Paradise Sky

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “I can chip in as well,” I said.

  “That is appreciated,” he said. “But let me tell you the chip you need to give.”

  “All right.”

  We was down the hill now, wandering along Main Street. Word had gotten out about Bill, and the air around us was buzzing with it. There was people practically swarming down the street, yakking about what had happened as they went, talking almost all at once, rushing out of alleys and stores, fluttering down from the high-perch streets thick as flies in a bowl of molasses.

  “Look at those goddamn vultures,” Charlie said. “If I didn’t have him hid out in the barbershop, they’d be in Mann’s Number Ten pulling his hair out and yanking the threads from his clothes, trying to dip handkerchiefs in his blood for souvenirs. They’d steal the boots and drawers off him if they could.”

  Charlie paused to gaze at them with his face twisted up, and then he relaxed it and looked at me. “That shooting match. Bill told me you were a part of that, correct?”

  “The desire for it has flown,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Cause we wanted to give Bill’s widow something lest he look like he died poor, which in fact he did.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “We have him a funeral now, and a coffin, and he’ll be buried tomorrow before he ripens and swells, but it would seem right for him to have had a bit of a financial gathering for Agnes, who, by the way, I had no truck with and no interest in. I don’t know how much dearness Bill had for her, either, other than telling me about how flexible she was. But she is still his wife, and we would prefer Bill not die under circumstances that might have him considered a pauper.”

  “He seemed well stocked when we met at the saloon,” I said.

  “He liked to make a show,” Charlie said. “The gambling mostly emptied his pockets. He had a few dollars in his pants, a few on the card table, but those have gone to the funeral, along with what the rest of us tossed in. Well, you see how it looks.”

  I didn’t care how it looked, but I did care about Bill.

  “So how does this tie in with the shooting match?” I asked.

  “We would like you to try and win that,” he said.

  “Didn’t plan on trying to lose it,” I said. “But now I’m not planning at all.”

  “If you win the prize, we thought you could donate that to be sent to Agnes, like Bill had been saving it up, and we will all make side bets in a way that you’ll make some real money for yourself as well. You will get your share from the bets; Bill’s widow will get her share from the prize money.”

  “Who is the ‘we’ you mentioned?”

  He named some men; some of them I knew, some I didn’t.

  “You may be misplacing your faith,” I said.

  “Bill had faith in you, and that’s good enough for me,” he said.

  “Some days are better than others,” I said. “I don’t know the kind of day I’ll have if I shoot.”

  Upon Bill’s death, my confidence had taken a departure. Before that, I was stuffed full of it.

  “I can take that chance, and my friends can, too,” he said.

  “Very well,” I said.

  Moments before I had planned to walk away with nothing, forget the whole thing, head out of Deadwood. Now I was going to be shooting not only for myself but also for a friend, too, even if he was white and dead. I told Charlie, “Bill made it so I could compete, but there are some who might take exception to the hue of my skin now that he’s not here to provide support.”

  “No, they won’t,” Charlie said. “I can guarantee that. Any row comes about, I will be there, and so will some others. It would be unwise for you to be excluded.”

  “Very well, then,” I said.

  “One more thing. Bill told me about the one he said you called Ruggert, about him and his henchmen. My guess is he may have been behind Bill’s death. He may have wanted him out of the way, as he would have stood up with you, and in a straightforward fight he would have been a load. Damn. I can’t believe Bill sat with his back to the door. Anyway, that Ruggert was involved is only a guess, but there is more than a strong rumor that he has paid for your competition.”

  I gave him a blank look.

  “Bronco Bob,” Charlie said.

  “Who is Bronco Bob?”

