The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid

This short story was my first published professional fiction. It appeared in the AHOY Comics title The Second Coming # 5, which reached comic book stores on November 27th, 2019. It was the third of four short stories I sold to AHOY in 2019, but the first to see print. I am proud to finally present it here at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do). A link to its sort-of sequel appears after the story.

My first Western. I wrote it because I wanted to write a Western. I betcha my Dad would have liked it. Saddle up.

Illustration by Ed Catto

THE LAST RIDE OF THE COPPERHEAD KID
by Carl Cafarelli

A gunslinger can't ride forever. The trail ends some time, even for the fastest gun in the West. Some trails end in old age. For most gunslingers, the trail ends in the grave.

Most gunslingers weren't The Copperhead Kid.

The dime novels said the Kid was the fastest there was. Anyone who challenged him learned just how fast the Kid was, and the Kid put them in the ground, every one of 'em. Those stories also said the Kid was a hero, riding from town to town on his faithful horse Rattler, helping the innocent, bringing justice to the wicked.

But the Kid was just a man. He rode whatever horse he could find or steal, always on the run, always riding, ever since he was indeed a kid. He was older now. He'd been on the run since he was sixteen, just after the war between the States. That was twenty years ago. His copper hair was starting to gray. Everyone still called him Kid.

The Kid was an outlaw. He didn't rob banks, didn't terrorize the weak. He kept to himself when he could. When he was cornered, he was fast enough. He never killed anyone who didn't deserve to die.

The first four men the Kid killed sure had it coming: deserters, on the run themselves. They made their murderin' way to the Kid's town of Lawton, Texas, tried to take over, pretty much succeeded. The Kid was away, delivering orders to customers of his family's general store. The Kid's Pa stood up to the four sidewinders, and paid the price. The Kid's Ma screamed at the killers, and the dirty dogs killed her, too. They took the Kid's sister, with evil intent, and she died trying to get away.

The Kid returned to town. He couldn't mourn. The ache in his sixteen-year-old soul drove him on. The Kid tracked two of the men to the whorehouse, and he cut 'em down. The Kid found the third sleepin' off a drunk, and roused him so he could see the Kid's gun as it ended him. The Kid faced the fourth in a showdown. The Kid was fast. The sidewinder never had a chance. The Kid's justice was swift and final.

But sidewinders or not, the Kid had killed four men, three of 'em unarmed. That made the Kid an outlaw. The deputy woulda let him go. But the sheriff was in cahoots with the sidewinders, and he wanted the Kid strung up. The Kid grabbed his Pa's hat, his Ma's red scarf, and his sister's plain but cherished cheap tin brooch, and he rode. He rode as far as horses could take him.

For twenty years The Kid rode and fought, rested when he could, kept going when he had to. He drank. He loved, in his fashion, never for long. He had to keep riding. Along the way, he helped some people. I ain't no hero, he said. But he couldn't stand bullies. He wouldn't allow any family to suffer like his family suffered. The Kid was fast. Make room for more sidewinders underground. The Kid rode on.

There was a price on the Kid's head. Dead or alive. Bounty hunters tried to catch him. The disgraced sheriff from Lawton dogged him for all that time. The Kid always got away.

The Kid's wide-ranging path brought him to Southwest Missouri. He and his horse stopped by a lake to rest for the night. Half-asleep, vulnerable, the Kid bolted upright, too late. Caught! After all these years, the ex-sheriff and his deputy finally had the drop on The Copperhead Kid.

"Been a long time, boy." The Sheriff spat on the ground and grinned his toothless grin. "Finally gonna see you get strung up."

The Kid was fast. The sheriff didn't even see the Kid draw, didn't have time to feel the hole in his own damned forehead. The sheriff joined his sidewinder pals in Hell.

The deputy didn't shoot. The Kid and the deputy stood facing each other, guns drawn, a Mexican stand-off. The deputy shifted his feet, not noticing that he was disturbing a copperhead--a real copperhead, a poisonous snake about to strike at the deputy's heel.

The Kid fired. The snake's head was ripped from its body. The deputy was safe. And that was the Kid's last bullet.

The Kid raised his hands. "Reckon ya finally got me, deputy."

The deputy holstered his gun. "Twenty years, Kid. I wasted all that time of my life chasin' you alongside that fool sheriff. You didn't deserve to be hunted. You wasn't no outlaw. I seen the things you done. You're a hero, Kid."

The Kid sneered.  "I ain't no hero."

"Yeah you are, you damned idjit. Only reason I kept on your trail was to make sure the sheriff didn't get you in the end. If it came to it, I woulda blown that fool's head clean off before I'd let him hurt you."

"What now? You gonna take me in, or let me go?"

"Kid, even with the sheriff on his way to the devil now, bounty hunters ain't gonna stop chasin' after that price on your red head. We gotta make them think you're dead."

The deputy held out his hand.

The Kid sighed. He took off his Pa's hat and his Ma's red scarf. I'm sorry, Pa. I'm sorry, Ma. The Kid handed them over to the deputy. "I'm keepin' the brooch, deputy."

The deputy nodded. He took the hat and the scarf, and he motioned the Kid to his horse. "Ride, Kid."

And The Copperhead Kid rode away for the last time.

No one knows what became of The Copperhead Kid. Headlines and history claim he was killed in Southwest Missouri. We know that ain't so.  Some say he moved East, settled down, had a family, started a life where he didn't have to ride anymore. They say he never drew his guns again. The Kid was fast. It was time to slow down. The last ride was over. The Copperhead Kid was no more.

Art by Ed Catto

AFTERWORD: Although The Copperhead Kid had ceased his long ride, his story lived on. In the 1930s, a new breed of urban vigilante took up the name of The Copperhead. You can read all about that here: THE COPPERHEAD STRIKES!

Art by Shane White

And that story, in turn, resumes with a tale of a secret agent in 1965. Alas, "The Copperhead Affair" is still a secret ...

...for now.



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