Hogg Nubbins had been a cowpoke for most near all his life. He wasn’t much good for anything else. He couldn’t read or write, not that he was interested in reading anything that would give him ideas. If he could write he wouldn’t know what to put on the paper. Hogg had just one goal in life: to find Sam Bass’s gold.
Riding up and down the Chisholm Trail in Texas all he ever heard was the Ballad of Sam Bass. Other cowpokes said the song was written to lull the cows into walking the same direction and to keep the cowboys from falling asleep. It was quite a yarn, that Ballad of Sam Bass.
Sam had one hell of a life, yessiree. Born in Indiana, he came to Texas as a young man, filled with piss and vinegar, and set out to make himself some money. This was all in the song. The guys on the trail filled in facts left out because the songwriter ran out of notes. Sam and his buddies started robbing trains and banks all the way from Central Texas to the Dakotas and points in between. One time they robbed a train, beat a man to a pulp before the guy gave up and opened the safe.
“Sixty thousand dollars,” old Pete, the chuck wagon boss, said. Pete was a youngin’ when they finally shot Sam to death at Round Rock, Texas, so he should know. “All in mint twenty dollar gold coins. The biggest train robbery ever.”
The ballad said Sam was like some kind of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, being loyal to his friends and all.
“The only poor people Sam ever gave money to was bartenders and whores,” Pete snorted.
“The whole sixty thousand dollars to bartenders and whores?” Hogg asked, his mouth falling open.
“Oh hell, there ain’t enough whores in Texas to spend sixty thousand dollars on,” Pete replied. He doused the campfire, and that was the end of the story.
The next morning on the trail the cowpokes around Hogg started singing the Ballad of Sam Bass again. He went back to thinking about that sixty thousand dollars. Damn, he thought, if he had that much money he might buy himself some of those fancy false teeth he heard talked about. Hogg didn’t have a tooth in his head. They had all rotted out by the time he was thirty.
That night as he gummed his chili and corn pone Hogg asked Pete, “Well, if Sam Bass didn’t spend all sixty thousand dollars on whores what do you think he done with it?”
“He hid it,” Burly piped up. Burly was almost as old as Pete, but he was still spry enough to ride a horse and herd cattle. “That’s what I always heard.”
“Where?” Hogg was getting excited now. If somebody can hide a bunch of gold coins then somebody else can find them.
“Sam’s last words were, ‘I bet those folks in Cooke County will be huntin’ a long time for that gold.’ So it must be in Cooke County,” Burly said.
“Where’s Cooke County?” Hogg asked.
“Aww, that’s bullshit,” Pete said as he spooned out the last of the chili. “Sam’s last words was ‘The world is bobbing around me.’ And I had fellers who was right there when he died tell me that.”
“It ain’t no bullshit at all,” Burly shot back. Pete and Burly hated each other for years. Some said they once fought over a woman. Others said they were just a couple of sonovabitches that couldn’t get along. “It didn’t have to be the absolute last thing Sam said. Hell, it took him a full day to die after they shot him. He probably said a lot of things before he actually died.”
“I still say bullshit.” Pete looked at the cowpokes around the fire. “Anybody want the last cornpone?”
“Now where is this Cooke County?” Hogg asked again. He figured he could spend the gold coins on whores just like Sam did.
“Everybody that got a lick of sense knows that Sam Bass hung out in Cooke County as much as he hung out anyplace else in Texas,” Burly continued in a loud defiant voice. “I know for a fact Sam and his gang hid out in Cove Holler. That’s in the southwest corner of Cooke County, and hardly nobody lives there.”
“Only a idiot would hide out in Cove Holler. It’s so thick with oak and walnut trees and vines and brush the sun can’t shine through at noon day,” Pete countered.
“Well, nobody said Sam was the brightest man around,” Burly replied sullenly. “And the holler is all riddled with limestone caves, just the place to hide a bundle of gold coins.”
“Where is this Cooke County?” Hogg asked for the third time. If anybody could find Sam Bass’s gold, Hogg knew he was the man to do it.
“Hogg, you must be the dumbest sonovabitch I ever done seen. Cooke County is three counties due west of here.” Pete doused the campfire, and the conversation ended right there.
When Hogg mounted up the next morning he kept looking due west toward Cooke County and then at the cattle. He had been herding cattle all these years, and what had it ever got him? A calloused ass and a wallet full of nothing. All he had to do is ride west and keep asking folks along the way where this Cooke County was.
“Hogg! Get movin’! We gotta get across the Red River by night fall!” Burly shouted.
Hogg looked west and then at the cattle one last time, and then he lit out full gallop heading west. The gallop eventually became a trot, and he started laying out his plan to find Sam Bass’s gold. He didn’t want to be none too eager to talk about it, Hogg told himself. When he stopped for the night he ought to be real casual about his conversations with folks. Didn’t want nobody to know what he was up to. That Cove Holler seemed to be the place to look, all right. After a couple of days he found himself in Gainesville, the Cooke County seat. He settled into a chair at the local boarding house dining room. Hogg tried to start up a conversation.
“Nice little town you got here.”
“Wouldn’t know. I’m just passin’ through.” The man had on a fine suit of clothes and had his hair slicked down with something that smelled mighty sweet.
“Then you wouldn’t know about Cove Holler.”
“Everyone in North Texas knows about Cove Hollow,” the man replied with a sniff. “The worst land in the whole territory. Not worth a dime.”
“That’s what I heard too,” Hogg said. “Lots of underbrush and limestone caves. Sounds like a place you wanna to keep away from. Just where is it so I can go in the opposite direction?” Hogg thought he was being very clever.
The fancy dude with the perfumed hair gave him perfect directions—southwest of Gainesville along a long ravine. The nearest ranch was miles away.
When he woke up the next day Hogg checked out of the boarding house and went southwest until he found the beginning of the ravine. When he couldn’t ride any further into the thick underbrush Hogg tied up his horse. The prickly bushes and vines surrounded by oak and walnut trees made walking slow going. He didn’t know exactly where he was or how he would find his way out. All he knew was that he was on the hunt for Sam Bass’s gold.
Soon the foliage thickened so the sun was completely blocked. Only mottled areas of dim light appeared here and there. Hogg squinted from side to side and saw hints of limestone caves in the distance. Suddenly his foot slipped and he fell straight down. At the bottom of the hole Hogg took a moment to regain his senses. He must have fallen into one of them limestone caves. There was so little light he had to wait until his eyes adjust a bit. Then he began to reach his hands out to touch something. Mostly limestone. Smooth, moist limestone. Then he felt something else. Leather. Hogg eagerly grabbed at it. A leather bag. No, two leather bags. No, more than that.
Hogg clumsily clawed at the belt tying one of the leather bags shut. Opening it he frantically stuck his fingers inside. He felt coins, lots of coins. Hogg pulled them out of the bag and peered at them. They were gold coins. Twenty dollar gold coins. And they still looked as new and sparkly as the day Sam Bass took them off the train.
Laughing loudly he quickly opened the other leather bags. They were all filled with gold coins. Enough gold coins to get him some good false teeth and all the whores he’d ever want.
“Glory hallelujah!” Hogg shouted. He looked up. “I found …” Hogg stopped as he stared at the steep slippery limestone shaft above him. He finished in a whimper, “…Sam Bass’s gold.”