Paradise Sky

  I halted Satan, shifted in the saddle, pulled the rifle, and shot Weasel in the back of his lower right leg. He let out a scream and collapsed. I rode up on him. He had rolled on his back and pulled one of my Colt pistols. When he seen there was three of us, he started in to begging. “Now, boys, don’t do nothing hasty. I was just hired. Nothing more.”

  “Put that gun down,” I said.

  He laid the pistol in the grass. I dropped off Satan, picked my Colt up, then took the other Colt and my LeMat from him as well as my knife. I handed each of the weapons to Cullen except for the Winchester, which I kept. Cullen brought his horse next to mine and dropped the pistols in one of my saddlebags. The money I had wasn’t in there.

  I gave Weasel a hard look, said, “You was the one suggested the cowhide, as I recall.”

  “It was just a suggestion,” he said.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “And Ruggert took it.”

  “Listen here, Deadwood,” he said, trying to sweeten things with that name. “I found that money that was in there, and that big Jew took it away from me. It was him that stole it. I ain’t got nothing against you. I’m leaking a river here. I need someone to bind my wound.”

  “That there is a sad complaint,” I said, squatting down to keep an eye on him. “Where have they gone?”

  Weasel hesitated only a moment, realizing his chances was slim in any direction, and decided he might could get in on my good side. He pointed. “There’s a split in the hills there. There’s a natural camp just inside them, around the first real run of rocks. They are going to bivouac there.”

  I looked. The split he was talking about was some distance away, nestled in white rock between higher rocks darkened with trees.

  “The young woman? Is she still alive?”

  “Was when I seen her last, though them boys was rude about her.”

  “And you, of course, wasn’t?”

  “I ain’t saying one way or another.”

  “You just have. How come you’re out here all alone?”

  “Me and the big man, one they call Golem, went off together cause we was to meet up with Ruggert in Kansas, where we was to get the last bit of our pay. That black devil of a horse threw me and run off. Golem, he went on without me, and me calling to him. He said he didn’t like me.”

  “Imagine that, a weasel despised by yet another and larger weasel,” Cullen said.

  “You bind me up,” he said, “I can ride you to their camp.”

  “If you split with Golem, how do I know you know where they are?”

  “I been to that campsite,” he said. “I’m the one told them about it.”

  “All right, then,” I said. “Give me the coat you’re wearing.”

  “It gets chilly at night,” he said.

  “Not if you’re wearing a bloody cowhide it don’t. But right now I’m a little on the cool side. Give me the coat.”

  He pulled it off and tossed it to me, sat there holding his leg.

  “You’ll take me with you?” he said.

  “No.”

  I stood up, leaned the rifle against my leg, and put on Weasel’s coat. It fit all right as long as I didn’t try to button it. I got on my horse. Weasel looked up at me with spite in his face.

  “All right,” Weasel said. “I can tie my own leg off with something. I can take care of myself without help from any of you.”

  “You ain’t going to need no help,” I said.

  Weasel knew then. He said, “Now, Deadwood Dick, you don’t want to do that.”

  “That’s where you’re mistaken, Mergatroit.”

  I lifted the Winchester and shot him through the forehead. He fell back from his sitting position and lay in the grass on his back.

  “Damn, if that wasn’t severe, sir,” Bronco Bob said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it was.”

  The Black Hills have stretches of prairie as well as rumbles of rocks spotted with grass. Then there was the hills. The trees that grew on the hills was thick, and in the moonlight they looked like one great wave of darkness creeping down from the sky.

  We rode until we came to the split Weasel pointed out. It was a long, wide break in the rocks.

  As we rode up on that split, Cullen said, “Hold up.”

  We did, and he pointed to his right and high. I could see floating above a short rise of rocks and trees a gray puff of smoke. It looked like fairy dust in the moonlight.

  “I smell meat cooking,” Bronco Bob said.

  “I think we have found our men,” I said.

  We climbed off our horses, led them into a clutch of trees, and tied them up there. I said, “Y’all wait here.”

