Paradise Sky

  “It can be, and it is.”

  “I mean, that won’t work.”

  “Doesn’t change the facts. When I saw you the first time, I thought, now, there is a man of substance.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “That’s how I felt. I told myself I would be proven wrong when I got to know you, but I wasn’t.”

  “You’re a child,” I said.

  “I’m eighteen years old. My mother was married when she was sixteen. Thing is, I’m jealous, Nat. Jealous you can love your woman like that, and here I am wanting the same sort of thing. Be honest with me. You look at me pretty often, don’t you, Nat?”

  “You’re very attractive,” I said. “Beautiful, I think. But that’s just me looking, not me thinking.”

  “Mama once told me if a man is looking, he’s thinking,” Ruthie said.

  I didn’t say anything, as there is a certain truth to that. It’s the birds and the bees, I reckon.

  “Okay, I guess I thought some things I shouldn’t have, way a man will.”

  “It’s more than that, Nat.”

  “How do you know what lives inside my head?”

  “Because you don’t look at me the way a wolf looks at a staked goat. That’s how some men look at me. You look at me the way Pa used to look at Ma, way he used to smile at her, even if she was fussing at him. That smile would make her madder, but he was always taken with her. Think he would have salted her down and put her in a barrel to bring all the way here if he didn’t feel something special?”

  “Hell, Ruthie, he salted down the dog, too.”

  “Well, he loved the dog, but I’m not saying it was the same. He didn’t look at the dog the same way. I don’t think you can make a case it was on the same level. Come on now, Nat. Tell me you don’t see something in me you like.”

  “I see plenty in you I like. You’re not only pretty, you have a strong heart and a good mind, and you seem to me to be a planner. Like you want something out of life.”

  “I do indeed,” she said.

  “I like the way you walk.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I sat in a chair and tossed the dime novel on the floor. Ruthie closed the door. She said, “Tell me when you look at me all you see is someone who is a good planner.”

  “I said about your head and heart.”

  “Tell me you don’t feel just the slightest something for me. Tell me you don’t think I would make a good wife.”

  “Of course you would,” I said. “Just not my wife.”

  “I want you,” she said. “In my bed, such as it is—a pallet under a tree—and in my life forever.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that. Your pa will shoot us both. Listen, Ruthie, it’s not that easy.”

  “Tell me you don’t love me.”

  I looked at her and opened my mouth, but it didn’t come out. I put my head down and shook it. “I have obligations.”

  “You loved Win—that’s her name, right?”

  “Right. And it’s ‘I love Win,’ not ‘loved.’”

  “You loved the Win you knew. She had a breakdown. She wasn’t strong enough.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said. “Don’t ever say that.”

  “But she wasn’t.”

  “Who would be?” I said.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad,” she said.

  “But you have. Don’t ever say that about her. You can’t say things like that if you haven’t been through it, and heaven forbid you should. It’s not always about strength. It’s more complicated than that.”

  Ruthie sat down on my bed, put her hands on her knees, said, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “You’re right about that,” I said.

  “I know that. I’m jealous of Win, and I don’t even know her. I just wanted to say something mean. God says judge not lest you be judged, and now I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought a mess of troubles on me for saying it.”

  “Forgive yourself. I have.”

  “Nat, you never said how you feel about me.” She turned her head and laid those beautiful eyes on me. Outside the wind was starting to whistle and the sun was starting to set, and I was thinking what Luther was thinking about now. He had to have guessed she would come here.

  “I don’t love you, Ruthie,” I said. “I love another.”

  “You love who she was,” she said. “You don’t want to be a coward. Want to stand by her, but you lost her. You been away too long, and she’s not herself. You know that’s true.”

  There were tears in her eyes.

  I had a hard time doing it, but I knew it was the right thing to say. “Ruthie. I like you. But I don’t love you. I love Win.”

