The Bones of Paradise

by Jonis Agee

  Higgs scrubbed the dried flakes of blood from the torso of the man he had loved, then mopped at the pink water on the table, and watched as it ran over the edge. It puddled on the pine plank floor Vera kept so clean the wood was bleached light gray and so porous the blood-tinged water quickly soaked in a stain that would never disappear, although he would not know that.

  While he scrubbed the left hand, separated the fingers, worked the dirt and blood out from under the nails, he wondered if he should try to find J.B.’s wife. He wiped the empty ring finger clean. She’d never make it back in time, he thought, even if he knew where she was. Last he’d heard, she was teaching Indian school up on Rosebud Reservation. Before that, she moved from town to town in the Sand Hills, circling Bennett land but never stepping foot on it. The body wouldn’t hold for her to be found. The rigidity was starting to leave the limbs and there was a distinct spicy, sickening sweet smell.

  Maybe she’d finally gone home to her people out East. He remembered she was the daughter of a patent medicine manufacturer from Chicago, that was the place, with enough new money to have been wooed and won by a western rancher. He had to hand it to her, though, she stuck. No matter how the town women treated her because she was a Bennett and after her own father-in-law pronounced her too weak to be a good broodmare, she stuck. Made a good marriage and built the kind of family J.B. never had . . . until the day Cullen was taken.

  Higgs grimaced and worked his way up the shoulders to the neck.

  “Lift his head,” Vera interrupted. She draped the suit over the back of a kitchen chair and held a comb and brush for his hair.

  “I wouldn’t—”

  She elbowed him aside and lifted the back of the head with one hand, comb poised in the other. The flopping skull stretched the skin and groaned—Vera lurched backward. The head landed on the kitchen table with a resounding thump that sounded too much like a pumpkin being squashed. Higgs stood frozen, watched as a fly found the blackened flesh of the wound and tentatively probed the ragged hole with its front legs. Vera stared at the hole for a moment, and then backed farther away, shoveling the air with her empty hand.

  “Turn your head,” Frank ordered.

  He quickly tied the flour sack he’d used to dry the body around the wound as if Bennett were readying himself for a duster. Higgs stepped back and surveyed his work. Most of the blood and dirt were gone. He took the comb and brush from his wife, wet the hair with the pink water, parted it down the middle, and flattened it as he’d seen his friend do for as long as they’d known each other. It felt more intimate than bathing him had—the last thing a man could manage to do for himself if he were still breathing and had at least one working arm.

  With Vera’s help, he dressed Bennett in the one suit he owned, the one he wore to meet bankers and to get married all those years ago. The black wool sleeves were moth eaten, the lapels faded, the collar dark with grease and dirt. Vera adjusted the high standing collar so it sat straight.

  “A Bible, Frank? Where’s his—”

  There was a knock at the back door, followed by a muffled voice saying the wagon and men were ready. Hayward pounded down the stairs and strode into the kitchen as the men hauled in the hastily constructed coffin from the back porch. Irish Jim let his side slip and tilt, banging Willie’s fingers against the doorframe as they struggled to keep it upright. Willie swallowed his curses and cast the other man a baleful expression.

  They’d made the coffin with planks from the new barn door, and only guessed at the length. When J.B. didn’t quite fit, they removed his tall black boots and bent his knees to one side so he lay twisted at the waist.

  Hayward edged between them to stand beside the coffin, and that seemed right. It wasn’t until he raised his hand that Frank saw the eagle wing, worm-eaten and brittle, so dusty it smeared the black wool coat when the boy placed it on his father’s chest.

  Vera let out a sobbing breath. Otherwise the room was silent, acknowledging what was imagined as the boy’s benediction.

  “Get his hat.” Higgs crossed J.B.’s hands on the wing and placed the black cowboy hat on top.

  “The lid will crush it,” Vera said and lifted it out again. “Brand-new hat.”

  Higgs nodded to the other men to help him with the lid. He didn’t need to say any more good-byes. The sooner this was over, the better it would be for Hayward.