  “He’s a famous trick shooter. Famous to everyone but you, apparently, and he’s not just one of them that uses devices to make things seem like they’re more than they are. Doesn’t load his revolvers with buckshot, for instance. He’s a hell of a shooter in the real world. Travels about, makes his day-to-day on it. Bill would have got around to telling you about it eventually. He heard about it from McCall, his assassin, but he didn’t know what stock to put in it. Wasn’t sure if Broken Nose was playing him or not. But I seen Bronco Bob’s wagon roll into town right before Bill got killed, saw him pulling up at the livery. He’s over at the hotel. So it’s quite a coincidence, is it not?”

  “Why would McCall warn Bill about it?”

  “That is a confusion, to be sure,” Charlie said. “One moment I think Jack wanted to be Bill, another he wanted to be his best pard, and another he wanted to trip him up, which in the end we have to say he did. I think Ruggert may have paid him. And there’s them other fellas. The one Bill said was called Gobbler and the little one.”

  “Golem,” I said. “Not Gobbler.”

  “Golem?” Charlie said. “What in hell is that?”

  “Bill didn’t tell you?”

  “If he had, would I be asking you as much?”

  “Reckon not.” So I told him what Bill had told me, though there was little material there to make much of a story from.

  “Them Jews have some queer ideas about things, sounds to me,” Charlie said, “but if I know what a golem is or don’t, I know who that big son of a bitch is that goes by the name. And I know that little son of a dog turd with him.”

  “They call him Weasel,” I said.

  “Weasel it is, then. Bottom line, me and Bill’s friends will be there to check your back, make sure a bullet don’t nest in it. The shooting match, how that comes out, that’s up to you. If the cards don’t land in your favor, I know you will have done your best. I trust Bill’s judgment that much. But that’s all there is in a nutshell. That is the favor I’m asking you. Money for Bill’s widow.”

  “I’ve done agreed.”

  “I wanted you to know the perils of it, though. I have built up good how you are protected, and how we will have your back, but I should add as a measure of honesty, nothing is certain.”

  “I know that from experience,” I said. “But with you at the lead, it is certain enough.”

  I stuck out my hand.

  We shook. “You come and see Bill laid down tomorrow,” he said.

  He crossed the street, and I started back to Win.

  Before I made it there, I seen Cullen coming toward me at a goodly clip, passing the crowd that was hustling to Mann’s saloon.

  He caught up to me. “I heard, Nat. I know he was a friend. I’m sorry.”

  “Ain’t no going backwards now. The killer has been nabbed.”

  “This is a bad time to ask, you and me being friends and all, but are you still planning to shoot tomorrow? I put considerable money on you.”

  “I will be shooting,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “It’s how I figure to make my dowry for Wow.”

  “You need one?”

  “No, but we need money, so I thought I’d call it that.”

  “Come with me,” I said.

  He walked with me back to where Win and Madame were. Actually, they had all met, but I took the time now to properly introduce him. When the visit had reached its natural course, I kissed Win on the cheek and went away with Cullen.

  I said, “Ain’t you working today?”

  “Wild Bill getting killed has kind of made it a holiday,” he said. “Not that I’m suggesting it’s a good thing, though I can use the time off.”<
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  Arriving at my place, I took Cullen inside, and we sat down on the floor. “I’m going to give you some papers to hold for me, at least for a short time,” I said. Then I explained about Mr. Loving and the arrangements he had made.

  Wild Bill’s funeral was a big ballyhoo.

  At Charlie’s camp, under a tepee-style tent, they set up a black-cloth-lined coffin on wooden blocks with the guest of honor in it. Charlie laid a Winchester rifle beside him, said it was his favorite shooting piece. This was a lie. Bill always carried revolvers and was right proud of them, far more than any long shooter. I think Charlie felt he needed to lay Bill out in style, with some kind of weapon beside him, but didn’t want them fine and famous shooting irons of Bill’s to go to waste in the ground. It kind of bothered me about the Winchester, to speak frankly, as it seemed false to Bill’s memory.

  Folks paraded inside the tent and around the coffin. Everyone, no matter sex or color, was let in. There was even a few dogs wandering about, and Charlie had to grab a cat off the edge of the coffin and throw it under the back of the tent, as it was sniffing at the corpse.

