Paradise Sky

“Me, too. What have they got you for?”

“The big man had a writ, and he served it, and it had a lot of things written on it.”

“Did you do them all?”

“Yeah. And some more wasn’t on it.”

“How bad was what was on it?”

“Murder, six times, train robbery, stagecoach robbery. Burglary. Public lewdness. I showed my pecker to some ladies. I was drunk on that one, Nat. I mean real drunk. On all them charges I was drunk, Nat. I ain’t like that now. I’m a changed man.”

“Save it. You’ve crossed the river, and there’s no boat back. You might be lucky with time in prison, but I figure it’s the rope. That’s a lot of mischief, Red.”

“I know.”

“It’s bad enough you done all that, but Ruggert? You teamed with him? What did I ever do to you, boy?”

“Nothing, Nat. You always treated me straight and upright. I ain’t got no excuse for it. You won’t believe this, but when I first got crossed with him I had been rustling some cattle, and he was the man we sold ’em to. Me and these others, and I thought, I know him from Deadwood, and that’s the man done them bad things to Nat, wrapped him in a cow skin and raped his woman and killed the other one. I knew all that from you and Bronco Bob telling me. Shit, Nat. Really, I meant to kill him. And then he had us all stay the night. He was staying in a shack, and it turned out he’d killed them that owned it, and they was propped up out back. It was cold weather, so it wasn’t as nasty as you’d think. He put them stolen cows in their corral. Ruggert, he had a buyer, and he paid us for them. He also had some men with him, four of them, so I was waiting on my chance—”

“This sounds like bigger bullshit than Bronco Bob writes.”

“Hey, I read some of those books, and they’re good. I’m in a couple of them, though he’s not real nice to me.”

“Goddamn it, Red. Give me your shitty explanation. Give me something to believe.”

“I know how it sounds, Nat. But it’s all true. I was going to kill him, but he had whiskey.”

“You sold me out for whiskey?”

“Sort of.”

“Jesus, Red.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen how it did. It was sort of like a little creek—that would be me—flowing into a larger river, and that larger river would be Ruggert. Next thing I know I’m drinking, and he’s talking. I never mentioned you, but he did. He has it bad for you. Told me how you violated his wife and so on and so on, and how he had killed you by wrapping you in a cowhide. Word hadn’t gotten to him yet. I told him I knew you some and that you was alive. I didn’t make out we was friends.”

“Thanks for that,” I said.

“He was beside himself. Got so mad I thought he was going to mess his pants. He jumped up and hobbled around—that’s how he walks, with a hobble.”

“I know. Go on.”

“He said you was the reason every bad thing had happened to him, including his being burned and scalped and his balls carved on. It was a long, sad story, Nat. And I was moved. Not that I thought you was responsible, but he’d had some deprivations. I learned that word from one of Bronco Bob’s dime novels.”

“Congratulations on your vocabulary.”

“Next thing I knew me and him was pla

“Well, boo-hoo.”

“So before I know it I’m in with him, and we’re robbing trains and getting into scrapes and he’s praising my gun handling and all that, and I’m liking it. I did mention to you in the past how I hadn’t gotten a lot of attention.”

“You did,” I said.

“Now I was getting some. It went to my head.”

“That’s it? That’s why you were with him?”

“I suppose that’s all there is to it. And then we did this last job, which was robbing a stage up near Kansas, and things went bad. I got in a shoot-out, killed the driver and the shotgun rider, and damn if a stray bullet didn’t pick off a kid. We had brought everyone out to stand in front of the stagecoach, and there was this boy dressed in a suit and a bowler hat, holding a little dog, and that’s when the shotgun man, who we had disarmed and told to stay up on the seat, pulled a derringer and shot at me. He missed, but I didn’t. Then I shot the driver for good measure, and Ruggert yelled, “Watch them prisoners,” and I don’t know how it happened, but I just turned and shot. Bullet went right through the dog and hit that kid. He just sort of sat down out from under his bowler hat. That dog and him didn’t so much as whimper. I knew then I was through. We split up. Ruggert took the money. Days later I got lost somewhere in the Indian Nations. My horse broke a leg. I shot it and then got lost worse than I was before, if you can imagine that, come out finally on a clay road and knew where I was. Didn’t help me none. Here come that big colored man and with him that other fellow driving the wagon and the mixed blood, and there was five men in there. Deputy marshal, one you call Bass, has a memory like a steel trap. He figured me for someone on the run, which I guess isn’t that hard, but he remembered a description of me and Ruggert. I wasn’t anywhere near where we robbed that stagecoach, but he had already gotten word. Goddamn telegraph.”

“I don’t like him,” I said, “but he is a hell of a marshal.”

“He said, ‘You fit a description, boy.’ I tried to hold out on him, but after that kid and that dog, I’d had enough. I shot my mouth off. I told him everything I had ever done, and that included stealing a comb when I was a kid in Deadwood.”

“You’re still a kid.”

“I don’t feel like one.”

“I’m sorry for you, Red, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“You want Ruggert, don’t you?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I can give you a lead on him, but I’d like something in return.”

“I can’t let you go.”

“Hell, I know that. But maybe you can talk to this judge, Parker.”

“He’s a hard one,” I said.

“You could talk to him about how I helped you marshals out. Ruggert, he’s the brains behind all this, and he wants to kill you. He knew you were here he’d come for you. I bet he would. But I bet it would be better and easier you just went to him.”

“You know where he is?”

“I know his ru

“I don’t care about any of that. Who else is with him?”

“Pinocchio Joe Bullwater is one. And then there’s this other fellow, Indian Charlie Doolittle.”

I had never heard Pinocchio Joe’s last name. It was not listed on the warrant, but it certainly rang a bell now.

“Pinocchio Joe have a brother named Chooky?” I asked.

“He did. He didn’t ride with us, but he put us up in his cabin some. I was pla

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“You got to watch Pinocchio Joe. He’ll cut down on you in a minute. Doolittle not so much. He’s kind of like a chicken. He’s just as happy pecking corn out of cow shit as he would be eating fresh corn. But he’s a sneaky bastard. Look here, Nat. Will you talk to Parker?”

“I will, but I won’t guarantee a thing.”

“But you will talk to him? Put in a good word for me?”

“You tell me where Ruggert stays, and if you lead me on a wild-goose chase I will put in a different kind of word with Parker. Hear me?”

“I do,” he said. “I do. You put in a good word, that’s more than I deserve. Goddamn it, Nat. I am so hungry. I haven’t eaten in days. Bass gave me some water, but when I asked for a bite, he gave me his best wishes.”