Текст книги "Paradise Sky"

Автор книги: Joe R. Lansdale

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“Don’t never draw a pistol on nobody that you don’t plan to shoot. You draw it, and you shoot, you shoot to kill. A wounded fellow can kill you same as one that isn’t wounded.”

Over the next few months I was taught how to shoot a Sharps rifle and a brand-new Winchester he had bought last time he was in town. But the thing about that Winchester that he done was he put a loop cock on it, and on that loop he put a striker that could be flipped with a finger. The loop cock could be handled quickly, and that striker, if you pushed it down, would hit the trigger every time you closed the cocking loop. You could fire rapid-like. It was hard to hit anything that way, unless you was Mr. Loving, of course, but you sure could put a lot of lead in the air.

By the end of them months I was not only good at shooting but the love of them weapons had also gone away from me. At first I adored them, but Mr. Loving kept telling me how they was tools, and they wasn’t in need of any more admiration than a hoe or a shovel. I took him at his word. If I didn’t love them pistols, I did respect them, and I was mighty respectful of the LeMat revolver in particular. It was, as Mr. Loving said, less accurate than the Colt, but I took to it. Pretty soon what natural accuracy it lacked I made up for by learning to know it and myself, and I liked them extra three shots. And then there was the shotgun load. He put a board up in the ground for that one, and I’d shoot at it at about a distance of ten feet and splinter it.

It was a good life. I liked the work. I liked Mr. Loving, and I liked my loft. I liked all that he had been teaching me. I could read and write a little, but he improved me. He had me reading all manner of books. I liked the ones about geography and history, and I liked stories, mostly adventure. But math, I never could make any sense of it, outside of basic arithmetic. I could add, subtract, do fractions, and divide, but I could never get a handle on what was called geometry or algebra. I knew what a triangle was, a rectangle, a circle, and a square, but beyond that I was bewildered.

I learned to ride a horse like a Comanche, which was another thing Mr. Loving could do. He said Texans in his day had learned it from watching the Indians. I could hang on the side of the horse, dangle under its neck and fire a pistol, cling to its belly, and swing back up with the pressure of my heels. I could grab its tail and run along behind it by making leaps like a rabbit. I also learned to grab the saddle, cling to it, and run that way for the long distance of Mr. Loving’s property.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is amid all these good times was the dark moments when Mr. Loving was like someone else. Not mean, mind you, but there was times when he wanted to be alone and sit up there under that tree in a chair and look out at the sun setting or the moon rising, and he could sit there for hours. I never went up there to sit with him unless I was invited. Somehow I knew he needed that time alone. My guess was he was thinking about his son and wife, but for all I knew he missed the easy money of preaching.

Within a day, sometimes within hours, he’d be his jovial self, discussing Polaris, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor, who were supposed to be bears, and there was the Big and Little Dipper and Cassiopeia, who was supposed to have been the queen of Ethiopia. My geography lessons let me know Ethiopia was where dark people like myself lived, though with their ears closer to their head, or so Mr. Loving said, but I think he was pulling my leg.

I think I could have gone on like that forever, but as I heard my pa say to a friend of his one day, “The good times, if you have any, eventually get shit in them.”

5

I had grown yet another inch by the time things started to come to an end. I didn’t know things was coming to an end, but one day me and Mr. Loving was walking back from the fields, both of us with a tow sack of taters, and I noticed Mr. Loving was lollygagging a bit, dragging behind, and I come up and tried to lift the sack of taters he was carrying. He wasn’t having any of it. I think I hurt his pride.

Up at the house he had his dinner, which I fixed, having become more than a serviceable cook by learning from him. I got to say my pa was an all-right cook if it was something battered and fried and you was so hungry your belly thought your throat was cut. But Mr. Loving truly knew his way around a frying pan.

This time I’m talking about, Mr. Loving thanked me for dinner and took himself to bed. That was the first day I came to realize he was starting to get old. It got so I was doing more of the work, making him stay up to the house, pride or no pride. I’d come in at sundown and fix supper and read to him, which was a reverse of how we started. It was along there I realized I had been with Mr. Loving about four years and had pretty much lost my worry about being found.

