Paradise Sky

I managed during this time to write some letters. I wrote one to Cullen, even sent one to Dodge City in hopes Bronco Bob was still there. I wrote that lawyer in East Texas, even though I didn’t have my papers Mr. Loving had given me. I wrote him and told him I had them, and I sent it to his name in care of general delivery.

In the letter to Cullen, I gave very detailed accounts of my travels, though I left Ruthie out of it except for mentioning her name as Luther’s daughter. I put in things for Win, tried to touch on a number of events she might find amusing, even though I didn’t know for a fact any of it would mean a thing to her. I asked about her playing the flute and mentioned our fine place on the hill, in a very modest way; told her I was tight on the trail of Ruggert and had only stopped in Fort Smith for supplies, which was a mild lie. I was neither on Ruggert’s trail nor merely stopping for supplies. I was at a standstill. But that’s how I told it, and then closed out with all my love to all of them. I thought I ought to write Win her own letter but decided against it. If she was still confused, it was better I kept things general, let her hear it from Cullen. Maybe that way some of it would sink in.

In Bronco Bob’s letter I was even more entertaining, and I threw in a couple or three lies to liven up the whole thing where I thought it might be sagging. I mailed the letters with hopes of them all finding their intended, then waited for a reply.

One day as I was sweeping out the store, I came out on the front porch and seen a big colored man riding on a sorrel horse. He sat straight in the saddle, had a bushy mustache, and wore a ten-gallon hat and a shiny badge. He looked firm as an oak tree. He had a rope leading from his saddle horn to another horse behind him, and on the horse was a white man big as the man leading him. He was hatless, riding with his head down, his hands tied together in front of him to the saddle horn. He looked as if he had been chewed on by a cougar.

There was another colored fella working there with me by the name of Washington, and he walked up beside me to see the man ride by. He was somewhat younger than me, a boy, really.

I said, “He’s got on a marshal badge.”

“Marshals wear them,” Washington said.

“They got colored marshals?”

“Judge Parker does. That there’s the toughest and best marshal there is, black or white, red or brown. That’s Bass Reeves. You don’t want him after your ass, cause he’ll sure as hell find you. Want to fight, he’ll fight, and he’ll bring you back lying across that horse if need be. That fella there, looks like he wanted to fight. Lucky he’s alive.”

“A colored marshal. I’ll be damned,” I said.

“Most of us are,” Washington said, “and you going to be damned and without a job you stay out here on the porch too long.”

I went back to work, but by pure chance my stepping out on that porch and seeing Bass Reeves was to change my life more than a little bit. But that was to come.

As time went on I began to save some money back. I visited with Luther, Samson, and Ruthie on a regular basis. Ruthie still said she talked to ducks, or would if she could find one. She said in the meantime she listened to the mockingbirds and took in what they had to say. It wasn’t about much, she explained, but they was upset about how many trees was being cut. I can’t say for sure that was accurate, having never spoken with a mockingbird myself, but I decided to take her word for it.

I missed Win, but all things considered it wasn’t a bad life, and I admit to the fact that I was begi

My habit of working and visiting with Luther and his family was spun to the four winds when I went to the post office one Tuesday. I did this daily after the first week of writing those letters. On that day, after waiting a month or more, a letter and a package showed up. The letter was from Cullen, and the package was from Bronco Bob. Both, of course, had come to me general delivery, Fort Smith, Arkansas.

It was noon, and I was on my lunch break. I had a bottle of sarsaparilla and a couple of fresh-cut slices of bread and a slab of cheese. I put the cheese between the bread and sat down under a tree out back of the store. I rested the bottle on the ground, the sandwich on my knee, and held the letters in my hands. The letter from Cullen was the most tempting, as I felt it might hold news of Win. I decided as it was the most important, I’d read it last.

I laid it on the ground beside me and opened the package from Bronco Bob.

Inside was a letter and a dime novel. The novel was titled: The True Life Adventures of Deadwood Dick.

Dear Friend Nat,

It was a pleasure to receive a letter from you and to hear of your time on the trail and your friendship with Luther and Ruthie and Samson.

As I promised you, I have written up your adventures and have managed to place three novels based on them. I am happy to say they are selling well, though by the same token I am not getting rich, and so far I have no money from them for you. I should also add they wouldn’t let my hero be colored, so he has become white. Still, he is based on your adventures, the ones you told me about on the trail when we were with the redheaded boy who is now better known as Kid Red. I will come back to him.

Anyway, if there is any money to be made beyond my expenses on the dime novels, I will see that you get some of it. I will write a new story that will tell of your leading a wagon train through the Ozarks and how you fought a cougar and Indians to get to Fort Smith. In fact I have already started the story. This one, you will see, covers mostly the time we fought those desperadoes that stole your girl and the old woman and wrapped you in a cowhide. I gave the Indians you told me about a bigger part, and just so it would be sure to be exciting, I added more men to the final gunfight. I also gave myself and Cullen bigger roles than we actually had in the gunfight, but not so much that there isn’t some truth to it, though I thought the part about the trained circus lion taught to attack at the use of a foul word (that I left u

I added in a wild dog who only answered to your commands as well, and the dog died bravely while battling the lion, managing to drive itself and the lion off a cliff in the process. I hope that will be okay. I figured if someone figured out the story was actually about you, then you wouldn’t have to explain where the dog was. He has been taken care of.

As for Kid Red. Well, Nat, he has gone bad and become a gunman. He got so good with the pistols, having had good training from me and you, he began to enter shooting contests, as I used to do and as I now and again still do when the money dries up. He acquired quite a name around Dodge. But he also took to carrying his pistols in town, hidden under his coat, and he took to drinking something furious. I regret the day I took him to a saloon to toss back one. That is on me.

Thing is, while drunk, he got in an argument with a man in a saloon and shot and killed him. He also shot a saloon girl who screamed when he shot the man. I guess the scream made him jerk around or something, because he wheeled about and shot her right through the head. He hightailed it, and word around Dodge is that he joined up with a gang of thieves noted for robbing travelers on the trail, and as of late they have taken to a couple of banks and are currently, like Jesse James, robbing trains; it is said he and these men are led by—and I want you to hold on to yourself here—a man scarred by knife and burns. He has four men in his gang at all times and sometimes more. The kid has gone bad, Nat, and that is all there is to it.