'll save it for tobacco. Mind if I just sit for a mite instead?"

A wave of disgust swept over the barkeeper's face.

"I only allow payin' customers in my place," he told him harshly.

"I guess I'll be goin' then," the young man said and he pushed the coins back into his pocket, kind of shrugged his shoulders in defeat and began to turn toward the door.

"Christ!" Blake said aloud to the bar keeper. "You won't even let a man rest for a few minutes. It's not like he's gonna take up some precious space for a payin' customer!"

"Them's the rules, though," the bar man told him. "If I let every saddle bum that comes through lounge around in here with out payin', next thing you know, I'll be known from Prineville to Boise as some sort of sucker for freeloaders."

The young man walked toward the door.

Blake seemed to consider that for a moment, then pushed a few more coins toward the bar.

"Get back here, kid. Your drink's on me," Blake said aloud.

The young man placed his big hand atop one of the doors and stopped for a second.

Blake knew that although he was considering his offer, the young man was too proud to accept. He watched the kid in the mirror, and though he could not see his face, that the young man's face was probably full of frustration and a bit of wounded pride. Blake had been there himself when he had been that age, riding alone, broke and angry on the trail until he had fallen in with the same sort of desperate crowd and done some things about which he was still none too proud. Blake had never served any time for his crimes, but for the last twenty odd years he had been in a prison of another sort. If he could save one kid from the same sort of fate by showing him with a little kindness that not everyone and everything in the world was against him, well then, he could at least rest a little easier tonight.

"I insist," Blake told him.

His face flushed red, the young man turned away from the door and looked back toward the bar.

"Set him up," Blake told the bar man, then he turned toward the man.

"What'll it be, kid?"

The young man looked at him for a moment.

"A cold beer would be fine."

"A couple of beers," Blake told the bar man and he then stood away from the bar, took his two bottles and walked toward a table.

"Take a load off, kid."

He gestured toward the nearest table and set his bottles on it, then sat down in one of the chairs.

The bar tender promptly went into a room at the back and returned with two bottles of beers that were slick with moisture.

The young man licked his lips slightly in anticipation and then sat down across from Blake.

"Straight from the spring house," the bar man said as he set the two bottles down in front of the kid. "Anything else?"

"How about two dozen of them cigarillos you got behind the bar?" Blake told him.

The man fetched them and laid them in a heap on the table.

"Now if you fellas don't mind, I'm gonna get some shut eye," the bar man told them. "I'd be obliged if you put out the lights when you leave."

After Blake paid him for the cigars, the man left the room through the back door.

"Your beer's gettin' warm," Blake told the other.

The young man opened one of the beers and took a big drink from it. The cold liquid instantly refreshed him and he leaned back a little in his chair.

"It's mighty kind of you, Mister. I've been swallowin' so much of that alkali dust that all I've been thinkin' about was a nice cold drink."

"My name's Blake, Jim Blake, and I'm just bein' neighborly."

"Mine's Jones, Billy Jones," the kid offered.

"That a handle?" Blake asked.

"Nah, it's my real name, same as my pa and great grandpa's." The kid took another drink. "You figure I was on the run?"

"Crossed my mind," Blake said honestly.

Billy looked him straight in the eye.

"You some sort of law?"

Blake smiled.

"Far from it. I was just curious is all."

"Well it wouldn't bother me none, if you was the law," Billy told him and he took another drink from his beer.

"Glad to hear it. Cigar?"

Billy accepted one and lit it, then relaxed and slumped in his chair, cigar in one hand and beer in the other.

"Truth be told, I'm lookin' for someone," Billy offered.

"Kinfolk or somethin'? Maybe I can help. I know lots of folks about."

"No, no. It ain't nothin' like that. Kind of like lookin' for a needle in a haystack, I was startin' to think. Been lookin' for this fella for three years - since I was seventeen - I was thinkin' of givin' up. It ain't got me nothin' up to now."

"You any good at cards, Billy?"

Blake pulled a deck from his pocket and offered up a game.