Then one day I was slopping the hogs, and this fellow rode up. He tied up his horse and come walking past the house to where I was working. I recognized him right off. He was that town drunk I told you about earlier, one that rode that day with Ruggert. Hubert was his name, if you remember, and my first thought was I wanted to kill him. If I had decided on it, I’d have had to strangle him with my bare hands or beat him to death with one of Mr. Loving’s piglets. Or the slop bucket. I had that in my hand, and that’s what I decided on. He come strolling up to me with a grin on his face, said, “Hey, boy. Loving around?”

I knew right then he didn’t know weasel shit from axle grease. It had been long enough for him to have forgot me, even if I hadn’t forgot him. I guess, too, I had changed a mite, except for those ears of mine, but the hat I had kind of fell down on them in such a way they didn’t quite look like swinging doors, and I had more hair. I had quit shaving it close to my head and was letting it grow out into a curly bonnet.

“He’s up to the house,” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could, which was like a man walking along the edge of a cliff trying not to look down.

“I want to talk to him about a matter of business,” he said.

The only business I’d known Hubert to have was trying to get to the bottom of a bottle, but I did note he looked cleaner than I remembered. He had an air about him that was different. He carried himself like a wares salesman who had plans to con someone into buying a cheap set of pots for too much money.

“He’s resting,” I said.

“Well, you go get him, boy,” he said.

I didn’t like the way he said “boy.” I didn’t like that he helped kill my pa. I didn’t like him. I went up to the house, trembling with anger, went in through the back door like I was supposed to do at a white man’s house, though me and Mr. Loving didn’t stand by that way of doing things. I should add, to keep it all on the up-and-up, I knocked first, then went inside.

It was East Texas warm, yet Mr. Loving was sitting by the cookstove, had a fire going in it, and had a quilt thrown over him. I felt like a ham on slow bake in there, but he seemed fine with it. I said, “There’s a man to see you, and I know him.”

“Oh,” Mr. Loving said.

I told him quickly who he was.

“He used to be the town drunk,” Mr. Loving said.

“Used to?” I said.

“He got the cure, took up with a widow that had money, and now he owns the Wilkes Mercantile and General Store and Emporium.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve known about it for a while but didn’t see no need to mention it to you. It has nothing to do with you being here. Knowing he’s prospering is of no importance. I been waiting for him to fall off the wagon and lose it all, actually. We go back out there, you think you can control yourself?”

“I don’t want to,” I said. “But I will.”

“All right, then. Help me up.”

Before we went outside, Mr. Loving took the Colt pistol and stuck it in his back pocket, which was one of those lined with oiled leather. He slipped that blanket around him, sort of like a poncho, so that it covered his gun. He told me to get the bucket by the door we used for gathering eggs, put the LeMat in there, and throw a dinner napkin over it.

I did that, and we went outside, Mr. Loving not making it too good but holding his head up, trying to act like he was ready to punch a bull in the face.

Outside, Hubert was grinning like he’d just found a gold dollar in a pig track. He said, “You look all run-in there, Loving. And what the hell you got that blanket on for? It’s hot as a whore’s diddle out here.”

“I got me a spat of something,” Mr. Loving said. “I’m a bit under the weather with it.”

Hubert eyed me again. I could see he was starting to feel like he recognized me but hadn’t yet put a handle to me. I thought about going off to finish with the hogs but decided I’d stick. If Mr. Loving was nervous enough to put a gun in his back pocket and have me stuff one inside a bucket, I figured I should stay.

“What can I do for you?” Mr. Loving said.

“Well, sir. You and me done some business at the store, me buying vegetables from you and such. What I come to talk to you about is doing your hog killing for you. I started me a couple of services in town, and that’s one of them.”

“What’s the other?” I asked.

I shouldn’t have said nothing, and the way I said it was disrespectful. It wasn’t the words, it was the attitude. Like maybe he had become a cocksucker for money and I knowed it and was going to offer him two bits for the service.

Hubert said, “You let that boy talk to me like that?”

“He’s man-sized,” Mr. Loving said. “He had a question, and he asked it. Fact is, I’m curious. What is the other job you got? Is one of them distilling?”

