Paradise Sky

“You been through a lot. You got to sit down here, against the rocks.”

She did, then said, “Your friend is wounded.”

Bronco Bob was on the ground, but before I could reach him he was already getting up. “I am not hit,” he said.

“The hell you ain’t,” I said and touched his arm gently where it was turning wet.

“Oh, hell. Yes, I am. Ah, shit. I won’t live to write about it.”

He sat down in a way that made you think his legs had been sawed off under him. I used the bullet hole in his shirt to get my fingers in and rip it open for a look. The fire crackled and gave me light. “You got a hole through the meat at the top of your shoulder, more of a groove, really. It ain’t so bad.”

Bronco Bob said, “Shit. That is good news. Good,” and then he fainted straightaway.

Cullen came over, said, “You get the one left. I will take care of Bronco.”

He went to tearing Bronco Bob’s shirt some more, using a piece to plug into the wound and another strip to bind it.

It will sound harsh, but these many years later I am dedicated to the truth, mostly, so I will tell you this honestly. Though bad off, one or two of them men we discovered was still alive. If we had loaded them in the wagon and hauled them back to Deadwood, which was a two- to three-day ride, they might have lived. Thing was, we didn’t want them to. I caught up Satan, tied him to the wagon, got my rifle, and walking by them wounded men I admit to you I shot them the way you would a dying horse.

After that I went after the kid.

I trotted in the direction I had seen him take, and wasn’t long before I could hear him breathing ahead of me, trying to climb into the rocks, dribbling pebbles and dust down on me. I climbed up after him. When I got to the top, the sun was bleeding through the trees, and I seen blood drops on the rocks, glimmering like rubies. One of us had hit him. I kept on the trail and climbed up to where it was flat, near where I had cut the lookout’s throat. I seen him then. He was ru

I was on him then. When he tried to roll over and draw his guns I had a bead on him with my rifle. He looked frantic. His hat was pushed up on his head, and his blond hair hung out long like a woman’s; his face was as soft as one’s, too.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” he said. “I was made to do it.”

I squatted down and held the rifle on him. He took his hands off his pistols, turned them palms-open.

“I didn’t want to,” he said. His voice was squeaky, like his balls hadn’t yet dropped. “But they said I had to. I ain’t nothing but a kid. I got a girl back home. Me and her are going to get married soon as I get a job.”

I could see the fear on his face, hear it in his voice. I couldn’t help but think of that time I was being chased by Ruggert through the swamps back home, how I had felt about it, the way my heart beat and my head buzzed.

“I didn’t mean to have it happen,” he said. “I was just caught up in it. If you and she had been white, I wouldn’t have had nothing to do with it.”

That’s when I shot him, and I tell you, to this day he’s the only one I feel a little guilty about. It’s not a guilt that shows up much, but it’s there, and about once a year, for a few minutes when I’m shaving, I feel it.

24

I will make short work of our trip back to Deadwood, for that was the only wise place to go under the circumstances. We didn’t bury a one of those men but left them to the things that wiggle and the things that fly.

We gathered their weapons and tossed them in the wagon, took their horses, which we tied to the back of the wagon, except for one animal Cullen took in place of his, and started back swiftly as we could, considering Win had taken considerable mistreatment and the wagon’s rumblings was hard on her aching body. I will not spend time on what was done to her. I think that is obvious, but she was not only mistreated in as vile a way as a woman can be, she was also sick and bloody and headwise confused. But that is enough. I’ll draw the curtain on that.

Before we got back we seen some Sioux, perhaps some of them that had painted my face white. There wasn’t too many, and as an Indian is a smart opportunist, they probably decided since we was on horseback and well armed, the scuffle might not be worth the prize, so they let us go without bother.

We passed Weasel’s body, flocked with vultures, and when we did the birds rose up and flew away. Win asked if we would pause. I helped her out of the wagon, as she had grown mighty stiff. We did that so she could spit on his corpse. She was able to work up quite a wad and frighten a flock of i

Later, when we come to Madame’s body, Win found the strength to get out of the wagon again and look, to tell us that after the hooligans had done all they wanted, Golem twisted Madame’s neck like a chicken and threw her out of the back of the wagon, which is when he and Weasel went off together before having their divide. It was at that point, looking down on Madame, that some of Win’s mind took flight, and she didn’t say another word during our journey.

As for Madame, we had tools in the wagon, a shovel and hoe among them, some of our new supplies for a possible farm somewhere. It all seemed silly now, all those tools and supplies and nothing to do with them; it was like they was there to mock us.

We buried her out there on the plains, and Bronco Bob, who was also an ordained preacher of sorts, said some words over her. We gathered up a few stones and made a mound and went on.

Rolling into Deadwood, we was a despondent bunch, you can bet on that, and now me and Win had no home. When Madame and Win left their house there was no shortage of squatters waiting to move into it, and my little room was no longer mine, either. We ended up staying with Wow and Cullen in their small place, and Bronco Bob, having money and being white, went to the hotel, coming each day of the following week to check on mine and Win’s condition.

One day after a visit, I walked with him outside, said, “What do you think, Bronco?”

“Time could heal her.”

“What do you really think?”

“I can’t say for sure. Who can? But since you asked, I’m of the thought her spirit has gone out through a hole in the wind, and it’s not coming back. I say that knowing full well it’s only a guess. I had a cousin that had a very bad experience. She went through that hole, and somewhere her spirit is still rambling. One thing for sure, though: it never came home.”

“I must be hopeful,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

When I was able to slow down, what had happened to me took hold, and I was laid up for three days, hardly able to move. It was recommended by the China girls that I drink lots of water, and they brewed some foul-smelling stuff to drink as well; it tasted like someone had peed in some dirty water with a dog turd at the bottom. I resisted, but Ching-a-ling, as she was calling herself that week, insisted I drink it. I did, and I am here to say I think it did much for me, renewing my physical energy to such an extent I was out of bed by the end of the week. Or maybe I just wanted to get well so I didn’t have to drink any more of it, and that may have been its most important curing property.

It was slower for Win, there being more than just bruises and humiliation but an assault upon the spirit, as Bronco Bob called it. Sometimes I’d take her for a buggy ride up to our hill, but it was like riding around with a bag of flour, bless her heart. I had hoped for some renewed vigor by stirring old memories, but no correction of spirit was forthcoming.

Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and she would be in a corner, her back to the wall, her knees drawn up, and I would have to coax her back to bed, which was a pallet on the floor. I would try and hold her, but she wasn’t having any of that. I’m sure it made her think of other things.