Текст книги "Paradise Sky"

Автор книги: Joe R. Lansdale

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

26

The door cracked loudly, swung back, and slammed against the wall.

It was a little room filled with smoke and the smoke was wrapped around a bed and some of it rose up and grew thick and covered the ceiling like a cloud. On the bed were two nude white women, both of them striped with blood and crying, and there was a colored gal bent over the end of the bed rail, her head lying against the sheets, her face turned from me, and Golem, fully dressed, had a whip in his hand—a whip made of cloth and a wooden handle. He was holding the cloth and snapping that wooden handle upside that colored gal’s head. She looked to be unconscious, as she was just dangling there, not trying to move away from the blows. Blood had dripped down from her and was on the bed and on the floor.

Golem turned his head and showed a mouth full of a big black cigar. It was the source of the smoke that filled the room. I raised my pistol. His forehead had that mark of ash on it, and that was to be my spot to shoot.

“Deadwood Dick,” he said, around that fat cigar.

“Big bastard,” I said, and I was about to squeeze off a round but was denied the pleasure.

Golem wasn’t so out of his head thinking he was some Jewish monster who couldn’t be hurt that he didn’t have the sense to whip that poor woman’s body around in such a way it come in front of me and spoiled my aim. After he pushed her forward and she went tumbling to the floor in front of me, he wheeled and ran toward the open window behind him, grabbed at a rifle leaning against the wall, and jumped. That big bull of a man went through that open window with that rifle as easy as if he was hot molasses sliding along a greased pan.

Running to the window, I looked down. It was quite a fall, but if he was hurt, it wasn’t enough to keep him from getting up and running off, heading toward the stockyard. I got a glimpse of his rifle lying on the ground.

Instead of jumping out the window, I decided on the stairs. I wheeled and stepped over the girl on the floor—for that’s really what she was, a girl—and was in the hallway, down those stairs, and out the back so fast I don’t really remember the trip. Next thing I knew I was outside and running along the back of the building until I come to where Golem had landed. His cigar was on the ground, smashed up, and I could see why he left the Winchester. It was busted from the fall.

“He’s got a pistol in his boot,” I heard a voice call out. I looked up and seen it was one of the white girls. Little beads of blood caught the light as they fell from her mouth and nose and dripped down not more than half a foot in front of me.

“Obliged,” I said, and moved on after my intended target.

I came alongside the stockyard pens, which was packed with longhorns. There was cow manure that had oozed from out of the lot and under the pen slats, and there was enough light I could see Golem had run through it, for there was his big boot marks. I eased along careful-like then, staying close to the pens, trying to not take to mind what I was stepping in, for it was near ankle-deep.

The cows was stirring restlessly, and I seen that the tracks I was following had ended. There was cow manure on one of the slats of the pen where he had climbed up and had taken off through their gathering. I climbed up carefully and looked out over the cows. I seen Golem moving through them, trying to stay low and slide under their necks. One moment I’d get a good view, then a cow would take his place, then Golem’s head would bob up, and then he’d stoop and be gone again.

It was a crazy thing to do, but I put my pistol in my coat pocket, worked my way to the top slat of the fence, and stepped off of it. I landed a foot on a cow’s head, leaped to another’s back, and then another. It was easy enough to do, as they was so tight in that holding pen.

Then there was a shot. A cow that hadn’t done anything but walk a thousand miles to be a steak dinner took the round in the head and went down. I was by this time having less luck with my cow jumping, as they had really started to stir. I fell in between some cattle and splashed in cow mess, which didn’t smell like a bed of petunias.

That shot and my fall got the other cows frightened, and they began to shove and push and thud about even more, and then one fell over the dead one. I was just able to avoid its horns as I worked to my feet, but this had started other cattle stumbling, and pretty soon there was a big, kicking pile of them.

There was another sharp snap from Golem’s pistol, and if it hit anything I’m not in memory of it. The cows went loco. Horns flashed, hooves thumped, beef rushed by either side of me. I grabbed a running cow around the neck and swung my feet up over its haunches, dangled under its neck as it ran. It knocked other cows aside, tripping over one, stumbling a bit, but not so much either of us hit the ground. It got its hooves under it, and away we went again, striking a row of slats full-on, me at the forefront of the cow’s battering ram. This split the slats and broke the pen and sent the cow into the open. I was flung off my ride as it made a wild turn, tripped, and went rolling along the ground. Cows came rushing through that split in the fence, hooves flying by me, stirring the dirt into clouds of dust and manure.