“I give up the bottle,” he said. “And actually, it’s another job. I’ve become a field driver.”

Now, this ain’t a term I hear much anymore, but it was a fellow that rounded up loose stock, even dogs and cats, and stored them in a corral or pound at the edge of town. You was missing an animal, went over there and found it, you got it back for a fee. There was always the problem that some of the critters ended up in the pound hadn’t been loose to begin with and had been made loose, so to speak, due to that fee for their return. And if the stock wasn’t claimed, it ended up in the field driver’s smokehouse. Dogs and cats might not last longer than an evening due to the feed bills and the smaller fee. Field driving could be a sketchy business.

“Field driver isn’t a job,” Mr. Loving said, and I thought his tone was far more disrespectful than mine had been. “Anyone can round up a neighbor’s lost stock, and a righteous person won’t ask him for a dime to get it back.”

“I’m not here to debate the merits of my professions,” said Hubert. “I’m here to promote hog killing.”

“I can kill a hog,” Mr. Loving said.

“A dog can kill a hog,” Hubert said, “but if you bring them in, I’ll kill them, cut them, and smoke the meat, and you will be entitled to so many pounds of it. I will keep a bit of it for my troubles and for resale.”

“So I bring the hog to you, you kill it, take part of the meat, and smoke it? What have you done that I can’t do?”

“Why, I have saved you time, sir.”

“How do I know I’m getting my meat back?”

“That isn’t the issue,” Hubert said.

“It is with me.”

“We add up the pounds of your hogs, mark out what my portion is to be, and when you want that meat, you come in and shop for your other things, which you can put some meat toward, and if you want the meat, I’ll give you what you have coming. I also got a couple niggers who can make head cheese and such, and you’ll be entitled to some of that. It don’t matter if it’s your hog. What matters is you are entitled to a certain percentage of meat from a hog or to exchange it for goods.”

“I raise good hogs,” Mr. Loving said. “There’s folks aplenty who don’t. I don’t want some wormy critter with more bones than meat or one that’s nothing but fat. For that matter, I just don’t want no one else’s hog. You being the field driver, I might end up with a dog leg and a cat liver in place of the hog I brought to you. No, I’m going to decline with a degree of prejudice. I’ll kill my own hogs, or this boy here will do it for me, but thanks for the offer.”

“It would sure make your life easier,” Hubert said, trying to maintain his politeness but giving me the still-curious eye. “I been going around to all the farms, and I will swear to you that over half of the folks have made the agreement.”

“Slate me down for the half that hasn’t,” Mr. Loving said.

Hubert worked his top lip like he was trying to persuade a fly to get off of it, then said, “That’s the way you want it, of course. Can’t blame a fellow for asking.”

Hubert had become quite the politician. If Mr. Loving had told him to eat shit, he’d have said he already had a mouthful.

Hubert mulled me over. “I seen you somewhere before?”

“You haven’t,” Mr. Loving said before I could answer. “He came from over in Jacksonville looking for a job, and I hired him. He isn’t looking to work nowhere else.”

“I wasn’t looking to hire him on. It’s like I said. I think I know him from somewhere. You know me, boy?”

“No, sir,” I said.

At this point Mr. Loving started indicating in an almost polite manner that he was anxious for Hubert to get on his way so that he could go back to his fire and nurse his ailment. Hubert bid Mr. Loving good day and didn’t bid me sour apples. He walked out to his horse, which he had tied out front to a hitching post. Me and Mr. Loving walked there with him, which was an old custom designed not so much out of politeness but out of a plan to make sure your visitor wasn’t going to his horse to pull a gun.

Hubert got on his beast and sat there for a moment. It was then, me looking up at him and him down on me, that I saw a change in his face. He had remembered who I was. I blame my ears for it. They are memorable, and with me looking up, my hat and hair didn’t hide my ears like before. I still had that bucket with the LeMat in it, and I wanted badly to pull it and blow his brains all over that horse, but I didn’t. He didn’t make any kind of move, either. If he had, before I could have got in that bucket or Hubert could have got his pistol free of that clinging leather holster he wore, Mr. Loving would have yanked that Colt and put a hole in him. He’d have been dead before he hit the ground.

