Paradise Sky

  “Good day, sir.”

  I left the courthouse stunned, walked over to where the wagon had been. Bass had moved it under a big oak tree so that it was in the shade. It would be emptied soon enough, and into the jail those six would go. I stopped and leaned against the bars.

  I was close to Red. I said, “There’s a new warrant, says you raped a girl. You didn’t mention that.”

  “Why should I, Nat? I was just getting me some. It was an Indian.”

  “And if it was a colored girl how would you feel?”

  “I don’t know. I think of you as different.”

  “I’m colored.”

  “Yeah, but you’re different.”

  “And if she was white?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So you did rape her?”

  “I took some advantage of her, but I wasn’t the only one, and I wasn’t the first of us.”

  “So the number and position somehow make it different?”

  “It was just some girl you don’t know, Nat.”

  “Listen to me. Listen good. I told Judge Parker you helped me out. Right now I don’t know you did. You may have lied to me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Good. Because I’ll get Ruggert, and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to hang like drapes.”

  “You said—”

  “I said I’d talk to the judge. I did. That was before I knew you raped a girl. You did it, and you don’t seem bothered by it in the least.”

  “It gets to me a little. I was drunk when I did it. Wasn’t entirely myself.”

  “Shit, Red. You’ve become one of them. Only reason you are talking to me, befriending me, is you thought I could help you out. You put everything on being drunk. It’s you that’s drinking, Red. It’s not being forced down your throat.”

  “You’ve killed before.”

  “Not for money. Not for sport. And I never did the things you did. That boy and his dog. That wasn’t no accident, was it?”

  “Nat.”

  “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “I never had a dog. I never had a fancy suit like that punk had, or a bowler hat. He looked right proud of himself in that garb, holding that damn dog. I never had nothing.”

  “So they should have nothing?”

  “You’re turning on me, Nat.”

  “You turned on yourself, Red. All I can hope for you is the drop through the trap is clean, snaps your neck, and you don’t strangle.”

  “You’re like all of them. You’re just like Ruggert said.”

  “Like all of who?”

  “Like all the goddamn people like you.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He said no matter how good a nigger is, in time the nigger will come out in him. You just let it come out in you. You sold me to the rope.”

  “You sold yourself, boy. And I ain’t getting you a damn thing to eat. Suck your thumb.”

  I turned then and started walking away. I felt like a fool. Tears was running down my cheeks.

  “Nigger,” he kept calling out, over and over until I was gone.

  32

  I bought myself lunch, something I could eat out under a tree, and later when I seen that the wagon had been emptied of its prisoners, I walked to where Ruthie stayed with her family. I found her out in the yard with a hoe. She was trimming around some tomato vines that she had staked. They wasn’t real healthy-looking tomatoes. I stood at the gate of the fence they had built around the garden, which I guess was about half an acre, and watched her hoe for a while. It wasn’t that I enjoyed seeing a woman work, though I damn sure like one that is willing to, but I found myself trying to figure if she was the sort that would have gathered rats in a bag and beat them to death or drowned them. I couldn’t see that. And I couldn’t see Win talking to ducks. There was a lot of confusion in my head, but some of it sorted out that very day. I opened the gate and went through the path between the crops. Ruthie lifted her head when she saw me coming, leaned on the hoe. I could see Luther out back cranking a bucket of water up from the well. He looked like a tree wearing a hat. It was a nice well and a nice house. Samson was out in the distance tossing corn to some free-ranging chickens.

  They both looked up and saw me. I lifted a hand in a wave. I went right up to Ruthie.

  “I’m going on a hunt for a dangerous man. I think you know who I mean, as you’ve heard me talk about him. I’m done with him, and you ain’t been claimed by any of them other suitors, I would love to be your main man, as long as you don’t think it’s a ricochet and you know I’m serious about marriage.”

  “That’s a lot of words,” Ruthie said.

  “It is.”

  “What if I said we should start slow?”

  “I would start slow. About those other suitors…”

  “I don’t care a hoot for any of them,” she said.

  “That’s good.”

  “It’s good for you. And just so you’re clear on matters, Nat. No one claims me. I decide if I want to be with them. That’s how it works.”

  “Fair enough. I want to give you something to think on while I’m gone so maybe it will help you decide if it’s a ricochet.”

  “All right, then. What have you got?”

  I pushed up my hat and took hold of her shoulders and pushed my lips to hers. She didn’t fight. We kissed. It was a long and good kiss. It wasn’t the same as that kiss with Win on our hill in the high Dakotas. It tasted a little damp with sweat, but mostly it tasted sweet and right.

  I heard Samson make a hooting sound. When I looked up Luther was still out by the well, but he was smiling at me. Samson’s hooting had scattered the chickens. He wore a big grin. I tipped my hat to them all.

  Ruthie was a little teary when she said, “Don’t get killed. For God’s sake, don’t get killed.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” I said. “And more for my sake than God’s.”

  I turned and went along the path and out of the gate.

  I started that very afternoon. I went and found Choctaw Tom over at the courthouse. He was sitting out front whittling on some wood. I said, “I’d like to have you come with me.”

