Paradise Sky

I was excited to hear it. I wrote him I couldn’t come right away but would come soon. I went and told Ruthie about the reward money and the money promised in the letter. Her face lit up.

“Do you feel bad some of the money come from dead men and another man that’s going to hang?” she said.

“I feel fine. How about you?”

She shrugged.

“We can buy that farm,” she said.

“And I’m going to get some ducks, too. I want to see you talk to them.”

Next day I went to the hanging, which was the last they had where a crowd could attend. After that they built a fence and hanged them behind that, deciding maybe everyone bringing peanuts and food and such, picnicking on the grounds, set a bad example for justice.

But on this day there was a good crowd, and they was loud and laughing and having a hoot of a time, and there was a fellow telling jokes in the center of the crowd. They gathered around him and laughed. He could do some acrobatic things, too, like walk on his hands, stand on his head, and flip and such. That kept folks entertained until it was time for the main event.

They was hanging not only Ruggert and Kid Red, they was hanging a colored man named Franklin who had got drunk and killed a white woman cause he said he thought she was a deer.

There was a big platform built up for the gallows, and the hanging took place in the early afternoon, about two hours after the crowd gathered. I got my place up front so Kid Red could clearly see me. I started to buy some peanuts from a walking vendor, but thought that might set a bad example for a marshal, and it certainly wouldn’t do Kid Red any good in his last moments watching me enjoy a snack. I had missed lunch, though, and those peanuts was on my mind.

There was two guards per prisoner, and they brought the three out. Franklin stood on the far left of the gallows from the way I was facing. Then came Kid Red to the center, looking small in oversize boots, and on the right side, facing me, was Ruggert, limping on his boarded-up leg, his head still wrapped. None of them wore hats, and they all looked like they was dead already; the bones in their shoulders and chests seemed to have gone thin and slack. Ruggert and the kid seen me right away. The kid sort of perked up when he did, but his knees was shaky.

“I don’t want him standing there,” Ruggert said to the executioner, a plump man with a black hood over his face.

“Well, he’s a marshal, and he can stand where he wants,” said the executioner, being quite clear in spite of the mask over his face.

“Damn you,” he said to the executioner.

“Well, sir, you’ll be damned first,” the executioner said.

Ropes was already draped in place, and nooses was tied. These was put over the three men’s necks, and the knots was pulled tight to the sides of their heads. That way the neck broke better. The three men was told to stand on the trapdoors, and they done it. I guess by that point they didn’t see no reason not to.

Each man was allowed to say his piece.

Franklin said, “I sure thought that woman was a deer. Usually I can tell a woman and a deer apart, but that day I was good and drunk, and I could have swore it was a buck with a big rack. My mama told me not to drink, but I did. And look where it’s got me. That is all.”

The executioner pulled a bag over his head and readjusted the rope.

Kid Red said, “I ain’t never had much of a chance, but when I did, I didn’t take it. I’m sorry for all I done, but I know God is in his heaven, and he’s forgiven me, and he’s waiting on me with a harp.”

“I don’t want to hear you play it,” a man in the crowd yelled out.

Kid Red ignored him, tried to stand in his spot without lowering his head. “I go to see Jesus now,” he said.

“Have him send me a present,” said the man in the audience. I looked around to find who had spoken, but didn’t locate him.

I looked back at the kid. He was still holding his head up. I was proud of him. The executioner put the bag over his face.

Ruggert was next. He spoke in as loud a voice as he could muster.

“My whole life I’ve tried to live the kind of life a white man ought to live, and all that has come to me and brought me here was caused by a nigger who looked boldly at my wife’s bottom while she i

“Ah, shut up,” said the man who had spoken before about the harp. I recognized his voice and spotted him this time. He wore overalls that was as worn as his face. “We don’t care none about you or your nigger or your wife’s ass. Take your goddamn medicine, you burned-up old fart.”

That seemed to sap Ruggert. I think the boards on his bad leg and the rope around his neck was all that was holding him up. I don’t know what he expected, but maybe he thought the white folks in the crowd was going to rise up and pull him down from there and put me in his place and forgive all his killing and robbing. He was one of those that could never see himself wrong, and I figured he hadn’t until that moment truly realized that this was all she wrote and he was a fool.

After a pause, Ruggert said, “All right, then.”

They put the bag over his head.

I was thinking how my life had changed because of that man, the bitter and the sweet, when the traps was dropped and the men fell through with a sound like someone snapping a leather belt between their hands. The kid kicked once, throwing off one of his boots and hitting a man in the head in the front row. The colored man and Ruggert moved not at all. I could smell shit in the air.

I’m tired now. I will say again there was many dime novels written about me by Bronco Bob, but this here is the straight record. There’s more. But I’m too tired to write it out. I spent some time with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, even went to Europe and seen the queen of England. Oh, and I married Ruthie. She went to Europe, too. I had a family. Fortunately, none of the kids got my ears. By the way, Ruthie really did talk to ducks and chickens, but in dedication to honesty as I see it, I never heard a one of them talk back, nor feel anything Ruthie told me they said was all that beneficial.

I had many adventures before I became a porter on this long, black train, where I sit and write in my spare time and read the old dime novels I can find that was written about me. Perhaps those other adventures of mine are for another time. Perhaps in a fashion I did turn out great, way Mama thought I would. I had me some times, that’s for sure.

But this here is what happened to me up to where I’ve told it. It’s how I became Deadwood Dick, and most of it is as true as I know how to make it, keeping in mind nobody likes the dull parts.

Author’s Note

Parts of this novel were loosely borrowed from my short stories “Soldierin’ ” and “Hides and Horns.” I have also slightly condensed certain historical events to suit my storytelling purposes, though I have on the whole tried to present these, as well as the contribution of black cowboys, soldiers, and lawmen in the West, accurately while adhering to the mythology-building tradition of all great western storytellers of the time, including the real Nat Love, who inspired so much of this story, at least in spirit.

Also by Joe R. Lansdale

The Magic Wagon

The Drive In

The Nightru