The Legend of Cap Fallows(Charles E.J. Moulton) The Legend of Cap Fallows

A Short Story of the True Wild West

By Charles E.J. Moulton

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Bradshaw had one goal and one goal alone: the gold in Cap Fallow's Cave outside Brownstone, Nevada.
Ever since he was a little boy, he had wanted that gold. It was a humungous treasuire, his Uncle Carter had spat, half-drunk and chewing tobacco, drooling like a donkey shot in the ass outside a saloon on a Saturday morning. An old outlaw named Cap Fallow, Carter had begun at Bradshaw's sister's sweet 16th birthday party, had stolen a rich man's entire fortune of gold artefacts and ran away with the treasure to Nevada. He later testified to having hidden it in one of the biggest and most spectacularly intricate cave tunnels in the U.S. It was almost impossible to search through these tunnels, which made Cap's testimony totally useless.
A day before being sentenced to hang, Cap broke out of prison and was never seen again. Of course, a million stories were born. One of them said that Cap had disappeared with the treasure, escaping to Tortuga or Polynesia or some other exotic location. Another legend had it that Cap had fallen into a hole while trying to retrieve the treasure and now haunted the cave.

Well, Bradshaw didn't care which.
He believed the gold was still there and ready for him to fetch.
His family told him he was nuts.
His sister said he deserved a spanking. His brother called him the reincarnation of Billy the Kid and more bonkers than Billy ever would have been.
His father shouted he should stop talking nonsense or he would dunk his head in a barrel of Kentucky whiskey. His mother told him to shut up and eat his potatoes like a good boy. He would listen to them scream and just laugh.

Bradshaw trained to shoot and ride after school every weekend after banjo practice. He even, heck, no, went to join the fiddlin' good old boys in the saloon to drink bourbon and chew tobacco.
Hell, he thought, treasure hunters have to learn how to shoot drunk. Darned peanuts, he barked, I have to be able to shoot a guy from the hip after drinking a bottle of strong liquor.
So, many an evening after ten hot shots was spent on the sandy streets of Johnstown trying to aim at the prairie dawgs butts. And his family told him to get lost on his 18th birthday. But Bradshaw knew that the law said that the treasure belonged to the finder because nobody believed it existed anyway.

Bradshaw Cooper had bought two Colt Peacemakers on April 12th that year. So, hot damn, he rode off on his black stallion Mercy in a dirty leather jacket on July 4th to find what no one else had yet found. He had borrowed 1800 dollars from 67 people, some of which were betting on him to win, some of which were betting against him to lose.

His first obstacle was that bloody, rotten, doggone sandstorm that appeared out of nowhere in Kansas, eliminating all traces or tracks of life as he knew it. He found himself and his horse buried under two feet of sand and it took all the power in the West or East to dig himself out of that shit.
Anyway, he dragged himself into a small town saloon on that God forsaken Tuesday, ordering a spicy steak, spicier wedges and an even spicier lady for the night. It turned out the lady he had slept with in the upper room was the saloon owner's little sister Lana-May Gullowes.

"Mighty fine service in this saloon, Mr. Gullowes," Bradshaw piped while drawing up his longjohns.

Mr. Gullowes drew a gun on him, but with all that rootin'-tootin' and shootin', Mr. Gullowes had no chance to win. He lay dead on the sandy ground by his horse trough soon enough and Bradshaw was off riding the wind sooner enough.

Well, there he was, the fancy cowboy on his black Mercy galloping through his first of five states to Cap Fallow's Cave.

His next miracle was heading up to a town of outlaws. Mercy City was a ludicrously villainous traitor town no darned U.S. Marshall would touch.
He had heard about it from a toothless drunk hanging around an abandoned railway station in the middle of doggone nowhere.

"Beware of Mercy City, boy, or you will frigging die," a toothless bum growled, oozing black spit.

Well, Bradshaw bought another long even darker leather coat and an even larger cowboy hat and an golden eye patch. He practiced looking really mean and made up stories about being hunted in four states for brutal murder.
Well, needless to say, the meanest of mean outlaws were competing with him who would fall from the chair in the gin drinking competition. Bradshaw won one hundred dollars and Eyeless Eric's Golden Rifle.

" Hot damn," Succulent Sophia swooned before she drew him away from his eleventh drink in order to seduce him in the back room.

