Paradise Sky

He had his own water pump in there, and I worked the handle and cleaned up as best I could. Then Cecil came out with some clothes and told me to change into them. They wasn’t much—a ragged shirt and some worn pants and patched socks—but I took them gladly. I stripped, washed myself good, dressed, then washed my manure-stained, brand-new red shirt, scrubbed my pants with a bar of lye soap Cecil had, and laid them over the top slat of one of the pens.

“You can pick your clothes up here tomorrow,” he said. “Keep them ones you got on, you want to. Man left all his belongings here a year ago and never came back. I sold his horse and saddle and other goods already. I figure he got dead somewhere.”

I nodded and went back out onto the street.

A hell of a roundup was going on. Cowboys was in the streets, trying to herd them cows. They was hooting and hollering and driving the cattle back up the street. I damn near got horned a couple of times but made my way to the hotel.

When I got inside, looking out the windows was a bunch of folks that was housed there, among them Bronco Bob and Red. They was at the window by the door. As I come in, Bronco Bob raised his eyebrows. I got my key at the desk, leaving everyone to the show at the window. I hadn’t no more than started up the stairs than Bronco Bob and Red was beside me.

“How come I have this feeling you didn’t just go out to change into those old clothes?”

“Because I didn’t,” I said.

We went upstairs into my room. I felt like everything around me was closing in. The walls seemed tight, and the gaslights seemed dim. I said, “I’m leaving tomorrow, boys. I have a direction on Ruggert.”

“I could go with you,” Bronco Bob said.

“Don’t change your plans now,” I said. “You said you was through when you got to Dodge. Stick to it. You’ve been good friends. That is enough.”

“I have really felt good riding with you,” Red said, and hung his head, like it was uncomfortable to meet my eyes.

“I borrowed this derringer,” I said, holding it out to him.

“I come to know it was missing when I put on my boots,” Red said as he took it. “I didn’t figure it was anyone else other than you that took it.”

“I have underrated this little gun,” I said. “It needs reloading.”

Next morning I wrote a letter to Win, though I wasn’t even sure she would read it, and a letter to Cullen. I wrote them out and at breakfast downstairs gave Bronco Bob some money for posting them, asked if he’d mail them the next time he went past the post office.

I shook hands with him and Red, trucked over to the livery, and when a crowd of cowboys left out of there after doing business, I got my clothes, which was now dry, and put them on. I rolled up the ones Cecil had given me in my bedroll, saddled my horse, collected my guns, and went to pay up.

“You can keep your money,” Cecil said. “You done them women a favor last night.”

“I would have done it anyway,” I said.

“It don’t matter. You done it. Keep your money. Tell you another thing. They found that big moose in the alley, but not before they ran some of the cows through there and pe

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re shy of money, there’s a colored preacher and his children want to go to Arkansas, and they’d like to have a gun hand. I don’t know how you’re set for plans. Pays meals and company and a few dollars. They got a cow with them, so that means fresh milk.”

I didn’t really want company, but meals and money and fresh milk might be nice. I was getting down to the dregs.

“Where would I talk to them?” I asked.

“They were here this morning. Told them I knew a man leaving today might be interested in riding along, a man that had some gun skills but wasn’t no gunman by trade. I threw that in to make you sound better as a person.”

“Thanks. And I’m not a gunman by trade.”

“They’re on the far side of town, a half mile out of it. They’re living out of a mule-drawn wagon. Seem nice enough folks. What might be a thought is to ride out there and talk to them, take their measure, if your plans are loose enough.”

“I’ll think on it,” I said.

I put my rifle in the saddle sheath, led Satan out to the street, and swung onto his back. He trotted along comfortably, having enjoyed his rest at the barn. We passed the hotel. I looked up at the window where my room was. I didn’t see anybody there.

I rode south with it in mind not to stop and talk to anyone. But the farther I got out of town, the more I began to think about having my meals given to me and some money to boot. I didn’t have anything but a few dollars, a canteen full of water, and enough jerky to last for a day or two—three if I let my belly growl a little. I’d have to depend on game appearing and my marksmanship to feed myself.

It was the idea of company I didn’t like. My heart wasn’t in it. Truth was, as of that morning I had been looking forward to being alone for a while. The thought of that had been like a tasty fruit, the tomato being a member of the nightshade family notwithstanding.

But it was a long ways to Texas, and the more I figured on it, the more I thought it might not be bad to take it by way of Arkansas.

27

I seen the wagon and the mules, a cow roped to the back of it. There was a big colored man sitting on the wagon with the reins in his hand, a pipe tucked up in his mouth, and clouds of smoke floating up from it.

Truth was, though I was wearing a coat of high, cold lonesome, I knew within a day or two I’d start to miss someone to jabber with. I like to be alone from time to time, and that’s what I had been considering, but basically I am the friendly sort. My pa was a talker, as long as the day’s work was done. Told stories, let me know all the things about my mother I didn’t know about (this after she died), and they was all good things. He told me about himself, how it was to be a slave in the old days, and how happy he was I had only been one for a short time. He told stories about jaybirds and dogs and wild hogs and stories he said came from way cross the ocean, where there was a country full of colored people, which I later learned from Mr. Loving was some place on a continent called Africa. Pa had a way of telling stories that made you want to sit up on your hind legs, throw up your front paws, and beg for more. Mr. Loving was like that, and even Wild Bill could be that way.

As I was looking at the man, he turned his head toward me and lifted his hand. I guess he figured I had to be who Cecil told him about, as I was the only colored riding along the road out of town. A slip of a girl dropped out of the back of the wagon and come walking around to get a look at me. She was dark of skin and lean, but with good hips. She wore a faded calico dress that might have once been green and blue, and had on a white bo

When I was up to the wagon, I seen the large man was really compact. You might think him fat at first glance, but he wasn’t. He was as skin-tight as a wild animal, but he had a hard plumpness about him, as if the sack of skin he wore wasn’t quite enough to hold all his muscles. His head was large and rolled about on his neck like a boulder, and his face glistened he was so black. His eyes was just as black. He had a wide and friendly face with a smile full of white teeth. I couldn’t help but be drawn to him. He climbed down off the wagon to greet me. It was like he come unwadded and grew to a height well over my own. He was bigger than Golem had been. His arms was about the size of my legs, and his legs was about the size of me.