  “All right,” she said, and she could hardly get the words out. She got up, went to the door, and opened it. “All right,” she said again, and stood there in the doorway, the last of the sunlight resting on her as she turned to look back at me. “You got to do the right thing, Nat. But you know how I feel.”

  “You’re young,” I said. “It’ll pass.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, and went away.

  I sat there in my chair looking out the open door, watching the night fall down. I sat there and thought. I remembered what Mama had said, about how I had to go out and have a future, and that I was destined for greatness. Right then I didn’t feel so great, and my future wasn’t that shiny. I had let her and Pa down, and I had let my own self down. If you could buy bad choices, it was like I had asked for a bag of them.

  I sat there and felt ill. I cried a little. I feared I might have lied to Ruthie. Win was becoming a ghost, and I was starting to feel like a rotten son of a bitch.

  29

  Early next morning I bought some supplies and gave Mr. Jason my best wishes and said so long. He took this more kindly than I meant it. I paid Satan out of the livery, led him over to Luther’s wagon.

  Luther, Samson, and Ruthie was dressed in their finest, and they had laid out the coffin with the wife and the barrel with the dog on a sled. They had the mules hitched up to it with some equipment I figured they had borrowed or rented from someone, perhaps the owner of the sled.

  Ruthie nodded at me. Samson made a few of his usual attempts at jokes. He was not a funny child, but he thought he was. I hoped he’d grow out of it.

  Out at the graveyard, Luther had already dug the grave, maybe with help from Ruthie and Samson. There was a couple of shovels sticking up in a mound of dirt. He had two long pieces of rope with him. Me and him took one end of a piece of rope, while Samson and Ruthie took the ends of the other. We hooked the ropes under the coffin and lowered it into the grave.

  When that was done, Luther said, “I found she wasn’t as pliable as expected, but I got her mostly straightened out. She and me both smelled like pickles before it was over.”

  Luther went into a rambling sermon that should have been boring, as it wasn’t all that interesting if you took it word by word, but he had a way of talking, a tone of voice, that could make reading a grocery list sound fascinating. I almost got religion myself.

  When he was done, I helped cover her up, then we dug a fresh hole for the dog. Down it went, and we shoveled dirt in the hole. That done, he said a few words for the dog, wrapped up with “Amen,” then said, “I plan on getting my wife a headstone next. Blacksmith said he needed some help. I told him I was a good hand and showed him how I could heat up and hammer a horseshoe. He seemed impressed. Said he could only use me three days a week, and sometimes when there is a lot of activity in town. He does shoeing for the marshal service.”

  “Judge Parker,” I said.

  “One they call the hanging judge.”

  “That would be him.”

  We talked a little more, then I told them good-bye, shook hands with Luther and Samson. I shook hands with Ruthie, too, but she didn’t look right at me, and her hand was like holding a dead fish.

  I got on Satan and started riding. I
t didn’t take me long to leave Fort Smith and wind my way into the mountains.

  By the time I reached Dodge, the weather was really bad. Cecil took in Satan for nothing, feeling like he owed me one. I let him think it. Maybe I felt it was true. I got a job shoveling horse shit at the livery.

  Next thing I did was I looked up Bronco Bob.

  Bronco Bob was happy to have me stay with him. He had acquired a mean-spirited, redheaded, heartbreaking strumpet who lived with him, but not the one he wrote me about. That great love had passed. During the nights he wrote while she whored and brought in money. What he wrote he sold to the dime novel company. I was the inspiration for many of his books, though he had taken to writing about a fellow called Broke Hand Bob, who was a one-handed fellow who could throw a knife real well with his good hand. He was made of thin air, Bronco Bob not having any real adventures to steal from for that character. Course, way Bronco Bob wrote it, my adventures and his wasn’t all that different.

