Paradise Sky

by Joe R. Lansdale

  I set some paper targets on sticks that raised them about three feet off the ground; they had black bull’s-eyes painted on them. At forty yards I used my Winchester, pumping the shots with the special lever Mr. Loving had made. I hit six out of ten as fast as I could cock and fire, which for fast shooting with a weapon like that is pretty good. Bill gave it a try and couldn’t hit a thing.

  “I never was good with that sort of weapon,” he said. “Too much haste and uncertainty about it.”

  We packed our ears with cotton and burned through quite a few shells and loads that day. It was some cost into my savings, as I was supplying Bill with his fixings as well. I figured the trade-off was worth it, spending time with one of the finest shootists that has ever walked the earth.

  I practiced dry-firing my guns the rest of the week, except for going up to our spot one afternoon with Win, day before the match. I had plenty of live rounds with me. I wanted to fire a few shots to give me the feel of live ammunition burning through the barrel, but not do it so much my arms got tired of holding up my weapons. I didn’t want to start tomorrow’s shooting match with a liability of tired arms and a powder scorch on my eyes.

  I had taken the day off, becoming bolder about my job, knowing full well I was leaving. There was also the fact that Swearengen was sponsoring me for the match. I was representing the Gem. Swearengen, wanting me to know how much he was on my side, said, “Look, you’re going to shoot in that match, I expect you to win. I don’t think it matters if a nigger or a white man wins, long as he represents himself and the Gem well.”

  This from a pimp.

  I asked if he would like to front some money for ammunition or supply it directly, but here he drew the line. “No. I don’t want to give you an unfair advantage against them that might have to purchase their own,” he said.

  He was quite the sport.

  Win, who was sitting on a soft blue blanket watching me shoot, said, “You brought me up here to fire pistols?”

  “Not entirely,” I said, and I came over and sat beside her on the blanket.

  “You’re entering that shooting contest, aren’t you?”

  “I am.” This was the first time I had admitted it to her.

  “I figured as much. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “Isn’t much of one. It’s been as obvious as those ears on your head.”

  “Not much gets by you.”

  “We been together a short time, but I know you, and I think you know me.”

  This was a lie. I never could completely figure Win out, and maybe that was the attraction, but I nodded because it seemed like the right and pleasant thing to do.

  “You’re making big plans, and I must believe they include me,” she said.

  “They do,” I said. “And Madame.”

  I told her the whole thing, about Loving’s place down in East Texas, the money I hoped to collect.

  “A white man left you all that?”

  “He was a white man, a good man, like a second father,” I said, realizing I sounded like Bill; him talking about me being a credit to my race.

  “I know precisely what you mean. Madame has been awfully good to me.”

  Our talk didn’t go on too long before we were leaning in close, and my lips were touching hers. They trembled against mine like a struggling butterfly, and then they were soft and pressing.

  She pulled me back on the blanket, said, “Show me how you can fire your own sweet pistol, but really take your time to aim and slowly pull the trigger.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  Later that day I went over to Mann’s No. 10, the saloon Bill liked to frequent and of course where I worked from time to time. It wasn’t much of a place—a shack, really, with a few boards hammered together to make a bar. I went there to draw my last pay for emptying the spittoons and hoped to find Bill at a card table. When I got there, Bill wasn’t in the room. There were three men at a table, and they eyed me the way you would a pile of buffalo chips on the floor. But no one said a thing to me, even though I came through the front door like a white man. They didn’t mind seeing me empty spittoons, but they weren’t crazy about me bellying up to the bar. I admit I was playing on Bill’s friendship there, because they knew me and him was friendly, but I could live with that. It gave me a chance to rub my black ass in their face.

  I was standing near a spittoon I had emptied many times, talking to the bartender, Snuffy. He was a tall fellow in a dirty white shirt and striped pants. His hair was oiled down and parted in the middle.

  “Where am I gonna get another nigger on short notice?” Snuffy said.

  “You might try an Indian or a cripple,” I said. “Might even be a loose Mexican about, and I know there’s some Chinamen.”

