Paradise Sky

I agreed I was the same.

“I am Bronco Bob, and this here is Tim.”

“Jim,” the boy said.

“I will call you Tim,” Bronco Bob said, then turned back to me. “I have been hired by Mr. Ruggert to shoot against you, meaning he has covered a number of bets in my favor. I have heard a few say you are quite the shot, though none of them can claim to have actually seen you shoot. I think their judgments are based on the say of the lately departed Wild Bill Hickok, God bless his gambling, whoring soul. I knew him well at one time, back in Abilene. I was just Bob Bre

“There are nine other men shooting here tonight,” I said. “They may prove to be of an ability better than either of us.”

“If the rumors are correct concerning you—and those about me are quite true, I assure you—it will be up to you and me. Maybe one other, Prairie Dog Dave Jiggers. I shot against him once, a year back, in Fort Smith. He is no slouch.”

“Fortune has a way of shifting in near any direction,” I said.

“It does, at that. But them that prepare have better fortune than those who don’t. Gun shooting is a science, but it is also an art, and those of us who are artists do better in the long run than those that are merely scientists. They know how it works and which way to point it, but we feel how it works and feel which way to point it.”

“That so?” I said.

“Creativity is far more important than skill alone, though you got to have one for the other to matter. That big loop rifle is quite nice. Made for you?”

“In a ma

“Let me add that though I have been hired to shoot against you, it’s nothing personal. It’s my profession. I would have been here anyway. I have a piece of the side bets provided in my name by Mr. Ruggert if I win. And I intend to. But that is where our contest ends.”

“Very well,” I said.

“And if I should lie about such, may these men crowding around me blow my head off.”

“We will,” Tater said. “And then shit in your mouth, if you got a mouth left.”

Bronco Bob looked at Tater, said, “That could be most unpleasant for me if you fail to do them in the order suggested.”

He tipped his big ole hat, and he and the boy went stepping away from us.

“What do you think, Nat?” Charlie asked, handing me back my rifle.

“I think he speaks truly,” I said. “There was no need for him to speak to me at all.”

“To throw you off guard,” Tater said, and the other men nodded and grumbled about for a few seconds.

“I take him at his word,” I said.

“Good enough,” Charlie said, “but if you’re wrong, and he kills you, know we will take care of him and bury you some place nice, but with a service less fine than Bill’s. Another funeral like that and we’ll have to take up honest work to pay for it.”

“I suppose that’s some sort of comfort,” I said.

By this time that Chauncey fellow was calling for all the shooters to come to the scratch line. Charlie and the others wished me well, and I went over to where the other shooters had gathered.

“Now, this here is going to be as fair as if God himself was here to take score and say how things was done,” Chauncey said. “I want that figured on right now, provided any of you think you’re going to get away with buckshot in a pistol or some such fool shenanigans. Me and the judges is wise to all that. I’m the referee, and I will call any stepping over the line right away. For that matter, I’ll call anything I think of as unfair. The judges will make conclusions on who has shot what if there should be any confusion or disagreement. Their word is final. We ask you to leave, you leave, or we’ll all give you a whipping. Everybody understand that?”

We all agreed we did.

“Now, what I’m going to do is put some slips of paper we got here, stick them in my hat, and you’re going to draw numbers as to when you shoot. Understood?”

Again we all agreed.

Chauncey took the slips of paper, which he had produced from his coat, took off his hat, and dropped the slips inside it. He held the hat about chin high and one at a time we all reached in and drew from it. I got the number 4. Prairie Dog drew 2. Bronco Bob drew 8. Number 1 was a big blustery fellow with leather holsters and his guns stuck down in them in such a way that if he had to pull them it would be like reaching into a sack to find them. I figured him to be out of business right quick. He didn’t know how to carry guns, then most likely he didn’t know how to shoot them. The others drew until all ten of us had numbers.

I sca

I glanced around some more, seen Ruggert had a seat in a chair in the front row of the blocked-off street. I hadn’t noticed him at first, there being a crowd of men standing in front of him, but now they had all gone to find their spots, and the view was clear. I seen Weasel and Golem coming along through a split in the chairs that had been set out, and they was followed by seven or eight other men. It was easy to see they was all together, and all of them had the same sour face of men who had been paid to do something distasteful. I had an idea what that might be.

Charlie eased up beside me, said, “We see them. You concentrate on your shooting, and we’ll concentrate on them.”

“Thanks,” I said.

We was all called to the scratch line, and according to number took our places in front of our targets—the corked bottles, about forty feet away. That’s a damn good shot for a pistol.

“Way we do is we go by numbers, and if there is any man in line don’t know numbers, let him speak now,” Chauncey said.

A man standing to my left, who looked old enough to have lived when Methuselah was a child, said, “I don’t know writing, and I can’t add too good, but I know numbers. I know my number.”

“Then you didn’t need to say nothing, now, did you?” Chauncey said.

“Guess I didn’t,” the man said and looked forlorn, having brought up his lack of certain skills to no good purpose.

“It ain’t nothing,” I said. “I can’t add so good, neither.”

He worked his mouth into a grin. “Lots of people can’t,” he said.

“There you have it,” I said.

“Now,” Chauncey said. “Everyone knows their target, which if you are in line proper is the one in front of you. We will begin with the first round. Everyone has to make the first round or they are out. No one survives the first round, we have another round for all you lousy shots. No one makes the second round, then we retire for the afternoon in mortification. Understood?”

There was some nervous laughs along the line, but we all agreed we understood.

“You got to hit the cork, which may bust the bottle,” Chauncey said. “But if the bottle busts and the cork ain’t hit, it don’t count. Any quarrel, we look at the cork. Number one, get ready.”

I took cotton balls from my pockets and stuffed them in my ears and took a deep breath. I was ready as I was going to get.

Number 1 couldn’t have hit his own chin with his fist. He was out, and by the second round it was down to those who was going to be there for a while. I was among them, of course. So was Prairie Dog and Bronco Bob and a little fellow I had never seen before, number 10. He could shoot really well and was always looking back at the crowd between shots, showing them the tobacco he was chewing when he gri

We set to shooting ten targets apiece, still corks, but not in bottles this time. They was tied to strings dangling from those stretched-across ropes. You had to hit six to stay in for the next round. Second round you had to do better. My Colts shot smooth, and I hit nine out of ten my first run, the far one on the right being a little off-angle for me, and I think maybe the wind kicked up a bit.