Paradise Sky

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “I take him at his word,” I said.

  “Good enough,” Charlie said, “but if you’re wrong, and he kills you, know we will take care of him and bury you some place nice, but with a service less fine than Bill’s. Another funeral like that and we’ll have to take up honest work to pay for it.”

  “I suppose that’s some sort of comfort,” I said.

  By this time that Chauncey fellow was calling for all the shooters to come to the scratch line. Charlie and the others wished me well, and I went over to where the other shooters had gathered.

  “Now, this here is going to be as fair as if God himself was here to take score and say how things was done,” Chauncey said. “I want that figured on right now, provided any of you think you’re going to get away with buckshot in a pistol or some such fool shenanigans. Me and the judges is wise to all that. I’m the referee, and I will call any stepping over the line right away. For that matter, I’ll call anything I think of as unfair. The judges will make conclusions on who has shot what if there should be any confusion or disagreement. Their word is final. We ask you to leave, you leave, or we’ll all give you a whipping. Everybody understand that?”

  We all agreed we did.

  “Now, what I’m going to do is put some slips of paper we got here, stick them in my hat, and you’re going to draw numbers as to when you shoot. Understood?”

  Again we all agreed.

  Chauncey took the slips of paper, which he had produced from his coat, took off his hat, and dropped the slips inside it. He held the hat about chin high and one at a time we all reached in and drew from it. I got the number 4. Prairie Dog drew 2. Bronco Bob drew 8. Number 1 was a big blustery fellow with leather holsters and his guns stuck down in them in such a way that if he had to pull them it would be like reaching into a sack to find them. I figured him to be out of business right quick. He didn’t know how to carry guns, then most likely he didn’t know how to shoot them. The others drew until all ten of us had numbers.

  I scanned around, searching for Win and Madame, finally located them to the back of the match on a rise, sitting on the ground on a blanket. They had a good view of things. While I was looking at them, I seen Cullen come up with Wow, them other China girls walking in behind them. They had blankets, too. They rolled them out on the ground near Win and Madame, and I could see Wow and the China girls was introducing themselves to Win, as they hadn’t all met her. It did my heart good to see them up there.

  I glanced around some more, seen Ruggert had a seat in a chair in the front row of the blocked-off street. I hadn’t noticed him at first, there being a crowd of men standing in front of him, but now they had all gone to find their spots, and the view was clear. I seen Weasel and Golem coming along through a split in the chairs that had been set out, and they was followed by seven or eight other men. It was easy to see they was all together, and all of them had the same sour face of men who had been paid to do something distasteful. I had an idea what that might be.

  Charlie eased up beside me, said, “We see them. You concentrate on your shooting, and we’ll concentrate on them.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We was all called to the scratch line, and according to number took our places in front of our targets—the corked bottles, about forty feet away. That’s a damn good shot for a pistol.

  “Way we do is we go by numbers, and if there is any man in line don’t know numbers, let him speak now,” Chauncey said.

  A man standing to my left, who looked old enough to have lived when Methuselah was a child, said, “I don’t know writing, and I can’t add too good, but I know numbers. I know my number.”

  “Then you didn’t need to say nothing, now, did you?” Chauncey said.

  “Guess I didn’t,” the man said and looked forlorn, having brought up his lack of certain skills to no good purpose.

  “It ain’t nothing,” I said. “I can’t add so good, neither.”

  He worked his mouth into a grin. “Lots of people can’t,” he said.

  “There you have it,” I said.

  “Now,” Chauncey said. “Everyone knows their target, which if you are in line proper is the one in front of you. We will begin with the first round. Everyone has to make the first round or they are out. No one survives the first round, we have another round for all you lousy shots. No one makes the second round, then we retire for the afternoon in mortification. Understood?”

  There was some nervous laughs along the line, but we all agreed we understood.

  “You got to hit the cork, which may bust the bottle,” Chauncey said. “But if the bottle busts and the cork ain’t hit, it don’t count. Any quarrel, we look at the cork. Number one, get ready.”

