It did, too.
As we roughed that night through, I thought on what Ruggert had told me about his grandfather owning Mama, and you can bet I thought about asking him about that, if he was lying to me, but then I thought there wasn’t no use. If I asked he’d say it was so if it wasn’t, and in the end it didn’t matter. But the idea of Ruggert or his kin having their way with my family in any kind of fashion set on my stomach like spoiled milk. But damn if I was going to give him the satisfaction. And what did it matter? Mama had done all she could, considering the circumstances. What she had been forced to do, or forced to be, was no consideration, really. I looked over at Ruggert lying there, having taken a lick to the head, and to be damn honest, in a small way I felt sorry for him. In that very moment I let go of any kind of anger I might have had about his kin owning her. It didn’t mean a thing now. I had the bastard.
Next morning we started out again, and when Ruggert started moaning too much, Choctaw suggested his pain cure, which would be a short nap with a bad headache on awakening. This caused Ruggert to keep it down considerable until we reached Fort Smith, though that blow to the head caused him to throw up most of the trip there.
34
We dropped Ruggert off at the jail, and a doctor was brought over to look at his leg. We said there was cows and horses that had to be rounded up but me and Choctaw wasn’t the men for it, so there was some herders put together right away, and Choctaw gave them the general location.
I came out of the courthouse feeling as if I was a new man. I can’t explain it exactly, but I think I felt good for not killing Ruggert—not something I would have considered just a short time ago. As it began to get evening, I rode over to Luther’s house, and when they let me in it was to the sound of laughter and the smell of good cooking, which was shared with me.
I told them all that had happened, including the sewing of Choctaw’s ear, and about how when the doctor came to look at Ruggert he looked at Choctaw’s ear, complimented my sewing, said it had about a fifty-fifty chance of reattaching itself, which was about fifty percent more of a chance than I expected. Ruthie joked that if the marshaling didn’t work out, I could take on seamstress work.
We finished up supper, then me and Ruthie took a walk out to the gate, and when I figured Luther or Samson wasn’t looking out the window, I gave Ruthie a kiss, then I gave her some promises. Some of it I had already said, but I felt it deserved repeating. I wanted her for my bride. I wanted a new life. I wanted a calm life and wanted to rethink on being a marshal. I told her I couldn’t give it up right away, but I wanted a farm, as I knew how to do that as well as I knew how to shoot a pistol.
“I say we marry in the fall,” Ruthie said.
“I say that’s fine.”
“I say we have children, but not right away. And we get a dog.”
“I say all right to that, too.”
“I’d like to live near my dad and brother.”
“We can build a house right behind this one if you want.”
“Not that close. But if they’re in Fort Smith, I’d like to be here as well.”
“I like here fine,” I said.
We went on like that for a while, and then I got more sweet, and the way I talked kind of embarrasses me, so I won’t recite what I said here. But it was loving and a little mushy, I can tell you that much, and it had to do with things that wasn’t about farming.
I rode back to the stable, got my horse boarded, then walked over to where I was staying and went to bed. But I didn’t sleep much.
Judge Parker ran a quick court. Ruggert and Kid Red was condemned to hang from their necks until they was dead, dead, dead, and this was set up to happen quickly. On the day before the hanging, I got word from Choctaw, whose ear had begun to heal and attach itself, that the kid wanted to see me over at the jail. I thought about not going, but then decided me and him had been friends once, so I’d oblige.
When I got there he was sitting on the bunk inside his cell, and when he looked up and seen me he smiled. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, Nat.”
I could see Ruggert across the way behind his own set of bars. His head was wrapped from where Choctaw had hit him, and his leg was bound up with slats and fresh bandages, and he looked as if he had just eaten a sour persimmon. At least he wasn’t howling and moaning.
I looked back at Kid Red. “I wasn’t sure I was coming, either.”
Kid Red got up and came over and grasped the bars with both hands.
“I spoke bad to you, Nat.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“All right.”
“Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“For what you said to me, yeah. For what you done, no.”
“I don’t blame you for that. I can’t forgive myself. I thought it was all right when I was doing all of it, but now I know it wasn’t right.”
“Little late,” I said.
“But at least I know the difference.”
“You knew the difference then,” I said.
“A preacher come in here and told me I would be forgiven if I admitted my sins. Stood right where you are with a Bible and told me that. You think that’s true?”
“No. But if it’s any comfort, I think when you’re dead you don’t go to hell. You don’t go nowhere. It’s over.”
“I didn’t want to hear that.”
“You asked.”
“But you could be wrong, couldn’t you?”
“I’m wrong about lots of things. I was wrong about you.”
