Paradise Sky

So I inched onward, my hide prickling, and then, well, I don’t know what overcome him. Either he was bored with the whole thing, mad, or thought he had the advantage, because I hadn’t gone more than a few feet when a large shadow swelled up from behind one of the barrels. It was without question Golem. His pistol barked red fire, and mine barked back. He tried to shoot another time, but either his gun was empty or his hammer hit on a bad load. I fired with both pistols—two shots from the LeMat, one from the Colt. It made Golem dance about a little, and then he threw his pistol aside, snatched a barrel above his head, trash flying out of its mouth, and charged down the alley at me.

I couldn’t have missed him. It was like shooting at a buffalo tied to a tree. I fired two more shots, one from each pistol. Then that barrel come flying. I tried to dodge, but it hit me, and all the trash flew out. The Colt went skittering from my left hand. I fell on my back, tried to get up, my boot heels scratching in the dirt.

I flicked the baffle on the LeMat as Golem leaned over and grabbed my shirtfront, lifted me up like I was a pocket handkerchief. I stuck my pistol straight in his face and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun load roared like a lion.

There was a scream, high-pitched for a man of his size, and the next thing I know I’m on my back, and Golem is lying on the ground holding his face with both hands. I got up and eased over careful-like to look down on him. The light wasn’t good, but since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, I could see he was all shot up and bleeding right smart. He was still holding his face as if to keep it together, moaning and rolling his head from side to side. I couldn’t believe he was alive. I couldn’t believe he was sitting up. I squatted down beside him.

I said, “My name is Nat Love, as you may well know. I am also called Deadwood Dick, and you have wronged me and the woman I love.”

I know how that sounds, but that’s how I spoke to him, if not exactly those words, making it as dramatic as I could. It was stuff I had read out of that dime novel about Bill during that trip to the barber’s. “I have avenged that wrong, or will have done so shortly, as you’re shot up something awful and won’t be pulling daylight.” I think I even called him a scoundrel or a rascal. I hope I did.

A tooth dripped out from under his hands and fell between his legs.

Now that it was done, I didn’t feel all that satisfied. I won’t say that disappointment set in. I was glad I had done it, but seeing him suffer like that wasn’t giving me a bit of pleasure. I slipped the LeMat in my coat pocket, pulled the derringer out of it, stuck it into Golem’s ear, and cocked back the hammer.

He didn’t try to move away. In fact he quit rocking his head. Blood squeezed through his fingers and dripped. He pushed his head toward the derringer; let the barrel rest there like a steel earwig.

I heard him say in a voice that sounded as if he was trying to talk under water, “I’m God’s avenger. I’m not supposed to die.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” I said.

“I’m made of mud,” he said.

“Well, your mud’s got ru

He lowered his hands. A chunk of his face, including one eye, was gone. The other side of his face was riddled with buckshot. “This doesn’t make any sense. I can’t be hurt.”

I squeezed the trigger on that little gun, and the next moment he made a liar of himself. His hands fell loose from his ruined face, and his legs snapped apart, like he had mounted an invisible horse. He fell back so hard his head sounded like a bag of flour hitting the ground.

I saw then that a watch chain was dangling from his pocket and his turnip watch had fallen out of it. It was a lidded sort, and it had popped open, like maybe he had been trying to look at the photo inside of it in the dark before I come into the alley.

I tugged the watch loose of the chain. I don’t know why I did it, but I did. Maybe it was some kind of trophy.

I put the watch in my pocket, tucked the derringer away, gathered up my own guns, and hurried out of the alley.

When I got to the street it was full of cows. More had broke free of the pen. With all those cowboys firing pistols and hooting, the cattle had gone wild and were pounding down the street in a mad stampede. I got close to the buildings and kept walking. I seen a few of the critters had gone into the saloons as if to order beers. They was causing quite a ruckus. Women had gone to screaming and men was yelling.

I felt a little guilty.

I made my way to the livery, dodging horns and thousands of pounds of beef. I knocked on the wide door, and after a moment Cecil opened it a crack and let me inside. “Don’t let those cows in here,” he said, as if me and the cattle were plotting together to charge in and steal his cash box.

Inside the livery, I wandered over to some loose hay and sat down in it, my back to some slats that made up an empty horse pen.

Cecil stood over me, said, “You done it?”

“He ain’t with the world no more,” I said. “He’s gone back to mud.”

“What?”

“It ain’t worth the story, Cecil.”

“Any whores survive?”

“All of them, I think, but they was in a poor way, having been beaten by him. One of the girls was bad off. You might get a doctor over there.”

“You done a good thing,” he said. “You have done those whores right.”

“I did it for me,” I said.

“Maybe so, but it worked out for a lot of people. How do you feel?”

“I don’t feel all that good, to tell the truth.”

“All right, then. Stay settled there. I’ll get you a drink.”

“Just water,” I said.

“I got coffee.”

“That’ll do.”

He brought the coffee to me. It had a lot of sugar in it. I drank it, and it made me sick. I turned my head and threw up in the hay.

“Must be all the excitement,” he said.

“Something like that,” I said, leaning back against the pen, feeling like everything inside me was draining out.

Cecil went then to check on the whores and to get a doctor. He was gone for some time, and during that time I didn’t move except to fix myself another cup of coffee and sip on it. I kept it black. I think it was all that sugar that had made me sick, what with my stomach feeling as if it was turned over. I took Golem’s turnip watch from my pocket. It was silver, scarred and nicked up from having been carried in his pocket with coins and the like. I thumbed the lid open and looked at what was inside. It was a photograph of Golem with his hair shorter and slicked back and parted down the middle. His face looked firm and gentle, like life was good. There was a woman and a little girl in the photograph. The woman was nice-looking, with black hair in a bun. The child looked like the mother. I remembered what Bill had said about how Golem had lost his mind and killed them with an ax. Whatever had come over him, them deaths he caused had turned him into something new and wrong, and worse, sometimes I figured he knew it. I was surprised to find I felt a little sorry for him right then. I closed up the watch and tossed it into the hay. I didn’t like how it made me feel.

When Cecil came back, he said, “That colored whore will be laid up awhile, and she may have a hitch in her get-along.”

“How bad a trouble am I in?” I asked.

“You killed a man, but as far as I know ain’t nobody found the body. Mabel and the girls only tell it like he was there and jumped out of the window because he was drunk. That’s all they’re telling. They ain’t even saying you was there. I think you’re in the clear, but his body is damn sure going to show up, so my thinking is, far as Dodge goes, I wouldn’t linger. Nothing to tie you to him yet, but a whore might talk in time to someone, so I’ll say it again. I wouldn’t linger.”

I got to my feet, using the pen to lift me up. I hadn’t realized how much those cows had banged me around. I was terribly sore and weak. I gave my pistols back to Cecil.