  I took cotton balls from my pockets and stuffed them in my ears and took a deep breath. I was ready as I was going to get.

  Number 1 couldn’t have hit his own chin with his fist. He was out, and by the second round it was down to those who was going to be there for a while. I was among them, of course. So was Prairie Dog and Bronco Bob and a little fellow I had never seen before, number 10. He could shoot really well and was always looking back at the crowd between shots, showing them the tobacco he was chewing when he grinned.

  We set to shooting ten targets apiece, still corks, but not in bottles this time. They was tied to strings dangling from those stretched-across ropes. You had to hit six to stay in for the next round. Second round you had to do better. My Colts shot smooth, and I hit nine out of ten my first run, the far one on the right being a little off-angle for me, and I think maybe the wind kicked up a bit.

  The shooter who didn’t know his ciphers had made it through round one, but that second round of cork shooting put him out of the game.

  Prairie Dog hit eight.

  The little guy with the chewing tobacco hit ten, and so did Bronco Bob, who was as cool a shooter as I have ever seen. Both of them had outshot me by one cork, and I found that matter surprising, but then again they didn’t have the angle I had, and the wind hadn’t been working as hard when they took their turns. It was the only thing I could figure.

  “That’s all right,” I heard Charlie yell. “You did fine. As for them others, even a blind pig can find a corncob now and again.”

  I looked toward the hill where Win was. She and the others all gave me high signs and smiles, except Cullen, who looked like a man who might have started to think he had bet too much on the wrong shooter.

  Now it was time for the long guns. Dimes was set up at a distance slightly farther than the corks. They was set with their edges toward us, between grooves in wooden blocks weighted down with rocks. We only got one shot and one dime. That would be the nut-cutting shot and would lead to who was in and who was out. If only one man was standing, the match was over. If not, then it moved to more rapid firing and horseback shooting.

  The tobacco chewer, whom I thought of as Tobacco Mouth, was first. He leveled his Spencer and popped off his shot without so much as breathing, and damn if he didn’t send that dime spinning. It was Prairie Dog’s turn then, and he was more deliberate about it. He was shooting a Winchester, same as me, though it was of a more recent model. He fired and hit his dime, turned, and grinned at me. I noticed he trembled slightly, and he was probably a little surprised he had made his shot.

  I was next, and, like Prairie Dog, I took my time. Mr. Loving told me that the idea was to make your target seem big as the moon in your gun sights. I aimed down that barrel, but that dime’s edge was mighty thin to me, nowhere near big as the moon. I carefully pulled off my shot.

  I sent the dime spinning. I was still in.

  Bronco Bob took a fresh rifle from one of the bags the boy was toting for him, a Henry—what some called a Yellow Boy due to its coloring. Bob hadn’t no more than pulled that rifle from the bag than he wheeled. With the stock of the rifle on his hip, a position that couldn’t never be worth much, or so I thought, he fired and hit that dime as sure as my name isn’t really Nat Love.

  “
Damn,” I heard Prairie Dog say. It had come out of him without him knowing it was going to. Just beyond him, I saw the tobacco wad fall out of Tobacco Mouth’s piehole.

  I felt weak in the knees.

  “We move on,” said Chauncey, “though from the look of things, anybody whose name ain’t Bronco Bob is pretty much ass-poked.”

  We was at the stage of the match where it would come fast and furious. This was the throwing of glass balls and bottles for us to shoot.

  We started with bottles.

  They had a big colored man throwing, maybe twice my size, and he could really wing those bottles. They went high up and away from the sun. That was the idea, to keep the sun out of our eyes. We was to fire at them in turn. None of us had any problem with the bottles. I think we shot about fifty of them, and by that point my Winchester had heated up so much I could hardly hold it. Prairie Dog’s Winchester was warm, too, and I saw him trade it off to a man in the crowd who was holding two rifles for him. Tobacco Mouth’s Spencer, being a one-shot, one-load affair, wasn’t heating up the same, but we had to take more time for him to load and shoot. He would shoot, load again, shoot, load again, shoot. He’d shoot till he missed, then when the rest of us had a turn we fired more quickly, therefore the heat-up.

