Paradise Sky

  And so had Bronco Bob, who came riding in about a horse length behind us, the reins in one hand, the pistol in the other.

  “Them leads in your teeth is a good trick,” Bronco Bob said.

  “I learned it from a master.”

  “That horse runs at the touch of the knees, don’t he?”

  “When he ain’t got a mind to do what he wants, he does.”

  Measurements was taken to see who was closer to center on the targets, and we both come out so near the same they called it a draw. I looked over at Bronco Bob, and he touched the brim of his hat in salute, and I did the same.

  I put my left-hand revolver in its place and pulled the other with my right. I took a deep breath, waited for the signal. Checkers Chauncey had walked down to meet us with the scarf in his hand. He took a position in the middle of us, and then lifted his hand. That scarf seemed to dangle there forever, but the thing I noticed was there was no wind. We would both be at our best situation.

  The scarf dropped, and Satan leaped forward before I could spur him, damn near surprising me right off his back. But I managed to keep my place, though I had to shoot too quick. I hit the target, but it was only at the edge. I had to get my mind right for the next target, which was coming up between breaths. I shot five more shots, hit all the targets, and once again me and Satan arrived ahead of Bronco Bob and his mount.

  I sat there on the back of Satan, pulling the cotton out of my wind-whipped ears, waiting to hear the word on the measuring of who had the closest shots, and the answer arrived quick.

  Bronco Bob had missed two shots.

  I was the winner of the Deadwood shooting contest.

  Bronco Bob strolled over, grinning, and seemed genuinely friendly. He shook my hand and patted my back, said he’d lost a few matches in his time, but when he did he wasn’t always up to his mark, having a cold or some soreness or such, but this time he had been beat fair and square.

  “Thank you, Bronco,” I said. “But I need you to know I come into this match with a little indigestion.”

  Bronco let out a big howl of laughter and commenced to slapping me on the back some more. “You are one hell of a shooter, you are a regular Deadeye Dick. No…Deadwood Dick is better. Yes, sir. When I give up this life for the writing life, which has always been my great love and concern, I will write of this day.”

  “In that version will I still win?” I said, and I was smiling big now.

  “You will, sir. I am one thing for certain, and that is fair.”

  “You are also a damn good shot and a worthy opponent,” I said. “I thought I was whipped there more than once.”

  “So did I,” he said, and went to laughing and patting me on the back. Then came Charlie and his bunch, and finally down from the hill came Win and Madame and Cullen and Wow, and all them Chinese gals whose names I never could get right, having the same problem as Cullen.

  I checked around for Ruggert and his men. I saw Ruggert slowly rise from his chair and walk into the crowd along with his compadres.

  When all the whooping and hollering had died down, I was given first place and the money I had been promised. I gave that straightaway to Charlie, who then brought me a wad of loot he and the others had collected on bets.

  I stuffed it in my pocket without counting it, and we all walked to Win and Madame’s place on the hill. We relived the match over and over, and then when we was all tired of it, I took a break to wash the gun smoke off my face. Madame brought out some of her medicine and had a swig, then passed the bottle around. By the time it got back to her it was empty.

  “Deadwood Dick,” Tater said, “ain’t that what that Bronco Bob called you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “For me, from now on and forever, that’s who you will be,” he said.

  “Mr. Deadwood Dick is best,” I said.

  There were some more laughs, but by now we was all starting to wind down. I realized by this time that I was exhausted. All the strain and worry of the match and concern over Ruggert’s men made me feel like I had done a day’s work with a pickax.

  Charlie said, “We done our part. You have your money. We have ours for Bill’s widow, and you ain’t been shot.”

  “Yet,” I said.

  “Since you plan to leave our fair town, we can ride along with you until you are out of sight,” Charlie said.

  I looked at the sky. It was not far off dark. It was hard to believe the match had gone on that long.

  “No,” I said. “I think a crowd leaving town would only call attention to us. We’ll wait until the night is just about down on us, and we’ll depart.”