“I think maybe you and me crossed some trouble once,” Hubert said to me.

“I doubt that,” I said.

“You remind me of a nigger that had a problem in town.” I guess he thought rephrasing the remark would get the answer he wanted, but I was harder to corral than that.

“Wasn’t me,” I said.

“Wasn’t him,” Mr. Loving said. “It’s time you rode on, Hubert. I’m worn out with looking at and listening to you. I got a farm to run.”

Hubert boiled Mr. Loving’s words around for a while.

“They got a word for a man like you, you know,” Hubert said.

“And what would that be?” Mr. Loving said.

“Nigger lover,” Hubert said.

“Now you’ve said it, and now you’re through,” Mr. Loving said. “Ride on.”

Hubert wanted to say something more but proved himself smarter than I expected. He reined his horse away from us and started it at a trot down the road.

Mr. Loving turned to me, said, “He recognized you for sure.”

“Yes, sir. He did.”

“He’ll be back, and with Ruggert and some others with sheets over their heads.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll save you some trouble and clear out.”

“He’ll go into town and let it be known you’re here. They’ll be on you like stink on shit, as that wanted poster on you is still out there, though it’s dusty in the post office.”

“I know,” I said.

It all settled down on me like a hawk on a mouse. I realized that I had put Mr. Loving in a tight spot. I had no choice but to go on. I said as much.

Mr. Loving said, “Well, he’s got a good trip into town, and that horse he was riding sure won’t be confused for a runner. But you need to get your things together and ride out, not because I want you to go, but because you got to, for your own safety.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“We can stand together and fight them,” he said, “and we’ll mess them up a lot, but in the end they’ll just keep coming after that reward money, which will probably go up another hundred by the time Hubert gets through telling how you’re out here and all.”

“Them Kluxers ain’t going to like you none, either,” I said.

“I’ll be okay, but you won’t.”

By this time it had cooled just a little. The sun was dipping its head behind the trees, and the shadows was falling.

“You’ll need to take more than one horse, and in fact you can take two, plus one to ride on. If you remember your math lessons, which have been a trial to you, that’s three.”

“Them’s your horses, Mr. Loving. And they’re good horses, and it’ll cost you considerable to let me have them.”

“I know that,” he said. “You think I don’t know that? You’ll need those extra two to sell for seed money along the way. Keep the runner to ride. I’ll go draw you up a bill of sale, which will make things easier for you. Meet me at the sitting tree in about twenty minutes, which I figure is all you’ll need to throw your things together. Take just what you need, and gather up them horses. I know it’ll be hard for you to leave that dresser and mirror, but you got to.”

Mr. Loving went coughing into the house, the blanket hanging over his shoulders in a way that made him look like an old Indian squaw. I went out to the loft. I had come to this place with a pocket watch, an old horse—now dead, having not made the first winter—and here I was leaving with a horse to ride and two to sell. I guess it was a profit in a way, but it wasn’t something I felt good about. I didn’t want to leave Mr. Loving. I loved that man about as much as I had loved my ma and pa.

I packed my saddlebags. Lean as I tried to trim it, there was quite a bit of goods, including some food I had for late-night nibbling—bread and jerky and a few boiled eggs wrapped in a paper bag. I rolled up some clothes and other items in my bedroll. I put those nice boots Mr. Loving gave me, along with some nicer clothes and a coat, in another roll.

Following Mr. Loving’s advice, I took the three best horses, saddling one, using another for a pack horse, and using still another as a change-out horse if I needed it.

I was just starting to head up to the sitting tree when I heard the shot. I closed the horses back up in the corral and ran up to the tree. Mr. Loving was there in his chair, his head tossed back, staring at the fresh stars. I could see his eyes was open. I could see starlight in them.

Nervous-like, I come up on him and seen his hand was hanging by his side, and in it was that little pistol, dangling there from one finger, him having put a load into his head right behind the ear. I looked him over, then I yelled at the sky, and then I screamed, and then I dropped to my knees and cried. I was so mad I hit him in the leg once.

The grief I felt isn’t something I can describe with words. All I can say is that it was akin to how I had felt when Ma died and Pa was murdered, only maybe a little worse, because it seemed no matter where I was in life, someone I cared about was going to die on me.