Next morning, three wounded villains and ten broken hearts on his conscience, Bradshaw rode into the sunrise with two of his five feats of strength under his belt.

In the third state on his way to the treasure, the cowboy found himself in the middle of a meeting of county sherriffs. They had all met to practice their shooting and see what mad dawgs to hang. Bradshaw threw away his eye patch and stole a silver star from a Marshall's desk in a town with only two inhabitants: the Marshall and his dog Woofie. Mercy and Bradshaw galloped into that open market place that morning, declaring openly that he was Sherriff Bradshaw Cooper of Louisville, Kentucky and that he had arrived to present his new B.C. Holster Draw Technique. It was patented and called ingenious by members of the army.

"Roll me over and call me Grampa," Deputy John Ross Clickstraw of Swing Street Hightown burst out when Bradshaw stood up upon Mercy and aimed at the upper branch of an apple tree and shot down four apples at once. Believe you me, Bradshaw got out his banjo and played some crazy old Bluegrass, causing the hundred sherriffs to hop around on the sand. Soon enough, they were square dancing, declaring Bradshaw their newborn leader. "Yeehaw," he sang, riding off into the sunset, never to appear in front of their eyes again. And such was the third reelin'-stealin' peelin' of our Wild West hero.

It was a morning a week later that he appeared in front of the gates of Fort Wickford as an officer. He had found the uniform in an abandoned silver mine. Some guy must have died trying to retrieve a pot of shiny stuff, running away naked, chased by a grizzlybear after taking a bath in a nearby lake. It was fine with Bradshaw. He took a bite of his Bacca and rode off to complete his forth victory. Why the fort? Why the bandits? Just to be strong enough to find the treasure in Cap Fallow's cave. Persistence and courage were the key words in his mind.

Sergeant Gordon Littlefield sounded like a good name for a security inspector. He made up a story about being sent from the White House to inspect the fort. And boy, oh boy, did they stand correct, these soldiers. Holy crap, these guys gave him a four course meal and a comfortable bed for the night and even a pretty girl for that full moon to massage his back and other spots, as well.
"Well, slap my buttocks and dance naked with Sarah Bernhard in the rain," Bradshaw sing-songed. "How lucky can a fellah be?"
He rode out of the fort three days later happier than a priest on holy Sunday with a smile as wide as a kid's grin upon seeing three tons of chocolate.

Well, Bradshaw had promised to challenge himself once for every state before Nevada. And so he did.

A cowboy from Kentucky ran into a sandstorm in Missouri only to slam into a town of outlaws in Kansas. The Sherriff's Symposium in Colorado led him to the Army Fort in Utah. What could be waiting for him in Nevada?

Riding through the desert in the outskirts of what would become Las Vegas, he encountered a tribe of Hooga-Loogas. They prayed to the great Manitou to grant them rain and because Bradshaw looked like an adventurer on his black stallion, they mistook him for the savior of the universe. Or so he thought. Dragging him to their wigwams, the chieftain proclaimed Bradshaw was on his way to find gold. He would only find it if he shared it with the Hooga-Loogas.

"All right," Bradshaw spat, barfing his toboggan tobacco into the fire.

"And if you teach me that?" the chieftain proclaimed.

"Ya wanna learn how t' play the banjo, Great Spirit?" Bradshaw sang, grinning like a thousand New Mexico sundowns.

"Yep," Chieftain Crazy Bear sang.

Well, climb the Rockies and stand on yer head on a three-branched cactus, soon enough the chieftain was guzzling Gentleman Jack, spittin' bacca and playin' banjo like a Oregon Pluckmaster Festival winner. No more rain dancin'. Jes' loads of Yeehaws 'round the totem pole.

When the whiskey ran out, however, the tobacco growin' thin, the feet aching and the fingers with red sores from the sharp strings, Crazy Bear asked Bradshaw to come into his wigwam for a serious talk.

"You white men are prone to feast and waste," he began. "You believe alcohol will make you happy, tobacco will make you brave, fast love will help you feel something, the gun will protect you and gold make you find the meaning of life. You are an addict, totally dependent on outer means in order to be satisfied."

Bradshaw looked at Crazy Bear as if he had just pulled the emergency break on his speeding train.

"What do you mean?" Bradshaw inquired inquisitively, baffled, puffing on his peace pipe and looking at the firey flames on Crazy Bear's face.