  Carrying my rifle, I started climbing through the trees, a large number of them dwarf pines, along a trail spotted with rocks and scrub brush. It was tough going, but when I got near the top, I stopped and squatted among the trees. I seen a lone sentry up there and recognized him as one of the men who had attacked us. He was standing so he could look down, and I suppose he was in that position so that if anyone rode into the split he could see them. He wasn’t looking back, as the idea that someone might know they was inside the split and would come up through the trees hadn’t occurred to him. If they could guard the split, they felt they could keep attackers out. What they had actually done was boxed themselves in.

  He was looking down, probably wishing he was there eating whatever was cooking. There were little red sparks from that cook fire, and they fluttered up and dotted the dark like fireflies, then faded. I could smell the meat really good now. My stomach turned over a couple of times in want of it.

  I squatted there for some time, watching.

  Finally the man turned and went into the tree line, leaned the rifle he was toting against a pine, and unfastened his pants. With his pants hanging around his knees, he took what looked like a dime novel out of his pocket and squatted, let his back rest against the tree to support him while he took care of nature’s business, that book there for ass wiping.

  He was quite loud about his straining, and was finally making good on his intentions when I gently laid my Winchester on the ground and crept up behind him. Pulling my knife, I inched around the side of the tree and drove the blade into his throat. I struck him so hard the knife went through his neck and into the tree, pinning him there. He turned limp, and blood gushed like a spring. I jerked the knife free. He sat down in the pile he had been making, dropping the magazine on my boot.

  Putting my knife away, after wiping it on his shirt, I got my rifle, eased over to where he had been standing guard, and looked down. It wasn’t a long drop, maybe thirty feet, and with the fire and the moonlight I could see all of them real good.

  They was all gathered down there around that big fire, and Madame’s other cow was on a spit that had both ends racked in forked limbs they had cut and set up as supports. I seen Win right off, and though it was a relief to see she was alive, my heart sank for her. She was completely naked, leaning against some rocks with her arms crossed over her breasts. She was trembling from the cold, being some distance from the fire. I felt a kind of quiet madness seep over me, and it was all I could do to control it.

  One of the men was wearing Win’s yellow dress and one of Madame’s sun hats. He was prancing around the fire, playing the fool, and I could hear the men laughing. It went all over me like a splash of icy water. They was the biggest fools alive to do what they had done and not finish me off, and then to box themselves into that great hole in the rocks.

  I counted the men. Seven. I thought about that. I had killed Weasel, and Golem had ridden off on his own, and then there had been Ruggert, who did the same. I had killed the man on watch. That was four out of the picture, and I remembered there had been twelve. That meant there was probably one either in the wagon, which was not far from the fire, or off in the bushes. Or maybe he had gone off on his own earlier. Then it come to me if one had gone off on his own it was the younger one among them, for he was missing. I counted the horses. Plus t
he animals they had taken from us, there was eight, not counting ours. Nope. He was still around.

  It was then that I seen him come out of the wagon, sleepily putting on his hat. The men started in on him about something, but I had lost interest in them.

  I glanced once more at Win, took in a deep breath, and moved down the hill and through the trees, trying to get down as fast as I could without making a sound.

  When I come to Cullen, Bronco Bob, and the horses, I said, “They’re down there. So is Win, and she’s alive.”

  “Thank God,” Cullen said.

  “She’s in a tough way, though,” I said.

  “What do we do?” Bronco Bob said.

  “We’re going to kill them all.”

  “I second that,” Cullen said.

  “I don’t know,” Bronco Bob said.

  “You are not obliged,” I said. “You have done me a great favor as it stands.”

  “So you say your woman is there?” Bronco Bob said.

  “I do. And one less man, on account of me cutting his throat.”

  “Shit, I’m out of my element,” Bronco Bob said. “I’m just a good shot, not a killer.”

  “I guess I joined another club some time back,” I said.

  “I ain’t never lifted a weapon against nobody. I don’t even like to hunt.”

