The Bones of Paradise

by Jonis Agee

  Dulcinea hadn’t seen Rose in more than a week. The woman had disappeared without a word, leaving the kitchen shorthanded. She was startled at how easily the other woman slipped away and by the hurt she felt. Rose was her only real friend since she had been forced to abandon her husband and sons.

  Half-strangled by guilt and grief, she tried to live close enough that she could ride into the Sand Hills to watch over her family, Drum Bennett be damned. He always caught her, threatened her again, and she resolved to stay away, move to another town. Before long, it would begin again. A few times J.B. found her in the town and brought Hayward to spend time with his mother, which drove her wild with regret. When J.B. came alone, they fought for hours about Cullen and about her leaving, and then fell exhausted into bed to punish each other’s bodies, ending in silence side by side in her rented room like a long-married couple waiting for a train.

  Only Drum would tell her about her son, and his stories were as dark and bitter as any the Brothers Grimm could conjure—injuries, accidents, misfortunes. These were the hallmarks of Cullen’s life, as far as she could tell. The last time Drum found her, she was waiting for a glimpse of Cullen out by the old line shack on Drum’s land. She knew her son went there to escape his grandfather’s tyranny. It was only a matter of time. She camped there for two weeks last August, fighting biting flies, heat, and loneliness. She spent the time training the little ranch horse she’d bought from the livery stable in Gordon. She wouldn’t give up this time, she vowed; she’d be there when Cullen arrived and they’d talk until they understood each other. Drum be damned.

  Drum arrived at dusk one evening, standing in the stirrups so the horse’s jarring trot wouldn’t pound his back and hips. He courteously stopped and dismounted far enough from her tent and fire that she was not disturbed. But when he stood in front of her and let his eyes sweep her figure, she felt shame, as if she didn’t measure up.

  “Here we are again,” he finally said with a slap of his reins across his palm. He sounded tired, and his wolf white-blue eyes glinted like mica as they took in her tent and her hobbled horse grazing nearby. “Having a time, aren’t ya? Picnic? Campout?”

  She remained silent.

  “Got nothing to say, do you. We’re going round the same ole mulberry bush.” He put his hand on the butt of his revolver. “You’re like a dog keeps coming back where it’s not wanted.” He slipped out the gun and let it hang in his hand between them.

  She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. “Where’s Cullen?”

  “By God, I’ll burn this place down if you don’t keep away!” He raised the pistol and pointed it straight at her.

  She shrugged and moved so close she could lift the gun he held and press the barrel against her heart. When she smiled, he shrank back, and the gun trembled in his hand. “You’re crazy.”

  She raised her eyebrows and smiled again. “I’m going to have him back.”

  “You’ll get nothing. I’ll finish off the lot before I let you touch any one of them.” He spit to the side, as if he could rid himself of the bitter taste. “You don’t care nothing about yourself, but your men are another matter. Keep that in mind. They might not get themselves kilt, but there’s a world of hurt they can be in unless you stay off Bennett land.”

  That was the problem. She couldn’t be sure that Drum Bennett wouldn’t cripple his own to prove a point. He couldn’t kill her, it wasn’t in him to hurt a female for some reason, but males were another matter. As she watched him mount his horse and ride away, she thought it might be a relief to be done rather than continue living like a ghost, haunting the lives of loved ones, unable to reach out and touch them. Maybe she was going crazy. She packed up and left after that, hadn’t seen Cullen since.

  The last time she saw J.B. was during the warm spell in March when she rode down to Babylon to arrange the surprise shipment she’d bought for her husband and sons. They met in the room that was always reserved for the Bennetts at the hotel. For once their argument was halfhearted and they ended seated side by side on the bed. She traced the lines on his forehead with a finger and teased him about his sore tooth. For the first time in years, there was playfulness between them instead of grief and sadness at the separation. He asked, “Can you forgive me?”

