Paradise Sky by Lansdale Joe R

Author:Lansdale, Joe R. [Lansdale, Joe R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2015-06-16T07:00:00+00:00

Wild Bill’s funeral was a big ballyhoo.

At Charlie’s camp, under a tepee-style tent, they set up a black-cloth-lined coffin on wooden blocks with the guest of honor in it. Charlie laid a Winchester rifle beside him, said it was his favorite shooting piece. This was a lie. Bill always carried revolvers and was right proud of them, far more than any long shooter. I think Charlie felt he needed to lay Bill out in style, with some kind of weapon beside him, but didn’t want them fine and famous shooting irons of Bill’s to go to waste in the ground. It kind of bothered me about the Winchester, to speak frankly, as it seemed false to Bill’s memory.

Folks paraded inside the tent and around the coffin. Everyone, no matter sex or color, was let in. There was even a few dogs wandering about, and Charlie had to grab a cat off the edge of the coffin and throw it under the back of the tent, as it was sniffing at the corpse.

After a lot of flapdoodle was said, some of it accurate, the body was toted to a hillside, where Bill was put down. Some more flapdoodle was said by a couple of fellows, one of them a weepy Chinaman none of us understood. He apparently knew Bill, and it was whispered that he supplied our man with opium. I don’t know if there was truth to it or not. Charlie come up when the Chinaman got finished, or was made to finish, and said some heartfelt words. Then a board he had carved on was put up at the head of the grave. Charlie had whittled into it Bill’s age and about him being murdered by the assassin Jack McCall. One man suggested that “assassin” be changed to “dick sucker,” but Charlie was against it. It would have required an entirely new board.

The grave was covered with dirt, and that was all there was for the great Wild Bill Hickok.

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