Paradise Sky

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Quit standing out here in the cold, then,” he said. “Where’s your manners, Wow?”

  Cullen led me into the house, and Wow, with tears in her eyes, stayed outside to finish with her wash. Cullen led me to a doorway at the back of the house.

  “You’ve built on,” I said.

  “We own more land now. It’s my plan to be a property mogul, rent shitty houses, and hire out men and the like, not have to work so hard.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “She’s here,” Cullen said, and opened a door.

  I took off my hat and gave it to Cullen and went inside.

  I would forever remember that kiss on the hill, and I will forever remember the skeleton in the bed, for that was what Win had become, and had I not recognized her hair, wild and loose on her pillow like a nest of snakes, I wouldn’t have known it was her at all, her face being a dim memory as it was.

  Light from a window shining through thin curtains framed the bed, and what should have looked warm looked cold, like butter on ice. A blanket was over her, pulled up to her armpits. There was a bowl on the table beside her, and there was food in it; rice and some kind of stew. There was a spoon in it. It appeared untouched. There was a pitcher of water and a glass beside it.

  “My heavens,” I said. I didn’t mean to say it, it just came out. I thought I had prepared myself, but seeing her was like discovering the world was a lie and we all lived in a little tin cup.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand from under the blanket. It was light as a false promise and paper-thin. Her skin that had been so lovely dark was now ashen as a week-old campfire. Her eyes were huge in her skull, and they held nothing; they were dark and bottomless. They didn’t even search to find me or move at all; they lay flat in her skull like stones.

  “Win,” I said.

  I began talking to her. I told her everything I could remember about how we met, the kiss that had meant so much, her flute playing, the times we had on the hill beneath the great tree, the crawling shadows of oncoming dark, the stars at night, the color of moonlight, but nothing moved her. I told her how she had changed me inside. How all the bad things I had in me, all the anger, had washed right out, and that I couldn’t lose her. That she had to get better, cause if she didn’t they might wash right back in. I told her every dream and hope I ever had. I told her about my pa and about my mama, even told her my mama thought I was cut out for something great, and Mama had meant Win, cause I couldn’t think of nothing greater.

  I said, “I love you, Win.”

  I like to think I felt her hand squeeze mine a little, but to be honest I can’t be certain. I was there for three days, and then on the fourth day, Win was no longer with us. It was as if that bed was a pool of deep water and she was sinking deeper into it every day, and then one day she reached bottom. But I was there when she left completely, and I was happy for that.

  She was buried on that hill we loved. Me and Cullen, Wow, and the China girls did it. Buried her up there in a fine coffin that Cullen helped me pay for, one lined with shiny white silk. I laid her flute in there with her, the way Charlie had laid Wild Bill’s good rifle with him. We buried her deep and covered her grave with rocks to keep the wolves and bears out. Cullen bought a headstone, and me and him set it in place at the head of her grave. Her name was on it; her birthday was a guess. From my remembrances, conversations with her, I knew she had been born in the summer. I called it June. I guessed the day. I guessed her age, and we put the date she died behind that.

  Underneath was carved something I had asked for: WIN, WHOSE KISS MOVED ME FROM EARTH TO SKY.

  Cullen and Wow and the China girls all hugged me and went away. I stayed up there with Satan. I stayed up there all day. I talked to the grave. I cursed the world. I yelled at the mountains. I screamed at the sky. I grew so weak my shadow seemed heavy. For a while there I wanted to die.

  In time it got dark and the stars came out, and there was a shiny sliver of moon. I sat there and looked at it, sitting with my back against the tree, my head turned slightly toward the grave.

  I swear to you a snow-white owl came down from the dark sky and rested on the headstone, its moon shadow falling across the grave like a blanket. It turned its head the way owls do, which doesn’t seem to involve the turning of a neck, and looked at me and made a hooting noise and flew away.