  Charlie watched me shift my rifle back and forth in my hands, came over and handed me a fresh Winchester. I was happy for this but worried as well. It wasn’t my rifle, and I hadn’t had occasion to sight it in or learn its personality, as Mr. Loving used to say.

  It was time to shoot at the glass balls.

  Glass balls was done same as bottles. You got your turn, and the tosser throwed them till you missed.

  Bronco Bob, having edged us all out by a couple of points, got first shot. The colored man threw the glass balls for him, with Bronco Bob yelling “Throw” between shots, and damn if he didn’t hit all ten that was thrown for him.

  Tobacco Mouth was up next, and let me tell you it was quite the boat to China waiting on him to reload his single-shot weapon, and he was nervous about it. He fumbled around like his fingers was sausages. I think that shot Bronco Bob made from the hip earlier had flummoxed him a smidgen.

  The crowd had started talking during the reloading, and Checkers Chauncey yelled at them. “Shut the hell up and let the man concentrate.”

  The first six shots went well, but by the seventh Tobacco Mouth started to miss and missed all the shots thrown thereafter. It was like he had gone blind. When it was over, he was given the ax, so to speak. As he walked off the field everyone yelled and clapped for him, and then he was swallowed up by the crowd and I didn’t see him again.

  I went next, and, like Bronco Bob, I hit all ten, shooting them out of the air as fast as I could yell for them. Prairie Dog passed muster too.

  A break was taken, and Win brought water down the hill and gave me some. Ruggert had not moved from his chair, and the way he looked at me it was as if he was trying to set me on fire with his eyes. I seen some of his men in the crowd, too, though how many there actually was I had no idea. They could have been scattered all throughout. As Win walked back up the hill, I tried to not think about them. If I was to win this thing, I had to tuck them kind of worries away.

  Charlie brought my Winchester back to me, took the other, and then we was shooting again. This time there was twenty balls to be thrown, and since we all had repeaters, the match moved more quickly.

  Up went those balls. The three of us took our turns. We all hit ten out of ten, and then the next ten. Twenty balls thrown for each of us. Twenty balls hit. We looked at one another and grinned.

  Bronco Bob traded out for a new rifle. It was a sort I had never seen before, but it had the general look of a Winchester. It was thinner and longer, the stock being cut down to a smaller size. I could tell it was light by the way the boy handed it to him.

  “Thank you, Tim,” Bronco Bob said.

  “Jim,” said the boy.

  “As I said, you will be called Tim.”

  We all returned to the scratch line. The cotton in my ears was sweaty, and when I plucked it out to put fresh in, I seen the cotton was dark with gun smoke. Putting in fresh, I cradled my rifle in my arms, letting my arms dangle as low as possible. I was starting to get a pinch in my shoulder, a stitched feeling in the middle of my back, and my neck hurt, to boot.

  “All right, now,” Chauncey said. “The balls is going to be thrown from a farther-out position, twenty-five of them. There can be no pause between shots, and no need of it, as you have repeaters. Is that understood?”

  We all understood.

  Bronco Bob went first, and this time he missed on his first shot. It was like seeing Zeus miss with a thunderbolt. After that he hit all the balls tossed. Like Bronco Bob, I only missed one. Prairie Dog hit the first three, missed the fourth, hit the fifth, and then he wasn’t worth killing after that. I could tell it was his arms that had worn out, not his aim. He was having trouble keeping the rifle lifted.

  That was it for him. He come over and shook our hands and told us what fine competitors we was and how on another day he felt he could have outshot us, and then he moved into the crowd amid much yelling and hooting and clapping.

  It was me and Bronco Bob.

  We was given a half-hour break, and during that time I asked Cullen to go saddle up Satan and bring him around. The last round was the horse ride, shooting at targets on sticks on either side of the street. This meant the path was cleared to the sides, and the targets was set solidly.