  Well, I began to get the feeling I was wearing my welcome out, though Bronco Bob was nice as he could be. But the strumpet gave me looks, and there was the fact that her and her customers humping all night, and her and Bronco Bob humping all day, not only kept me from sleep but kept my hand in my pants. I had been caught going at it twice already. Once by the strumpet and once by Bronco Bob. It was embarrassing, but I owned up to it. Bronco Bob said his strumpet had friends, and one night I broke down and took pleasure from one. I felt horrible the next day, having violated Win’s trust. I was no better than Hickok, who I had judged not so long ago. And then again, it was possible Win had no idea who I was anymore.

  A week or so later I talked Cecil into letting me sleep in the livery. I moved out with Bronco Bob telling me it wasn’t necessary, but I could see on his face a look of grateful good-bye. We played it out, though. Him asking me to stay and me saying how I appreciated it but needed more room. I even threw in I wasn’t fond of having someone walk in while I was priming my pump. I was easily embarrassed when I was younger.

  I moved to the livery.

  It wasn’t a bad life, really, if you didn’t mind waking up and going to bed to the smell of horse manure. I did my job, Cecil paid me some, and at night I stayed in the loft in the hay with a couple of thick and very used horse blankets. I always had the faint smell about me of a mount that had been rode hard and put up wet. I didn’t go out much, as there wasn’t much to do. And as Dodge became more civilized, they became more aware of the color line. I didn’t drink beer or whiskey, so there was no real pleasure for me at the saloons, and at the cafés where they still let colored in I was too short on money for the grub. I ate cheap, and I ate in the loft.

  When spring cracked the country with brighter light and warmer air, the grass turned green and the flowers jumped up. I packed my little bit of belongings and said good-bye to Cecil. By this time he was almost weepy to see me go. He knew he’d have to take over the shovel.

  “You’re as good a hand as I ever had,” he said, taking one of my hands in both of his.

  “Glad for it,” I said.

  “My best goes with you.” When he let go of my hand, it was almost with reluctance.

  “Thanks, Cecil. You been all right by me.”

  “Here’s fifty dollars to go with you, too,” he said, pulling the bills from his coat pocket, shoving them into my palm. “I think it’ll do you better than my best wishes. Your helping out the gals at the brothel, that’s got me free tail for life, so I kind of owe you.”

  I thanked him again, got Satan, and rode to Bronco Bob’s place. Satan, having been ridden little during the winter, was a bit sassy, but I knew after we got on the trail he’d work off his fat and be all right. Me and him had come to an understanding.

  Bronco Bob’s abode, as he preferred to call it, was off Main Street. I rode down the very same alley where I had killed Golem. I had been down it many times since I had been back in Dodge. Being there always made me feel a little odd, as if Golem might leap out in all his bloody glory and try and grab me. I tied Satan to a hitching post, climbed some stairs, and knocked on the door. I could hear Bronco Bob and his lady making the springs squeak.

  I thought it best to leave a note, but I didn’t have pencil or paper on me. I was about to go down and get some out of my saddlebag when I heard Bronco Bob yell out, “Wait just a goddamn minute. I’m almost finished here. I’m at the peak and about to descend the mountain.”

  The springs squeaked a little more, then there was a sound like someone happily sinking down into a feather bed after a week without sleep. About five minutes later, the door opened, and there was Bronco Bob in his filthy long johns.

  “I didn’t know it was you, Deadwood. I thought it was a bill collector. I owe everyone for something. Be it meat or milk or whiskey. On top of that I need a new lambskin for my pecker. I’m about to break through the one I got. They don’t come cheap.”

  “I have one made of rubber,” I said, “but I’ve never had the desire to lend it.”

  “Or me to wear it.”

  “Still, didn’t mean to interrupt you while you was mining for gold.”

  “For what it’s worth, I found my nugget.”

  “I’m leaving, Bob.”

  “I knew you would before long. Guess I’ve been a little less of a friend than you might have expected.”

  “You been all right,” I said. “You’ve got your life, and I got mine, such as it is.”

  “I think my life is what led Kid Red into the arms of ruin. I should never have got him drinking. He was just a kid. That liquor made an outlaw of him.”