  “Ain’t the same, as you was the best spittoon emptier I ever had,” he said.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “A blind bear could empty a spittoon if it took a mind to it and was willing to wear an apron.”

  Snuffy studied on that a minute, perhaps trying to consider if a blind bear might be found around those parts—one that was willing to work, I mean.

  “Ah, come on, Nat. You don’t need to quit.”

  I had told him I was quitting but not that I was leaving Deadwood, and I kept it that way.

  “Nope,” I said. “I’m done.”

  Anyway, there I was taking the last of my back pay across the bar, and even ordering a sarsaparilla to irritate the men at the table, when Bill come strolling in. He was grinning when he saw me. He was dressed in blue pants and a leather jacket, had on a wide-brimmed, creamy white hat with a low crown. His revolvers was tucked in a wide red sash around his waist, near his hips, handles set forward so he could make with a cross-handed draw. Besides them two 1851 Navy pistols, he was carrying at the near center of his sash a Smith & Wesson Army .32 revolver with shiny bluing and rosewood grips. It wasn’t a gun he carried often; guess you could say it was his dress gun. His hair was combed out smooth and long, and his mustache had been waxed lightly. On his left hip he had a large bowie knife in a sheath dangling from under his sash, fastened most likely to a belt. He was all dressed up and had no place to go.

  “Nat,” he said. “Let me stand you to a drink.”

  “Thanks, Bill. You know I’m only for sarsaparilla.”

  “That you are,” he said. “It’s a damn shameful girl’s drink, but if you must have it, dear sweetie, I will order it, and if I pay for three in a row, you have to lift your skirt for me.”

  Bill, still grinning, leaned on the bar and propped his boot on the footrest beneath it. I could smell his breath, and it was stout as a mince pie; he had already been in the whiskey. He ordered us two swigs—me a refreshed sarsaparilla and him his usual poison, although from time to time he broke tradition and had a Champagne flip with fruit juice.

  Snuffy, now that Bill had entered the room, was stepping lively, trying to look like he was the most pleasant, ass-kissing fellow on earth. He poured us a set. Me and Bill placed our backs against the bar, holding our drinks, looking over at the card table.

  Bill was watching the game intently. He was a man who loved his gambling. He wasn’t near as good as some folks claimed, but he could play cards well enough to keep himself in whiskey and bullets, a steak now and again. I recognized the men at the table, including the owner of the place, Mr. Mann.

  “Any minute now my shadow, Broken Nose, will come through that door,” Bill said. “He will most likely be snorting a little wind on account of when I first noticed he was trailing my scent I picked up my step. He will come in and act like he is my best friend that ever was.”

  At just that moment, Jack did come in, blowing a little. He blinked a few times, seen Bill and me leaning against the bar, and came over. He stood in front of us, his bad eye wandering about in his head as if on a secret mission. He had on a ragged coat, a moth-eaten hat, and his boot heels had laid over on the sides due to wear.

  Jack
said, “Wild Bill, how are you, sir?”

  “I am tight with life,” Bill said. “And how are you, Broken Nose?”

  It seemed like an unnecessary insult, but Bill could be cruel.

  “I am fine, sir.”

  “Can I stand you to a drink?” Bill said.

  “Well, sir, you have been most kind, and I could use one.”

  There was something about Jack’s words that didn’t go with his tone or the look on his face. It was like he was trying to gleefully accept a turd and pretend it was a diamond.

  “Pour this man a drink,” Bill said. “Some of the cheap stuff.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the bartender. He brought out a bottle of whiskey, so watered you could see through it. He poured Jack a drink in a fly-specked glass. Jack took it and downed it. He brought out money of his own, said, “Give me another, and stand Wild Bill here, and even the nigger. Make it the good stuff.”

  That went all over me, but Bill reached out and gently touched my arm. “Enjoy your drink, Nat.”

  Bill picked up his glass when it was filled, said, “To the Union, and to the freedom of slaves. And to the snake that bit you. And may even drunkards, beggars, and cripples be saved by the all-merciful God. Unless they need killing.”

