Paradise Sky

When all the whooping and hollering had died down, I was given first place and the money I had been promised. I gave that straightaway to Charlie, who then brought me a wad of loot he and the others had collected on bets.

I stuffed it in my pocket without counting it, and we all walked to Win and Madame’s place on the hill. We relived the match over and over, and then when we was all tired of it, I took a break to wash the gun smoke off my face. Madame brought out some of her medicine and had a swig, then passed the bottle around. By the time it got back to her it was empty.

“Deadwood Dick,” Tater said, “ain’t that what that Bronco Bob called you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“For me, from now on and forever, that’s who you will be,” he said.

“Mr. Deadwood Dick is best,” I said.

There were some more laughs, but by now we was all starting to wind down. I realized by this time that I was exhausted. All the strain and worry of the match and concern over Ruggert’s men made me feel like I had done a day’s work with a pickax.

Charlie said, “We done our part. You have your money. We have ours for Bill’s widow, and you ain’t been shot.”

“Yet,” I said.

“Since you plan to leave our fair town, we can ride along with you until you are out of sight,” Charlie said.

I looked at the sky. It was not far off dark. It was hard to believe the match had gone on that long.

“No,” I said. “I think a crowd leaving town would only call attention to us. We’ll wait until the night is just about down on us, and we’ll depart.”

“We are packed and ready, Nat,” Madame said. “Though I bought a couple of cows.”

“What?” I said. “Why would you do that?”

“Milk,” Madame said.

“Ask a stupid question,” I said.

“Exactly,” she said.

“Then I suppose we’ll take your cows with us. Where are they?”

“Behind the shack.”

“It is nice to have fresh milk,” Tater said.

“That’s what I thought,” Madame said.

I looked at Win. She was laughing.

“You’re sure you don’t want us to follow you three and your cows out?” Charlie said.

“I’m sure,” I said.

I shook hands with Charlie and Tater and so on, and then they all went down the hill. I checked around for Ruggert, any of them men I thought to be his, especially Golem and Weasel. I was delighted not to see them.

The stars and moon hung bright in the sky, and our path through the hills was a good one. We had the wagon packed tight with goods, and Win and Madame was on the driver’s seat, Madame driving. The cows was tied to the back on lead ropes and were trotting along behind the double-mule-drawn wagon as smooth as if they had been training for just such a trip. I rode alongside the wagon on Satan with six hundred dollars and two bits in my saddlebags from the shooting match. Once I was away from everyone but Win and Madame, I had counted it out to myself. Twice. I couldn’t believe I had all that money. I was as rich as I had ever been, and though they say money don’t make you happy, it damn sure don’t hurt your feelings none.

Cullen rode with us until we was well out of town, then we stopped the procession and climbed down from our horses. Win and Madame came off of the wagon to bid him adieu, hugging him and telling him bye, then me and him shook hands. That wasn’t enough. That turned into a hard, and I like to think manful, hug. When we pulled apart we both had tears in our eyes.

“I will write you soon as I can,” I said. “And at some point I will have you mail me the papers I gave you to hold. We are gone south by tomorrow.”

Without another word, Cullen climbed on his horse and rode away. I climbed on Satan and watched him. He was waving his hat above his head as he galloped off.

It was my intention to travel about half the night, get some shut-eye, and start when we was comfortable the next day, knowing we wouldn’t always have a full moon to light us. But this night I wanted away from Deadwood, due to my worry about Ruggert and his men.

Now that we was out in the wilds, I began to have concerns about Indians. I worried enough about it that I stopped our procession twice to adjust pots and pans in the wagon that was clattering, so as to bring about silence. Bill once told me an Indian, even a deaf one, could hear a June bug fart under a bucket a half mile away.

I guess we traveled about half the night, and it was still a moonlit sky, when we stopped to rest. The air was cool, with a light wind, and it was comfortable. Win and Madame got ready to bed down in the wagon.

I hitched up the stock and fed them and staked them out. I put my bedroll out on the ground by my saddle, which I was going to use for a pillow, laid my rifle nearby, and wished me and Win could sleep together. But that might lead to Madame shooting me with her pistol.

I cleaned and reloaded my pistols and the rifle, which is a thing I do at the end of most days. The moonlight made it pretty easy to do, though I can do that job in the dark if need be. I listened to Win and Madame settling down inside the wagon. I was pretty excited, as I was about to start a new life with a fine woman.

I felt I needed to stay awake and on guard, and decided stretching out for a few minutes was all I required, then I would get up and keep watch until morning. I am ashamed to say that no sooner had I laid my head on the saddle than I was sound asleep.

I don’t know how much sneaking they had to do to get up on us, but I figure they could have ridden up on the backs of buffalo and been ringing cowbells and I wouldn’t have noticed. I awoke to a boot in my ribs.

When I opened my eyes, I was looking up into Ruggert’s ruined face. He was bent over me. “Did you sleep well, nigger?”

Actually I had, but the outcome of the sleep was nothing to brag about.

Weasel appeared above me, holding my rifle. He glared down and snickered, said, “I done got all your guns.” He said this because I had put a hand to where one of my pistols ought to be, but it wasn’t there.

“It wasn’t no problem,” Ruggert said. “Them rocks on the ground wasn’t no more asleep than you was.”

By this time I was sitting up, looking around. I seen Win and Madame was being pulled out of the wagon by Golem. Win wasn’t saying anything, but Madame was calling those men everything in the book. And when I say men, I mean quite a few of them. Twelve. I had seen most of them before, back in Deadwood at the shooting match, and they was a rugged bunch from a distance. Up close they was scarred and haggard-looking; all of them appeared on the edge of being too old to live comfortable on the frontier except one, a sixteen-year-old boy with a bit of fuzz on his chin. His eyes was darting about like fish in a bowl. He had on what looked like a new gun belt with deep holsters, the butts of his revolvers just showing. The belt was a little big for him, and he kept tugging it up.

They all had their heads turned toward Madame and her cussing, at least they did until Golem pulled Win along the ground from the shadow of the wagon and full into the moonlight. My blood chilled.

Ruggert looked at me, his eyes drooping, like maybe he was tired.

“Want to tip your hat now, you black son of a bitch?”

I said nothing.

“Chasing you, I have gone through much. A scalping, my face burned by savages with hot knives, my toes cut off by one of them, and thorns shoved in my dick, right at the tip, and deep down. Long thorns, you hear? I was cut on near all over, and all the while they’re doing it to me, you know who I was thinking of?”

“Jesus?” I said.

“Not at all. I thought of you, Willie—or is it Nat or Deadwood Dick, which is what they was calling you around town? I thought of your black face leering at my wife’s rear end. That’s what I thought of. And when you done that, you was disrespecting me, a white man. You was being bold, Willie, like you was good as me. It wasn’t about her ass, boy, it was about me and how I was being treated—that you, a nigger, would come through our yard without your head bent and your eyes on the ground, looking around like you was a white man with all its privileges.”