Another shot was fired, and a cow bought the farm—threw its head forward and stuck its horns in the dirt so hard it flipped, like an acrobat trying out a failed headstand. Cows was bumping against me. A shot rang out, and Golem managed to pop him another cow. He wasn’t shooting anywhere near me, but he was hell on cattle.

I’d been damn lucky and had only been shoved about. I was well beyond the gap in the fence and had rolled up against a building wall. As fortune would have it, those cows turned toward the lights and the sounds of the cowboys in the streets. The cowboys was firing guns off and yelling, which meant more than one of them had been unwilling to turn in their pistols and would most likely be spending a night in jail.

The cattle was hastening through that alley like they was being shot out of a cannon, perhaps confused on where the shots were coming from, knowing only that they should flee in some direction, and any direction would do.

I hauled myself into a doorway as the longhorns charged by me. When their numbers thinned, I went running along the wall, away from the direction they was taking. I seen Golem a good ways ahead, between the holding pens and that building I was up against. I ran after him. He turned as if to shoot, but I fired first. I know it hit him, because I could tell by the way his body jerked and the fact that I don’t miss much if I’m in range. The shot didn’t put him down, though. He darted into an alley, and I went after him.

There wasn’t much light down that alley, but there was plenty of stinking trash barrels and plenty of shadows to go with them. I pulled the Colt from the other pocket and, armed with two revolvers, started down that alleyway feeling as if I was naked. There was all them barrels, of course, but it was still about twenty feet before I could reach one to hide behind, and a bullet might pass through one, meaning they wasn’t necessarily all that good a protection, though they was working for Golem in that I didn’t know exactly where he was hiding. But I reasoned he hadn’t had time to reach the other end and make his way into the street. Won’t lie to you: hesitation came over me for an instant. Then I remembered Win and how we had been on that hill in the dark, the sweet sound of her flute when she was happy, that so-fine kiss, and then there was that stinking, bloody cowhide wrapped around me, holding me tight like a fist squeezing a grape. Golem pulling Madame and my Win from the wagon, those men in a lusty crowd around them, Madame’s mutilated body, Win naked in the firelight, that blank look she had as she turned her head toward the wall. It put steel in me, brother. Cold blue steel.

So I inched onward, my hide prickling, and then, well, I don’t know what overcome him. Either he was bored with the whole thing, mad, or thought he had the advantage, because I hadn’t gone more than a few feet when a large shadow swelled up from behind one of the barrels. It was without question Golem. His pistol barked red fire, and mine barked back. He tried to shoot another time, but either his gun was empty or his hammer hit on a bad load. I fired with both pistols—two shots from the LeMat, one from the Colt. It made Golem dance about a little, and then he threw his pistol aside, snatched a barrel above his head, trash flying out of its mouth, and charged down the alley at me.

I couldn’t have missed him. It was like shooting at a buffalo tied to a tree. I fired two more shots, one from each pistol. Then that barrel come flying. I tried to dodge, but it hit me, and all the trash flew out. The Colt went skittering from my left hand. I fell on my back, tried to get up, my boot heels scratching in the dirt.

I flicked the baffle on the LeMat as Golem leaned over and grabbed my shirtfront, lifted me up like I was a pocket handkerchief. I stuck my pistol straight in his face and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun load roared like a lion.

There was a scream, high-pitched for a man of his size, and the next thing I know I’m on my back, and Golem is lying on the ground holding his face with both hands. I got up and eased over careful-like to look down on him. The light wasn’t good, but since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, I could see he was all shot up and bleeding right smart. He was still holding his face as if to keep it together, moaning and rolling his head from side to side. I couldn’t believe he was alive. I couldn’t believe he was sitting up. I squatted down beside him.

I said, “My name is Nat Love, as you may well know. I am also called Deadwood Dick, and you have wronged me and the woman I love.”

I know how that sounds, but that’s how I spoke to him, if not exactly those words, making it as dramatic as I could. It was stuff I had read out of that dime novel about Bill during that trip to the barber’s. “I have avenged that wrong, or will have done so shortly, as you’re shot up something awful and won’t be pulling daylight.” I think I even called him a scoundrel or a rascal. I hope I did.

A tooth dripped out from under his hands and fell between his legs.

Now that it was done, I didn’t feel all that satisfied. I won’t say that disappointment set in. I was glad I had done it, but seeing him suffer like that wasn’t giving me a bit of pleasure. I slipped the LeMat in my coat pocket, pulled the derringer out of it, stuck it into Golem’s ear, and cocked back the hammer.

He didn’t try to move away. In fact he quit rocking his head. Blood squeezed through his fingers and dripped. He pushed his head toward the derringer; let the barrel rest there like a steel earwig.

