Paradise Sky

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Inside the livery, I wandered over to some loose hay and sat down in it, my back to some slats that made up an empty horse pen.

  Cecil stood over me, said, “You done it?”

  “He ain’t with the world no more,” I said. “He’s gone back to mud.”

  “What?”

  “It ain’t worth the story, Cecil.”

  “Any whores survive?”

  “All of them, I think, but they was in a poor way, having been beaten by him. One of the girls was bad off. You might get a doctor over there.”

  “You done a good thing,” he said. “You have done those whores right.”

  “I did it for me,” I said.

  “Maybe so, but it worked out for a lot of people. How do you feel?”

  “I don’t feel all that good, to tell the truth.”

  “All right, then. Stay settled there. I’ll get you a drink.”

  “Just water,” I said.

  “I got coffee.”

  “That’ll do.”

  He brought the coffee to me. It had a lot of sugar in it. I drank it, and it made me sick. I turned my head and threw up in the hay.

  “Must be all the excitement,” he said.

  “Something like that,” I said, leaning back against the pen, feeling like everything inside me was draining out.

  Cecil went then to check on the whores and to get a doctor. He was gone for some time, and during that time I didn’t move except to fix myself another cup of coffee and sip on it. I kept it black. I think it was all that sugar that had made me sick, what with my stomach feeling as if it was turned over. I took Golem’s turnip watch from my pocket. It was silver, scarred and nicked up from having been carried in his pocket with coins and the like. I thumbed the lid open and looked at what was inside. It was a photograph of Golem with his hair shorter and slicked back and parted down the middle. His face looked firm and gentle, like life was good. There was a woman and a little girl in the photograph. The woman was nice-looking, with black hair in a bun. The child looked like the mother. I remembered what Bill had said about how Golem had lost his mind and killed them with an ax. Whatever had come over him, them deaths he caused had turned him into something new and wrong, and worse, sometimes I figured he knew it. I was surprised to find I felt a little sorry for him right then. I closed up the watch and tossed it into the hay. I didn’t like how it made me feel.

  When Cecil came back, he said, “That colored whore will be laid up awhile, and she may have a hitch in her get-along.”

  “How bad a trouble am I in?” I asked.

  “You killed a man, but as far as I know ain’t nobody found the body. Mabel and the girls only tell it like he was there and jumped out of the window because he was drunk. That’s all they’re telling. They ain’t even saying you was there. I think you’re in the clear, but his body is damn sure going to show up, so my thinking is, far as Dodge goes, I wouldn’t linger. Nothing to tie you to him yet, but a whore might talk in time to someone, so I’ll say it again. I wouldn’t linger.”

  I got to my feet, using the pen to lift me up. I hadn’t realized how much those cows had banged me around. I was terribly sore and weak. I gave my pistols back to Cecil.

  He had his own water pump in there, and I worked the handle and cleaned up as best I could. Then Cecil came out with some clothes and told me to change into them. They wasn’t much—a ragged shirt and some worn pants and patched socks—but I took them gladly. I stripped, washed myself good, dressed, then washed my manure-stained, brand-new red shirt, scrubbed my pants with a bar of lye soap Cecil had, and laid them over the top slat of one of the pens.

  “You can pick your clothes up here tomorrow,” he said. “Keep them ones you got on, you want to. Man left all his belongings here a year ago and never came back. I sold his horse and saddle and other goods already. I figure he got dead somewhere.”

  I nodded and went back out onto the street.

  A hell of a roundup was going on. Cowboys was in the streets, trying to herd them cows. They was hooting and hollering and driving the cattle back up the street. I damn near got horned a couple of times but made my way to the hotel.

  When I got inside, looking out the windows was a bunch of folks that was housed there, among them Bronco Bob and Red. They was at the window by the door. As I come in, Bronco Bob raised his eyebrows. I got my key at the desk, leaving everyone to the show at the window. I hadn’t no more than started up the stairs than Bronco Bob and Red was beside me.

