Paradise Sky

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “Most of us are,” Washington said, “and you going to be damned and without a job you stay out here on the porch too long.”

  I went back to work, but by pure chance my stepping out on that porch and seeing Bass Reeves was to change my life more than a little bit. But that was to come.

  As time went on I began to save some money back. I visited with Luther, Samson, and Ruthie on a regular basis. Ruthie still said she talked to ducks, or would if she could find one. She said in the meantime she listened to the mockingbirds and took in what they had to say. It wasn’t about much, she explained, but they was upset about how many trees was being cut. I can’t say for sure that was accurate, having never spoken with a mockingbird myself, but I decided to take her word for it.

  I missed Win, but all things considered it wasn’t a bad life, and I admit to the fact that I was beginning to notice that, like a flower at spring (though it was still winter), Ruthie was starting to blossom. Her skin was smooth and her eyes were wide and bright, seemed as if they were pools that you could fall into. I told myself what I saw in her was some of the traits Win had, but to be honest the two of them couldn’t have been any further apart. It’s hard to match up anyone with another if one of them talks to birds.

  My habit of working and visiting with Luther and his family was spun to the four winds when I went to the post office one Tuesday. I did this daily after the first week of writing those letters. On that day, after waiting a month or more, a letter and a package showed up. The letter was from Cullen, and the package was from Bronco Bob. Both, of course, had come to me general delivery, Fort Smith, Arkansas.

  It was noon, and I was on my lunch break. I had a bottle of sarsaparilla and a couple of fresh-cut slices of bread and a slab of cheese. I put the cheese between the bread and sat down under a tree out back of the store. I rested the bottle on the ground, the sandwich on my knee, and held the letters in my hands. The letter from Cullen was the most tempting, as I felt it might hold news of Win. I decided as it was the most important, I’d read it last.

  I laid it on the ground beside me and opened the package from Bronco Bob.

  Inside was a letter and a dime novel. The novel was titled: The True Life Adventures of Deadwood Dick.

  Dear Friend Nat,

  It was a pleasure to receive a letter from you and to hear of your time on the trail and your friendship with Luther and Ruthie and Samson.

  As I promised you, I have written up your adventures and have managed to place three novels based on them. I am happy to say they are selling well, though by the same token I am not getting rich, and so far I have no money from them for you. I should also add they wouldn’t let my hero be colored, so he has become white. Still, he is based on your adventures, the ones you told me about on the trail when we were with the redheaded boy who is now better known as Kid Red. I will come back to him.

  Anyway, if there is any money to be made beyond my expenses on the dime novels, I will see that you get some of it. I will write a new story that will tell of your leading a wagon train through the Ozarks and how you fought a cougar and Indians to get to Fort Smith. In fact I have already started the story. This one, you will see, covers mostly the time we fought those desperadoes that stole your girl and the old woman and wrapped you in a cowhide. I gave the Indians you told me about a bigger part, and just so it would be sure to be exciting, I added more men to the final gunfight. I also gave myself and Cullen bigger roles than we actually had in the gunfight, but not so much that there isn’t some truth to it, though I thought the part about the trained circus lion taught to attack at the use of a foul word (that I left unnamed) was a good addition. I felt the lion was a symbol for the kind of mean things you and me and Cullen fought against, even if there wasn’t any lion present. In other words, it’s a windy, and I’m trying to justify it to you. I became carried away when I was writing it and couldn’t contain myself. That is why they call it art, and that’s why it has a cougar and a lion in it.

  I added in a wild dog who only answered to your commands as well, and the dog died bravely while battling the lion, managing to drive itself and the lion off a cliff in the process. I hope that will be okay. I figured if someone figured out the story was actually about you, then you wouldn’t have to explain where the dog was. He has been taken care of.

  As for Kid Red. Well, Nat, he has gone bad and become a gunman. He got so good with the pistols, having had good training from me and you, he began to enter shooting contests, as I used to do and as I now and again still do when the money dries up. He acquired quite a name around Dodge. But he also took to carrying his pistols in town, hidden under his coat, and he took to drinking something furious. I regret the day I took him to a saloon to toss back one. That is on me.

  Thing is, while drunk, he got in an argument with a man in a saloon and shot and killed him. He also shot a saloon girl who screamed when he shot the man. I guess the scream made him jerk around or something, because he wheeled about and shot her right through the head. He hightailed it, and word around Dodge is that he joined up with a gang of thieves noted for robbing travelers on the trail, and as of late they have taken to a couple of banks and are currently, like Jesse James, robbing trains; it is said he and these men are led by—and I want you to hold on to yourself here—a man scarred by knife and burns. He has four men in his gang at all times and sometimes more. The kid has gone bad, Nat, and that is all there is to it.

  I know the man you are after may well be the leader of this gang, as he fits the description, and I hesitated for some time if I should tell you about him. I know how your heart cries out for vengeance, but I don’t want to be the one to lead you into something you might not get out of. As your friend and biographer, I thought it right of me to inform you of this change of events and to inform you I have heard and read in the newspapers that he and his gang have moved into the Indian Nations, where they figure to go about their robbing sprees with greater ease. I know you are near there.