Crazy Bear leaned forward and looked Bradshaw deeper in the eye than anyone had ever looked him in the kisser.
Yes, Bradshaw was sure that Crazy Bear gazed into his soul, saw the greed, the rainbow's end that wasn't there and the search for a goal that would not help him find himself at all.

"Come here to my wigwam at sunrise and I will share something with you," Crazy Bear spoke very slowly, "and now give me another sip of your bourbon.".

Well, Bradshaw lay awake all night thinking of Crazy Bear's words. Addict? Him? How could he call him an addict?

Bradshaw grew furious as he lay there under the open sky, tossing and turning, reaching for his whiskey and tobacco, grabbing for his gun.

He paced the settlement among the sleeping Hooga-Loogas, growing red in the face. But then something in the sky flashed. A meteorite? A falling star? He didn't know. All he knew was that he fell onto the ground, looking at his now empty whiskey bottle and his loaded gun. And he dreamt of truth.

The next morning, it was Crazy Bear's wife Laughing Willow who found Bradshaw. How fitting that a woman should be the instrument of his spiritual awakening.

"I'll take you to him," she smiled.
And they walked to Chieftain Crazy Bear's wigwam, Bradshaw realized he had left his whiskey, his tobacco and his gun by the village lake. The only thing he had brought with him was his banjo.

"I see you have brought only the necessary goods with you, dear soul," Crazy Bear swooned. And at that Bradshaw knew it all. His addictions. Searching in the wrong places for truth.

Bradshaw wanted to say something wise, something that would end all of the wise words and be the ultimate wisdom of life. But Crazy Bear's shook his head. "Let nature speak in your place. No words are wise enough."

That day, Crazy Bear had five lessons to teach the cowboy. He took Bradshaw to a tree and taught him to hear the tree's heartbeat. It was certainly something that would calm down Missouri's most chaotic sandstorm. He took him to a lake and taught him to see God in the water. It was certainly the strongest weapon in defeating the most wicked of Kansas outlaws. Crazy Bear taught Bradshaw how to feel the soul of the wind. That would help any U.S. soldier to find peace."

He had felt all the elements but one, so Bradshaw felt his soul cry. "What about fire? Where is the fire? And where are my five lessons?"

Crazy Bear laughed, half-smiling. "You society people are so literal. You will see."

The old man looked into the distance, hoping to inspire the answer out there in the cowboy's heart. "Walk with me, Bradshaw," he spoke.

And Bradshaw did follow Crazy Bear all day just a few hours short of sundown. Just as he wanted to scream at Crazy Bear to give him the answer, or else, the two men reached a small wooden sign, its letters burned with black fire into oak wood. Bradshaw read the words so solemnly and clearly that Crazy Bear had to smile. How wondrous the Great Manitou was, the old man thought, mouthing a "Thank you!" at the skies.

The sign read:

"Here lies the cave that never existed. You see, I invented the legend of my treasure and spread it out into the world after my family and friends all turned against one another because of fame and fortune. They never found what they were looking for, because they never bothered to look where it counted. So make it count, reader.

-Cap Fallows, who never was a villain or a seeker of worldly gold."

Bradshaw looked up at Crazy Bear, who now raised his hand at his shivering breast. "Your fire is inside you. Be thankful for it. Just learn to tame it. That is your forth lesson."

The cowboy smiled, wiping the tears from his eyes. How silly he had been. "What about my fifth lesson? If I am forth element, where's the fifth dimension that holds them all together?"

Crazy Bear took Bradshaw's hand and put it on his chest where his own heart was. "Your heart is the beginning and the end of it all. And the key to your eternity."

When Crazy Bear lifted some leaves and sand and waited for the breeze to sweep it away and he mouthed two small words.
"True gold."
Bradshaw understood it was all gold. All of it. Happiness was all that mattered. And when Bradshaw saw Crazy Bear kissing his wife Laughing Willow on the lips, he knew where the true gold could be found. Inside faithful kisses.

He knew he would find it one day inside the eyes of a beautiful woman. Meanwhile, he spent time with Crazy Bear lying in the grass looking at the stars, pondering over where life would lead him next.

Where ever it was, he had found the stairway to heaven.

Bradshaw looked into the distance toward his home in Kentucky, looked around where he was among his friends. At that moment, he noticed a young tribal woman who called herself Chirping Bird. The way she smiled at him told him he had come home at last, finding his true gold.

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