  Cullen collected Satan and saddled him, without saddlebags or any unnecessary trappings, and he was led up to me. The crowd made with a sighing sound he was so shiny and black, and he was trotting and tossing his head as if he knew he was on show. And he probably did.

  Then came that redheaded boy leading Bronco Bob’s horse, a big white stallion that might not have been a great long runner but was bound to be good for the short run and probably had the stamina of a mule.

  Me and Bronco Bob shook hands and wished each other luck, which was lies through our teeth. He gave his rifle to the boy, and I gave mine to Cullen. I checked my pistols and their loads. For the time being, Bronco Bob held pat, left his in the holsters. When we was satisfied, we mounted up. The crowd split, and chairs was moved farther apart so we could ride two abreast. As we rode up to the starting line, I passed Ruggert and looked down on him. He glared up at me, then spat on the ground, then stared at me again. The glare in his eyes was the same as that day I saw his wife’s ass, and now here I was, a colored man riding on a big horse well above his white head; it was almost more than he could stand. For a moment I thought he might pull a gun from under his coat and go at me. I know I wanted to shoot him. Instead I tipped my hat to him as I rode by.

  22

  Me and Bronco Bob took our places side by side.

  Chauncey had come along the street to be in front of us. He said, “Bronco, you will shoot to your right, and you colored fellow will shoot to your left.”

  “Nat,” said Bronco Bob to Chauncey. “His name is Nat.”

  This from the man who couldn’t remember the name of the boy he’d hired to tote his weapons.

  “What?” said Chauncey.

  “His name isn’t Colored Fellow, it’s Nat. And he is on top bill with me. We are the only ones left, and we have both earned our position, and he deserves the respect of his name. His name is Nat. I’d like to hear you say it.”

  Chauncey nodded, not wishing to bother a man with a loaded revolver in his hand.

  “Nat,” Chauncey said, “you will shoot to your left. And then when you come back riding this way, the arm will reverse. There are six targets on each side. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” we both said, pretty much at the same time. Bronco Bob said, “I have to trade out.” His boy was running toward him with a small leather case, and when he come alongside Bronco Bob’s horse he opened up the case, and Bronco leaned out and took two fresh Smith & Wesson revolvers from it, traded his five-shot
Remingtons for them.

  When he was positioned, Chauncey said, “Riding back, try not to stray your shots and kill nobody. I seen it happen in Abilene once, and that lady wasn’t doing nothing but minding her own business on her porch.”

  Chauncey stepped to the side, pulled a red scarf from his coat pocket, said, “Soon as I drop this here rag, you ride, no sauntering. This here is a run. And remember, don’t shoot until you come to your targets.”

  This seemed common sense to me, but I guess you can never be too sure. Chauncey lifted his hand with the scarf in it. A tiny wind breezed up, and I took note of which way it was blowing the scarf. It wasn’t in favor for my shots, but I was hoping it wasn’t going to blow any harder than it was and that I could judge it wisely. With my left hand I pulled one of my pistols.

  The red scarf dropped.

  It was like Satan knew the score. He leaped, all four feet coming off the ground at one time. We had a good plunge on that big white horse and was immediately at a gallop.

  The targets was coming up on my left, and if you have never fired pistols from the back of a running horse trying to hit a square about the size of a woman’s pocket handkerchief, then you have done very little that counts as real shooting.

  As I have said, my left hand never gained the currency of my right, but it wasn’t bad, and I had shot from a running horse before, having been trained by Mr. Loving who had been a rebel on horseback and was as good a rider and shooter as a Comanche. I had those reins in my teeth, my right hand folded over my chest, and with my left I lifted the shooter and shot low; it would rise with the discharge, and I had to keep in mind the changing height of the horse as it ran, not to mention the shifting of the wind, which was wiggling my ears like a dog listening for footsteps.

  The shot was good. I hit another square, and then another, kept firing. When I come to the end of the ride and took the reins in my hand again, wheeled Satan about, I had hit all six targets.