The Bones of Paradise

by Jonis Agee

  Hayward jerked as if stung by a wasp, then explained who he was. She led them through the entryway, down a hall, into the kitchen, and through another door to a room large enough for six beds with a wooden chair beside each; a tall cabinet with glass doors and shelves that held jars, bottles, and stacks of cloth for bandages; and a narrow harvest table littered with scraps of paper and a ledger book. Although every bed held a patient, including the dentist-sheriff, the last bed against the back wall drew their attention.

  Graver stood at the foot, hat held at waist, while Dulcinea sat beside Drum, holding his hand—a sight so strange Hayward almost took a step back. As he approached, he saw that his grandfather’s face was white and drained. “Cullen?” the old man whispered in a weak voice. “You fighting again? Soon as I’m up and around, I’ll see to you—”

  Hayward snatched off his cowboy hat and shook his head.

  His mother was focused on Drum, and brushed the hair off his forehead with a light touch. “I decided you’re right. You’ll be better soon, and we can combine our two ranches, live in my house, rent out the other or let the men use it. Hayward will take over in a few years.”

  “I’ll build a new house for us, and the boys.” Drum gazed at her and smiled, his eyes filled with tears. “I never meant harm to any of you—J.B.—wasn’t me—” His voice slid away as he struggled to breathe against a wave of pain.

  Dulcinea glanced over her shoulder and didn’t seem to notice the condition of her son’s face and clothes. Without dropping Drum’s hand, she tilted her head to beckon him over. Hayward leaned back like an unbroken colt tied to a post, then stepped forward as soon as Graver put a hand on his shoulder. The old man lifted his free hand as if to wave them closer.

  The confusion on the wounded man’s face rendered him harmless, even childlike, something no living person had ever seen. It unnerved him.

  “We’re glad you’re here.” Dulcinea patted Drum’s hand.

  Hayward was about to bolt. Graver stepped back to give him room to breathe, then eased over and took the chair beside the dentist’s bed as Hayward sat at his grandfather’s side.

  “How’s he doing?” Hayward asked. The harsh glare that usually shone from Drum’s eyes was gone, replaced by benign confusion. Brain stroke? He had seen cowboys fall off their horses and wake with this expression, but he’d never expected to see it on Drum Bennett.

  Dulcinea released Drum’s hand, placed it on his chest. He hesitated to touch his grandfather. When Judge Foote walked through the doorway, Dulcinea’s lips parted and Drum’s breathing became labored.

  The judge glanced at the family, paused at the foot of the dentist’s bed, and nodded to the room. He cleared his throat, then reached out, grabbed the dentist’s foot, and gave it a good shake. Receiving no response, he cleared his throat loudly as Doc entered the room.

  “Here now, stop that!” Doc pulled the judge away from the bed, then dropped his voice. “He’s sleeping, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Dying?” The judge squinted with a nearsighted expression and lifted his chin at the patient.

  “You keep bothering him.” Doc shook his head and moved to the far side of Drum’s bed with the judge fast on his heels.

  “Drum Bennett going to make it?” The judge’s voice seemed to bang against the walls like a gunshot, making the family jump.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Doc shook his head and peered over his glasses at Drum’s face as he checked the old man’s wrist for a pulse. He shook his head again and released the hand while Drum watched without interest.

  “How you doing, sir?” The judge’s booming voice ratcheted around the room again. The other patients muttered and tossed in their sleep.

  “Heard Lawyer Chance didn’t make it. You have his body here?” The judge looked at the doctor, who shook his head and moved to the next patient. “That’s a hard way to go, trampled by a runaway team, especially your own. Too late to appreciate your own irony.” His bright eyes swept the group around Drum’s bed. Dulcinea’s face paled at the news and she glanced at her son. Hayward didn’t respond. He’d never had any use for the lawyer. He reckoned she’d have to hire Rivers now. It had nothing to do with him. She hesitated, then stood and motioned the judge to follow as she swept past Graver and Hayward, across the room and out the door. Hayward gazed after her until they were out of the room, then he slipped into her chair and peered closely at the old man, his last living Bennett relative.