  “We are packed and ready, Nat,” Madame said. “Though I bought a couple of cows.”

  “What?” I said. “Why would you do that?”

  “Milk,” Madame said.

  “Ask a stupid question,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Then I suppose we’ll take your cows with us. Where are they?”

  “Behind the shack.”

  “It is nice to have fresh milk,” Tater said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Madame said.

  I looked at Win. She was laughing.

  “You’re sure you don’t want us to follow you three and your cows out?” Charlie said.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  I shook hands with Charlie and Tater and so on, and then they all went down the hill. I checked around for Ruggert, any of them men I thought to be his, especially Golem and Weasel. I was delighted not to see them.

  The stars and moon hung bright in the sky, and our path through the hills was a good one. We had the wagon packed tight with goods, and Win and Madame was on the driver’s seat, Madame driving. The cows was tied to the back on lead ropes and were trotting along behind the double-mule-drawn wagon as smooth as if they had been training for just such a trip. I rode alongside the wagon on Satan with six hundred dollars and two bits in my saddlebags from the shooting match. Once I was away from everyone but Win and Madame, I had counted it out to myself. Twice. I couldn’t believe I had all that money. I was as rich as I had ever been, and though they say money don’t make you happy, it damn sure don’t hurt your feelings none.

  Cullen rode with us until we was well out of town, then we stopped the procession and climbed down from our horses. Win and Madame came off of the wagon to bid him adieu, hugging him and telling him bye, then me and him shook hands. That wasn’t enough. That turned into a hard, and I like to think manful, hug. When we pulled apart we both had tears in our eyes.

  “I will write you soon as I can,” I said. “And at some point I will have you mail me the papers I gave you to hold. We are gone south by tomorrow.”

  Without another word, Cullen climbed on his horse and rode away. I climbed on Satan and watched him. He was waving his hat above his head as he galloped off.

  It was my intention to travel about half the night, get some shut-eye, and start when we was comfortable the next day, knowing we wouldn’t always have a full moon to light us. But this night I wanted away from Deadwood, due to my worry about Ruggert and his men.

  Now that we was out in the wilds, I began to have concerns about Indians. I worried enough about it that I stopped our procession twice to adjust pots and pans in the wagon that was clattering, so as to bring about silence. Bill once told me an Indian, even a deaf one, could hear a June bug fart under a bucket a half mile away.

  I guess we traveled about half the night, and it was still a moonlit sky, when we stopped to rest. The air was cool, with a light wind, and it was comfortable. Win and Madame got ready to bed down in the wagon.

  I hitched up the stock and fed them and staked them out. I put my bedroll out on the ground by my saddle, which I was going to use for a pillow, laid my rifle nearby, and wished me and Win could sleep together. But that might lead to Madame shooting me with her pistol.

  I cleaned and reloaded my pistols and the rifle, which is a thing I do at the end of most days. The moonl
ight made it pretty easy to do, though I can do that job in the dark if need be. I listened to Win and Madame settling down inside the wagon. I was pretty excited, as I was about to start a new life with a fine woman.

  I felt I needed to stay awake and on guard, and decided stretching out for a few minutes was all I required, then I would get up and keep watch until morning. I am ashamed to say that no sooner had I laid my head on the saddle than I was sound asleep.

  I don’t know how much sneaking they had to do to get up on us, but I figure they could have ridden up on the backs of buffalo and been ringing cowbells and I wouldn’t have noticed. I awoke to a boot in my ribs.

  When I opened my eyes, I was looking up into Ruggert’s ruined face. He was bent over me. “Did you sleep well, nigger?”

  Actually I had, but the outcome of the sleep was nothing to brag about.

  Weasel appeared above me, holding my rifle. He glared down and snickered, said, “I done got all your guns.” He said this because I had put a hand to where one of my pistols ought to be, but it wasn’t there.

  “It wasn’t no problem,” Ruggert said. “Them rocks on the ground wasn’t no more asleep than you was.”