  “How come I have this feeling you didn’t just go out to change into those old clothes?”

  “Because I didn’t,” I said.

  We went upstairs into my room. I felt like everything around me was closing in. The walls seemed tight, and the gaslights seemed dim. I said, “I’m leaving tomorrow, boys. I have a direction on Ruggert.”

  “I could go with you,” Bronco Bob said.

  “Don’t change your plans now,” I said. “You said you was through when you got to Dodge. Stick to it. You’ve been good friends. That is enough.”

  “I have really felt good riding with you,” Red said, and hung his head, like it was uncomfortable to meet my eyes.

  “I borrowed this derringer,” I said, holding it out to him.

  “I come to know it was missing when I put on my boots,” Red said as he took it. “I didn’t figure it was anyone else other than you that took it.”

  “I have underrated this little gun,” I said. “It needs reloading.”

  Next morning I wrote a letter to Win, though I wasn’t even sure she would read it, and a letter to Cullen. I wrote them out and at breakfast downstairs gave Bronco Bob some money for posting them, asked if he’d mail them the next time he went past the post office.

  I shook hands with him and Red, trucked over to the livery, and when a crowd of cowboys left out of there after doing business, I got my clothes, which was now dry, and put them on. I rolled up the ones Cecil had given me in my bedroll, saddled my horse, collected my guns, and went to pay up.

  “You can keep your money,” Cecil said. “You done them women a favor last night.”

  “I would have done it anyway,” I said.

  “It don’t matter. You done it. Keep your money. Tell you another thing. They found that big moose in the alley, but not before they ran some of the cows through there and penned them up. After they done that they found him trampled over. I heard about it from a customer who walked over there when he seen a crowd gather. I went over there, too. Big man was where you said you killed him. There was barrels and trash knocked all over hell by them cows, and when I looked at his body, I couldn’t have told you if he was a man or a mud hole he was so mashed up. Ain’t no one going to even know he was shot. For all they know he got caught in the stampede, maybe sleeping one off in the alley when they brought them cows back through last night. You’ll be good.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re shy of money, there’s a colored preacher and his children want to go to Arkansas, and they’d like to have a gun hand. I don’t know how you’re set for plans. Pays meals and company and a few dollars. They got a cow with them, so that means fresh milk.”

  I didn’t really want company, but meals and money and fresh milk might be nice. I was getting down to the dregs.

  “Where would I talk to them?” I asked.

  “They were here this morning. Told them I knew a man leaving today might be interested in riding along, a man that had some gun skills but wasn’t no gunman by trade. I threw that in to make you sound better as a person.”

  “Thanks. And I’m not a gunman by trade.”

  “They’re on the far side of town, a half mile out of it. They’re living out of a mule-drawn wagon. Seem nice enough folks. What might be a thought is to ride out there and talk to them, take their measure, if your plans are loose enough.”

  “I’ll think on it,” I said.

  I put my rifle in the saddle sheath, led Satan out to the street, and swung onto his bac
k. He trotted along comfortably, having enjoyed his rest at the barn. We passed the hotel. I looked up at the window where my room was. I didn’t see anybody there.

  I rode south with it in mind not to stop and talk to anyone. But the farther I got out of town, the more I began to think about having my meals given to me and some money to boot. I didn’t have anything but a few dollars, a canteen full of water, and enough jerky to last for a day or two—three if I let my belly growl a little. I’d have to depend on game appearing and my marksmanship to feed myself.

  It was the idea of company I didn’t like. My heart wasn’t in it. Truth was, as of that morning I had been looking forward to being alone for a while. The thought of that had been like a tasty fruit, the tomato being a member of the nightshade family notwithstanding.

  But it was a long ways to Texas, and the more I figured on it, the more I thought it might not be bad to take it by way of Arkansas.

