Paradise Sky

“It is.”

“What if I said we should start slow?”

“I would start slow. About those other suitors…”

“I don’t care a hoot for any of them,” she said.

“That’s good.”

“It’s good for you. And just so you’re clear on matters, Nat. No one claims me. I decide if I want to be with them. That’s how it works.”

“Fair enough. I want to give you something to think on while I’m gone so maybe it will help you decide if it’s a ricochet.”

“All right, then. What have you got?”

I pushed up my hat and took hold of her shoulders and pushed my lips to hers. She didn’t fight. We kissed. It was a long and good kiss. It wasn’t the same as that kiss with Win on our hill in the high Dakotas. It tasted a little damp with sweat, but mostly it tasted sweet and right.

I heard Samson make a hooting sound. When I looked up Luther was still out by the well, but he was smiling at me. Samson’s hooting had scattered the chickens. He wore a big grin. I tipped my hat to them all.

Ruthie was a little teary when she said, “Don’t get killed. For God’s sake, don’t get killed.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” I said. “And more for my sake than God’s.”

I turned and went along the path and out of the gate.

I started that very afternoon. I went and found Choctaw Tom over at the courthouse. He was sitting out front whittling on some wood. I said, “I’d like to have you come with me.”

“I’m taking it this ain’t no invitation to a dance.”

“It kind of is. The music might be gunfire.”

“I don’t like getting shot at.”

“Hell, who in their right mind does?”

“I like it less than most.”

“Well, I’m asking, and you can say what you want.”

“You ain’t crazy like Bass, so that’s in your favor.”

He tossed the piece of wood on the ground and folded up his pocketknife.

“Judge going to pay for this?” he asked.

“It’s marshal business, so yes.”

I told him who I was going after and asked if he knew Chooky, who he saw killed.

“I knew him. He was harmless as that pig. His brother, though, he’s not on the harmless side. He’s a snake and then some.”

“He’s ru

“I know.”

“Could you find them?”

“I can find anybody if I have a start.”

“That’s what I hear. I also hear that Pinocchio Joe is ru

“That little shit. He ain’t much.”

“But he has a gun.”

“He probably does. My guess is there might even be more of them than those three.”

“That’s possible,” I said. “I’d like you to go with me. I said you’d get paid. I told you who it is, and now all I need is your agreement.”

“How about one bottle of whiskey when the job’s finished?”

“Fair enough. When it’s finished, not before. I don’t ride with drunks. But I’ll bring the bottle with me. I’ll decide when the job’s done.”

“Well, then, I’ll go get my horse and saddle.”

“One goes with the other,” I said.

“That it does.”

“More important, bring a rifle.”

“I got a Yellow Boy. Thing is, though, I’m a tracker, not a marshal, so I’m not going to promise I’ll get down in the thick of it. I’ll get you there, but three men or more, that’s a lot of men. We could get Bass and some others.”

“We could, but we won’t. I think it’ll be easier to find them with a light crew. It’s more than you want to handle when we find them, you can step out.”

“All right, then.”

“Meet here in an hour, ready to go.”

He went to get his goods, and I went to get mine.

I put some possibles together and made sure of my ammunition and was on the hunt. We left out of Fort Smith with the sky freckled like an Appaloosa, a sure sign of bad weather and a sure sign to turn back and wait for better weather.

But we went ahead. Bad weather would cause them to hole up somewhere, not to expect someone out in it and after them. I thought about Kid Red’s information, and I told Choctaw Tom where he said they might be.

“Hell, Nat, that could be anywhere. That’s a place so wide and long it’s like saying there’s a tick out there with a top hat and he lives there somewhere and you can find him if he yells at you and waves his hat and has a voice like a buffalo. That’s no help at all. That’s just as general as saying, ‘There’s stars in the sky. Watch for the one on the left.’ ”

“Is that where the tick with the top hat will be?”

“Most likely.”

“He seems to have moved from the ground to the sky.”

“They are tricky bastards.”

“Here’s how we’ll start. Pinocchio Joe being Chooky’s brother, it might be best to start with Chooky’s cabin.”

“Did you know Pinocchio was wanted?”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t tell Bass the co

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like him. Killing a man over a pig seems on the harsh side to me. Besides, I just discovered the co

“I see. Ever ate a pickled egg?”

“What?”

“A pickled egg. I’m going to have me one. I got two.”

“No. That’s all right. Keep it for yourself.”

Choctaw pulled a bag from his saddlebag. It had a box inside it, and as he rode along, he opened the box and took out one of the eggs. It smelled awful. He ate it, and then he ate the other.

“I knew I’d eat them right away,” he said. “I was going to save them for a time when I was really hungry, but I love the goddamn things.”

“I don’t need an explanation,” I said.

“I eat all the time, Nat. I’m always hungry. I got enough supplies here for a whole wad of sawmill workers. I could feed ten or twelve. I eat all the time and don’t gain a goddamn pound. I stay ski

“Sure you did,” I said.

“Would I lie to you?”

“I think you might,” I said.

“Not about the eating. That’s true. I think I got some kind of worm.”

We came to where Bass had shot Chooky, and then we rode on farther up the hill and then onto a flat slab of land and into some trees. On the other side of the trees was a cabin that Choctaw said belonged to Chooky.

We stopped and sat on our horses and looked at the cabin. There was no smoke, and there was no horses to be seen out front or in the open-ended shed to the right of the house. I rode around back of the house, going wide, and didn’t see no horses there, neither, though there was a corral there. Without getting down off my horse I could see that the horse turds there wasn’t fresh, but they wasn’t old, neither. A few days or so, I guessed. We met around front and tied our horses off. Choctaw carried his Yellow Boy, I pulled my Colt, and we went up to the door, which was already partly open. I nudged it with my boot. It was dark in there, and it smelled like sweaty men.

Choctaw lit a match and moved past me and went inside. It was a small cabin, one room, and we was quick to see wasn’t nobody there but us.

“They must have holed up here with Chooky,” Choctaw said. “There’s been several men here. I reckon he stole the pig to feed them. He wasn’t no bad fellow, but he’d have helped his brother hide out. He just up and lied about why he stole that pig. Stood by his brother to the end.”

“And Bass didn’t come here after the pig thief was killed,” I said. “That would have been a smart follow-through, don’t you think?”

“It would have, but I think Bass was thinking about free pork chops more than detective work,” Choctaw said. “He’s got his mind right, though. Ain’t no one better than him. I just don’t like his attitude.”

We strolled out back to the corral.

“There were several horses here, and not too long back,” Choctaw said.

“Way I figured.”

“There was some cows, too.”

Choctaw got off his horse and climbed over the corral and started feeling around in piles of shit. Soon as he mentioned it, I could see there was cow pies and horse piles in the corral. It ain’t that hard to tell them apart; same with chicken shit and hog shit. They all got their look and smell and feel. Choctaw went out to the well and cranked up a bucket of water and rinsed his hands off, came back, and got on his horse.