  They fought the windblown sand to keep the hole deep and long. When they grew exhausted, they dropped the shovels and lifted the coffin over the hole. As they lowered it, the bulky box tilted and slipped, and then dropped so hard the planks split apart. They could see the black suit through the gaps. Higgs picked up the nearest shovel and heaved sand and dirt for all he was worth. They’d say a few words afterward. J.B. wasn’t in a position to argue.

  The graveyard, which until now held only a favored dog, Vera’s cat, and the boy’s first horse, stood to the left of the barn and corrals, far enough from the houses that a person could almost forget what was there. They’d strung barbed wire to keep the cattle out, and placed a couple of worn-out wagon wheel rims, bleeding rust into the yellow sand around the switchgrass and bluestem, and the cream separator that never worked right over the graves to keep them still. Now they’d have to find more trash to hold down the coffin. In a day or two, Vera would plant wild roses, see if they’d take with the water Higgs would carry there. They might do better to copy the people on Rosebud and leave a body out for the elements, he thought. With land like this, it was a lot of work to be so damn civilized.

  “We done here?” Hayward asked. He clapped his hat on his head and drew the string under his chin to keep the wind from pulling it off. The cuffs of his jacket were so short they stopped halfway down his forearm, Higgs noticed with a jolt. The kid was shooting up. He’d top out at his father’s height, six two or three. Old enough and big enough to get into some real trouble.

  “Where you off to?” Higgs asked.

  The boy glared at him, spun, and started toward the barn, picking up speed until he was running. By the time he made the corral, put a rope on one of the horses, fashioned an Indian war bridle, and sprang on its back, Higgs wasn’t halfway there. At least the boy didn’t turn all the horses loose when he leaned down, opened the corral gate, and went through. He swung it shut again and waited for the latch to fall.

  As the men watched the boy leave the barnyard and lope down the road, Vera tucked her arm through Higgs’s.

  “Little bastard rides like his da,” Irish Jim said.

  “Let’s get something to drink,” a voice behind them said.

  Back in J.B.’s office, Higgs picked up the fresh brandy bottle, gave it a shake, heard the liquid slosh, and set it down, carefully positioning it next to the short glass. He sighed, picked up the small beaded turtle J.B. had bought at the trading post for Hayward. Below it were newspapers from Omaha, Denver, and Rapid City. Old stories about Wounded Knee. Higgs seemed to remember J.B. going up there for the ghost dancing before the massacre, or maybe it was afterward. He and Vera had taken the train to Denver that December so he wasn’t around during that whole uproar. J.B. didn’t talk about it much, but what he saw must have troubled him plenty. Higgs ran a light finger over the tiny beads crusted with dirt. A person could always give it back, Higgs had suggested when J.B. told him what the turtle held, but J.B. shook his head and frowned. He was ever a man to ponder a situation. That was for damn sure. Higgs pushed back from the desk and reached for his hat. On second thought he pulled a pistol from the holster J.B. kept hanging off the desk chair, tucked it in the back of his pants, and covered it with the black suit coat he’d worn for the funeral.

  He glanced back at the bottle, wiped his mouth and chin with his hand, and pulled open the door. He’d spent a good part of his life doing what J.B. wanted; now he’d have to spend the rest doing what he thought J.B. would want. It just never got easier, did it.

  J.B.’s wife should’ve taken the second boy with her when she moved to town. He was a devi
l on animals and men alike these days. Running like hell’s half acre was on fire. J.B. couldn’t do much with him, and since he was the only son J.B. had after Cullen was taken by Drum, he didn’t want to do much with him anyway. J.B. was raised hard, and he was caught between wanting to be kind to the boy and also thinking he needed the lessons that stuck with a person. It ended up being the worst possible way to raise a son. None of them Bennetts know how to raise a child, Vera swore at Higgs nightly. They ruin every one they get their hands on.

  Now he had to deal with this Graver. A part of Higgs hoped he’d done the killing so they could hang him and clean up the mess before dark. It was never that easy, though, he told himself as he left the house, pulling down his hat so the wind wouldn’t lift it.