  Reckon if I was an Indian I would say it came for her spirit, carried it off into the sky. And like those Greeks and such Mr. Loving told me about that was always getting put among the stars, I fancied that’s where she was. It seemed right to me she would be among them heroes and beauties, shining down forever like the star she was.

  The wind through the trees sounded like notes from her flute.

  30

  I left out of Deadwood without saying good-bye to anyone on a cold spring morning with the sky chock-full of dark clouds covering the sun. The shadows from those clouds rolled over the ground and covered me. At some point those clouds went away, but for me the darkness didn’t. I rode on across Nebraska and into Kansas, the days going by with the speed of a bullet.

  On the day I was close to Dodge the prairie flowers was starting to bloom and the grass was high and bright, green and yellow, rolling like the waves of the sea. If there had been buffalo out there the world would have seemed as of old, except for the heaviness of my heart.

  When I rode into Dodge I stopped off at the livery, and Cecil said I could stay overnight, which is all I did. I didn’t look up Bronco Bob, but I wrote him a letter. I told him I was passing through, that Win had died, and that I was on my way to Fort Smith. I said he could write me there. I had some plans, but I didn’t mention them to Bronco Bob, as I was uncertain how those plans would go. I mailed the letter and traveled on.

  On the edge of the Indian Nations I saw some Comanche, and they saw me. There was four of them, and they came riding toward me with their hands held high, palms open, working their horses with their knees. They was a skinny bunch and looked beat down by life. They couldn’t have looked no rougher if they had been boiled in oil and pressed out with a hot iron.

  I stayed cautious. They wanted tobacco and whiskey, and I didn’t have either. I finally gave them some cornmeal, and they dropped off their horses and opened the bag and went to eating it as it was, just by the handful. They was starving, and it made me ill to see these once mighty warriors on their hands and knees scooping out cornmeal. White man’s whiskey had something to do with it; it had been the hot oil they were boiled in, the hot irons that pressed them out.

  This lay on my heart like a rock, so I gave them about half my jerky, which meant I’d be on half rations until I reached Fort Smith. They gave me a blessing, I think, but for all I know they may have been saying, “Thanks. Kill you later, black asshole.”

  I went on my way but kept an eye in the back of my head for a couple of days in case they was following, thinking maybe they might want what was left of my possibles. They wasn’t following, though. Up into the mountains I went. The trees was emerald green, plants was blooming and busting with color, flowers was pinned to the earth like jeweled brooches. It was like riding along in a fairyland. I had the sad feeling that soon it would all be gone, cut down and sawed into boards, the animals shot out and the mountains filled with nothing more than leaning shacks in graying shambles. It was a cheerless way to think, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. My experiences had gone on to sour everything I saw.

  In Fort Smith I went to see if I could rent my old room, but it was already occupied by a family of four, and since I had felt tight there by my lonesome, I pitied them. I went to the livery there, tried to make a deal like I had in Dodge, but the liveryman was nothing doing. I didn’t consider trying to get my old job back, as charming as Mr. Jason had been.

  I sauntered to the post office and looked on a pinup board there to see if there was places to stay announced. I saw a few that housed coloreds. Also saw
something that made my heart jump up in my throat. It was a wanted poster pinned next to the information about places to stay. It was from the Pinkerton’s, so it was serious. There wasn’t no drawings of anybody, but it said they was looking for train robbers, and they was suspected to be in the area. They was offering a reward of five hundred dollars for a robber called Burned Man, who they figured was in his forties, and the same for Kid Red, who they thought to be anywhere between sixteen and twenty. They had murdered a couple of men in the course of a robbery, and a stray bullet had killed a boy. There was a smaller reward for two other criminals—Indian Charlie Doolittle and Pinocchio Joe, named such, it said, for his long pointed nose, which hooked on the end. I pulled the poster down, folded it, and put it in my pocket. I made note of the address for rooms that housed coloreds and went away.