  “When you bring Cullen home,” she said. Unlike the other times she’d made this request, he nodded. Then a spring blizzard came through and nobody could get out. April was cold and rainy, travel was hard. Finally May arrived, bright and fresh, and there was no more waiting. J.B. would bring her son home, she knew it.

  He was especially busy this time of year with calving and culling, branding and fencing. Ten years ago, when they first separated, they sent coded telegrams, full of anger and threats and cajoling. That stopped after a while. God, she missed him. She couldn’t believe it was years now since she left. Years that old man had held her family hostage. This year, she vowed, this year she would put a stop to it. Soon as the Kentucky Thoroughbred horses she’d bought for her husband and boys arrived, she’d tell J.B. the whole story and let him deal with his father in his own way. She planned the horses as a gesture of hope to bring their family together again, to signify her return and . . . and she didn’t know what . . . She’d made the purchase on impulse and now it seemed foolish. She folded her arms and glanced out the window.

  The American flag on the tall pole outside swayed in the wind as thin clouds skimmed the flat blue sky, causing waves of shadows to roll across the grass like the edge of a hand sweeping crumbs from a table. She walked over, unlatched the window, and turned back to the class. She wanted to invite them to climb outside and run through the new grass with her, as she would soon do on the ranch. She had felt a kind of wildness all morning, an anticipation. Something was coming toward her and she felt the urge to run.

  “Mrs. Bennett?” A senior teacher poked her head in the doorway. Dulcinea turned and noticed the critical expression the woman wore that pulled her face into a narrow line like a ruler. “It’s time.”

  Dulcinea nodded to the disappearing head, dropped her gaze to the patient faces of Lily and Willow and Billy Blue Horse and all the others. She beckoned to them. Each row rose and filed silently to the front of the room, where she shook their hands and gave each a little brown sack of penny candy she’d paid for out of her own pocket. Lily pulled out a cinnamon gumdrop and shyly licked it with the tip of her tongue before shoving the whole piece in her mouth, where it sat bulging in her cheek as she turned and skipped toward the door, then stopped and walked slowly, head down. Stone Road paused, hands at his sides, and refused to accept the small reward, until Billy Blue Horse tried to take the sack from her hand.

  “Hestovatohkeo’o,” he said, nodding toward the older woman outside the window, who was yelling for the children to be quiet for the photographer’s picture.

  “Maybe,” Dulcinea said. It wasn’t a bad description of the woman, at any rate.

  Stone Road smiled and lifted the sack of candy in salute before he sauntered down the aisle, flipping some books open and slapping others shut. Dulcinea felt a sense of calm in her chest. The boy would be fine. He could survive without her or the school. She smiled as the children broke for the doors, shouting and laughing and shoving as they ran to meet the families gathered to take them home.

  She turned away from the happy reunion, unable to stop the tears that filled her eyes. This was the cost of her bargain, and she wondered if it was only the scene outside that caused her unease. She surveyed the empty room one last time. Would she return next fall? She stuffed her pencil case and protractor, blackboard chalk and eraser, books and ruled paper, sketchbook and watercolors, scissors and colored paper in her flowered brocade satchel and pushed the chair against her desk. As she started down the row of student desks, she paused at one that bore the freshly carved outline of an elk with huge antlers and body and tiny legs. She knew whose it was, and she was glad to see him finally take the challenge she’d given them to draw what matters mos
t. Little Elk had steadfastly refused to use the charcoal or pencils she gave him for anything except scribbling across the paper until all the white was extinguished. She might as well have given him the cheap lined graph paper he could buy at the trading post, instead of the quality drawing pads she’d ordered from Omaha. Next year, if she was still teaching, she’d offer him wood-carving tools, yet even as she thought it, she knew it probably wouldn’t happen.

  “Mrs. Bennett? Dulcinea?” Rose stood in the doorway, arms hugging her chest as if it were February, not May.