“Shit, Nat. I didn’t want to go out like this. I wanted to be important.”
“Doubt anyone wants to grow up to hang. But you will, son. You will.”
“You don’t have to rub it in. I know I talked bad to you, but I was mad and scared.”
“You’re going to hang not for what you said to me but for all you done.”
“You done some bad things,” he said.
“My killings was justified by self-defense and rescue. You killed because you could. And you raped.”
When I said that, I immediately thought of Win and that empty look in her eyes.
“At least you forgive me for what I said to you. You said you did, right?”
“I did. And Kid, I hope the rope breaks your neck quick.”
“You’ll tell them to tie it right, won’t you?”
“Executioner knows what he’s doing.”
“They say he wears a hood.”
“So will you. That’s how it’s done.”
“I hear when you hang…I hear you mess yourself.”
“Most do.”
“I was thinking if I don’t eat, I won’t have that problem.”
“I’d eat,” I said. “You’ll shit yourself anyway.”
“Jesus, Nat. I don’t want to go out like a coward.”
“Then don’t.”
“Easy to say from your side.”
“True enough,” I said.
“Will you promise to be there?”
“You want me to see you hang?”
“I want to look out and see you. You’re the only person I know.”
“You know me,” Ruggert called out.
“Well, and him. But I don’t like him.”
“You liked me fine before,” Ruggert said.
“I like Nat better.”
Ruggert stirred on his bunk, like he was going to try and get up, but didn’t. He just said, “Nigger lover.”
“He can really hold a grudge,” Kid Red said.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“So you’ll be there?”
“Sure,” I said.
I reached through the bars and shook the kid’s hand.
“I wish I had rode with you instead of Ruggert.”
“Me, too,” I said.
I looked at Ruggert, but he didn’t say another word.
That very day I got word I had a good-sized amount of money coming from the arr
est of Ruggert and for the bodies of those other two desperadoes. Even split with Choctaw it was a large amount. A letter arrived from Mr. Loving’s lawyer. It said if I was who I said I was and could prove it, I should come to Abilene, Kansas, and collect my money, which was sizable. That’s why my letter had taken so long to find him and why he took so long to get back to me. He wasn’t in East Texas anymore. He was in Kansas.
I was excited to hear it. I wrote him I couldn’t come right away but would come soon. I went and told Ruthie about the reward money and the money promised in the letter. Her face lit up.
“Do you feel bad some of the money come from dead men and another man that’s going to hang?” she said.
“I feel fine. How about you?”
She shrugged.
“We can buy that farm,” she said.
“And I’m going to get some ducks, too. I want to see you talk to them.”
Next day I went to the hanging, which was the last they had where a crowd could attend. After that they built a fence and hanged them behind that, deciding maybe everyone bringing peanuts and food and such, picnicking on the grounds, set a bad example for justice.
But on this day there was a good crowd, and they was loud and laughing and having a hoot of a time, and there was a fellow telling jokes in the center of the crowd. They gathered around him and laughed. He could do some acrobatic things, too, like walk on his hands, stand on his head, and flip and such. That kept folks entertained until it was time for the main event.
They was hanging not only Ruggert and Kid Red, they was hanging a colored man named Franklin who had got drunk and killed a white woman cause he said he thought she was a deer.
There was a big platform built up for the gallows, and the hanging took place in the early afternoon, about two hours after the crowd gathered. I got my place up front so Kid Red could clearly see me. I started to buy some peanuts from a walking vendor, but thought that might set a bad example for a marshal, and it certainly wouldn’t do Kid Red any good in his last moments watching me enjoy a snack. I had missed lunch, though, and those peanuts was on my mind.
There was two guards per prisoner, and they brought the three out. Franklin stood on the far left of the gallows from the way I was facing. Then came Kid Red to the center, looking small in oversize boots, and on the right side, facing me, was Ruggert, limping on his boarded-up leg, his head still wrapped. None of them wore hats, and they all looked like they was dead already; the bones in their shoulders and chests seemed to have gone thin and slack. Ruggert and the kid seen me right away. The kid sort of perked up when he did, but his knees was shaky.
“I don’t want him standing there,” Ruggert said to the executioner, a plump man with a black hood over his face.
“Well, he’s a marshal, and he can stand where he wants,” said the executioner, being quite clear in spite of the mask over his face.
“Damn you,” he said to the executioner.
“Well, sir, you’ll be damned first,” the executioner said.
Ropes was already draped in place, and nooses was tied. These was put over the three men’s necks, and the knots was pulled tight to the sides of their heads. That way the neck broke better. The three men was told to stand on the trapdoors, and they done it. I guess by that point they didn’t see no reason not to.