  I am living in Dodge and have taken up with a young lady who I might marry if I don’t wear her tail out first. I thought I should try it for a while and see how I feel a year from now. We are, I guess, engaged. She has spent nearly all the money I have gotten from the books. I have two more payments that will be sent to me, and they send me several copies, so if you want these further adventures of Deadwood Dick, all you have to do is let me know, and I will mail them to you wherever your address might be.

  If you are back in Dodge, look me up.

  Forever, as always, your dear friend,

  Bronco Bob, Esquire

  P.S. I really am sorry there was no money, but the girl, her name is Beatrice, is expensive and worth it, and surely I will make enough to give you your share in time if we both live long lives.

  Now, that was a turn of events, all right.

  I hated what I had heard about the kid, but the idea that I might have some kind of lead on Ruggert, vague as it might be, was inspiring. I was thinking on how I might go about hound-dogging that lead when I remembered the letter from Cullen.

  I hesitated opening it. I ate my sandwich and drank my sarsaparilla. I looked at the sun, determined I probably had about fifteen minutes before I was supposed to go back to work.

  Finally I took a deep breath and tore the letter open.

  Dear Nat,

  I am glad to have heard from you, and I read your letter with great interest. I should say up front that Wow is doing well, and so are the other China girls. I think the one whose name always seems different was indeed messing with me. I think she finally told me her real name, but you know what? I can’t remember it. It’s harder to remember than the names she made up, so I just call her Peg Leg Pete. She doesn’t seem to mind. She and the other girls come by to see us from time to time, and they have all spent time with Win.

  I read aloud to Win what you wrote to her, but she didn’t seem to understand it or who it was from. I’m sorry. But that’s how it was. She asks for water now and agai
n. She never asks for food, though we try to make sure she’s fed. This is not always successful. She doesn’t have much of an appetite, and I must confess she has grown quite thin and pale.

  We have had a couple of doctors come to see her, but their verdict is that she has ceased to thrive, which is what they say when they think she has just quit, doesn’t care anymore. I hate to lay it out like that, but here it is, Nat.

  Wow and the China girls have been through much of what Win has been through and maybe some worse. I don’t say this to say Win is weak but to say some manage to get past it, and some do not. There is no way of knowing what all experiences were in Win’s background that led to her current state. I was told that by Wow, by the way.

  I must be very blunt with you, Nat. The weather here is terrible, and I wouldn’t want you to saddle up and come this way for fear you might not make it. But you must brace yourself to the idea that Win may not see the spring flowers bloom, and if she does she may soon be underneath them. I want you to understand the depth of her despair. She is lost inside her head, and I fear there may be no way back out.

  As for your vengeance ride, I would not continue it. I am glad, as of your letter, that you caught up with Golem, and I am glad you and me and Bronco Bob put the burn on those others, but Ruggert, if he has gone on to leave you alone, might be best left alone.

  Lastly, I can’t predict the weather, but it might be best to come as far as Dodge and be ready for when the weather changes. I would hope you will be here to see her at least one more time.

  Perhaps she will rally. After you left she seemed better for a time and even played her flute. Then she laid it aside, and not a peep since. It seems to me she is having a harder and harder time identifying me, Wow, or any of the girls. She never leaves the house, as the weather is too bad, and she is too ill to leave now. She mentioned the hill once. That’s all she said. “The hill.” And then she said, “Nat.” And neither your name nor mention of the hill has come again. It’s like the last of what she knew of life had gone out with those words.

  Forgive me for writing such a sad and direct letter, but when you can, keeping in mind you do no one any good if the weather captures you and kills you, please come back. Forget Ruggert. I can’t say Win needs you, as I can’t say she knows what she needs anymore. Still, I feel you would like to be here for the end, which is undoubtedly coming. Be assured if you cannot make it back, we will take care of her until there is nothing left to do.

  With sadness in my heart, but with great memories of you still,

  Cullen

  Now, I’ve said that I have had some low moments, but not even when I was wrapped in that cowhide and Win and Madame had been taken from me, have I felt lower than I felt in that moment. I could hardly stand up when it came time to go back to work; stunned and confused, I did go, and I put in the rest of the day, though I hardly remember it.

  When the day was over I went to the only place I knew to go, Luther and his family. I went there, and they was glad to see me. Luther had some rocks laid in a circle outside his wagon, and it was there they cooked when the weather was dry. As I came up, he stood from where he was squatting near the fire, stirring it up with a stick. Leaning against the wagon was a coffin he was building out of white pine. He had been shaving it down and sanding it, as there was sawdust on the ground by it.

  “Nat,” he said. “How are you?”

  “I ain’t so good,” I said.

  About then Ruthie walked up, as she had been busy about her toilet in the woods, or so I guess. Samson stuck his head out of the wagon. “Hi, Nat.”

  I greeted him and Ruthie. They had dragged some logs around the fire spot, and I sat on one of those without being asked. Luther said, “You need to say a thing or two, Nat?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Don’t think on it too hard. Have a cup of coffee and see how you feel then. You haven’t anything to say, don’t say it. If you do, well, I’ll listen. If you prefer the children go off, and you just want to talk to me, that can be arranged.”

