The Bones of Paradise (14 page)

Facing her vanity table, he picked up the silver-backed mirror and laid it back down, then the brush, with silver handle wrought into twining flowers, he didn't even know what kind, his big callused palm could barely register the texture, and he wondered if she had put her fingertips in the curves of the stems and leaves, what she had thought as she lifted the brush, as he did now, and drew it through her hair, as he did now, with long and even strokes, over and over, as he had watched her do on countless nights. Had he ever once asked if he could do it for her? Surely she would have enjoyed letting her exhausted arms fall loose in her lap, hands cupped, while he brushed and separated and finally plaited her heavy auburn hair into a braid that would last almost the entire night if they didn't make love. He stopped, set down the brush, and looked at its fine
bristles, embedded with a few of her long auburn hairs, and three of his own shorter, thicker black ones.

Five years after she left, her old one-eyed horse began its decline and J.B. spent a week of cold nights in the corral with it. “I'm always on my way to her,” J.B. spoke aloud. “I boarded the train that first summer and got as far as Council Bluffs before I got off. It was as if I was drunk, the blow of not seeing her staggered me. She let me know she was in Chicago with her people, in case I cared to send the boys. She knew I couldn't do that. It got so bad I couldn't stand the ranch and found myself in town more than was right. Heard about the business up on Pine Ridge and decided to take a look. I don't think I much cared what happened to me and the boy, but she kept writing and messaging and reminding me to take care of Hayward, so when I went up to watch the dancing I took him, too. Thank God he was home safe the next time, in December.”

He bowed his head to the horse's neck and breathed in the coarse, dusty hair, tried to dislodge the pictures of bodies falling before cannon and rifle fire, red roses blooming in the snow, soldiers riding down stragglers with their guns and sabers. “She came back to North Platte the next March and sent word to come, but Hayward got the measles, and a freak late snow stopped the wagon on the way to town. Remember that? I unhitched you and rode you back in a blizzard. We were both half-froze.”

He stroked the old horse's neck, burying his fingers in the thick, brittle coat that hadn't shed out the past spring, a sign the end was near. J.B. had kept the horse close the past summer, fed her special mashes when she couldn't chew hay or grass because her teeth had fallen out. Now the horse lay wrapped in the wedding ring quilt from his own bed, its breathing labored as he spoke.

“Then cattle prices went south, and I had not a dollar to spare. I couldn't see her without I could pay for her dinner. The next summer she set up camp just west of the line between Drum's and
our land and sent word to meet her at the windmill by the gumbo flats. She's different every time, but the same, too. We fight so hard I think we'll kill each other one day. Hayward's a handful, don't dare leave him much. I keep trying to tell her that. He won't come with me anymore. Doesn't see why his ma isn't here raising him. He doesn't understand what losing Cullen means to her. How she's trying to force me to make it right. But I can't, I just can't.”

J.B. rubbed the old horse between her ears and worked his fingers down the short neck, massaging until she relaxed and dropped her head with a sigh. He pulled the blanket off his shoulders to cover both their bodies and laid his head on the horse's side, letting the deep lift and release of the animal's harsh breathing lull him into a rare dreamless sleep. In his mind, he repeated the words as if they could be released into the world and travel on their own to her: “I'm always on my way to you.”

T
he day Dulcinea returned, she dropped her hat and coat on the bench at the end of the bed and wandered around the room, opening curtains and running her fingers through the dust on the vanity surface, wondering who had positioned the tarnished silver-backed set she had forgotten when she fled. She picked up the brush and paused before running it through her hair, shorter now, then registered what she had seen, the black strands tangled with her auburn ones. Neither of them had thought themselves to this moment.

“My God, how we are destroyed,” she whispered, a line from some forgotten drama, or maybe she had written it in her head as she entered the room where she had slept with J.B. all those years ago. She had carried on an internal dialogue with her husband for so long that his death did not alter the conversation. It merely expanded across time and space. The dusty swaths of yellow lace and silk at the windows stirred slightly despite the glass being closed.

When she first left the hills and went home to Chicago, she was maddened by grief for her sons and husband. She tried prayer and found it lacking in formality. She attended churches of every denomination—except for the synagogues of Jews, which would
not have her—and found religion empty as a spring potato bin. She sought advice from every manner of psychic, spiritualist, palm and card reader, and finally discovered an entire church of spiritualists whose service consisted of any number of individuals standing in front of the congregation on wooden chairs and receiving notices, like telegrams, from the departed, with messages for random members. She received hers the last night she attended. In the form of a flowered horseshoe, the sort draped over a winner at the racetrack, or sometimes over a coffin at a funeral, it read
GOOD LUCK
. The message, from an uncle she'd never heard of, mentioned a journey west. The congregation clapped and imagined the best while she broke into a cold sick sweat that chattered her teeth as she hurried to her parents' house three blocks away that hot August evening, praying her sons were safe, and never imagining that it would be J.B., despite Drum's vow.

She always wanted to come home, always meant to explain her bargain with his father and listen to him explain his, waiting all the while for Drum Bennett to die. The old man drove them apart. It was his fault. They had both made a pact with a devil who knew them better than they knew themselves.

“Dear God,” she whispered. “I hate him.”

When her fingers pushed into the familiar grooves of the brush handle, she felt a light pressure back, and wondered if the long journey remained in the nerves of her body, and made her arms tingle as if someone stroked the fine hairs beneath her sleeves.