  By this time I was sitting up, looking around. I seen Win and Madame was being pulled out of the wagon by Golem. Win wasn’t saying anything, but Madame was calling those men everything in the book. And when I say men, I mean quite a few of them. Twelve. I had seen most of them before, back in Deadwood at the shooting match, and they was a rugged bunch from a distance. Up close they was scarred and haggard-looking; all of them appeared on the edge of being too old to live comfortable on the frontier except one, a sixteen-year-old boy with a bit of fuzz on his chin. His eyes was darting about like fish in a bowl. He had on what looked like a new gun belt with deep holsters, the butts of his revolvers just showing. The belt was a little big for him, and he kept tugging it up.

  They all had their heads turned toward Madame and her cussing, at least they did until Golem pulled Win along the ground from the shadow of the wagon and full into the moonlight. My blood chilled.

  Ruggert looked at me, his eyes drooping, like maybe he was tired.

  “Want to tip your hat now, you black son of a bitch?”

  I said nothing.

  “Chasing you, I have gone through much. A scalping, my face burned by savages with hot knives, my toes cut off by one of them, and thorns shoved in my dick, right at the tip, and deep down. Long thorns, you hear? I was cut on near all over, and all the while they’re doing it to me, you know who I was thinking of?”

  “Jesus?” I said.

  “Not at all. I thought of you, Willie—or is it Nat or Deadwood Dick, which is what they was calling you around town? I thought of your black face leering at my wife’s rear end. That’s what I thought of. And when you done that, you was disrespecting me, a white man. You was being bold, Willie, like you was good as me. It wasn’t about her ass, boy, it was about me and how I was being treated—that you, a nigger, would come through our yard without your head bent and your eyes on the ground, looking around like you was a white man with all its privileges.”

  Golem came over and squatted down in front of me, kind of studied on my face. There wasn’t any expression to him. He pushed his hat up, and I seen there was a deep and ragged scar across his shaved head. I hadn’t seen it before because he always had his hat on tight, but now I could and could tell it was a horseshoe shape; he had been kicked by a horse. That explained some things, not that it gave me any comfort. Besides that wound in the middle of his forehead was that odd mark made with what I now decided was ashes.

  “He thinks God has made him of mud,” Ruggert said. Then Ruggert reached out and patted Golem’s shoulder. “And surely he has. Good old thick, river-bottom mud.”

  Ruggert let his hand drop from Golem’s shoulder, said, “Proper way for a nigger to die is by the rope and fire, but there’s nothing but rocks and a trail here. That’s not nigger-hanging landscape. I like a good high tree with a good firm limb. It’s best if you don’t tie a hangman’s knot, just a slipknot. Last longer that way. You see, Willie, we got the rope but no limb.”

  “Why don’t you boys wait here,” I said, “and me and the ladies will go find you one. I’ll send someone back to tell you where it is, and we can meet there.”

  Ruggert punched me in the face. It was a good shot and knocked me back against my saddle and blood from my busted nose ran into my mouth. I rolled my head to the side and spat it out.

  “Take care of the ladies,” Ruggert said to Golem.

  “As if they are given to me by God,” Golem said, each word no more level or unlevel than the other. If you could figure on how a dead man might speak—if he could—that would be how Golem sounded.

  “God can’t be here right now,” Ruggert said to Golem, “so they are given to you by me, the next best thing. But I am vengeful, Golem. Vengeful, and I wish for you to be the same, my strong right hand. You got a pocketful of nice coins I gave you. That shows how I take care of you, don’t it?”

  Golem barely nodded, pulled his hat back down, and moved toward the women. My heart missed a beat.

  “Then there’s fire,” Ruggert said, as if he had only taken a breath in the conversation, “and I have considered on it profoundly, but then decided any nigger that dies is bound for hell, so you will have that. I think something else might be more appropriate, and I’m deciding what that is. I am giving you,” he paused, “much thought. You have come to think of yourself as highfalutin, but you are to me nothing more than that nigger who some time ago so insulted me by looking at my wife’s behind with lustful intent.”