  “I’m a grown woman,” Ruthie said.

  “Maybe just enough in years to call yourself that,” Luther said. “But you’re still a child as far as I’m concerned.”

  I looked at Ruthie. Even in my deep bewilderment I had to say she looked womanly to me. She had really come into her own after we had arrived in Fort Smith.

  Luther had a pot of coffee on the fire, and he got a rag and lifted it out, poured me a cup. I sipped it. If it was hot, cold, fresh, or old, I couldn’t have told you. It was like my taste quit working.

  “Well, then,” Luther said. “Let me tell you our plans. Our relatives, the ones here. They aren’t here now. Least not alive. The influenza killed them well before we arrived.”

  That pulled me out of my own pit. I said, “I’m sorry, Luther.”

  “Well, it’s not like we knew them that well, but we have brought my dear wife home and our faithful dog, and they are both going to be buried.”

  “Together?” I asked.

  “Separate holes,” Luther said.

  “Of course,” I said. “I see a coffin is almost ready.”

  “Wife gets the coffin, dog stays in the barrel. Her relatives have a graveyard, and since there ain’t no one to protest against it, she’ll end up there, I reckon.”

  “What about the dog?” I asked.

  “I think he should be buried there, too. It’s out a stretch. I rode a mule out there after I was told where it was and was told all her people were dead. Frankly, it’s kind of a relief. I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with them. Relatives can be a pain in the neck.”

  “That’s a rough thing for a preacher to say,” I said.

  “Isn’t it?” he said.

  “Would you like a top-off on that coffee?” Ruthie asked me.

  “I suppose I would, Ruthie, thank you.” I of course didn’t even remember drinking it I was in such a state.

  She got the rag, took hold of the pot, and poured me a cup. That cup wasn’t no more than full when I started telling them about the letter I had gotten from Cullen, leaving out what I didn’t want them to know. I had the dime novel with me. I had dropped it on the log beside me. Samson picked it up and was thumbing through the pages. I didn’t mention that it was supposed to be about me. I think Samson might have been reading all the while I was talking. That’s one good thing about being young. You don’t always feel obligated to pay attention to sad stories.

  I spilled it all out—about how I needed to start back to Deadwood and how I was planning on supplying myself and starting out in spite of the winter. When I finished telling it all, Ruthie said, “You are a damn fool, Nat.”

  “Ruthie!” Luther said.

  “Well, he is,” she said. “He went off and left her to kill a man—”

  “How do you know that?” I said. “Luther?”

  “I didn’t tell her,” he said.

  “We both know it,” Samson said. “We listened when you was telling Pa.”

  All right, Samson was paying some attention after all.

  “You got big ears,” Luther said, “the both of you. Too big.”

  “Not as big as Nat’s,” Samson said.

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “Well,” Ruthie said, “we heard it, and that’s all there is to it. Nat left her to kill a man.” She looked at me. “Now you want to go back, and you shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

  “It’s not your business to say,” Luther said.

  “No,” I said. “She’s right. I shouldn’t have left.”

  “And you shouldn’t go back now,” Ruthie said. “The winter is bad up there, that’s what the letter said, and if you go, you have as good a chance of dying as she has. You won’t have accomplished a damn thing.”

  “Watch your language, young lady,” Luther said.

  “I’m not a lady,” Ruthie said.

  “I’m noticing that,” Luther said
. “But you act like one just the same. Nat, I apologize for Ruthie. She’s been taught better manners than that.”

  “She was taught to be honest and thoughtful, is my guess,” I said. “I think that’s what she’s doing. I didn’t have any right to go off and leave her, not with her being that way.”

  I stood up to leave.

  “Won’t you have supper with us?” Luther said. “We needn’t talk any more about this if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s not that. I need to start out tomorrow, after I get some supplies. I’ve got enough money put back for that. Enough to get me to Dodge. I got a friend there who can help me out. I need to go and think things out.”

  “Nat,” Ruthie said. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to get you all guilty and stirred.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “You just wiped the looking glass for me. Now I can see through it.”

  Luther put his hand on my shoulder. “Come tomorrow morning for the funeral. I would be pleased if you could be there.”

  I nodded.

  I walked back to my place. I had forgotten the dime novel. Guess I’d been in that shack about a half hour, looking at the wall, when there was a knock. Opening the door I found Ruthie staring at me. She was holding the dime novel. She held it out to me. I took it, and when I did, she said, “Nat, I didn’t mean what I said. Hell, maybe I did.”

  “Come in, Ruthie,” I said. “Leave the door open. A young woman ought not to be in a man’s quarters.”

  “Dog-diddle propriety,” she said.

  “Maybe you ought to watch your language more,” I said. “Luther might be right about that, way you’re talking and all.”

  “Listen here. I’m going to talk straight. You said I was being honest before, but I wasn’t.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t want you to go back. I don’t want you to worry about her anymore. I know you got to, that’s what you should do to be a man worth a plug nickel, but the simple fact is I’m in love with you, Nat. There you have it.”

  “That can’t be.”