Paradise Sky

Hubert had become quite the politician. If Mr. Loving had told him to eat shit, he’d have said he already had a mouthful.

Hubert mulled me over. “I seen you somewhere before?”

“You haven’t,” Mr. Loving said before I could answer. “He came from over in Jacksonville looking for a job, and I hired him. He isn’t looking to work nowhere else.”

“I wasn’t looking to hire him on. It’s like I said. I think I know him from somewhere. You know me, boy?”

“No, sir,” I said.

At this point Mr. Loving started indicating in an almost polite ma

Hubert got on his beast and sat there for a moment. It was then, me looking up at him and him down on me, that I saw a change in his face. He had remembered who I was. I blame my ears for it. They are memorable, and with me looking up, my hat and hair didn’t hide my ears like before. I still had that bucket with the LeMat in it, and I wanted badly to pull it and blow his brains all over that horse, but I didn’t. He didn’t make any kind of move, either. If he had, before I could have got in that bucket or Hubert could have got his pistol free of that clinging leather holster he wore, Mr. Loving would have yanked that Colt and put a hole in him. He’d have been dead before he hit the ground.

“I think maybe you and me crossed some trouble once,” Hubert said to me.

“I doubt that,” I said.

“You remind me of a nigger that had a problem in town.” I guess he thought rephrasing the remark would get the answer he wanted, but I was harder to corral than that.

“Wasn’t me,” I said.

“Wasn’t him,” Mr. Loving said. “It’s time you rode on, Hubert. I’m worn out with looking at and listening to you. I got a farm to run.”

Hubert boiled Mr. Loving’s words around for a while.

“They got a word for a man like you, you know,” Hubert said.

“And what would that be?” Mr. Loving said.

“Nigger lover,” Hubert said.

“Now you’ve said it, and now you’re through,” Mr. Loving said. “Ride on.”

Hubert wanted to say something more but proved himself smarter than I expected. He reined his horse away from us and started it at a trot down the road.

Mr. Loving turned to me, said, “He recognized you for sure.”

“Yes, sir. He did.”

“He’ll be back, and with Ruggert and some others with sheets over their heads.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll save you some trouble and clear out.”

“He’ll go into town and let it be known you’re here. They’ll be on you like stink on shit, as that wanted poster on you is still out there, though it’s dusty in the post office.”

“I know,” I said.

It all settled down on me like a hawk on a mouse. I realized that I had put Mr. Loving in a tight spot. I had no choice but to go on. I said as much.

Mr. Loving said, “Well, he’s got a good trip into town, and that horse he was riding sure won’t be confused for a ru

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“We can stand together and fight them,” he said, “and we’ll mess them up a lot, but in the end they’ll just keep coming after that reward money, which will probably go up another hundred by the time Hubert gets through telling how you’re out here and all.”

“Them Kluxers ain’t going to like you none, either,” I said.

“I’ll be okay, but you won’t.”

By this time it had cooled just a little. The sun was dipping its head behind the trees, and the shadows was falling.

“You’ll need to take more than one horse, and in fact you can take two, plus one to ride on. If you remember your math lessons, which have been a trial to you, that’s three.”

“Them’s your horses, Mr. Loving. And they’re good horses, and it’ll cost you considerable to let me have them.”

“I know that,” he said. “You think I don’t know that? You’ll need those extra two to sell for seed money along the way. Keep the ru

Mr. Loving went coughing into the house, the blanket hanging over his shoulders in a way that made him look like an old Indian squaw. I went out to the loft. I had come to this place with a pocket watch, an old horse—now dead, having not made the first winter—and here I was leaving with a horse to ride and two to sell. I guess it was a profit in a way, but it wasn’t something I felt good about. I didn’t want to leave Mr. Loving. I loved that man about as much as I had loved my ma and pa.

I packed my saddlebags. Lean as I tried to trim it, there was quite a bit of goods, including some food I had for late-night nibbling—bread and jerky and a few boiled eggs wrapped in a paper bag. I rolled up some clothes and other items in my bedroll. I put those nice boots Mr. Loving gave me, along with some nicer clothes and a coat, in another roll.

Following Mr. Loving’s advice, I took the three best horses, saddling one, using another for a pack horse, and using still another as a change-out horse if I needed it.

I was just starting to head up to the sitting tree when I heard the shot. I closed the horses back up in the corral and ran up to the tree. Mr. Loving was there in his chair, his head tossed back, staring at the fresh stars. I could see his eyes was open. I could see starlight in them.

Nervous-like, I come up on him and seen his hand was hanging by his side, and in it was that little pistol, dangling there from one finger, him having put a load into his head right behind the ear. I looked him over, then I yelled at the sky, and then I screamed, and then I dropped to my knees and cried. I was so mad I hit him in the leg once.

The grief I felt isn’t something I can describe with words. All I can say is that it was akin to how I had felt when Ma died and Pa was murdered, only maybe a little worse, because it seemed no matter where I was in life, someone I cared about was going to die on me.

It was then I saw there was a big envelope in his lap. It had my name on the front of it. I opened it up, and three letters spilled out. One said simply that he had taken his own life and that I was not to blame, and it had his signature on it. He left all his worldly goods to what he called a solicitor, which is nothing but a ten-dollar word for a goddamn lawyer.

Opening up the second, there was a bill of sale for the horses, and some other items was listed, them being pretty much the things I had packed on the horses and some things I had chosen not to bother with but would have taken with me had I had the room. He knew me well.

There was another letter, and that was the one to me. I read it in the moonlight. It said:

Willie,

If you asked me if I’d done this a couple of years ago, I would have said no; it is the coward’s way out. But my trips to town have also included trips to the physician, and I have a cancer big as a dry horse turd inside of me, or so says my sawbones, and a litany of health problems that assure me of a soon acquaintance with the grave.

I did not want you to see me in that state of waste, and though I know there is discomfort to you in me taking this method to depart, please understand I did it because I can no longer protect you, and the pain was such I couldn’t wait another minute. I thought I’d wait until you left, but I couldn’t, and so I’m going to do it.