  Hesitantly, he reached for his hand, touched it with trembling fingers, and jerked away when the back of it twitched like a horse ridding itself of a fly. “Grandfather? Drum? Sir?”

  Drum moved his head and fixed him with his stare. Hayward cleared his throat and inched closer, opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, licking his lips. His hair fell forward across his cheek and he brushed it back impatiently. The small moment of order strengthened him and this time he squared his shoulders and spoke.

  “I know you got no use for me, sir. That’s as it may be. I wanted to say something.” He looked at the crack where the whitewashed wall met the raw cedar ceiling. “I miss my brother, sir, much as you.” He paused and swiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “But I ain’t a baby. I’m grown enough to run the ranches and that’s what I’m fixing to do, sir!” His voice rose on the last words and Drum gave a deep guttural groan that made him leap to his feet and eye his grandfather with horror.

  “Need gold,” the old man struggled to say.

  “No, sir. I can make them pay on their own. You always low-rated Cullen and me, and I’m gonna show you.”

  Drum shook his head and coughed so long it seemed he wouldn’t stop. Hayward reached to lift his head, and the old man said it again, “Gold.”

  Dulcinea rushed in and placed a hand on her son’s chest. “Stop it!” she commanded in a harsh whisper. Hayward spread his arms and shook his head before stepping back against the wall.

  “I didn’t do anything!” He pouted as the adults did an elaborate dance, trading places around the bedside until Graver was back where he started at the foot.

  Dulcinea looked at the judge on the other side of the bed. “Are you ready?” She picked up Drum’s hand.

  “Ma’am?” The man was balking like a calf on a rope. Hayward couldn’t figure it out.

  “Do it now.” When the judge merely raised his brow, she continued. “You’re to marry us, remember?” She used the clasped hands to point to Drum and herself while Graver took a step back and Hayward a step forward as if to stop her.

  The judge looked at the old man to make sure his eyes were open, and then at Hayward, who fingered the felt brim of his hat. With a deep sigh, the judge lifted his chest, ran his fingertips lightly over the top of his head as if smoothing a baby’s downy hair, and began the ceremony, which after five brief sentences concluded with: “I pronounce you married.”

  Dulcinea nodded and pressed the battered old hand against her lips, with her head bowed and eyes fixed on Drum’s face, over which spread the slightest glow of pleasure, as if he had waited an entire lifetime for this moment. When he muttered “Geneva,” the name of his first wife, J.B.’s mother, everyone pretended not to hear. Hayward felt the sting of her deceit deep inside his chest.

  “I’ll get the papers now,” the judge said. His face wore a peculiar expression like he struggled not to laugh, as if he’d just seen the mouse swallow the cat whole.

  “Please hurry,” Dulcinea said.

  Hayward straightened off the wall and seemed to grow several inches in his outrage. “What the hell is this, Mother?” He grabbed her shoulder, yanked her to face him.

  She looked at him but held her tongue until he released her. “Go run the ranches. This marriage means we have a clear title, son, don’t you see? Your father wanted you to have the land.” Her cheeks burned pink under his glare. “We can talk later.”

  “No. No, we won’t.” Hayward’s mouth twisted and white foam appeared in the corners. He merely stared at the tabl
eau of the widow bride, the hired man, and the old tyrant who finally closed his eyes.

  He looked at his mother. He hadn’t seen this coming and didn’t have a name for it. If the old man pulled through—He grimaced. Didn’t have a name for that either. He looked at the woman he’d recently vowed to protect and realized he didn’t understand her at all and had completely underestimated her. He wouldn’t be surprised if she lay down on the bed right there and then and took the old man in her arms. The hated old bastard, her new husband.

