Paradise Sky

“Don’t do that.”

He put his hand back over his ear. “Help me up.”

“Not just yet. You sit.”

“Guess I can’t get no wetter.”

I sauntered over to Doolittle. I waved the burning brand over him. He had collected quite a few bullets. His hat was pushed back on his head, and he had a look of surprise on his face. Part of the cloth gag hung down around his neck.

I checked on Pinocchio Joe. Also dead.

I went back and helped Choctaw up. I said, “Go in the cave. Stay away from that drop-off at the back. Ruggert’s down there. He’s still alive, and he’s got a gun. I’m going to get our horses. Can you make it?”

“I can make it.” I gave him the torch, and I trotted after the horses.

By the time I got back with the horses, Choctaw had built the fire up again. Logs that had been gathered up in the cave had been thrown on the fire. Cows and one of the horses was wandering around outside the cave like they wanted back in. We didn’t let them. The rain had stopped, and there was grass for them to eat. I unsaddled our horses, rubbed them down, hobbled them, fed them some of the grain we had left by putting it in the feed bags again.

Choctaw had tied a white rag over his wounded head and blood was seeping through it. He had started heating up some beans. He never quit thinking about food, even with an ear shot off.

“You cut off that strand of meat?”

“No. I’m going to ask you a favor.”

“First let me check on our friend in the hole.”

I got a fresh brand out of the fire and went to the back of the cave. I said, “How you doing down there, asshole?”

“Well, there’s too many women down here and a lot of free drink, and that’s getting old…How the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“Toss your pistol up.”

“I can’t toss it. I can’t get my legs under me, and it’s too high to just throw it up with my arm, without no leverage.”

“Have it your way, then.”

“I smell beans. Ain’t you going to feed me?”

“Nope.”

I eased back to Choctaw. Ruggert had started bellowing by then, partly in pain but mostly in anger.

“He don’t shut up I’m going to shoot him, Nat, and I don’t never like to get involved in this business. Hell, how did I get shot? I didn’t mean to get into all this.”

“Not very smart is my guess. Let my look at your ear.”

“Listen here, Nat. I want you to sew it back on.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Sew it back on. I got some heavy thread and a needle. I want you to sew it on. You got some whiskey for me, don’t you? You said when the job was finished.”

“I don’t know it’s finished.”

“Ain’t it close enough?”

I got my saddlebags and got a small bottle of whiskey out of one of them. I had wrapped the bottle in a lot of rags to keep it from getting broken easy. I brought it to Choctaw. He had moved closer to the fire and had pulled a needle and thick black thread out of a bag he had tied to his belt under his slicker.

“This is going to hurt,” I said.

“Give me a snort.”

He uncorked the whiskey and took a swig. “Oh, that tastes good. You know what you should tell me before you stick that needle in me?”

“What?”

“What the Irishman tells his wife on their wedding night. Brace yourself.”

I threaded the needle, then poured whiskey over it and stuck the needle over the fire until my finger and thumb started heating up. I dripped whiskey over my fingers and the needle again, leaned in close to Choctaw, and removed the rag from his head.

“No guarantees, Choctaw.”

“Sew it on tight. I was a kid, I had a dog got its ear tore off by a bobcat. My daddy sewed that ear back on, and it grew back.”

“You ain’t a dog,” I said.

“Go on ahead and do it, Nat.”

“Brace yourself, honey. Here I come.”

Choctaw found a stick, put it in his mouth, and leaned his head against the cave wall. I sewed, all the while listening to Ruggert screaming in pain down there in that hole. Choctaw didn’t make a sound.

That stitching made me ill, the way the needle would slide through that near cut-off ear and the flesh on the side of Choctaw’s head, but I tell you I did a right nice job. It took me a long time to do it, though, as I had to make many a stitch to get that sucker back on. It looked a little tighter to his head than his other ear, and that worried me some, but I figured it was better to leave it as it was than to cut it loose and stitch it some more. I was ru

Not for one moment during this entire operation had Ruggert quit caterwauling down there in that hole. It made me sick to hear it, what with a bloody ear to sew back on, and him howling like a dog, I could hardly eat my beans once they was warm. But I did. Choctaw ate his usual three plates full.

Next time I asked Ruggert to toss up his gun, he tried to, and it took him three tries to get it to the edge, where I could catch it. Choctaw felt spry enough to have me tie my rope to him and lower him down. I had a couple of firebrands on the side of the hole, and they gave some light down there. It was a pretty good drop. Twenty feet or more, I reckon.

“Well,” Choctaw called up. “The good news for you is his leg is broken. The bad news for him is his leg is broken.”

“Oh, shut up and pull me out of here,” Ruggert said.

“He wants out,” Choctaw said.

“You bastards,” Ruggert said. “Pull me out of this hole.”

Choctaw tied the rope around him and then helped him as I pulled him up, Ruggert screamed in pain all the way to the top. I dragged him against the wall and looked him over for weapons, but he didn’t have any on him. His leg was like a limp dishrag. I had removed my slicker, and Ruggert looked at the badge on my shirt.

When Ruggert got his breath back, he said, “You really are a marshal.”

“I am,” I said.

I untied the rope from him, used it to pull Choctaw up.

It was bright in the cave with that big fire, and Choctaw used the light to look Ruggert’s leg over. “Well, if you was one that could do the reel on the dance floor, you ain’t going to do it again. You might can skip a little.”

“Up to Judge Parker’s trapdoor,” I said.

Choctaw and I tried to take turns sleeping, but Ruggert was in such pain he moaned and carried on all night. First light Choctaw got his hatchet and went out and cut some limbs to bind up Ruggert’s leg. Ruggert passed out when Choctaw set it straight and tied it up.

In the meantime I went out and caught up two of the stolen horses and was able to herd up Bump’s two milk cows. They was anxious to let me milk them, they was in such pain, and I squatted down and did so, squirting the milk out on the ground. They had lots of it, and when I finished their tits was slack. They followed me like dogs to the mouth of the cave.

The fire had gone out, and the morning was warming up when we put the bodies of Pinocchio Joe and Doolittle side by side across one of the horses I had caught. We got Ruggert mounted on another.

We got our horses out of the tree line, and with the milk cows following us, we started out. We made Bump’s place by nightfall, returned the milk cows, and barely managed to keep him from killing Ruggert with a hoe. What worked to Ruggert’s advantage was Bump was still seeing double. Anyway, we left the cows, which Bump hugged a little too warmly for my taste, and went on a piece and pitched camp. We had thought about staying at Bump’s place but was afraid his vision would clear in the night and he’d chop Ruggert’s head off like a snake, or we would find him and his cows in positions that could embarrass all of us.

Our camp was uncomfortable, as the ground was still wet, but it was what we had—a place under a tree laying on damp bedrolls. Ruggert moaned and cried and started complaining nonstop of how he couldn’t sleep, as he was in too much pain. After a bit Choctaw got his rifle and went over and hit Ruggert a solid blow in the head, said, “That will help him sleep.”