Each man was allowed to say his piece.
Franklin said, “I sure thought that woman was a deer. Usually I can tell a woman and a deer apart, but that day I was good and drunk, and I could have swore it was a buck with a big rack. My mama told me not to drink, but I did. And look where it’s got me. That is all.”
The executioner pulled a bag over his head and readjusted the rope.
Kid Red said, “I ain’t never had much of a chance, but when I did, I didn’t take it. I’m sorry for all I done, but I know God is in his heaven, and he’s forgiven me, and he’s waiting on me with a harp.”
“I don’t want to hear you play it,” a man in the crowd yelled out.
Kid Red ignored him, tried to stand in his spot without lowering his head. “I go to see Jesus now,” he said.
“Have him send me a present,” said the man in the audience. I looked around to find who had spoken, but didn’t locate him.
I looked back at the kid. He was still holding his head up. I was proud of him. The executioner put the bag over his face.
Ruggert was next. He spoke in as loud a voice as he could muster.
“My whole life I’ve tried to live the kind of life a white man ought to live, and all that has come to me and brought me here was caused by a nigger who looked boldly at my wife’s bottom while she innocently hung clothes on the line. And there that nigger stands with a marshal badge pinned to his chest, good as a white man. I say to you, take that darky down and free me from this gallows. I’m not to blame for my ways. He is.”
“Ah, shut up,” said the man who had spoken before about the harp. I recognized his voice and spotted him this time. He wore overalls that was as worn as his face. “We don’t care none about you or your nigger or your wife’s ass. Take your goddamn medicine, you burned-up old fart.”
That seemed to sap Ruggert. I think the boards on his bad leg and the rope around his neck was all that was holding him up. I don’t know what he expected, but maybe he thought the white folks in the crowd was going to rise up and pull him down from there and put me in his place and forgive all his killing and robbing. He was one of those that could never see himself wrong, and I figured he hadn’t until that moment truly realized that this was all she wrote and he was a fool.
After a pause, Ruggert said, “All right, then.”
They put the bag over his head.
I was thinking how my life had changed because of that man, the bitter and the sweet, when the traps was dropped and the men fell through with a sound like someone snapping a leather belt between their hands. The kid kicked once, throwing off one of his boots and hitting a man in the head in the front row. The colored man and Ruggert moved not at all. I could smell shit in the air.
I’m tired now. I will say again there was many dime novels written about me by Bronco Bob, but this here is the straight record. There’s more. But I’m too tired to write it out. I spent some time with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, even went to Europe and seen the queen of England. Oh, and I married Ruthie. She went to Europe, too. I had a family. Fortunately, none of the kids got my ears. By the way, Ruthie really did talk to ducks and chickens, but in dedication to honesty as I see it, I never heard a one of them talk back, nor feel anything Ruthie told me they said was all that beneficial.
I had many adventures before I became a porter on this long, black train, where I sit and write in my spare time and read the old dime novels I can find that was written about me. Perhaps those other adventures of mine are for another time. Perhaps in a fashion I did turn out great, way Mama thought I would. I had me some times, that’s for sure.
But this here is what happened to me up to where I’ve told it. It’s how I became Deadwood Dick, and most of it is as true as I know how to make it, keeping in mind nobody likes the dull parts.
Author’s Note
Parts of this novel were loosely borrowed from my short stories “Soldierin’ ” and “Hides and Horns.” I have also slightly condensed certain historical events to suit my storytelling purposes, though I have on the whole tried to present these, as well as the contribution of black cowboys, soldiers, and lawmen in the West, accurately while adhering to the mythology-building tradition of all great western storytellers of the time, including the real Nat Love, who inspired so much of this story, at least in spirit.
Also by Joe R. Lansdale
The Magic Wagon
The Drive In
The Nightrunners
Cold in July
The Boar
Waltz of Shadows
The Bottoms
A Fine Dark Line
Sunset and Sawdust
Lost Echoes
Leather
Maiden
All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky
Edge of Dark Water
The Thicket
The Hap and Leonard Novels
Savage Season
Mucho Mojo
The Two-Bear Mambo
Bad Chili
Rumble Tumble
Captains Outrageous
Vanilla Ride
Devil Red
Selected Short Story Collections
By Bizarre Hands
Sanctified and Chicken Fried
The Best of Joe R. Lansdale
About the Author
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than three dozen novels, including The Thicket, Edge of Dark Water, The Bottoms, and A Fine Dark Line. He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Edgar Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, and nine Bram Stoker Awards. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Paradise Sky Page 41