  “Rose.” Dulcinea peered into the hallway for Lily. The child was nowhere to be seen. Must be with her father, Some Horses. As she drew closer, Rose wouldn’t meet her eye. Her face seemed swollen and chalky.

  “What is it?” Dulcinea reached out, but her friend dipped away. Dulcinea took a half step back, swung her satchel in front of her body, and held it with both hands while she waited.

  “No one’s talked to you yet?” Rose lifted her head and searched Dulcinea’s face. Without waiting for an answer, she said, “They’re dead. Both of them.” Her tone was harsh. Dulcinea didn’t understand.

  “What are you saying? Who’s dead? Where?” She was seized by the image of Rose’s daughter and husband lying in a pool of blood, but no, it was only a minute ago—

  Rose tried to take a deep breath, but it seemed she couldn’t. She brushed the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand and straightened her shoulders. Without looking at the other woman, she said, “My sister, Star, and your husband.”

  Dulcinea felt the silence settle into her, as if everything in her body had stopped moving, and every sound in the room and outside ground to emptiness. If she did not take another breath, the stillness would make this bearable.

  “They’ve been looking for you.”

  “What?” Dulcinea couldn’t understand what Rose was saying and didn’t want her there anymore.

  “Your people, the men at the ranch, they don’t know where you are. My cousin heard about it in town yesterday and remembered you were up here. They buried him ten days ago. My sister was left out there—”

  Dulcinea stared at Rose, and the other woman seemed older, dark circles under her eyes, her hair matted with grass and pine needles. She recognized that she should feel sympathy for her but couldn’t move to express it or even open her mouth. Her chest was full, tight, and the noise rose up her throat, which tried to close against it, until a sound burst from her that was half howl, half sob, and still the tears would not come.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For ten days Drum ran them ragged, countering the orders Higgs gave the men at meals, directing Vera, too, though that didn’t go well. Higgs smiled at the thought of Vera’s stiff back and quick hands as she chopped potatoes for frying while Drum harangued, wheedled, flirted, and finally gave up trying to convince her to make him more doughnuts while he was laid up on the sofa with a broken ankle.

  The boys were pushing at each other again, playing slap tag among the horses shifting nervously from leg to leg, tied to the corral, while the hands got ready to ride out for the day’s work. Drum tried to send Cullen back to his ranch, but he refused. As Higgs watched, the boys swung up on their horses and spun them at the same time. Hayward took after J.B., tall, rangy, developing powerful shoulders and a broad back. He’d be grown in another couple of years, but what kind of man would he become without his father? What kind of man would either of J.B.’s sons become?

  The boys glanced at each other, sat deep in their saddles, and put their spurs to their horses’ sides, holding the reins tight so the animals had nowhere to go but into the explosive bucking and rearing that followed.

  “Damn it,” Higgs yelled. “I told you boys to leave those youngsters alone. You’re wrecking perfectly good cow ponies with that nonsense!” He sent his horse loping toward theirs. The young horses stood, legs planted stiffly, heads thrown up, eyes rolling, bits foaming. “You think this is a goldarn game?”

  The boys glanced at each other and grinned, then shook their heads and shrugged, more alike than anyone would have guessed despite being raised apart. The sun was coming up over the hills, a red-orange ball in clear blue light, promising a day of searing heat.

  “You two are riding fence.” Higgs made an instant decision. “Go pack your gear, load Molly Mule.”

  “Not her,” Hayward said. “It’ll take forever.”

  Higgs nodded. “Just what I was thinking. And those horses you’re on better come back rode right and broke to death. Now get going.”

  Head bowed, shoulders slumped, Cullen stepped off his horse and tied it to the rail. Maybe there was such a thing as breaking an animal too hard, Higgs thought. Hayward slid off the back end of his young horse, spooking it to kick, but the boy merely laughed, swatted it with his hat, and held on to the reins as the horse plunged and reared away from its tormentor. There was definitely such a thing as not being hard enough on a boy.