  27

  I seen the wagon and the mules, a cow roped to the back of it. There was a big colored man sitting on the wagon with the reins in his hand, a pipe tucked up in his mouth, and clouds of smoke floating up from it.

  Truth was, though I was wearing a coat of high, cold lonesome, I knew within a day or two I’d start to miss someone to jabber with. I like to be alone from time to time, and that’s what I had been considering, but basically I am the friendly sort. My pa was a talker, as long as the day’s work was done. Told stories, let me know all the things about my mother I didn’t know about (this after she died), and they was all good things. He told me about himself, how it was to be a slave in the old days, and how happy he was I had only been one for a short time. He told stories about jaybirds and dogs and wild hogs and stories he said came from way cross the ocean, where there was a country full of colored people, which I later learned from Mr. Loving was some place on a continent called Africa. Pa had a way of telling stories that made you want to sit up on your hind legs, throw up your front paws, and beg for more. Mr. Loving was like that, and even Wild Bill could be that way.

  As I was looking at the man, he turned his head toward me and lifted his hand. I guess he figured I had to be who Cecil told him about, as I was the only colored riding along the road out of town. A slip of a girl dropped out of the back of the wagon and come walking around to get a look at me. She was dark of skin and lean, but with good hips. She wore a faded calico dress that might have once been green and blue, and had on a white bonnet. She was wearing men’s lace-up boots, but they wasn’t laced and the strings hung down and dragged the ground. Right behind her came a little boy who I reckon was maybe ten or eleven years old. He had on overalls and a blue shirt and was barefoot. He was black as a crow’s wing. He strutted about like he had just whipped a grizzly bear in a fair fight.

  When I was up to the wagon, I seen the large man was really compact. You might think him fat at first glance, but he wasn’t. He was as skin-tight as a wild animal, but he had a hard plumpness about him, as if the sack of skin he wore wasn’t quite enough to hold all his muscles. His head was large and rolled about on his neck like a boulder, and his face glistened he was so black. His eyes was just as black. He had a wide and friendly face with a smile full of white teeth. I couldn’t help but be drawn to him. He climbed down off the wagon to greet me. It was like he come unwadded and grew to a height well over my own. He was bigger than Golem had been. His arms was about the size of my legs, and his legs was about the size of me.

  I swung off Satan, stuck out my hand to meet the big man’s. I learned from Wild Bill to always have the other hand ready to draw, and if you couldn’t shoot left-handed, it was best not to shake. But it wasn’t a way I wanted to live. In spite of all that had happened to me, I was by nature a trusting soul, or at least I wanted to be. My pa was like that. It seemed like a better way to live, and frankly I still hold by it. It has cost me some over time, but on the whole it has given me greater joy than not. That said, I didn’t throw alertness to the wind.

  “Luther Pine,” he said. “Glad to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” I said.

  The girl came over then, loosening the bonnet strap, pushing the hanging brim of it back so that I could see her face. She was lovely, and I noted she wasn’t as young as I first thought. She was just small, and her dress was loose. The boy was all grins, and I could see right off that face was the same as Luther’s.

  “This here is Ruthie, and this little troublemaker is Samson.”

  Both of them said hi.

  I greeted them both back, tried not to let my eyes linger too long on Ruthie, for there was something about her that held my attention. All right, let me be honest. She was a good-looking young woman, and I have the same animal in me that all men do. I was only looking, but I figured when you come across something pretty, you ought to take it in, same as watching a blue jay or a clear night sky. They’re a joy for the eyes.

  “We can feed you, and I got twenty dollars if you complete the trip,” he said.

  “I’m going to Texas,” I said. “I can get you to Arkansas, though, and then it’s up to you.”

  “You been there before?”

  “No, but I reckon I know the way well enough.”

  Luther plumbed the depths of that idea like a well digger shoveling for water. I guess he struck it, cause he said, “I got the money for you when we get to Arkansas. Food along the way. You are responsible for your own sleeping arrangements, care of your horse. I have some grain for my mules, but there’s enough for your critter, too.”

