Paradise Sky

I know the man you are after may well be the leader of this gang, as he fits the description, and I hesitated for some time if I should tell you about him. I know how your heart cries out for vengeance, but I don’t want to be the one to lead you into something you might not get out of. As your friend and biographer, I thought it right of me to inform you of this change of events and to inform you I have heard and read in the newspapers that he and his gang have moved into the Indian Nations, where they figure to go about their robbing sprees with greater ease. I know you are near there.

I am living in Dodge and have taken up with a young lady who I might marry if I don’t wear her tail out first. I thought I should try it for a while and see how I feel a year from now. We are, I guess, engaged. She has spent nearly all the money I have gotten from the books. I have two more payments that will be sent to me, and they send me several copies, so if you want these further adventures of Deadwood Dick, all you have to do is let me know, and I will mail them to you wherever your address might be.

If you are back in Dodge, look me up.

Forever, as always, your dear friend,

Bronco Bob, Esquire

P.S. I really am sorry there was no money, but the girl, her name is Beatrice, is expensive and worth it, and surely I will make enough to give you your share in time if we both live long lives.

Now, that was a turn of events, all right.

I hated what I had heard about the kid, but the idea that I might have some kind of lead on Ruggert, vague as it might be, was inspiring. I was thinking on how I might go about hound-dogging that lead when I remembered the letter from Cullen.

I hesitated opening it. I ate my sandwich and drank my sarsaparilla. I looked at the sun, determined I probably had about fifteen minutes before I was supposed to go back to work.

Finally I took a deep breath and tore the letter open.

Dear Nat,

I am glad to have heard from you, and I read your letter with great interest. I should say up front that Wow is doing well, and so are the other China girls. I think the one whose name always seems different was indeed messing with me. I think she finally told me her real name, but you know what? I can’t remember it. It’s harder to remember than the names she made up, so I just call her Peg Leg Pete. She doesn’t seem to mind. She and the other girls come by to see us from time to time, and they have all spent time with Win.

I read aloud to Win what you wrote to her, but she didn’t seem to understand it or who it was from. I’m sorry. But that’s how it was. She asks for water now and again. She never asks for food, though we try to make sure she’s fed. This is not always successful. She doesn’t have much of an appetite, and I must confess she has grown quite thin and pale.

We have had a couple of doctors come to see her, but their verdict is that she has ceased to thrive, which is what they say when they think she has just quit, doesn’t care anymore. I hate to lay it out like that, but here it is, Nat.

Wow and the China girls have been through much of what Win has been through and maybe some worse. I don’t say this to say Win is weak but to say some manage to get past it, and some do not. There is no way of knowing what all experiences were in Win’s background that led to her current state. I was told that by Wow, by the way.

I must be very blunt with you, Nat. The weather here is terrible, and I wouldn’t want you to saddle up and come this way for fear you might not make it. But you must brace yourself to the idea that Win may not see the spring flowers bloom, and if she does she may soon be underneath them. I want you to understand the depth of her despair. She is lost inside her head, and I fear there may be no way back out.

As for your vengeance ride, I would not continue it. I am glad, as of your letter, that you caught up with Golem, and I am glad you and me and Bronco Bob put the burn on those others, but Ruggert, if he has gone on to leave you alone, might be best left alone.

Lastly, I can’t predict the weather, but it might be best to come as far as Dodge and be ready for when the weather changes. I would hope you will be here to see her at least one more time.

Perhaps she will rally. After you left she seemed better for a time and even played her flute. Then she laid it aside, and not a peep since. It seems to me she is having a harder and harder time identifying me, Wow, or any of the girls. She never leaves the house, as the weather is too bad, and she is too ill to leave now. She mentioned the hill once. That’s all she said. “The hill.” And then she said, “Nat.” And neither your name nor mention of the hill has come again. It’s like the last of what she knew of life had gone out with those words.

Forgive me for writing such a sad and direct letter, but when you can, keeping in mind you do no one any good if the weather captures you and kills you, please come back. Forget Ruggert. I can’t say Win needs you, as I can’t say she knows what she needs anymore. Still, I feel you would like to be here for the end, which is undoubtedly coming. Be assured if you ca

With sadness in my heart, but with great memories of you still,

Cullen

Now, I’ve said that I have had some low moments, but not even when I was wrapped in that cowhide and Win and Madame had been taken from me, have I felt lower than I felt in that moment. I could hardly stand up when it came time to go back to work; stu

When the day was over I went to the only place I knew to go, Luther and his family. I went there, and they was glad to see me. Luther had some rocks laid in a circle outside his wagon, and it was there they cooked when the weather was dry. As I came up, he stood from where he was squatting near the fire, stirring it up with a stick. Leaning against the wagon was a coffin he was building out of white pine. He had been shaving it down and sanding it, as there was sawdust on the ground by it.

“Nat,” he said. “How are you?”

“I ain’t so good,” I said.

About then Ruthie walked up, as she had been busy about her toilet in the woods, or so I guess. Samson stuck his head out of the wagon. “Hi, Nat.”

I greeted him and Ruthie. They had dragged some logs around the fire spot, and I sat on one of those without being asked. Luther said, “You need to say a thing or two, Nat?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Don’t think on it too hard. Have a cup of coffee and see how you feel then. You haven’t anything to say, don’t say it. If you do, well, I’ll listen. If you prefer the children go off, and you just want to talk to me, that can be arranged.”

“I’m a grown woman,” Ruthie said.

“Maybe just enough in years to call yourself that,” Luther said. “But you’re still a child as far as I’m concerned.”

I looked at Ruthie. Even in my deep bewilderment I had to say she looked womanly to me. She had really come into her own after we had arrived in Fort Smith.

Luther had a pot of coffee on the fire, and he got a rag and lifted it out, poured me a cup. I sipped it. If it was hot, cold, fresh, or old, I couldn’t have told you. It was like my taste quit working.

“Well, then,” Luther said. “Let me tell you our plans. Our relatives, the ones here. They aren’t here now. Least not alive. The influenza killed them well before we arrived.”

That pulled me out of my own pit. I said, “I’m sorry, Luther.”

“Well, it’s not like we knew them that well, but we have brought my dear wife home and our faithful dog, and they are both going to be buried.”

“Together?” I asked.

“Separate holes,” Luther said.

“Of course,” I said. “I see a coffin is almost ready.”