  “Make quite a pair a hands, don’t they?” Larabee stopped his horse beside Higgs and began to build a smoke.

  “Week riding fence with that mule should take some stuffing outta them.” Higgs glanced at Larabee. “I been thinking we should take Graver with us today.”

  “I’ll get ole Sandy saddled up for him.” Larabee put the cigarette in his mouth, struck a wood match on his saddle horn, lit it, pulled a smooth lungful of smoke, and let it trail out slowly as they watched the boys try to lead, then push Molly Mule out of the corral.

  “Them boys got a task ahead of ’em.” Larabee chuckled as the mule bit Hayward’s shoulder and tore his shirt after he punched her nose. The boys stood off then, more respectful as the mule eyed them, teeth bared, ears flat. Then she dropped her head to snatch hungrily at the sparse weeds and grass.

  “That Cullen thinks he’s man enough to run this place, he has some to learn. I’m barely holding him back as it is. Less said about Hayward, the better.” Higgs heard the kitchen door shut and turned as Graver came walking out the yard gate, stopped, and stared across the ranch, taking in the big barn, stable, corral and dry lots, winter pastures, bunkhouse, toolshed, chicken coop, foreman’s house, all nestled in the small valley between the grass-covered hills, sheltered from the worst of the winter wind and snow. Graver finally turned his gaze to the boys struggling to settle the pack frame on the mule. Without a word, he walked across the dusty barnyard and took the halter rope from Hayward, who was using the end to battle Molly’s slashing head and teeth while Cullen tried in vain to snatch the cinch strap and draw it under her belly. Graver put out his hand to stop the boy. Cullen hesitated, and then stepped back with a shrug.

  The mule went motionless, watched warily out of the corner of her eye as Graver reached out and rubbed her withers, working his fingers up her neck, pausing at the poll behind the ears to lift the leather halter so it wasn’t cutting into her head, then sliding his fingers down her jaw, scratching his way under her chin and up her nose. She blew hard and sighed, and her left hip relaxed. Graver fashioned a quick rope halter that passed behind her ears and looped over her nose, rubbing and talking to her the whole time. Then standing by her head, facing her hind end, holding the halter under her chin, he flicked the rope end toward her haunch. She lurched, kicked out, and finally took a step forward, which he rewarded by rubbing her neck and head before asking for another step. This time she swung her hind end, fought to free her head, and bucked before she came forward. The command-praise ritual was then repeated for a good half hour, until the mule complied and trudged forward whenever asked. The two boys watched until they grew bored and went to the bunkhouse for their bedrolls. By the time they returned, Graver had the pack frame secured and was attempting to lift the spool of barbed wire onto the mule’s back with his one good arm.

  Even from their distance, Higgs and Larabee could see the oily sheen on his pale face.

  “You two take that wire and get that mule loaded,” Higgs yelled. Hayward opened his mouth to talk back, but Cullen elbowed h
im and together they lifted the wire spool and tied it on while Graver held the lead rope.

  “Ungrateful little bastards didn’t even thank him,” Larabee said.

  “Saddle J.B.’s horse. Graver’ll do fine,” Higgs said.

  Larabee raised a brow. With a slight shrug, he lifted the reins and loped across the ranch yard to the dry lot where the red horse had stood since they brought back J.B.’s body two weeks ago.

  As soon as the boys mounted and rode out, Molly Mule trotting behind them, her rolled eye showing white and head held out stiffly in front of her, Higgs walked to where Graver leaned against the side of the barn, head back, eyes closed.

  “Ready for a ride?” Higgs asked.

  “I reckon,” Graver answered without opening his eyes. “Got a hat I can borrow? Heat’s already eating into my skull pretty good.”

  “Did all right with that mule.”

  Graver shrugged.

  “Thought we’d go out there again, where you and J.B. ran into that trouble.”

  Graver folded his arms and opened his eyes enough to see the foreman. “Why’s that?”