  After several turndowns, I found an old colored lady with a hitch in her get-along who had a back porch I could stay on. It was closed in, but at night it was cold as a well digger’s ass. There was no stove, just a small table by the bed. But the days was warming, and besides, I had me a plan. I spent my first day relaxing on that back porch, and for a bit more money the old lady would give me something to eat about noon. That first day she brought me out some dried cornbread that was hard enough to throw and kill a squirrel. I dipped it in some milk that was on the edge of turning and got through the day, which considering the old lady liked to sing gospel songs to herself while she rocked and knitted, and had a voice she could have used to teach a frog how to croak, wasn’t nearly all that uplifting an experience. By nightfall I was starting to look for a place I could hang myself. Thank goodness she finally quit singing, having grown hoarse, and my neck and a rafter was spared.

  Next morning I left my guns there on the porch under my blanket and strolled over to where Judge Isaac Parker held his court. I was early enough and lucky enough to catch him when he wasn’t on the bench or about law work. I was told to take off my hat by the man outside the door, a white fellow who looked more than serviceable if it was necessary to wrestle a grizzly to the floor and later tame it for janitorial work.

  I was let into Judge Parker’s office. The great man was at his desk drinking out of a large cup. He was sharply dressed in a black suit and had a long, graying beard that come to a point like a spike. His hair was thick and neatly combed and maybe touched up with shoe polish. He wore eyeglasses. He could have been thirty-five or fifty-five. It’s hard to tell with bearded white people. He set the cup down and laid his other hand on a big black book. He said, “So you come here to tell the truth?”

  “About what?”

  “About anything.”

  “Yes, sir. Reckon so.”

  “Reckon? Or you do plan to tell the truth? Got my hand on a Bible here.”

  “I plan to tell the truth. But shouldn’t my hand be on the Bible?”

  “That’s true. We may come to that. How’s the weather out?”

  “Nippy, but the sun is starting to burn off the cold. It’ll be short-sleeve weather by noon, or at least you won’t need a coat.”

  “You have on a coat.”

  “Yes, I do. But it isn’t yet short-sleeve weather, and it is far from noon.”

  “You’re young. Get older, nothing is that far away timewise, including your own demise. In the blink of an eye it’ll be noon. I like noon. It’s dinnertime.”

  “Dinner is all right if you got a good one to eat.”

  “So you aren’t eating good dinners?”

  “No, sir. Can’t say that I am. I’ve only had one meal since I’ve come to town, but I got it set in my mind that where I am dinner ain’t going to improve much. Supper don’t come with my stay, either, and breakfast is the morning air.”

  “No coffee?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What are you having?”

  I was more than a little confused by his interest in the dealings of my stomach, but as I had come there with the intent of looking for a job, I figured I should go along to get along.

  “Cornbread, if you can call it that. Cornbread and milk on the edge of disaster. It’s like eating a brick and washing it down with phlegm.”

  The judge let out a laugh.

  “What do you want with me, son?”

  “A job, sir.”

  “Cleaning up the office? Working in the courthouse? What you got in mind?”

  “I’m looking to be a deputy marshal.”

  “Are you, now?”

  “Yes, sir, I am. I figure as a deputy I could at least eat a better dinner, though since I don’t know the pay, I don’t know what kind of breakfast or supper I would be having.”

  This made him laugh again.

  “What attributes do you have as a marshal?”

  “I have been in the army, first off,” I said. “Buffalo soldier with the Ninth. Fought Indians.”

  I didn’t mention I had run off from the army.

  “What else you got?”

  “I have been a bouncer in Deadwood, and last year I won a title there as best shot. They called me Deadwood Dick on account of it.”

  “Like the books?”

  Three or four books about me was out and about by this time.

  “Yes, sir. Them books is based on me. I think you could say it’s a loose sort of thing.”

  “Isn’t Deadwood Dick a white fellow?”

  “Only in the books. They’re based on me, and the fellow writes them is named Bronco Bob, though that’s not the name he works under. He came in second in the shooting contest.”