I heard him say in a voice that sounded as if he was trying to talk under water, “I’m God’s avenger. I’m not supposed to die.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” I said.

“I’m made of mud,” he said.

“Well, your mud’s got runny,” I said.

He lowered his hands. A chunk of his face, including one eye, was gone. The other side of his face was riddled with buckshot. “This doesn’t make any sense. I can’t be hurt.”

I squeezed the trigger on that little gun, and the next moment he made a liar of himself. His hands fell loose from his ruined face, and his legs snapped apart, like he had mounted an invisible horse. He fell back so hard his head sounded like a bag of flour hitting the ground.

I saw then that a watch chain was dangling from his pocket and his turnip watch had fallen out of it. It was a lidded sort, and it had popped open, like maybe he had been trying to look at the photo inside of it in the dark before I come into the alley.

I tugged the watch loose of the chain. I don’t know why I did it, but I did. Maybe it was some kind of trophy.

I put the watch in my pocket, tucked the derringer away, gathered up my own guns, and hurried out of the alley.

When I got to the street it was full of cows. More had broke free of the pen. With all those cowboys firing pistols and hooting, the cattle had gone wild and were pounding down the street in a mad stampede. I got close to the buildings and kept walking. I seen a few of the critters had gone into the saloons as if to order beers. They was causing quite a ruckus. Women had gone to screaming and men was yelling.

I felt a little guilty.

I made my way to the livery, dodging horns and thousands of pounds of beef. I knocked on the wide door, and after a moment Cecil opened it a crack and let me inside. “Don’t let those cows in here,” he said, as if me and the cattle were plotting together to charge in and steal his cash box.

Inside the livery, I wandered over to some loose hay and sat down in it, my back to some slats that made up an empty horse pen.

Cecil stood over me, said, “You done it?”

“He ain’t with the world no more,” I said. “He’s gone back to mud.”

“What?”

“It ain’t worth the story, Cecil.”

“Any whores survive?”

“All of them, I think, but they was in a poor way, having been beaten by him. One of the girls was bad off. You might get a doctor over there.”

“You done a good thing,” he said. “You have done those whores right.”

“I did it for me,” I said.

“Maybe so, but it worked out for a lot of people. How do you feel?”

“I don’t feel all that good, to tell the truth.”

“All right, then. Stay settled there. I’ll get you a drink.”

“Just water,” I said.

“I got coffee.”

“That’ll do.”

He brought the coffee to me. It had a lot of sugar in it. I drank it, and it made me sick. I turned my head and threw up in the hay.

“Must be all the excitement,” he said.

“Something like that,” I said, leaning back against the pen, feeling like everything inside me was draining out.

Cecil went then to check on the whores and to get a doctor. He was gone for some time, and during that time I didn’t move except to fix myself another cup of coffee and sip on it. I kept it black. I think it was all that sugar that had made me sick, what with my stomach feeling as if it was turned over. I took Golem’s turnip watch from my pocket. It was silver, scarred and nicked up from having been carried in his pocket with coins and the like. I thumbed the lid open and looked at what was inside. It was a photograph of Golem with his hair shorter and slicked back and parted down the middle. His face looked firm and gentle, like life was good. There was a woman and a little girl in the photograph. The woman was nice-looking, with black hair in a bun. The child looked like the mother. I remembered what Bill had said about how Golem had lost his mind and killed them with an ax. Whatever had come over him, them deaths he caused had turned him into something new and wrong, and worse, sometimes I figured he knew it. I was surprised to find I felt a little sorry for him right then. I closed up the watch and tossed it into the hay. I didn’t like how it made me feel.

When Cecil came back, he said, “That colored whore will be laid up awhile, and she may have a hitch in her get-along.”

“How bad a trouble am I in?” I asked.

“You killed a man, but as far as I know ain’t nobody found the body. Mabel and the girls only tell it like he was there and jumped out of the window because he was drunk. That’s all they’re telling. They ain’t even saying you was there. I think you’re in the clear, but his body is damn sure going to show up, so my thinking is, far as Dodge goes, I wouldn’t linger. Nothing to tie you to him yet, but a whore might talk in time to someone, so I’ll say it again. I wouldn’t linger.”

I got to my feet, using the pen to lift me up. I hadn’t realized how much those cows had banged me around. I was terribly sore and weak. I gave my pistols back to Cecil.

He had his own water pump in there, and I worked the handle and cleaned up as best I could. Then Cecil came out with some clothes and told me to change into them. They wasn’t much—a ragged shirt and some worn pants and patched socks—but I took them gladly. I stripped, washed myself good, dressed, then washed my manure-stained, brand-new red shirt, scrubbed my pants with a bar of lye soap Cecil had, and laid them over the top slat of one of the pens.