  “That was a mistake, Bob. But we’ve all made a few. He’s young and may still straighten out. Should he come back through, give him my best, and then turn him in to the law. Could be the best thing that happens to him. Jail for theft before it’s jail and the gallows for murder.”

  “Might be too late for that already,” he said. “There are rumors.”

  “Let’s hope that’s all they are. Good-bye, Bronco Bob. I hope our trails cross again.”

  “I’m sure they will. And where should I send the money for the dime novels?”

  “Same place you been sending it.”

  “Yeah. I know. I’m just talking. I mean well.”

  “It’s all right, my friend. Adios.”

  Within minutes I was out of Dodge and on the trail to Deadwood.

  I come to the Dakotas, and spring or no spring, it was cold there. There was snow in the trees and over the rocks, and breathing the air was like breathing razors, but the trail was clear and no Indians tried to scalp me. I didn’t even see one, though I bet they saw me. They was supposed to have been tamed by this time, but I wasn’t going to count on a newspaper article that said it to be true. I kept my weapons loaded, my eyes sharp. I slept poorly. That wasn’t all about watching for savages. I was thinking about Win, and damn me, I was thinking about Ruthie, too. When her face would come to me, I’d try and push it from my head, but it would float right back up. I hate to say it, and I’m ashamed, but at that point I could hardly remember Win’s face—just her explosion of dark hair, that flute playing she did, and that sweet kiss up on the hill. The one that could never be matched.

  Deadwood was less of a ragged town than it had been, though I should add that just a few years after I saw it for the last time (and this was the last time) a fire blazed through and burned the whole town to the ground. Some folks said it was the best thing that ever happened. Them that said it mostly lived somewhere else. But some of the Deadwood folks thought the same and was glad to see it rebuilt. That was, they say, the first beginnings of it as a real town, not just a wild outpost for gambling and killing and all manner of wild activity.

  Banks and churches just about ruin everything.

  There was new buildings and new streets, but it wasn’t so different that I had trouble finding where Cullen and Wow lived with Win. When I rode up in their yard Wow was outside hanging wash on the line. When she saw me ride up
and dismount, she came running up and threw her arms around me and kissed my cheek. Once, I thought she had a face that could blow out a candle, but seeing her now, I thought she was quite beautiful. Her spirit made her glow. I gave her a kiss on the cheek, and she shed some tears and hugged me more.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said.

  “And you.”

  “You got that same black horse.”

  “I do. And he’s as mean as ever.”

  “Cullen is asleep. He’s working nights cleaning out stores, doing your old job, too, emptying spittoons. He’s hired someone to do some of the work for him. He’s trying to start a business like that, where he farms out hands for jobs and everyone gets paid. Mostly him.”

  “Sounds like you’re prospering.”

  “In a fashion.”

  “Win?”

  I already knew the answer from Cullen’s letter, but I was hoping against hope that in the last few months she had improved.

  Wow shook her head. “Not well. You should brace yourself. Her mind is gone, and her body is nearly gone as well. I think she may well have some kind of disease. Maybe she always had it, and when she…Well, when what happened to her happened, she wasn’t strong enough anymore. She hardly eats, and if you try and force her a little, well, she chokes. We give her broth a lot. She can do broth.”

  I said, “She’s in the house, I assume?”

  “Yes. I’ll wake Cullen. He’ll want to see you. Win may be asleep; she may be awake. She hasn’t any set hours. She catnaps.”

  “No need to wake him—or her, if she’s asleep.”

  “There certainly is,” she said, and went ahead of me into the house.

  I tied Satan to a post out front, waited for Wow to come back. When she did she had Cullen with her. He had thrown on some clothes, and his shirt was buttoned wrong. He looked thinner than I remembered—not bad, just wolf-lean.

  “Nat,” he said. “You son of a bitch.”

  He grabbed me and hugged me so hard I thought he’d break my ribs. It was good to see him. When he let go, he said, “You’ll want to see Win.”