It was then I saw there was a big envelope in his lap. It had my name on the front of it. I opened it up, and three letters spilled out. One said simply that he had taken his own life and that I was not to blame, and it had his signature on it. He left all his worldly goods to what he called a solicitor, which is nothing but a ten-dollar word for a goddamn lawyer.

Opening up the second, there was a bill of sale for the horses, and some other items was listed, them being pretty much the things I had packed on the horses and some things I had chosen not to bother with but would have taken with me had I had the room. He knew me well.

There was another letter, and that was the one to me. I read it in the moonlight. It said:

Willie,

If you asked me if I’d done this a couple of years ago, I would have said no; it is the coward’s way out. But my trips to town have also included trips to the physician, and I have a cancer big as a dry horse turd inside of me, or so says my sawbones, and a litany of health problems that assure me of a soon acquaintance with the grave.

I did not want you to see me in that state of waste, and though I know there is discomfort to you in me taking this method to depart, please understand I did it because I can no longer protect you, and the pain was such I couldn’t wait another minute. I thought I’d wait until you left, but I couldn’t, and so I’m going to do it.

They will come, and you must go. They will blame you for my death, but I have left notes and my will with my solicitor, a Mr. G. O. Freemont, to be opened after my death. The letter stating my suicide will be announced about town, so it will be understood that I died by my own hand. I told him that any day I would take this way out, and that I was leaving my goods to a young man who worked for me, who may in fact have to take to the road.

I told him you had been accused of a crime but were innocent. I have known him for years, and he can be trusted. He is my cousin. I gave him all the information he needs. It assures this farm and all its assets will be sold and that the money will be banked in your real name. You had better take another handle for a time, and upon your return it would be best if you showed him this letter to confirm your claim, though other identification may be necessary.

Now, you look just fine, but I told him about your ears so you can be recognized whenever you show. Make sure it isn’t anytime soon. Keep the ears covered on the trail, because you will be identified with them sure as shit. G.O. is a fairly young man, looks healthy, so I’m expecting him to be around when you set your sights back on this part of the world.

Look under my chair and see the bucket there. It has the Colt and the LeMat, which I have placed in a holster that won’t grab at the gun when you pull it. Also in there is ammunition for all the weapons, including some shotgun loads. You will find the Winchester leaning against the tree. The Colt ammunition fits it. I have sighted it some since you last used it. Stay firm in life and know you’re as good as anyone else, but don’t take to anger too much, as it will be your undoing, especially if you got a gun on you. Wear a wide-brimmed hat in the sun, as I have taught you, because your ears, even with black skin, will take a sunburn.

I’m tired now, and I see you out at the corral, so I got to finish this up and shoot myself in the head. Make sure all the livestock is good and fed, and when word gets out I’m dead, my solicitor will come out and manage the sale of all items. Head out west, but go east first. Cross the draw and cut back to the west when you get past Pine Ridge.

Leave me here in the chair. They will do what they do with my corpse, which they can have, it being of little use to me or them at this point.

You are as a son to me, Willie, and I give you my dearest and loving wishes as would a father. Ride like hell.

P.S. Be careful of women. They can cause you trouble.

I folded up the letters with trembling hands and put them back in the envelope. Gathering up the guns, ammunition, and holster, I went down to the corral and loaded up the weapons on my riding horse. I put the loop-cock Winchester in the saddle sheath. I put some of the ammunition on the pack horse. I fastened on the holster with the LeMat in it. I fed all the stock quickly. They would be all right for a couple of days. Of course, there was nothing that said the wrong people wouldn’t take them, but there was nothing I could do about it. I considered letting all the stock go free, but decided that wasn’t a better idea than leaving them, but to this day I feel guilty about it.

The moon laid a bright path over the ground. It was good for me to see by, but it was good for anyone following as well. I set out east, like Mr. Loving had said. It wasn’t long until I was on a path through the pines. It was the same way I had come to the farm some few years back. Soon I was in the swamp water, going toward Pine Ridge. If all things went well and I wasn’t castrated and hanged by morning, I would be striking out hard for the far west.