  I started to say that her face cured that but decided my best approach at this stage was not to anger him further, though, truth to tell, I figured it didn’t matter one whit. He was all het up to do me in, make me suffer, and had been after me for so long he would have to have satisfaction, and he wanted to draw it out.

  “It was an accident,” I said. “I was walking by, and I just happened to look. There was nothing lustful about it.”

  “A white man,” Ruggert said, “even a poor one, must maintain his position, and if those I knew in town thought I let a nigger slide by on such a thing, then what would they think of me?”

  By now I knew there was no smoothing it over, so I went for it. “They don’t even remember you or me, and what makes you think they ever had a high opinion of you?”

  “She left me, Willie. I believe it was because I couldn’t honor her womanhood by making you pay. For that I blame you. She still has to be taught her lesson, she and the man she run off with, but Willie, I had to see you first. I had to take care of you before the other. Did you know your mother and father were once owned by my grandfather? They were. Did you know my grandfather liked dark meat, and that your mother was his special pick? You wasn’t even born when he owned her, but he did, and he owned your pa, too, and he knew what Grandfather was doing with her out in the milk shed.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, and I didn’t. I figured he was just yanking my chain.

  “Don’t make it less so, Willie. But when you seen my wife’s butt, it was in the same position my old grandfather seen your mama’s, except he hiked up her dress. And you know what? She didn’t have no say in the matter. That’s when white men were as they should be, and the idea of a free nigger—well, that just wasn’t something that could be imagined, or should be. I was just a boy when Grandfather told me to come out to the milk shed with him and your mama and to come stand on a bucket and have me some.”

  “You lying son of a bitch.”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s true. I didn’t do it, Willie. I was young and scared, and I didn’t do it. Now I wish I had. But if I didn’t have your mama, now I got you. In a different way, of course, but you are owned as she was owned as your papa was owned. You are owned right this moment by me. You are the root of my problems. You have undone my life with the insult you showed my wife. I won’t be outdone b
y a nigger, Willie.”

  I looked him in the eyes, and the words finally came back. I said, “You got to have someone to blame, because your life is just as low-account as any slave’s ever was. You think you deserve better. You don’t. Spending your life chasing after some fellow caught a glimpse of your wife’s ass is no way for anyone to live. You are outdone by your own dumb self.”

  That’s when he hit me again, this time with a backhand, a really solid blow that knocked me back and made me dizzy. I didn’t try to sit up after that last hit. Just lay back with my head on the saddle, blood running out of the corner of my mouth. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and seen that Golem had Win and Madame on their knees on the ground, one big hand on each of their heads, like they was resting posts. He was looking up at the moon.

  Weasel came over, said, “You figuring what you can do with him, ain’t you?”

  “Of course I am, you idiot,” Ruggert said.

  Weasel reacted to being called an idiot as if it was nothing more than his middle name.

  “I know I’m just paid help,” Weasel said. “But why don’t you do what the Indians do—some of them, anyway?”

  “What would that be, Mergatroit?”

  Mergatroit! That was a disappointment. To me he would always be Weasel.

  “Kill one of them cows and skin it, wrap him in it, tie him up tight as a papoose. Wet it down, and when the sun comes up that blood inside the skin and that wet on the outside will start that skin drying, just like how you soak rawhide to get it tight. It’ll tighten and tighten and blow his guts out. My daddy did it to a fellow once wouldn’t pay him money he owed. I helped him wrap the skin.”

  “It killed him?” Ruggert said.

  “And real slow. He got so he couldn’t scream anymore it was so tight.”

  Ruggert turned his head to one side, as if measuring that suggestion like a woman thinking of cutting cloth for a dress. “Slow, huh?”

  “Oh, hell, yes,” Weasel said. “When we cut him open, his insides busted out of him and all over us.”