  Hayward pulled on his hat and walked away, and didn’t turn when she called him back. Cullen had been right about her the whole time.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Drum died at dawn after their wedding night, as if mocking all marriage for all time, except no, that was her. Dulcinea sat by his side, held his hand, and restrained him when he tried to rise at the end, reaching with his other hand as if to stop some vision. He cried out a name, Wilke, and a horrified expression crossed his face. He tried to speak, his throat clogged with blood, and still she held on, refusing to let him flee. “You’re mine now,” she whispered so Graver and the doctor standing at the foot of the bed could not hear. “I’ve got it all now.”

  Drum shook his head and slapped the bed with his other hand as if to signal, but it meant nothing. He began to choke, then finally drowned in his own bright blood. When Dulcinea left, clutching the marriage certificate, instead of the triumph she’d expected, she felt burdened by a terrible sense of waste. Graver was right. This dreaming land had killed them all. It didn’t stop her, though. After sitting with the dead man until midmorning, she sent word to the judge, Stillhart, and Rivers to meet her at the hotel. She had made up her mind about the oil and gas leases.

  She turned to Graver, who lingered in the corner of the room, a watchful expression in his eyes, and motioned him outside, leaving Drum Bennett without a backward glance. The old bastard had finally given her family a future.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said as soon as the door to the doctor’s house closed on them.

  Graver put on his hat and crossed his arms, staring at the dusty toes of his boots.

  “I did it for my son. Drum would have taken it all and corrupted Hayward in the process. You know what he was like.” When she met with silence, she put a hand on his arm. “I couldn’t give him another son. I couldn’t let him take everything J.B. and I worked for, and he would have. You know he would have. He was going to sell us out, too. Everything can go back to the way it was now . . .” Her voice fell and she dropped her hand. “What passed between us, what we did in the stable, I—It’s too soon. I want, I hope—” She stopped when he shrugged and turned to walk away.

  “I’m not finished!” She almost stamped her foot she was so tired.

  “I need to round up the hands and get back to work, ma’am.” There was no inflection in his tone. Neither he nor her son understood or forgave her. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and begging him to stay. Across the street she saw the judge and Rivers enter the hotel. She had to take care of business now. She’d finish this later.

  She knew what they thought, it was written on their faces, the bright, expectant eyes and smiles despite Drum’s passing. She let them sit, hands folded like expectant schoolchildren anticipating cookies, and looked down at her white silk shirt, dotted with Drum’s blood, noting the dark constellations like a reversed sky.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” she announced. They nodded, and Stillhart pushed the contract toward her while Rivers uncapped his pen and laid it next to the papers, in charge now that Chance was dead. The men seemed to have little reaction to his passing. She realized that he had no allies or friends among them. It was just as he’d described when they first met: no one in town wanted to know him. Thinking back, she’d always felt Chance had other irons in the fire, plans she might not like or approve of, as if he were steering her in his own secret direction. She never trusted him, and she sensed these men didn’t either. He was a stranger passing through. No past and no future. It was likely that in a few years, no one would remember he was ever here. She looked at the men before her, men she would spend the rest of her life dealing with in one way or another. They needed to understand each other.

  “You know J.B. loved the Sand Hills.” The men nodded eagerly, as if anything she said now would sound perfect to their ears. “I’ve grown to love them, too. Yet I know how terribly difficult it is to live here. I’ve lost my husband and son, and now Drum—” They murmured their condolences, and it sent a small tremble through her clenched jaw because truth be told, she had lost something with his passing.

  She picked up the contract, pretended to read, then dropped it on the table and stood. “I’m not signing anything. J.B. wouldn’t want this, and before he died Drum told me he no longer agreed with it.”

  “We’ll sue!” Rivers said, and Stillhart swore under his breath.

  “Oh, I think my father still has enough connections to stop you in court, don’t you? Besides, I’m a widow and I’ve lost a son and two husbands. You’re going to steal my land, too?”

  As she left, she patted each man on the shoulder to reassure him of her continued goodwill.

