Paradise Sky

“I have to go in now,” she said.

“Sure.”

“You will come by soon?”

“Couple of weeks. I think what you said about not having a ricochet is right. We wouldn’t want that.”

“No, we wouldn’t.”

I could smell her skin. It smelled like lilac soap. Her breath was like mint leaves.

I turned around and walked away, and I must tell you I wanted badly to turn back and look at her, maybe go back and plead with her to let me take her in my arms. But frankly, I was worried about that ricochet.

I was put with Bass Reeves for a while so as to get some deputy marshal training. That big colored man was so full of wind that every time he talked he near knocked my hat off. But he could do most everything he bragged about doing. I was with him once when a white marshal who was in pursuit of a fellow sent word back to Fort Smith that he had him pi

Bass was dressed up for a church social that day, and besides his usual black hat, had on an orange-and-black-checked suit and a striped bow tie. I was sitting with him out front of the courthouse, him about to leave for that social, when this fellow the white marshal had sent came riding up. He was the one told Bass they had a man pi

This had to do with a stolen pig. The thief in the brush had wounded some men and shot at this other marshal so much the marshal had developed a tic to one of his eyelids. When we rode up we tied our horses to a tree and scooted low along an embankment till we come up on the marshal, whose name was Ledbetter. He was there with three other white men and Choctaw Tom, who had helped track him. Choctaw Tom was a really lean man with wild twisted hair and a hat that nestled on top of it. It always looked as if it might blow off at the slightest wind, but it never did. I think he had it pi

All the men, including Choctaw, was shoved up tight behind that bank, out of bullet range.

The white marshal, Ledbetter, his eyelid hopping like a frog, said, “I’m glad to see you, Bass.”

“I bet,” Bass said.

One of the men said, “He shot off part of my finger. I don’t think that’s what he was aiming for, but he shot it off. Will it grow back?”

“Of course not,” Bass said. “You’ve lost that. Let me look…Ah, hell, that’s just the tip. You don’t need it for nothing. You can dig a booger with the other hand.”

Bass was like that. He talked the same to anyone, white or black or red.

“He has got me buffaloed,” the marshal said. “I need you to shoot him, Bass. You can do that. I’ve seen you do it. I’ve seen you make some fine shots. None of us here have even come close.”

“Choctaw didn’t come close to hitting him?” Bass asked.

“He didn’t try,” said Marshal Ledbetter.

“I’m not shooting a man that stole a pig,” Choctaw said. “I stole a pig once.”

“How long ago?” Bass said.

“I was a kid,” Choctaw said.

“Well, then,” Bass said. “I guess we can let that go.” Bass nodded at me. “This boy here is more than a fair shot, or so I hear. He will back me up.”

“Good enough,” Ledbetter said.

“Ha! You mean you’d rather see a nigger get dropped than a white man,” Bass said.

“Now, Bass,” Ledbetter said.

“Shut up and give me a rifle,” Bass said.

Ledbetter was carrying one, and he gave it to Bass. I had my Winchester.

Choctaw Tom was rolling a cigarette. “I’m no marshal,” he said, spitting tobacco off his tongue, “just hired help, but I’d keep my head down.”

Bass said, “You can give him a round of fire, Nat, and when he comes out I’ll pop him.”

“All this over a pig?” I said.

“It was a nice pig,” Marshal Ledbetter said.

“Was?” I asked.

Marshal Ledbetter nodded. “He stole it from Mr. Evans. Evans wants it back, and this fellow, Chooky Bullwater, part Creek, I think, don’t want to give it back on account of he thought Evans owed him for something or another, some old debt Evans doesn’t seem to know anything about. Chooky yelled out to us it was something to do with his father. I don’t know. I think that incident with his father had to do with a pig, too, but it could just be an excuse. We told him to turn over the pig, which he’d trussed and throwed on the ground after we shot his horse out from under him. We said if he gave up the pig, we’d see it went lighter with him than if he tried to keep it. He shot the pig. He said that would show he was serious.”

“It showed the pig he was serious,” I said.

Bass and me snuck along under the edge of the embankment, keeping our heads down. It sloped up, and we sloped up with it. We come to a spot where there was a couple of large trees and you could see between them, and unless the fellow with the dead pig was a crack shot, it would be hard to pick off a man, as there wasn’t but a hand’s width apart between those trees. Bass stuck his face through the gap in the trees, yelled out, “I’m Bass Reeves, deputy US marshal. I’m calling you to come out and to bring that dead pig with you. I reckon it’s still fresh enough for cooking.”

“You can come get me,” Chooky called back. “I will be glad for some company. As for the pig, you can kiss my ass, and you can kiss its dead ass.”

Bass called out to him. “You’ve decided, then?”

“I have,” Chooky said.

Bass said to me, “You fire into those bushes and keep him busy. If you hit him, all the better, but if he rises up to run, I’ll shoot him.”

“Wing him, Bass,” I said.

“I don’t think so. When he runs, I’m going to shoot him in the back of the neck. That cuts the spinal cord. He’ll be as done as the pig. I think I can talk the owner of the pig into giving us some of the meat if you want it.”

“You keep it. And shoot him in the leg. Ain’t we supposed to always try and bring them in alive?”

“Sure we are. And I’ll bring him in, though he might be turning stiff when I do. I can see Judge Parker gave you the talk, but he didn’t mean it. He don’t give a damn long as we get them.”

I could see how things was, and did as I was told, Bass being the senior man. I flicked the baffle on the loop-cock Winchester so it would be rapid-fire, rose up quick, and started blasting shots into the brush where Chooky was hidden. I shot high, clipping the tops of the brush, trying to make sure I didn’t hit him, hoping he’d give it up and come out. Then, like Bass said, Chooky rose up and ran, dragging that pig with him.

True to his word Bass stood up and from between that cut in the trees he fired, hit the man, and brought him down. When we went out for a look, sure enough he had hit him in the back of the neck, severing his spine. He was a real ugly customer, with a long nose and a round head with lots of black hair that had fallen loose when his hat was knocked off.

“I had to do it,” Bass said.

“Why?”

“He’d have got away.”

“He’s a pig thief,” I said. “Not a desperado.”

“One is as good a black mark as the other in my book.”

“You keep odd books, Bass.”

Bass was bent down, looking the pig over.

“Have it your way. Look there, he had to shoot the pig twice. He’s got one in the snout, and one between the eyes, which is the one did him, I think. Hell, you have to shoot a pig twice close-up, you need to practice your shooting.”

I didn’t get down and make sure Bass was right about the pig. The others was coming up now, along with Marshal Ledbetter. “Good shooting, Bass.”

“I know,” Bass said.

Without saying anything, I left them there, walked past Choctaw Tom, who had not gone over to see the dead man. He said, “So Bass shot another one, huh?”

“He did,” I said.