  “You know what? I have heard of that contest. Story of it has gotten around.”

  “It has?”

  “Yep. Story that a colored man won and that he outshot everyone there. Here’s another thing. I know Bronco Bob.”

  “That’s a surprise.”

  “He had a situation once where he appeared before me in court. He was traveling through doing his shooting matches. It had to do with a woman and a fight. He lost the woman, won the fight. The other guy lost the woman, too.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “That sounds like him.”

  “It not only sounds like him, it was him. I liked him. Very personable. Gave him the letter of the law, though. Time in jail. A sizable fine. It wasn’t his wife he was with, you see, but a whore. Had it been his wife the time would have been cut in half, and so would the fine. I have read a number of the Deadwood Dick books of late, but until this moment had no idea he was the writer or that you were the source.”

  “Well, I might be the source, but them books about me is about as close to real life as the moon is to Denver.”

  “Fair enough. That is honest. I figured as much. So you can shoot and you can bounce drunks and rowdies, and you got books written about you, and I take it you can ride pretty good.”

  “More than pretty good. Like I was the horse itself, and I got my own mount. I wouldn’t be expecting one from the local government.”

  “Good. You wouldn’t get one. Speak any Indian dialects?”

  “No, sir. I don’t.”

  “Well, that can be a holdback, but not altogether. A bump in the road. Can you track?”

  “I’m okay at it,” I said. “There are better, but I’m all right.”

  “If it’s a big tracking job, we got Choctaw Tom on retainer. He’s as much Negro as he is Choctaw, but the Choctaw name stuck cause he lived with them so long, his mother being Choctaw. He can track anything that walks or rides and maybe anything that flies. So he’s available now and then. Something you can’t handle trackingwise, we could hire him. The Bible. Do you read it?”

  Right then I knew I was on loose ground. But seeing as how the judge had his hand on one, I ventured it meant something to him.

  “Now and again. I’m not as educated in it as I should be, but then I’m not educated in a lot of things.”

  Judge Parker pursed his lips, pondering my comment. “Well, now. I suppose that is reasonable enough. You should know I am a Methodist, and in my court, G
od is a Methodist, so you might want to read up on the Good Book a little. I’d stay away from the Baptist if you come across them. Heathens. I’m not all that fond of other false versions of Christianity, either. They are all going to hell, the way I see it. Except the Methodist. And some of them are going. Let me tell you a little something. I hire you, I expect you to bring men to justice. Kill if you got to, but not for the convenience of it. I’d rather a man be brought in and punished as the law decides.”

  I decided it would be best if he and Luther didn’t meet to discuss theology.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “You would need to study up a bit on what is expected and acquire some idea of the law, though mostly your job would be to go out and catch folks. And, as I said, not shoot them. Unless it was called for, of course, and it often is. There’s men—white, red, and black—that will not want to come back with you for obvious reasons. They may take it in their heads to kill you. That warrants you shooting them, killing them if you have to. They may not shoot at you, but just won’t come. You may have to shoot them and bring in their dead bodies. Best if you got a spare horse to lead for that, cause a dead body sure raises a stink. Summer’s coming soon. Spring blinks, summer waits, and waits and waits, and then winter comes and it won’t go away. Kill a man in winter, the odor problem is lessened. You may also have to shoot them on the run. I suggest from a distance with a long gun. Being the shot you are, I can reasonably assume you have a long gun and a pistol?”

  “You can reasonably assume that,” I said.

  “Good. Well, I guess we can swear you in right now. Come put your hand on the Bible.”

  “Sir, I got one thing I’d insist on.”

  “You do, do you?” he said.

  “Yes, sir.” I took the poster out of my pocket, unfolded it, and walked over and placed it on his desk. “I want to start with them.”

  “Why?”

  “I know them.”

  “This a personal grudge?”

  “To some degree, but not to such a degree I wouldn’t be wise or cautious. I know two of these men on sight. I might be able to talk the kid into putting down his guns and coming in.”