  “They ain’t no different from targets,” I said. “Except they shoot back and bleed all over the place, and there’s that whole business about dying. Them or maybe you.”

  “Bronco, it’s up to you, but we are going down there,” Cullen said.

  Me and Cullen got in the saddle, and Bronco Bob, after a brief moment of hesitation, did as well. He pulled his Henry from its sheath. I had just put my Winchester away. I said, “It will be close work mostly, and a rifle might not be the thing. You choose your own weapon, though. Me, I’m starting with pistols.”

  “Very well,” Bronco Bob said. He replaced the Henry and pushed back his coat to reveal his Remington pistols.

  “I got a two-shoot shotgun and a pistol,” Cullen said. “That will do me.”

  I pulled two of my pistols from the saddlebag—the Colt and the LeMat—and stuck them in Weasel’s coat pockets. “Way we got to do it is to come on the sneak until we get to that big rock, then we got to ride around it like we was running from a stampede, yelling and shooting. I’ll go to the far right immediately and take them head-on. You two ride straight ahead, veering a little to the right. You’ll see the wagon. Come on around it, and make sure you don’t shoot my head off as you come. There’s a big campfire, and when last I seen them they was all gathered around it. Watch for Win; she’s against the rocks on the far side, or was. A man is wearing her yellow dress and Madame’s bonnet.”

  “Luck to us, then,” Cullen said.

  “Luck ain’t got a goddamn thing to do with it,” I said.

  We went slow, trying not to make noise, but as we neared our spot the horses’ hooves sounded loud on the rocks, so I took out at a run, and Satan plunged forward like he had a flaming brand tied to his tail.

  I put the reins in my teeth, freeing my hands to draw my pistols from Weasel’s coat pockets. I dug my heels deep into Satan, and we made the turn at the rocks well ahead of Cullen and Bronco Bob. All of a sudden I was looking at the fire, men moving in front of it. I lifted my pistols and fired. One of those men went down, and the one in the yellow dress yelped and dropped to the ground, pulling his own piece out from under the dress and firing, missing me so bad he might as well have been trying to shoot a squirrel out of the trees on the hill.

  I galloped past the fire and swung under Satan’s belly, hanging only by a heel. The others had drawn their pistols and was firing. They couldn’t hit me or Satan. We galloped right past them. It was like me and him was touched with some kind of strong Indian medicine that made bullets swerve, though I knew the truth of it was they was just lousy shots.

  I swung back into the saddle, swiveled so I was backward on the horse, and shot at them, hit one right off and saw him go down as if a hole had opened up under him. Then I heard other shots. Cullen and Bronco Bob. I twisted back to the front of the saddle, wheeled Satan, and started back. I seen Win by the rock wall, then got my mind back on my business. Bronco Bob, yelling at the top of his lungs, the reins in his teeth, same as me, rode into the fray. He threw out his right hand, which was clutching one revolver, and laid the other across his legs so it pointed in the same direction, and shot that way. Two of them men went down like they was wet blankets that had slipped off the clothesline. One rolled into the fire, knocking over the cow on the spit. The flames grabbed at his hat and ate it, and then the fire swarmed around his body like ruffians.

  Cullen was right behind Bronco Bob. He cut toward the fire, riding and firing his pistol fast as he could and not hitting a goddamn thing. The young one took off running, away from the fire, and was soaked up by the dark.

  More gunfire. Cullen’s horse was hit and went down, and Cullen was thrown from its back. He went rolling, bullets being fired at him all the while. By the time I rode around on that side, Cullen had scuttled up behind his dead horse and pulled the shotgun free, which was a good thing, because one of the gents was running at him and firing.

  Before I could help Cullen out, his double barrel roared, both barrels, and I seen pieces cut off that fellow fly along in the light of the fire, and he was dropped to the ground. It was then I seen Bronco Bob, who had made a wide turn, tumbled off his horse, and hit the ground. There was two of them left—the kid who had run off and the one in Win’s dress that I had wounded. He was on his knees, one hand clutching his groin. The yellow dress was stained with blood. He threw his gun on the ground, saying, “I have had enough.”