  The mulberry trees had grown rapidly. They shaded the roof of the bunkhouse windows to the east and clumps of seedlings had sprung up, creating a grove. Only problem was the mess. Men ate the berries, but birds got to them faster, leaving splashes of purple all over the ground, the roof, and any clothes or saddle blankets the men hung out. Coyotes liked the berries, too, and late at night he’d seen a couple on their hind legs in the moonlight, pulling ripe ones from the limbs. Their scat turned loose and deep purple and made a terrific stink, but he never could bring himself to lift the rifle those nights he sat on his porch, unable to sleep for the deep ache in his back that shot pain so sharp along his ribs and into his shoulders it hurt to lie there next to Vera.

  As he approached the bunkhouse, Higgs noticed a cracked pane in the window by the door that faced the big house. The building was long and low, made of the same brick they’d used for the house, with four small windows on each side. The roof was tin that rang like a cheap bell whenever it hailed. Rain produced a softer cadence, still so loud it was hard to think inside. The tin was streaked dark orange with ribbons of rust. Someone should check for holes.

  The door, a thick pine slab dented and marred from years of angry men kicking it, stood open to let in sorely needed fresh air. The stink was worse than the barn. Added to the odor of animal sweat and manure was the meaty stench of unwashed bodies, long underwear that never got changed, half-rotted socks, and cigarette smoke. Rumpled, muddy clothes hung from nails on the walls, along with ropes, bridles, saddles, and halters in various stages of disrepair, and newspaper and magazine pictures with curling edges dotted with fly specks. Every bed stood in a puddle of the owner’s belongings. J.B. would be in here with a—Higgs stopped. J.B. didn’t have a say anymore. The thought made his mouth drier than sand.

  He squinted in the dusty light to find the wounded man. There he was in the darkest corner, farthest from the stove, on the bed where the youngest or dumbest cowboy usually ended up. As Higgs eased down on the one opposite Graver, wincing at the warning stab of pain from his back, he studied the man. His long frame was thin and laced with hard muscles, his shirtless torso wrapped in Vera’s ragged muslin. His face was a chiseled mask, lines etched at the eyes and mouth, the high cheekbones, and below the strong nose the generous mouth seemed to suggest a good-natured smile. But hard times had created a perpetual crease on his brow, which he wore even in sleep. From the little history Higgs knew about him, Ry Graver had endured all the hardship life had to offer a man willing to venture west. Too bad his youngsters had to suffer. Graver was thirty-eight, but his face looked ten years older or more and his dark brown hair bore silver streaks. Higgs’s own hair had turned gray at twenty-five.

  “If you’re done looking, I’d like to tell you what happened.” The voice was low and clear as his eyes slowly opened.

  Higgs’s face flushed. “I’m listening.”

  “Water?” Graver tilted his head toward his wrist, tied to the bed. The other arm was held against his body by the bandage.

  Higgs stood and went to the crude bench by the door that held the bucket of water the men used for drinking, washing, and shaving. He filled the tin cup that hung on a leather thong from a nail in the wall, brought it to the bedside, and held it for Graver to drink.

  When Graver was finished he sighed and laid his head back on the bed, eyes closed. A long minute passed before he said, “They’re all gone, wife”—he swallowed hard—“youngsters.” He paused for a long moment, then said, “I was walking out of the hills when I found the bodies.”

  “When was that?” Higgs leaned forward, elbows on knees.

  Graver thought for a moment. “Late morning.” He opened his eyes and looked at Higgs. “Spare another cup?”

  Outside the crows were setting up a racket in the mulberry trees and made Higgs wonder if a coyote had been brave enough to come around in daylight.

  After more water Graver closed his eyes and told his story. The image of the Indian girl’s body came back to Higgs with startling clarity. He should have done something about that. Animals probably worked it over pretty good after the men left last night.

  Graver shook his head slowly and looked at Higgs. “Don’t see why he didn’t finish me.”

  “So you didn’t have a shootout with J.B.?” Higgs watched as Graver’s face registered surprise, then anger.

  “Hell no. Man fed my family.”

  The words and tone sounded true. Higgs sat back, hands flat on his thighs. “Any notion who shot you?”

  Graver shrugged, and a grimace of pain followed, his face graying, his voice barely a whisper as he said, “Sounded young.” Then his eyes drifted shut and his breathing quieted as he dropped off to sleep.