  Jack’s hand trembled, but he dosed himself with his liquor, and Bill did the same. My glass had been filled with liquor this time, which I let be.

  “Gentlemen,” Bill said, “and Jack, I am about to play cards.”

  With that Bill moved away from us, over to the table. The chair available had its back to the entranceway, and Bill said to the man across the table, a fellow by the name of Charlie Rich, “Sir, would you change chairs with me? I have an aversion to sitting with my back to the door.”

  “So do I,” said the man. It surprised me a little, as most folks were quick to give Bill his way. I remembered that table of men that night in the Gem, how they had given us their table so we could have a private talk. I didn’t know if Bill’s reputation was slipping or if Charlie Rich was just one of his constant card buddies, but it made me kind of proud of that fellow for standing up like that against the fastest and best shot there was.

  Bill was taken aback, but he didn’t want to show it. Pride. That damn savage thing, which can be as much a burden as a quality, took over. “Very well,” Bill said. “But I sure would prefer that spot.”

  “As do I,” Rich said. There wasn’t nothing mean in his tone, and he smiled when he said it. I think he knew he had Bill over a barrel, in that if Bill protested he would seem to be a whiner, and if he insisted he would appear to be a bully.

  I glanced at Jack. He was taking a certain delight in this performance.

  Bill nodded, took the seat with his back to the door. I turned to the bar, ordered another sarsaparilla for myself and nothing for Jack. As the bartender was pouring it, I seen an image in my glass. It was just a blurry reflection, but it was the man across the table, Charlie Rich, the one who had refused Bill his seat, and I can’t say for sure, but it seemed to me that blurry image nodded to Jack.

  As I turned, Jack stepped forward, pulled a hidden .45 pistol from under his coat, said, “Damn you and your cheap charity. Take that, you son of a bitch,” and fired a shot that struck Bill in the back of the head. Blood sprayed from Bill, and I seen and heard the fellow to Bill’s right yell out in pain; the bullet had gone through Bill and hit him in the wrist.

  Bill tipped forward with his face on the table, his open eyes turned toward me. That wild spark he had in them was already gone. His arm hung loose, and his hand dropped the cards it held. In that quick moment, them lying there on the floor, an incomplete hand, I seen they was aces and eights. The last card had yet to be drawn from the deck. Bill’s body slumped, and his weight dragged his face across the table, and he tumbled to the floor.

  I came unfrozen, glanced at Jack. He lifted his pistol to shoot at me, but it hit on an empty cylinder or a dead load. He yelled out, “I have killed the son of a bitch,” and bolted.

  I threw my sarsaparilla glass at Jack as he ran and missed, shattering the glass against the wall by the door. Then it was a footrace.

  I come out of Mann’s hauling as fast as I could go, and that damn short-legged McCall that couldn’t keep up with Wild Bill was damn sure moving briskly along the boardwalks and planks that was draped across the muddy streets. Racing after him, I thought of pulling one of my pistols and plugging him, but I couldn’t bring myself to shoot him from behind, though that was exactly what he had done to Bill. I also thought it bad form to take a shot at him and accidentally shoot a child off a stick horse or some such.

  I stomped over a long plank across a wide puddle, and damned if I didn’t slip and bury my leg knee-deep in mud, about two pounds of it seeping into my boot. By the time I got my leg yanked up and was back in the race, my boot was heavy with mud. Jack had done hit the other side of the street and was running with that pistol still in his hand. He was yelling, “I killed Wild Bill. I killed him.”

  I was gaining on him as he reached the open door of a butcher shop. He acted as if he might dart inside, perhaps to run through and out the back, but a leg poked out from a doorway and stuck itself right in front of Jack, who did a tumble over it and landed in such a way, on top of his head, his hat come down near over his eyes. Then that leg kicked out again, and this time it caught Jack in the teeth. I seen it was Colorado Charlie Utter that had done the leg work. He gave Jack another kick, this one causing the little bastard to spit out a tooth. Jack was crawling, trying to get to the pistol he’d dropped, but another man come along, scooped it up, put it in his coat pocket, and walked off with it.