  “I’m taking it this ain’t no invitation to a dance.”

  “It kind of is. The music might be gunfire.”

  “I don’t like getting shot at.”

  “Hell, who in their right mind does?”

  “I like it less than most.”

  “Well, I’m asking, and you can say what you want.”

  “You ain’t crazy like Bass, so that’s in your favor.”

  He tossed the piece of wood on the ground and folded up his pocketknife.

  “Judge going to pay for this?” he asked.

  “It’s marshal business, so yes.”

  I told him who I was going after and asked if he knew Chooky, who he saw killed.

  “I knew him. He was harmless as that pig. His brother, though, he’s not on the harmless side. He’s a snake and then some.”

  “He’s running with other snakes.”

  “I know.”

  “Could you find them?”

  “I can find anybody if I have a start.”

  “That’s what I hear. I also hear that Pinocchio Joe is running with a man I want, Ruggert, and another man named Indian Charlie Doolittle.”

  “That little shit. He ain’t much.”

  “But he has a gun.”

  “He probably does. My guess is there might even be more of them than those three.”

  “That’s possible,” I said. “I’d like you to go with me. I said you’d get paid. I told you who it is, and now all I need is your agreement.”

  “How about one bottle of whiskey when the job’s finished?”

  “Fair enough. When it’s finished, not before. I don’t ride with drunks. But I’ll bring the bottle with me. I’ll decide when the job’s done.”

  “Well, then, I’ll go get my horse and
saddle.”

  “One goes with the other,” I said.

  “That it does.”

  “More important, bring a rifle.”

  “I got a Yellow Boy. Thing is, though, I’m a tracker, not a marshal, so I’m not going to promise I’ll get down in the thick of it. I’ll get you there, but three men or more, that’s a lot of men. We could get Bass and some others.”

  “We could, but we won’t. I think it’ll be easier to find them with a light crew. It’s more than you want to handle when we find them, you can step out.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Meet here in an hour, ready to go.”

  He went to get his goods, and I went to get mine.

  I put some possibles together and made sure of my ammunition and was on the hunt. We left out of Fort Smith with the sky freckled like an Appaloosa, a sure sign of bad weather and a sure sign to turn back and wait for better weather.

  But we went ahead. Bad weather would cause them to hole up somewhere, not to expect someone out in it and after them. I thought about Kid Red’s information, and I told Choctaw Tom where he said they might be.

  “Hell, Nat, that could be anywhere. That’s a place so wide and long it’s like saying there’s a tick out there with a top hat and he lives there somewhere and you can find him if he yells at you and waves his hat and has a voice like a buffalo. That’s no help at all. That’s just as general as saying, ‘There’s stars in the sky. Watch for the one on the left.’ ”

  “Is that where the tick with the top hat will be?”

  “Most likely.”

  “He seems to have moved from the ground to the sky.”

  “They are tricky bastards.”

  “Here’s how we’ll start. Pinocchio Joe being Chooky’s brother, it might be best to start with Chooky’s cabin.”

  “Did you know Pinocchio was wanted?”

  “Yep.”

  “You didn’t tell Bass the connection?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like him. Killing a man over a pig seems on the harsh side to me. Besides, I just discovered the connection from Kid Red.”

  “I see. Ever ate a pickled egg?”

  “What?”

  “A pickled egg. I’m going to have me one. I got two.”

  “No. That’s all right. Keep it for yourself.”

  Choctaw pulled a bag from his saddlebag. It had a box inside it, and as he rode along, he opened the box and took out one of the eggs. It smelled awful. He ate it, and then he ate the other.

  “I knew I’d eat them right away,” he said. “I was going to save them for a time when I was really hungry, but I love the goddamn things.”

  “I don’t need an explanation,” I said.

  “I eat all the time, Nat. I’m always hungry. I got enough supplies here for a whole wad of sawmill workers. I could feed ten or twelve. I eat all the time and don’t gain a goddamn pound. I stay skinny as a rail. I could use a bit of meat on me. Other day the wind blew, and I found myself in a tree.”

  “Sure you did,” I said.

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “I think you might,” I said.

  “Not about the eating. That’s true. I think I got some kind of worm.”

  We came to where Bass had shot Chooky, and then we rode on farther up the hill and then onto a flat slab of land and into some trees. On the other side of the trees was a cabin that Choctaw said belonged to Chooky.

  We stopped and sat on our horses and looked at the cabin. There was no smoke, and there was no horses to be seen out front or in the open-ended shed to the right of the house. I rode around back of the house, going wide, and didn’t see no horses there, neither, though there was a corral there. Without getting down off my horse I could see that the horse turds there wasn’t fresh, but they wasn’t old, neither. A few days or so, I guessed. We met around front and tied our horses off. Choctaw carried his Yellow Boy, I pulled my Colt, and we went up to the door, which was already partly open. I nudged it with my boot. It was dark in there, and it smelled like sweaty men.

  Choctaw lit a match and moved past me and went inside. It was a small cabin, one room, and we was quick to see wasn’t nobody there but us.