“You can pick your clothes up here tomorrow,” he said. “Keep them ones you got on, you want to. Man left all his belongings here a year ago and never came back. I sold his horse and saddle and other goods already. I figure he got dead somewhere.”

I nodded and went back out onto the street.

A hell of a roundup was going on. Cowboys was in the streets, trying to herd them cows. They was hooting and hollering and driving the cattle back up the street. I damn near got horned a couple of times but made my way to the hotel.

When I got inside, looking out the windows was a bunch of folks that was housed there, among them Bronco Bob and Red. They was at the window by the door. As I come in, Bronco Bob raised his eyebrows. I got my key at the desk, leaving everyone to the show at the window. I hadn’t no more than started up the stairs than Bronco Bob and Red was beside me.

“How come I have this feeling you didn’t just go out to change into those old clothes?”

“Because I didn’t,” I said.

We went upstairs into my room. I felt like everything around me was closing in. The walls seemed tight, and the gaslights seemed dim. I said, “I’m leaving tomorrow, boys. I have a direction on Ruggert.”

“I could go with you,” Bronco Bob said.

“Don’t change your plans now,” I said. “You said you was through when you got to Dodge. Stick to it. You’ve been good friends. That is enough.”

“I have really felt good riding with you,” Red said, and hung his head, like it was uncomfortable to meet my eyes.

“I borrowed this derringer,” I said, holding it out to him.

“I come to know it was missing when I put on my boots,” Red said as he took it. “I didn’t figure it was anyone else other than you that took it.”

“I have underrated this little gun,” I said. “It needs reloading.”

Next morning I wrote a letter to Win, though I wasn’t even sure she would read it, and a letter to Cullen. I wrote them out and at breakfast downstairs gave Bronco Bob some money for posting them, asked if he’d mail them the next time he went past the post office.

I shook hands with him and Red, trucked over to the livery, and when a crowd of cowboys left out of there after doing business, I got my clothes, which was now dry, and put them on. I rolled up the ones Cecil had given me in my bedroll, saddled my horse, collected my guns, and went to pay up.

“You can keep your money,” Cecil said. “You done them women a favor last night.”

“I would have done it anyway,” I said.

“It don’t matter. You done it. Keep your money. Tell you another thing. They found that big moose in the alley, but not before they ran some of the cows through there and penned them up. After they done that they found him trampled over. I heard about it from a customer who walked over there when he seen a crowd gather. I went over there, too. Big man was where you said you killed him. There was barrels and trash knocked all over hell by them cows, and when I looked at his body, I couldn’t have told you if he was a man or a mud hole he was so mashed up. Ain’t no one going to even know he was shot. For all they know he got caught in the stampede, maybe sleeping one off in the alley when they brought them cows back through last night. You’ll be good.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re shy of money, there’s a colored preacher and his children want to go to Arkansas, and they’d like to have a gun hand. I don’t know how you’re set for plans. Pays meals and company and a few dollars. They got a cow with them, so that means fresh milk.”

I didn’t really want company, but meals and money and fresh milk might be nice. I was getting down to the dregs.

“Where would I talk to them?” I asked.

“They were here this morning. Told them I knew a man leaving today might be interested in riding along, a man that had some gun skills but wasn’t no gunman by trade. I threw that in to make you sound better as a person.”

“Thanks. And I’m not a gunman by trade.”

“They’re on the far side of town, a half mile out of it. They’re living out of a mule-drawn wagon. Seem nice enough folks. What might be a thought is to ride out there and talk to them, take their measure, if your plans are loose enough.”

“I’ll think on it,” I said.

I put my rifle in the saddle sheath, led Satan out to the street, and swung onto his back. He trotted along comfortably, having enjoyed his rest at the barn. We passed the hotel. I looked up at the window where my room was. I didn’t see anybody there.

I rode south with it in mind not to stop and talk to anyone. But the farther I got out of town, the more I began to think about having my meals given to me and some money to boot. I didn’t have anything but a few dollars, a canteen full of water, and enough jerky to last for a day or two—three if I let my belly growl a little. I’d have to depend on game appearing and my marksmanship to feed myself.

It was the idea of company I didn’t like. My heart wasn’t in it. Truth was, as of that morning I had been looking forward to being alone for a while. The thought of that had been like a tasty fruit, the tomato being a member of the nightshade family notwithstanding.

But it was a long ways to Texas, and the more I figured on it, the more I thought it might not be bad to take it by way of Arkansas.