  It was then that a bunch of men jumped on Jack, some of them coming out of the butcher shop. Jack was pulled up and hit a few times, then carried away in such a hustle that his feet wasn’t even touching ground.

  Charlie was pulling his pistol, and had not a handful of men grabbed him he’d have shot Jack sure as rain is wet. Some of those men looked at me, knowing I was Bill’s friend, but there wasn’t any need. The heat had gone out of me. I was breathing heavy, and I leaned on the wall.

  Jack was gone then, and Charlie stumbled over to me with tears in his eyes. “Say he’s a lying bastard, Nat.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I seen it done with my own eyes,” and I went about laying out the details as I knew them. Before I was even finished telling my story, Charlie had sunk to the boardwalk, his back against a storefront. I sat down beside him and pulled off my boot and dumped the mud out of it right there on the boardwalk. I was daring a man to come to me with an angry attitude about it, and it was a good thing none did.

  Bill may have been a preening peacock, a little mean-spirited, and willing to screw a dead cow if he was drunk, but he had been my friend and had treated me decent all the time I had known him.

  I decided right then and there to put the shooting match out of my mind, gather up everything I had, including Win and Madame, give my good-byes to Cullen and Wow, all them other China girls, and head out for the great beyond; anything to get away from that hellhole they called Deadwood.

  20

  I was sick to my stomach, and me and Charlie spent a few moments together cussing McCall’s name with oaths that would have made a preacher and a schoolteacher want to put a gun to their heads, then Charlie went to find out what was going on. I went wandering along the streets for quite a time, not really going anywhere, stopping now and again to lean on a building wall, and then I would lurch back into the street and walk some more. Finally I climbed up the hill to the shack where Win and Madame was.

  Win and Madame was outside, as they was doing laundry and had their big wash pot boiling on a fire of broken lumber and sticks. Win seen my face and came running over to me. When she did my feet went out from under me, and I sat down on the ground. I don’t know how to explain it, cause me and Bill wasn’t the best of friends, but we had a bond in blood and gun smoke, and that’s a kind of bond can’t be explained; it
fits tighter than a hub on a wheel.

  “It’s Bill,” I said. “He’s done been killed by a coward.”

  Win squatted down by me, and Madame came over, sat on the ground beside me, and threw an arm over my shoulders; it really felt good. I hadn’t had that kind of motherly attention since my ma died. Madame pulled me in close, and Win held me, too. I started crying. I wasn’t caterwauling or nothing, but I was crying, and this went on for some time. I figure, looking back on it, I wasn’t just crying for Bill but for my pa and ma and Mr. Loving. They all just wadded up together like bread dough in my mind. I felt as if everything that had ever been worth anything had just been sold cheap at auction. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

  Between sobs and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I told them all that had happened and how it was that I wanted to head out no later than tomorrow, tonight if possible, and the shooting match be damned.

  I hadn’t no more than finished telling this when I looked down and seen Charlie Utter in a fresh set of clothes. For a moment, way he was dressed, his long hair and all, I thought he was Wild Bill come back to life. I wiped my eyes quick and watched him slog up the hill.

  He come up and took off his hat and nodded politely to the women, said, “Would you ladies mind too much if I had a private word with Nat here?”

  They agreed as they would be good with that and went back to their laundry. But when I looked at them, I seen both was watching me close, just to make sure I didn’t come to pieces and need recollecting.

  Charlie’s face was red, especially around the nose, and his eyes was bleary. “Walk with me, Nat?” he said.

  “You have duded up,” I said as I followed him down the hill toward Main Street.

  “I have. I went over and saw the body at the saloon, and me and some of the boys carried it over to the barber’s for cleaning, and from there we have plans to bring it out to a tent I’ve put up. I’ll watch over him, and tomorrow there’ll be the burial. Me and some others have chipped in for a coffin and some funeral doings.”