  After a lot of flapdoodle was said, some of it accurate, the body was toted to a hillside, where Bill was put down. Some more flapdoodle was said by a couple of fellows, one of them a weepy Chinaman none of us understood. He apparently knew Bill, and it was whispered that he supplied our man with opium. I don’t know if there was truth to it or not. Charlie come up when the Chinaman got finished, or was made to finish, and said some heartfelt words. Then a board he had carved on was put up at the head of the grave. Charlie had whittled into it Bill’s age and about him being murdered by the assassin Jack McCall. One man suggested that “assassin” be changed to “dick sucker,” but Charlie was against it. It would have required an entirely new board.

  The grave was covered with dirt, and that was all there was for the great Wild Bill Hickok.

  This is off the trail a little, at least as far as the layout in time, but I thought I’d put it here cause I learned about it later. Jack McCall was let off by a miners’ court, even though he snuck up behind Bill and shot him in the head and there was witnesses to what was clearly cold-blooded murder. I was one of them witnesses, but I was not called to testify. I didn’t even know there was testifying to be done. It all happened quick and was done with.

  In his defense Jack said that his brother had been killed by Bill back in Abilene, Kansas, but he had nothing on that but his word. That’s why I think he had been paid by Ruggert and knew how safe he was because some of the jury, such that it was, had probably been paid, too. Jack got off, and you can bet he got gone. Had Charlie not been so broken up about the funeral and needing to be there to protect me at the shooting match, I have no doubt he would have snuck off after him, left his bones out there in the wilds for grass to grow over.

  Getting off didn’t do Jack no good, though. Later on, in Wyoming, he bragged about the deed. The Wyoming folks, bless them, didn’t consider the Deadwood trial a real trial, as it wasn’t an incorporated town then. They nabbed him and tried him and found him guilty and hanged him. I hope with thirty pieces of silver in his pocket.

  I went to my room and sat alone. I cleaned my weapons again, as if they needed it, laid out all my ammunition. I thought about things Mr. Loving had taught me. I tried to do as he said I should do anytime I became overwhelmed, and that was to think about nothing at all. Course, the more I tried that the more I thought about every damn thing you can imagine. Finally I settled on thinking about being up in the hayloft in Mr. Loving’s barn, looking out the opening at the countryside in the springtime, when the trees grew thick along the creek bank and there was wildflowers and the limbs of the trees got filled with bright-colored birds.

  It was with that thinking that I found my peace.

  21

  I planned to shoot my Colts and the Winchester, but I carried the LeMat for backup, not wanting at any point to be with an empty gun. The Colts would be better for target shooting and more accurate, and for long shooting you couldn’t beat that Winchester.

  When I come out of my little room for the last time, there on the dirt street was Charlie and some others, about ten men if I remember my count. There was Tater Joe Wingchip, as he was known, and Smooth Ride Smith, known by that name because he was always falling off horses, and Frank Penn, and some others I knew just a little, mostly by name or by sight.

  “We come to walk with you, so as you won’t get lonely,” Charlie said.

  “I am a mite lonesome,” I said, “and would enjoy the company. Shall we stroll, gentlemen?”

  They gathered up around me and marched with me through the streets. There was people watching as we came, and I’m not sure what they made of a wad of white men with a darky in the center of them. Maybe they thought I was being led to a hanging.

  Finally we arrived where the match was. There was a banner stretched across the street, right close to where it broadened and fanned toward a great hill of dark dirt. The banner read simple enough: DEADWOOD SHOOTING MATCH. The shooting range was plenty wide and plenty deep. There was ropes stretched across it on poles at either end. I wasn’t sure what that was about, as nothing had been explained beforehand, outside of there was going to be targets, and some of the shooting would take place on horseback.