  I rode around to him, clicked the baffle on the LeMat, and shot him in the face with the shotgun load. I just felt mean, and that’s all there was to it.

  The ones Bob had shot was mostly dead. I dismounted, went over and kicked their pistols away from their hands, tucked mine in my belt, then checked on Win.

  She fell into my arms. I pulled off the jacket I had taken from Weasel.Win put it on and buttoned it up. I grabbed a horse blanket stretched on the ground for a bedroll, and she wrapped it around her for a skirt.

  “Win,” I said. “Are you all right?”

  It was the kind of question you ask, but soon as I said it, I felt like an idiot.

  “In a fashion, Nat,” she said. “In a fashion. Oh, God, everything is so close. The sky is falling, and the ground’s coming up.”

  “You been through a lot. You got to sit down here, against the rocks.”

  She did, then said, “Your friend is wounded.”

  Bronco Bob was on the ground, but before I could reach him he was already getting up. “I am not hit,” he said.

  “The hell you ain’t,” I said and touched his arm gently where it was turning wet.

  “Oh, hell. Yes, I am. Ah, shit. I won’t live to write about it.”

  He sat down in a way that made you think his legs had been sawed off under him. I used the bullet hole in his shirt to get my fingers in and rip it open for a look. The fire crackled and gave me light. “You got a hole through the meat at the top of your shoulder, more of a groove, really. It ain’t so bad.”

  Bronco Bob said, “Shit. That is good news. Good,” and then he fainted straightaway.

  Cullen came over, said, “You get the one left. I will take care of Bronco.”

  He went to tearing Bronco Bob’s shirt some more, using a piece to plug into the wound and another strip to bind it.

  It will sound harsh, but these many years later I am dedicated to the truth, mostly, so I will tell you this honestly. Though bad off, one or two of them men we discovered was still alive. If we had loaded them in the wagon and hauled them back to Deadwood, which was a two- to three-day ride, they might have lived. Thing was, we didn’t want them to. I caught up Satan, tied him to the wagon, got my rifle, and walking by them wounded men I admit to you I sh
ot them the way you would a dying horse.

  After that I went after the kid.

  I trotted in the direction I had seen him take, and wasn’t long before I could hear him breathing ahead of me, trying to climb into the rocks, dribbling pebbles and dust down on me. I climbed up after him. When I got to the top, the sun was bleeding through the trees, and I seen blood drops on the rocks, glimmering like rubies. One of us had hit him. I kept on the trail and climbed up to where it was flat, near where I had cut the lookout’s throat. I seen him then. He was running. His gun belt sagged loose, fell around his legs, and tripped him up; down he went.

  I was on him then. When he tried to roll over and draw his guns I had a bead on him with my rifle. He looked frantic. His hat was pushed up on his head, and his blond hair hung out long like a woman’s; his face was as soft as one’s, too.

  “I didn’t mean nothing,” he said. “I was made to do it.”

  I squatted down and held the rifle on him. He took his hands off his pistols, turned them palms-open.

  “I didn’t want to,” he said. His voice was squeaky, like his balls hadn’t yet dropped. “But they said I had to. I ain’t nothing but a kid. I got a girl back home. Me and her are going to get married soon as I get a job.”

  I could see the fear on his face, hear it in his voice. I couldn’t help but think of that time I was being chased by Ruggert through the swamps back home, how I had felt about it, the way my heart beat and my head buzzed.

  “I didn’t mean to have it happen,” he said. “I was just caught up in it. If you and she had been white, I wouldn’t have had nothing to do with it.”

  That’s when I shot him, and I tell you, to this day he’s the only one I feel a little guilty about. It’s not a guilt that shows up much, but it’s there, and about once a year, for a few minutes when I’m shaving, I feel it.

  24

  I will make short work of our trip back to Deadwood, for that was the only wise place to go under the circumstances. We didn’t bury a one of those men but left them to the things that wiggle and the things that fly.