  Dulcinea didn’t allow the tears until after dark, halfway to the ranch with Rose, who was waiting for her in the stable when she left the hotel. The soft thudding rhythm of the loping horses muffled her sobs and Rose kept her eyes on the road in front of them. In her heart, she knew she could only give in to the overwhelming sadness this one time. The ranch and her son required too much from her now. As they approached the valley, the two women halted on the last hill as they had four months before when she had rushed home following J.B.’s death. She shook her head at how ignorant she’d been. She’d had no idea how great her losses could become. She turned to Rose.

  “You know why I married Drum?” she asked.

  Rose patted her horse and gave it rein to graze. “Figured it was to hold the land in your name.”

  Dulcinea felt a pang at her words. What could she do, give it back to the Sioux? She and J.B. had talked about who owned the hills, and they’d never solved it either.

  “We aren’t any closer to finding the murderer,” she said. The stallion pulled at the reins and tried to grab a mouthful of grass. She let out more slack.

  “Maybe he’s already dead.”

  Dulcinea glanced at her friend. Did she mean Drum or Cullen? “Percival Chance?”

  Rose shrugged.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Nearly a month had passed since the rodeo and Drum’s death. During that time, Dulcinea gave Hayward the running of his grandfather’s ranch and Graver the running of J.B.’s. Late September was the first time the cattle would run together without splitting them afterward. With such a huge herd, it meant dark-to-dark days for everyone on the two ranches as they collected and pastured them for winter near the two houses.

  Dulcinea fed the branding fires for late calves and yearlings they’d missed and handled the chuck wagon and water. She was bone tired and relieved it was the last day. They only had ten head to go, but the hands had to change horses and eat. The break would help settle the herd, though. Right now, they were dangerously close to stampeding, and any little thing could set them off. The men withdrew carefully, skirting the edges, avoiding those cows searching for their calves. Dulcinea admired the natural rhythm between Rose and Some Horses as they worked the cattle.

  She watched Graver, too, a man whose body moved with the horse as he roped a yearling and dragged it unwillingly to the cowboys waiting by the fire with hot branding irons. The stench of burning hide rode the dust churned under hooves and drifted to the chuck wagon. Dulcinea tried to breathe through her mouth, but it sat on her tongue, so she gave up and let it soak her clothes, hair, and skin. If she was to stay here, she’d better get used to every inconvenience. A horse loped by with an empty saddle, stirrups banging wildly at its sides. She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted in search of its r
ider. Sure enough, a figure trudged toward the camp. She felt relief at recognizing Hayward, still so angry he barely spoke, and God only knew when he’d forgive her. But she did it for him, she protested during the daily argument in her head. It was all for her son. She never questioned the rationale, though she felt the hairline cracks in it.

  When Hayward caught the dun gelding that had once been Cullen’s, Graver and the other hands clapped and cheered him on. Hayward bowed and shook his head. She wanted to join them, but thought he would misinterpret her intentions. She turned her back and stirred the beans and beef in the big pot on the fire.

  “Some damn prospector spooked him,” Hayward said as she handed him a plate.

  “Prospector?” Her hands stilled. She gazed at the top of his head as he sat on the ground and tucked into his food.

  He looked up and nodded behind her. “That’s him.”

  The stranger wore khaki-colored trousers and shirt, and a wide-brimmed plantation hat over a nondescript face. Dismounting, he gazed at the camp and loosened the saddle girth. A pick and shovel and metal sample box hung from his saddle. He slipped a halter and rope over the bridle and let the horse drop its head to graze.

  “Ma’am.” He touched his hat brim and eyed the hot food.

  Dulcinea wanted to drive him off her land, but knew the hospitality laws of the West demanded she offer him a meal first.

  After he’d eaten two platefuls, he pushed back his hat and gazed at her. “You’d be Dulcinea Bennett.” Without waiting for a reply, he continued, “Name’s Pittcairn, from Western Oil and Gas.”

  “I know who you are, and the answer is still no,” she said. Folding her arms across her chest, she pushed back her shoulders and lifted her chin.