  There was also on the ground at the far end some stacks of bricks, and on those was big jugs with corks in them. I knew what that was all about. I counted ten across. They was bigger jugs with bigger corks than Bill and I had shot, but they was also set back a mite more in distance. There was a youthful man there, string-lean to the point of being mostly bones, wearing a checkered coat and bowler hat. He was introduced to me as Checkers Chauncey, which led me to believe that coat stayed on his back a lot. He was the one that ran the match, though he was not a judge, this being the job of six well-dressed men, three on one side, three on the other, all of them seated on stiff wooden chairs with cushions on the seats.

  While I was signing in, some other men came up, and pretty soon there was ten of us signed. Then there was a murmur in the crowd. I looked back and seen people parting to let a little fellow come through. He had on a tall white hat with a wide brim. He was broad-shouldered but small everywhere else, except he had big hands and long fingers. I noticed that even as he was coming from a distance. His face was long and friendly-looking. He had dark hair and a mustache and a beard to match. He was wearing a milky leather jacket with fringe, dark stovepipe pants, and high boots that matched the jacket. He wore a vest with all manner of colorful curlicues on it. Around his waist was two black leather holsters of the sort Mr. Loving had made. The pistols he was freighting on his hips was pearl-handled Remingtons.

  A ragged, redheaded boy, probably fifteen or sixteen, was running alongside him and had long leather bags slung over each shoulder on straps; the bottoms of the bags was banging against his heels as he ran.

  The man signed his papers for the match, studied on me with fine, clear eyes, and with that boy following with the bags come over and stuck out his hand. Charlie and the others stood close to me. I noticed they had their hands on their pistols in case things went in the wrong direction.

  On instinct, I handed my rifle to Charlie, took the man’s hand, and shook it.

  “I take by the tint of your hide you are Nat Love,” he said.

  I agreed I was the same.

  “I am Bronco Bob, and this here is Tim.”

  “Jim,” the boy said.

  “I will call you Tim,” Bronco Bob said, then turned back to me. “I have been hired by Mr. Ruggert to shoot against you, meaning he has covered a number of bets in my favor. I have heard a few say you are quite the shot, though none of them can claim to have actually seen you shoot. I think their judgments are based on the say of the lately departed Wild Bill Hickok, God bless his gambling, whoring soul. I knew him well at one time, back in Abilene. I was just Bob Brennen then.”

  “There are nine other men shooting here tonight,”
I said. “They may prove to be of an ability better than either of us.”

  “If the rumors are correct concerning you—and those about me are quite true, I assure you—it will be up to you and me. Maybe one other, Prairie Dog Dave Jiggers. I shot against him once, a year back, in Fort Smith. He is no slouch.”

  “Fortune has a way of shifting in near any direction,” I said.

  “It does, at that. But them that prepare have better fortune than those who don’t. Gun shooting is a science, but it is also an art, and those of us who are artists do better in the long run than those that are merely scientists. They know how it works and which way to point it, but we feel how it works and feel which way to point it.”

  “That so?” I said.

  “Creativity is far more important than skill alone, though you got to have one for the other to matter. That big loop rifle is quite nice. Made for you?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said.

  “Let me add that though I have been hired to shoot against you, it’s nothing personal. It’s my profession. I would have been here anyway. I have a piece of the side bets provided in my name by Mr. Ruggert if I win. And I intend to. But that is where our contest ends.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  “And if I should lie about such, may these men crowding around me blow my head off.”

  “We will,” Tater said. “And then shit in your mouth, if you got a mouth left.”

  Bronco Bob looked at Tater, said, “That could be most unpleasant for me if you fail to do them in the order suggested.”

  He tipped his big ole hat, and he and the boy went stepping away from us.

  “What do you think, Nat?” Charlie asked, handing me back my rifle.

  “I think he speaks truly,” I said. “There was no need for him to speak to me at all.”

  “To throw you off guard,” Tater said, and the other men nodded and grumbled about for a few seconds.