Paradise Sky

“Yes, sir,” Red said.

“You got a few ma

“An old woman took me in for a year, and then she died. I didn’t tell no one right away, cause I figured I’d have to leave her house, and the weather was bad. I stayed there awhile longer, then she took to stinking too bad. I was going to bury her in the night, but she died in her big cloth chair and I waited too long and she melted into it. Her and that chair was one and the same. I was too little then to drag it. I just left. Someone finally found her, cause of the stink, and dogs had broken in and eaten part of her. I heard all about it on the street. She was buried sitting in that chair, or what was left of her, as most of her by then was in the cushions. She loved that chair, though. She was the one taught me ma

“We get the idea,” Bronco Bob said. “Here is another thing. From here on out, you’ll take a pinch of salt, and when we have it, soda, and you will fray a small stick and dip it in the salt and clean your teeth with it. You almost got enough growth on your teeth there to cut and wi

Bronco Bob opened his bag, took out a small willow stick that was bunched up with others in a tied bundle, and handed it to him. It was a trick we all used to keep our teeth clean—that and a finger dipped in salt rubbed on the gums as well. Bronco Bob followed this up with a pinch of salt he put in the boy’s palm.

“Now, son, you spit in your hand, on the salt, fray that stick with your teeth, then use the frayed end and the salt to clean yourself. You start on it tonight so we don’t have to look at that grass growing on them in the morning. When we get somewhere where we can buy it, we’ll get some baking soda or tooth powder. You do that maintenance every day, and they’ll clean up. I got a mirror you can see into during the day, and you can do a more serious job of it. That will be your job until we arrive where we are going.”

It was a long ride, and we did see some Indians, but they looked more ragged than Red. They was few in numbers and kept their distance. We passed buffalo hunters and ski

We didn’t spend any friendly time with them, as me and Bronco Bob was not taken by their lot, and neither was we proud of their profession. We came across carcasses of them buffalo they had shot and ski

Anyway, we passed them and others, folks in wagons heading out to Deadwood for the mining, though the finds there was already playing out. We did camp with them a time or two, though there was those, mostly Southerners, who didn’t like the idea of being so near a colored on the prairie, thinking I might in the night murder them all and rape the women. Mostly folks was friendly, though. We asked if they had seen a burned-up man or a big fellow with a mark of some such on his forehead.

No one said they had at first, but when we was near across Nebraska, a man and woman with two young children told us they had in fact seen the burned-up man, and he had bummed a meal from them. They felt sorry for him and fed him supper, and come morning he decamped early, taking with him their frying pan, a bag of sugar, and some bacon. We hastened to add he wasn’t no friend of ours, and we was after him for other reasons, but didn’t dig into the details.

“It just goes to show, a fellow burned up like that might not need no more pity than a fellow that ain’t burned up,” the woman said. “He was just as bad as if he was everyday-looking.”

When we was back on the ride, Bronco Bob repeated the woman’s lines to me, the ones about a burned-up fellow not being necessarily any better than one that wasn’t. “There is a philosophy in there somewhere,” he said.

We rode on across Nebraska and come to the state of Kansas. We was certain of when we come to it, as Bronco Bob had traveled all that area when he was living off shooting matches. There wasn’t much out there in Kansas (not that there had been much in Nebraska), and I have to say I didn’t take to it at all. It was just too wide with nothing on it but tall grass. Bronco Bob said it was so tall cause there wasn’t enough buffalo coming through anymore, least not in the numbers they once was. Considering all those rotting carcasses we’d seen, this was understandable.

Along the way we started teaching Red how to better handle himself in polite society. We made sure he understood that farting at a meal was not a sign of respect for the vitals but was foul. We explained women especially disliked this, and when it was built up in you too tight, you had to find a place by yourself and let it go. I had learned this from Colonel Hatch back at the fort during my soldiering days.

We taught him that clean hands was best for eating, when you could wash them, and if you had a chance to eat with a knife or spoon you ought to. We discouraged eating with a knife, unless that’s all you had or there was no women around, which was our case right then.

Bronco Bob showed the boy a few boxing moves, and it was fun to see Bob dancing around, quick on his feet, his fist held up, throwing punches. He taught the boy how to do it, and they had a few matches, thumping each other in the chest, avoiding the head. I even took to doing it, too. I learned more about fisticuffs than I knew there was to learn. I thought before it was just about who was the strongest and how fast you swung your arms, but Bronco Bob taught me different. I couldn’t lay a hand on him, even though I was bigger and taller. Had he not been hitting me in the chest and ribs and pulling his punches, I would surely have taken a beating, especially if he decided to include punches to the head.

Red took to boxing and really seemed to enjoy it, though he always moved as if his ankles was tied together. He had good hands but not good feet. He couldn’t dance about and move like Bronco Bob, who said people use the weight of the arms too much, don’t apply the twisting of the hips, which he felt was the secret of success as a pugilist, as he referred to himself.

We also taught Red about gun shooting, and we was the right ones to do it. Still, Red had a knack right from the start, more so even than with boxing. He could hit targets right away, and he seemed to be one of those like me—if I do say so myself, and I do—who instinctively has an ability to point the gun and shoot and figure on its rise and sighting mostly by touch alone.

Red wasn’t no gun hand, but he was well on the way to being one if he wanted to put in the work. I even gave him my old Navy Colt and some shells. I figured with the Colt, LeMat, and Winchester Mr. Loving gave me, I was armed enough for most anything and could spare the pistol. Bronco Bob gave him a derringer, which is a good weapon if you can hold your man down and put it to his forehead, shoot him with it, and then go to beating on him with the butt of it to make sure he feels something.

By the time we got to Dodge City, Kansas, Red could shoot and box well enough, and his teeth was cleaned up and he had learned how to comb his hair and put a part down the middle. That red hair looked mighty odd to me, and the part in the middle made it look like someone had dragged a rake through some blooded grass. But over the weeks he had actually put on a few pounds, as had the mule, and had started to look manly.