"I"m alright, I guess. But you know I ain't got no money."

"I was just offerin' to play for fun, to pass some time."

"Well, alright then. That sounds fine."

Blake shuffled the deck and dealt out a hand of five cards to each of them. 

"If you don't mind me askin'," Blake began. "How come you're so dead set on findin' this fella?"

Billy was busy studying his cards.

"I'll take two," he said and then he laid two of his cards down on the table.

"Well, it's a long story, but let's just say that this fella stole somethin' from me and I'm gonna kill the son-of-a-bitch."

Blake dealt him two new cards and watched Billy frown slightly. He could tell that there was a lot of hate in this kid and he felt that someone had really wronged him.

"I'll take one," Blake said and he discarded one from his hand and took another. He had been going for a flush, but wound up with a pair of Jacks in his hand.

"Let me give you a little advice, Billy. It ain't worth killin' someone over stealin'."

Billy looked up at him over his cards.

"Even if they stole somethin' real important and personal to you?"

Blake shook his head.

"Take it from me, there's nothin' in the world worth killin' someone for."

"You sound like you're talkin' from experience," Billy remarked and he drank down the rest of his beer. There was something a bit hostile in his voice.

"I am, Billy," Blake told him. "I'll call. Pair of Jacks."

He laid his hand down.

"Three pretty ladies," Billy said and he laid his hand down on the table.

Blake looked at Billy's hand and smiled.

"That was a good bluff, Billy. I really thought I had the upper hand the whole time, but you beat me."

Blake took a drink from his glass.

Then from beneath the table, Blake heard the distinct click of the old Remington that Billy was carrying being cocked.

"That ain't the only way I've beat you," Billy told him. "Oh, yeah, you're real slick, Blake, thinkin' that if you treat me real nice and take a little pity on me that I ain't goin' to go through with it. Hell, I've even come to like you some and even thought about reconsidering, but it don't change nothin'."
 

Blake looked at him in bewilderment, not really understanding what was going on.
 

"Billy, I ..."

"Save it! You and I both know what you took from me!"

"Billy, I don't know who you think I am, but I've never stolen anything from you. Hell, I never laid eyes on you until tonight!"

Blake's hand crept for his gun.

"The hell, Blake! You sayin' you don't remember me or what you did to me?"

"Billy, I don't ..."

Blake rested his hand on the butt of his Schofield and took the grip in his hand. He didn't know what this was about and he didn't want to kill this kid, but Billy had gone plumb mad and was pushing him to do it. 

"Yeah, I've grown up a mite, Blake, but I sure as hell ain't forgotten even if you have. I was reminded every day of my life what you done! For twenty years, Blake! Every day of my life for twenty god damn years after you took everything of mine. I've been on your back trail for weeks and now you're gonna get what's comin' to you."

"Billy, I don't ..."

And then Jim Blake did remember. He had all but forgotten those days of twenty years prior when he had ridden with the Triskett Brothers, save the robbing and plundering of stage coaches, and on occasion, the drunken shootings. He was a bad man in his youth, of that he had always been sure, but the whiskey had washed away much of the rest. Yet now, in a moment of clarity, the memories of the day they had swept into an isolated mining camp on the north side of the Siskiyous came to him as if they were happening right before his eyes. Awash with rotgut, they had went through town like a whirlwind, shooting and killing everything and everyone in sight. The old or the young it had not mattered. Men, women and children, they had massacred them all.

Mostly he had remembered the sounds, the crashing of gunfire and blood curdling screams, the pound of horse's hooves and when it was finally over, the sound of a bawling baby whose screams would not stop and still carried over the wooded hills as they had rode hell bent away.

Even now, the sound of that baby's cries rung in his ears, but they were soon shattered by the loud staccato of gunfire and Jim Blake felt himself fall to the floor. 

He watched as the young man walked toward the lamp and snuffed out the light.
 

****

Copyright 2009 by Kerby Jackson. Work archived by WorldWideOCR.com
www.western-stories.com
 
 

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