Paradise Sky

“You’re so in love you’re making me a little sick to my stomach,” I said, but I was gri

“She’s got the best heart, but she’s tough, too, if she needs to be. And she can talk about things I didn’t know there was to talk about.”

“She can do that,” I said, thinking about her telling me about Corn Foolish, as I still liked to call him.

“Wow knows about ants and birds and diseases and doctoring. All kinds of shit I don’t give a damn about, but she can make me think I want to know about it, at least while she’s talking. She can sing like a goddamn bird, cook good, fix tasty things I would have never thought I’d eat. And she is really a treat in the night—but hell, you know that.”

“Not the way you do, Cullen. I think she saved the real business for you. What me and her did was just dallying.”

“You think so?” he said.

“I do. When is the event to take place?”

“We’re going to do it as a Chinese wedding among them Chinamen and the China girls. That’s what she wants, and I don’t mind. I’ll have some preacher say some Christian words over us to make it a well-tied knot from East to West.”

“Again, Cullen,” I said, “I am glad for you, but now that I know of the great joy that has come to you, go home. I’m frazzled out and need to sleep.”

“Sorry, Nat.”

“Not at all. You come anytime, just as long as it isn’t at this time.”

Cullen laughed. “I see you got the flyer.”

He was looking at it lying on the floor by the bed. “I did. And I’m going to enter, and I’m going to win.”

“Never doubted it,” he said.

We shook hands. I gave him my best wishes again and let him out.

Fact was, I got him out of there quicker than I would have under normal circumstances, for I was busting to tell him about Ruggert. Yet it didn’t seem right to spoil his big a

I lay there in the dark on my back staring at the ceiling I couldn’t see. I had been in a deep sleep, but knew I wouldn’t find that spot again, not tonight. I was too worked up over Ruggert and the shooting contest, and I was also happy for Cullen and Wow. It was an odd mix of feelings.

19

I kept a better watch on myself than I had before, was careful about corners and alleys and being out after dark except when I had to be for my jobs. I seen that fellow Bill said was called Golem from time to time. It wasn’t like he was trying to conceal himself from me, which due to his size would have been like trying to hide a buffalo in a small barn with all the lanterns lit.

I tried to act like I didn’t know he was there, or just pretended he meant nothing to me, would walk past him like I had never seen him before, but I kept an eye cocked and a loose hand near one of my revolvers.

More frequently I saw Weasel, who always seemed to be scuttling about, looking at me, showing me those nasty green teeth as if they was a prize of some kind. Ruggert I didn’t see much—a glance of him now and then. I guess his newfound wealth allowed him to keep tabs on me while he rested up at one of the saloons with a glass of beer.

Once I knew Ruggert and Burned Man was one and the same, I asked about, discovered that his mine, though it had delivered big for a while, had played out like an aging whore. All that could be got from it was got, and now it was abandoned. What he had plied out of it let Ruggert go about town dressed in nice clothes with a built-up shoe (turned out the Apache had shaved off one of his heels and clipped a few toes), and he was eating at the finer places, such as they was. Places where colored wasn’t supposed to go unless it was to sweep out or do what I did, bounce drunks and empty spit. I began to think Ruggert’s punishment from the Apache wasn’t enough after all. He was living pretty high on the hog. Still, I stuck to my plan.

All my good feelings was cut short the next day, when after signing up for the match, word come down that Custer and his command had been wiped out at the Little Bighorn. Tensions was high in Deadwood, and most likely everywhere else except back east, though they may themselves have felt a little queasy about matters. I wasn’t fond of getting killed by Indians, but their side of things was clear. We was in their world, and we was shitting on it pretty big. Digging in their sacred lands, wiping out their food, and finding all ma

This, however, didn’t keep me close to camp, so to speak. Next day was my day off, and I joined up with Wild Bill that morning. We gave Ruggert’s men the slip, rode our horses to the spot where me and Win did our romancing. I had told Wild Bill of my plan to enter the shooting contest, which he somehow already knew about, and finally revealed to him that I knew the burned fellow and that we had a past. I told him all of it. He was a good listener. I told it to him as we rode out of town, side by side.

When we got to the hill, we stood under the big tree and looked at the drop below. Grass and wildflowers flowed down the hill like a carpet had been rolled out. The air was crisp as a fresh-baked cracker.

“You know, a man could get used to living in a spot like this, having him a house and a wife,” Wild Bill said.

“You have a wife, Bill,” I said.

“I know. That’s the one I meant.”

“You thinking about hanging up your guns?”

“I’d like to,” he said. “But it’s harder than you might speculate. I have become the Prince of Pistoleers, which is a title sort of like Soon to Be a Fucking Leper. There ain’t nowhere to go with it, Nat. I feel that Old Man Time is soon to drop on me like a brick on a bug, as you don’t get better at being the Prince of Pistoleers. You get older at it.”

“Go back east, Bill. Peg your guns. There you’d be a hero and wouldn’t nobody be expecting a shoot-out.”

“Who would I be there? Just some old blowhard with a lot of windies to tell, no way to make a living unless I went into show business. I tried that with Buffalo Bill. I felt like a damn fool. Other than that there’s the plow, and I have no hankering for it. Out here I’m still a man to be reckoned with. There have even been suggestions they make Deadwood a real town with a real town marshal, and I have been recommended by some for the job. I don’t want it. I’ve done it, and it’s just more gun work. I am good at the work but tired of it. I keep trying to figure on a way out of this cage I’ve built for myself, but haven’t come upon a solid idea. Sometimes I think the best thing would be a quick exit on hell’s shingle.”

“Don’t talk like that, Bill.”

“Right enough. Let’s don’t talk about it at all. I am in a morose mood for no good reason I can figure. That’s not true. I know why I’m that way.”

“Custer?”

“Yep. I knew him. Always was an impulsive ass. Got through the war when he should have been killed ten times over. I think he got to thinking he was invincible. That his luck couldn’t run out. I used to feel that way. Age has a way of pissing on those kinds of thoughts, though. Hell with it. Let’s get you ready.”

What he meant was we had come to practice shooting for the match. Wild Bill himself wasn’t going to enter. He told me, “I have nothing to gain but a possible loss of reputation. If I have a bad night, that’s all that will be remembered, and my stock will plunge like beaver hats against silk in popularity. Fewer will be scared of me. More will be willing to try me.”

That made sense to me.

While we was pulling out our paper and clay targets from the saddlebags, laying out our ammunition on a blanket, Bill said, “I have spoken to Jack McCall.”

“One was with that bunch at the Gem?” I realized I hadn’t seen him about town with the others.

“The very same broken-nose, wandering-eye son of a bitch. He has given me some information, but its usage might be more important if we consider the source. He is telling me what we already know. This fellow you call Ruggert and I call Yule Log wants you dead. And now that you’ve told me the story I know why, though it makes about as much sense as spit-polishing a pickle. He has plenty of help beyond them we’ve seen. You degraded many a white man in your job as bouncer. Sometimes in front of white women.”