  “They must have holed up here with Chooky,” Choctaw said. “There’s been several men here. I reckon he stole the pig to feed them. He wasn’t no bad fellow, but he’d have helped his brother hide out. He just up and lied about why he stole that pig. Stood by his brother to the end.”

  “And Bass didn’t come here after the pig thief was killed,” I said. “That would have been a smart follow-through, don’t you think?”

  “It would have, but I think Bass was thinking about free pork chops more than detective work,” Choctaw said. “He’s got his mind right, though. Ain’t no one better than him. I just don’t like his attitude.”

  We strolled out back to the corral.

  “There were several horses here, and not too long back,” Choctaw said.

  “Way I figured.”

  “There was some cows, too.”

  Choctaw got off his horse and climbed over the corral and started feeling around in piles of shit. Soon as he mentioned it, I could see there was cow pies and horse piles in the corral. It ain’t that hard to tell them apart; same with chicken shit and hog shit. They all got their look and smell and feel. Choctaw went out to the well and cranked up a bucket of water and rinsed his hands off, came back, and got on his horse.

  “There was three cows rustled from Old Man Turner over on the other side of the bluff there. He had them put up, but someone came in the night and took them. My guess is these fellas was the ones that had them, cause there was three cows in that corral, and on the far side there was horses.”

  “You can tell how many cows from a pile of shit?”

  “Hoofprints and such. Every hoof looks different, you make the effort to study them. My figuring is they stole them to sell, or maybe for food. They drove them off when they rode away.”

  “Can you follow them?”

  “Trail isn’t too warm, but I can follow it if it doesn’t start raining, and maybe even then. Long as they got those cows with them they can’t move too fast. Then again, they got quite a few days on us. I can’t guarantee your man—what’s his name?”

  “Ruggert.”

  “I can’t guarantee he’s with them, but Pinocchio Joe is. I know his horse’s print. It’s not the horseshoe, it’s the way the horse wears it.”

  “You can wear it different ways?”

  “You ain’t much of a tracker, are you?

  “Why I got you.”

  “A horse has his own way of walking with a shoe—how it steps, way it puts its print down. Trust me. It’s him. And I figure one of the other prints to be Doolittle. They never get far apart, and the print is light. Doolittle rides light. He don’t weigh enough to hold down a newspaper in a light wind. And there’s another. That might be your Ruggert fellow.”

  I nodded, glanced at the sky. It was starting to darken. “Looks like rain will be soon.”

  “Yep. Let’s get on the trail. See how much ground we can cover before it comes down.”

  We wound up into the mountains and the sky got dark and the rain started to come down hard. We pulled on our slickers, and that helped, but pretty soon it was damn near dead dark, and the sound of the rain on my hat was making me loco. There was an old cabin high up in the mountains Choctaw knew of, and he said it wasn’t much off the trail and we should go there to ride out the storm. We rode there, being cautious to note if our outlaws might have had the same idea a few days back and was still there, but they wasn’t.

  We brought our horses into the cabin, which wasn’t really much more than a shack. It was dark in there, but we had some waxed paper twists and we lit one. There was an old kerosene lamp, but there wasn’t any kerosene in it. We stuck a few lit twists here and there and tried to figure where we could put our bedrolls. First thing we did was block the door fro
m being pushed back by wedging a slicked piece of wood underneath it. It would take some determination from outside to move it, and by then we should be on the job in case defending ourselves was necessary.

  There was a fireplace, and the flue drew smoke well enough, and there was a bit of wood, so we made a fire. That gave us more light. Choctaw got out his cooking goods, warmed us up some beans. It was a lot of beans, actually. I ate a plateful, and Choctaw ate three plates full. He wasn’t kidding about always being hungry.

  “What do you think they got in mind?” I asked Choctaw.

  “Not getting caught. Bunch like that, they done played out their cards, but they don’t know it. They ain’t got nothing left now but to keep doing what they’re doing, and then in time they’ll step in a pile somehow, and they’ll get caught.”

  “Think we’ll be the ones to catch them?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  Choctaw smiled at me, wiped his bean-juice-coated mouth with the back of his sleeve. “You got me. Course, once we catch up with them they could kill us both.”

  The rain came down like bullets, and the cabin was shabby and leaked. We hobbled the horses, but the rain and the lightning made them restless, and between the rain and them stirring and me worrying about our prey coming upon us by accident, I had a sleepless night. Here is what I had wanted for so long, and now that I was getting close I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I wasn’t sure I’d live through it, and if I did I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about myself. My mother said I was destined for greatness. I doubted when she said that she thought I’d be up in the wet mountains with plans to kill a man, even if he deserved it. I remembered what Ruggert had said about her, and that made me a little sick. I didn’t like what was running through my mind, the ideas he had put there.

  When morning light slipped through the wet cracks of the cabin, I was already up and tending to the fire. There was hardly enough wood to make a blaze now, but it was enough to warm more beans. I had my plateful and Choctaw had his three, this time the beans coming from my possibles. At this rate we’d have to eat the horses by noon and each other by noon the next day.