Paradise Sky

I swung off Satan, stuck out my hand to meet the big man’s. I learned from Wild Bill to always have the other hand ready to draw, and if you couldn’t shoot left-handed, it was best not to shake. But it wasn’t a way I wanted to live. In spite of all that had happened to me, I was by nature a trusting soul, or at least I wanted to be. My pa was like that. It seemed like a better way to live, and frankly I still hold by it. It has cost me some over time, but on the whole it has given me greater joy than not. That said, I didn’t throw alertness to the wind.

“Luther Pine,” he said. “Glad to meet you.”

“Likewise,” I said.

The girl came over then, loosening the bo

“This here is Ruthie, and this little troublemaker is Samson.”

Both of them said hi.

I greeted them both back, tried not to let my eyes linger too long on Ruthie, for there was something about her that held my attention. All right, let me be honest. She was a good-looking young woman, and I have the same animal in me that all men do. I was only looking, but I figured when you come across something pretty, you ought to take it in, same as watching a blue jay or a clear night sky. They’re a joy for the eyes.

“We can feed you, and I got twenty dollars if you complete the trip,” he said.

“I’m going to Texas,” I said. “I can get you to Arkansas, though, and then it’s up to you.”

“You been there before?”

“No, but I reckon I know the way well enough.”

Luther plumbed the depths of that idea like a well digger shoveling for water. I guess he struck it, cause he said, “I got the money for you when we get to Arkansas. Food along the way. You are responsible for your own sleeping arrangements, care of your horse. I have some grain for my mules, but there’s enough for your critter, too.”

“All right, ” I said, and we shook hands again.

“Are those your guns?” Samson asked me. He had been scooting over closer and closer to me so that his head was about even with where the butts of my revolvers was standing out of my coat pockets.

“Well, little sir,” I said. “They are indeed my guns, or I wouldn’t be wearing them.”

“Samson,” Luther said. “You will hold your talk for now. We need to go on.”

Samson scuttled to the back of the wagon and climbed in without another word.

“He is a scamp,” Luther said, “and I fear when a little older he will be about the devil’s business. I should know. I was there once myself.”

That’s when I remembered he was a preacher. “I think he’ll make a fine young man.”

“Actually, so do I,” Luther said.

“We’re glad to have you along,” Ruthie said.

So away we went. Me and Satan leading, mostly, but now and then dropping back behind the wagon to make sure it was settling good and the cow was all right; and when I was honest with myself, I knew I did it because Ruthie sat at the back and looked out. I looked at her so much a kind of guilt settled over me. What with Win up there in Deadwood waiting for the snow to fly, her mind drifting, it didn’t seem right for me to even look at another woman, even if it was just to raise my spirits.

In short time guilt settled on me heavy as stone, and I made a point of riding up front more, and when I took to the back of the wagon as a change of pace, I made myself concentrate on how well the big barrels (three to a side) was fastened on. The barrels had ribbons tied around them along with the ropes that held them. They was in different colors. Yellow, blue, red, and green, and they was tied off in firm bow knots.

First day out the sky turned the color of a pearl-handled revolver. Then it started raining. It rained hard right off, so I pulled on my slicker and we kept going. After a while it was too much on me, even with that rain slicker. Rain blew up under my hat and down the neck of the slicker and wetted my knees where they stuck out from under it. I rode back to the wagon and said how miserable I was. Way the wagon was set, Luther could sit back under the covering a bit, if not completely, and though he, too, had pulled on a rain slicker, he couldn’t avoid getting wet in the same way I was. He tugged the mules up and set the wagon brake, suggested I tie Satan off and climb up with him.

I did that. We settled in the wagon, putting our feet inside and turning on the driver’s boards so the rain was to our backs. We was mostly dry that way. It was the wind that hurt you, especially if you was soaked as I was. Under my slicker, my coat was damp, and so was my guns. I had brought my saddlebags inside with me. I had my gun-cleaning equipment there, along with extra ammunition and some rags. I unloaded the weapons and dried them and cleaned them and reloaded them.

“You seem quite concerned with your weapons,” Luther said.

“Indians or rowdies show up, you’ll be glad of that,” I said.

I looked up and seen Samson eyeing my every move. He was fascinated with those weapons. Ruthie had lit a lantern at the back of the wagon and was reading a book by its light. So far, me and her hadn’t had much to say to one another.

“Do you live by the gun, Nat?” Luther asked me.

“I try not to,” I said.

“I would hate to see a young man such as yourself let them be his guide through life,” he said.

“You didn’t hire me because you suspected I was a good conversationalist, now, did you?”

He laughed. “That is the truth. I have your guns in my hands through you. I’m not i

“I

“What sort of life do you want?” Luther asked.

I started in then about the farm I wanted. Said I had a few things I had to do first, but that was my plan. Settle down on a farm. I didn’t mention Win. I didn’t want to have to go into where she was and what condition she was in or how she had been put in her bad way.

“You should add prayer to your ambitions, son,” he said.

“I’ve had about as much luck with that as I have had with hoping,” I said.

He nodded, smiled pleasantly, the lantern light laying on one side of his face like a big swath of yellow paint. “Very well.”

I glanced up then, seen Ruthie had turned her head away from her reading and had set her eyes on me. I said, “What are you reading?”

“Ivanhoe,” she said.

“I read that myself,” I said, it being one of the books me and Mr. Loving had read together.

“The women in it seem fairly dumb and always have to be rescued. There’s times when I wish they would just get their heads chopped off.”

“But other than that you enjoy it?”

“I suppose I do,” she said. “Robin Hood is in it. I rather like Robin Hood.”

“Ruthie is one peculiar girl,” Luther said. “She wants to be a schoolteacher.”

“That sounds like a good idea for a smart woman,” I said.

“I agree,” said Luther, “and I second it. She’s just peculiar is all. She talks to ducks.”

“Birds in general,” Ruthie said. “They are good listeners.”

“She says they talk to her,” Luther said. “What can you do with a daughter who talks to ducks?”

I laughed. Then I saw Ruthie’s face. Hell, she and Luther was dead serious. That gal talked to ducks.

Luther changed horses, so to speak, said, “I’m a preacher, but I don’t take the Good Book just as it is.” He took a fat, floppy Bible from an open box, held it in my direction. “This is no more than a guide. I don’t believe that the words of the Bible are divine or to be taken exactly as is. There are as many bad things in the Bible as there are good, and the bad things are often held up as good because some Bible hero did it, and that doesn’t set right with me. The Old Testament I pass over completely. As for the New Testament, I follow Thomas Jefferson’s lead. I have underlined only the things that are said to have been spoken by Jesus. The rest is of no importance, really. The Beatitudes. How Jesus said we should treat people, do unto others as you would have them do unto you—those are the things I teach.”