  Higgs wanted to ask him about the blood-spotted picture of Mrs. Bennett Vera had found when she cleaned his wound. He studied the sleeping man. Why hadn’t the shooter circled around to finish him? With the dead Indian girl, probably some brave hopped the reservation, maybe J.B. stumbled on the killer burying the girl. Or maybe J.B. . . . Higgs stopped and stood. He’d have to go out there again, examine the girl, look for clues.

  At the door he glanced back at Graver. Best move him to the house so he could keep an eye on him. Drum would want to hear his story when he finally showed up. When Higgs sent word about the funeral, Drum had replied, “I’m working cattle today.” Higgs would send a man to town for the lawyer tomorrow. Track down the widow. Tell the new sheriff, though he doubted the man would bother coming out for an Indian and a Bennett.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rose quickly undressed and cleaned her sister’s body, biting back the memory of the times her hands had run the length of her sister’s arms and legs when Star was a baby and it was Rose’s job to care for her. The tips of her fingers lingered on the bruise around Star’s neck, where the man had stopped her breath. When she eased Star’s fingers loose, a gold locket on a chain lay nestled in her palm. Rose picked it up and found it was warm—as if she were still alive. Holding it out from her body, she stared at the object as she would a cluster of poison berries. What did it mean? Was it the killer’s? She pried open the locket, the faces inside, a white man and woman, were faded strangers. She closed it and tucked it in her pocket. She’d think on it later when her work was complete and she could finally mourn.

  As the eldest surviving woman in her family, Rose bore the burden of the funeral ritual. She cleaned the sand from her sister’s ears and lips, then struggled to lift the shoulders and head so she could tug on the white deerskin dress, and cried out in frustration until Some Horses, her husband, rushed to her side. The dress was intended for Star’s wedding day, as it had been for Rose’s. The soft hide was fringed, beaded, and belled for the dancing that would take place. On the front, their mother, a fine artist, had painted a man and woman on horseback, wearing war paint and wielding spears to protect the new family. Now it would go to Wanagi Makoce, the spirit land, where Star would wear it proudly among the dead.

  Rose smoothed the fringed arms and hem, and sang to force away the grief, but it didn’t work. She wasn’t ready to mourn. She wrapped the dark blue shawl her aunt had contributed around her sister’s hips, and then picked up the star quilt she had made when she was twelve, the stitches su
rprisingly small and neat, the pieces of yellow and white cloth bursting from the center, and set it down again. Wrapping her sister in the quilt would be the final act before they moved her to the Buffalo Grounds. She ran her fingers down Star’s arm, and then removed the silver bracelet Some Horses had won for her in a game at the last powwow and put it on her sister’s wrist. She fastened the red-and-yellow quill earrings and kissed Star’s lips one last time, jerking back when she felt their warmth. They had waited a day to see if she would revive after they found her in the Sand Hills and carried her to Rosebud, as was their custom, hopeful when they saw the fresh tears in her eyes, but new breath never came. Even now.

  Rose glanced around the tipi. Some Horses was outside readying the travois to bear the body after dark. The old ones spoke of ghosts who would come back to bother the living, but Rose never believed them. She hated to see a good tipi or house burned after death to keep the spirit from returning. She welcomed Star’s spirit, though she knew it was wrong. When another tear seeped from her sister’s eye, Rose captured it on the tip of her finger and pressed it inside her blouse against her heart. As she wrapped Star in the quilt, rolling her so she could pull it tight, she thought she could hear her sister murmur, the voice so far away she could not distinguish the words. She made a choice then—one she would reconsider over the next few months. She continued to wrap the body until the final edge could be neatly tucked and there was only silence. It was her sister’s spirit calling, not a living Star. She’d heard stories of this, especially when the death was a violent one. Rose must work hard to keep the spirit in her sister’s body so they could rise together and enter the red road as one.

  She stepped back, pressed her hands together to keep them from removing the quilt and freeing Star. From childhood she had been trained to perform the death rituals, heard stories of ghosts wandering the earth because they were not properly sent to the spirit world. She knew what she was supposed to do whether she wanted to or not.