  “All right, ” I said, and we shook hands again.

  “Are those your guns?” Samson asked me. He had been scooting over closer and closer to me so that his head was about even with where the butts of my revolvers was standing out of my coat pockets.

  “Well, little sir,” I said. “They are indeed my guns, or I wouldn’t be wearing them.”

  “Samson,” Luther said. “You will hold your talk for now. We need to go on.”

  Samson scuttled to the back of the wagon and climbed in without another word.

  “He is a scamp,” Luther said, “and I fear when a little older he will be about the devil’s business. I should know. I was there once myself.”

  That’s when I remembered he was a preacher. “I think he’ll make a fine young man.”

  “Actually, so do I,” Luther said.

  “We’re glad to have you along,” Ruthie said.

  So away we went. Me and Satan leading, mostly, but now and then dropping back behind the wagon to make sure it was settling good and the cow was all right; and when I was honest with myself, I knew I did it because Ruthie sat at the back and looked out. I looked at her so much a kind of guilt settled over me. What with Win up there in Deadwood waiting for the snow to fly, her mind drifting, it didn’t seem right for me to even look at another woman, even if it was just to raise my spirits.

  In short time guilt settled on me heavy as stone, and I made a point of riding up front more, and when I took to the back of the wagon as a change of pace, I made myself concentrate on how well the big barrels (three to a side) was fastened on. The barrels had ribbons tied around them along with the ropes that held them. They was in different colors. Yellow, blue, red, and green, and they was tied off in firm bow knots.

  First day out the sky turned the color of a pearl-handled revolver. Then it started raining. It rained hard right off, so I pulled on my slicker and we kept going. After a while it was too much on me, even with that rain slicker. Rain blew up under my hat and down the neck of the slicker and wetted my knees where they stuck out from under it. I rode back to the wagon and said how miserable I was. Way the wagon was set, Luther could sit back under the covering a bit, if not completely, and though he, too, had pulled on a rain slicker, he couldn’t avoid getting wet in the same way I was. He tugged the mules up and set the wagon brake, suggested I tie Satan off and climb up with him.

  I did that. We settled in the wagon, putting our feet inside and turning on the drive
r’s boards so the rain was to our backs. We was mostly dry that way. It was the wind that hurt you, especially if you was soaked as I was. Under my slicker, my coat was damp, and so was my guns. I had brought my saddlebags inside with me. I had my gun-cleaning equipment there, along with extra ammunition and some rags. I unloaded the weapons and dried them and cleaned them and reloaded them.

  “You seem quite concerned with your weapons,” Luther said.

  “Indians or rowdies show up, you’ll be glad of that,” I said.

  I looked up and seen Samson eyeing my every move. He was fascinated with those weapons. Ruthie had lit a lantern at the back of the wagon and was reading a book by its light. So far, me and her hadn’t had much to say to one another.

  “Do you live by the gun, Nat?” Luther asked me.

  “I try not to,” I said.

  “I would hate to see a young man such as yourself let them be his guide through life,” he said.

  “You didn’t hire me because you suspected I was a good conversationalist, now, did you?”

  He laughed. “That is the truth. I have your guns in my hands through you. I’m not innocent of their use.”

  “Innocent or guilty has nothing to do with it,” I said. “I’d just soon lay them down and never pick them up again, but that ain’t the life I got. Least not yet.”

  “What sort of life do you want?” Luther asked.

  I started in then about the farm I wanted. Said I had a few things I had to do first, but that was my plan. Settle down on a farm. I didn’t mention Win. I didn’t want to have to go into where she was and what condition she was in or how she had been put in her bad way.

  “You should add prayer to your ambitions, son,” he said.

  “I’ve had about as much luck with that as I have had with hoping,” I said.

  He nodded, smiled pleasantly, the lantern light laying on one side of his face like a big swath of yellow paint. “Very well.”