“You're giving yourself the frights,” she scolded and rubbed at the tarnished silver back of the brush. She couldn't remember why she'd left the set. She'd been so surprised when J.B. gave it to her in the middle of summer, the package arriving with canned foods and tools and barbed wire and barrels of kerosene from Babylon. He was not a man given to surprises, so she was moved beyond words when she opened the pale blue velvet half-moon box that contained the brush, comb, and mirror fitted in their watered-silk-lined berths.

The pressure on her fingers grew. She used her other hand to pry away the handle, and dropped the brush. Then the oversweet scent of iris rose from the table. She glanced in the mirror, then at the cut-glass perfume vials. Some were empty, others reduced or dried, as if the tops had been left off for days on end. Did he spoil them on purpose?

The scent of iris grew stronger, like the flowers were in the room. She leapt to her feet and rushed to the window to scan the ground outside: nothing but weeds in her old gardens. Then she remembered, she'd left when the dark purple iris heads had started to break open, the air heavy with their syrupy-sweet scent. The memory was like a blow to her back. She bent double and wept as she had when Rose first told her of J.B.'s death.

For two weeks, Dulcinea waited for word of her surprise to arrive. When Hayward burst into the house that morning with a message from the train station about the horses from Kentucky, gifts she'd bought for her husband and sons, she pushed aside her chores and ordered the runabout readied. She was sick to death of the constant thumping of Drum's cane on the floor above with one damned demand or another, an hourly reminder that she had done nothing to remove his presence from her home and worse, to find her husband's killer. The sheriff hadn't made an appearance at the ranch either, and she intended to see him. She had interviewed the men and made Graver take her to the site of the killings, yet still had no clues, no place to start, while Drum's lewd assertion about J.B. and the Indian girl sat like a jagged rock in her chest. Rose said ignore him and that he was a crazy old one, not worth the piss in his pants. But Rose wasn't getting anywhere with her spying either. Apparently, no one on the ranch knew a thing. With spring roundup under way, the men had little time to devote to a mystery. Cow work always came first. That was going to change, the two women
vowed. Rose had sent for her husband and daughter to meet them in Babylon, and Dulcinea had plans of her own.

The boys jumped at the chance to go to town, and with Graver along to bring back the wagon, she would arrive with her sons at her side to answer all the questions in the eyes of those who knew her story. She was home now. She was a mother again. She ignored the nagging reminder that the boys still showed no interest in her. Today at least, she could pretend. She glanced at the boys riding on either side of the runabout, their heads up, necks and shoulders stiff as they imitated the solidity of grown men—and her heart pumped wildly for a moment. They would be lovely, strong men like their father, she thought with a smile. He would have been proud.

As the horses trotted smartly under his hands on the reins, Graver pointed out items of interest as if Dulcinea and Rose hadn't spent years riding these hills. Eventually the land flattened and houses staked out the road as they turned north down the main street, where the mercantile center was framed by a raised plank sidewalk on either side. Driven cattle herds had left the road splashed with sloppy green manure. Dulcinea glanced at Graver's grim face. Did he expect her to raise a lavender-scented silk handkerchief to her nose, as her sisters or mother would? Instead she took a deep breath, shook her shoulders and head, and declared, “It's a lovely day, is it not?”

He raised his brow and, in that moment, reminded her of J.B.—it was like a punch to her stomach. It happened that way. In the midst of a pleasant scene, she would be tossed back into a pool of grief. She breathed deeply and kept her eyes on Cullen, who was a small, wiry version of his father, but quicker, more agile. She had to get to know him better. Anything to keep her mind off the way Graver's long fingers contained a certain beauty as they handled the reins with confidence. He was considerate of every creature, she observed, as she let her gaze drift to the profile of his sun-browned face framed by thick gray-streaked hair that hung unevenly below his black hat.
His quick brown eyes caught every detail, and she saw the muscles in his neck and shoulders shift in response. A wheel of the runabout sank into a hole and briefly tilted her against him. She felt his arm tense to hold her upright as he whistled for the horses to pull harder. She leaned the other way and he let out a breath, and she knew right then that despite everything a time was coming for the two of them.

The livery stable and rail yard were a block west, then north again, but she had to visit the Cherry County Emporium first and pointed toward the massive storefront. Two ladies stopped and stared as they pulled up to tie the horses. Dulcinea glanced around; they were the only runabout or conveyance of any stature other than the ranch or farm wagons along the street. Single horses were in plenitude, ridden by men who appeared in striking similarity regardless of whether they were ranch hands or bosses, attired in worn pants and high-heeled boots, ranging from those with soles held to the foot with twine or wire or strips of rawhide to those whose scuffed appearance indicated they'd never made the acquaintance of polish. Graver's tall, shiny boots were an exception.

Graver climbed down, unhooked the check reins, and tied the team to the railing. With a pat to each wide neck, he turned, and seemed uncertain whether to help her down. She solved the crisis by opening the knee-high door, unfolding the three steps with a shove of her boot toe, and descending with her skirts held above her feet the required six inches. Her mother would be proud that all the money spent on private tutoring had produced a lady able to exit a carriage on her own, even though she then stepped squarely into a cow patty with both feet, breaking through the dried crust to the green slop beneath. Only by the grace of God was she able to maintain her balance. When she laughed, Graver visibly relaxed and held out his hand, which she gratefully accepted.

She turned to her sons, who still sat on their horses watching the activity. They were half-grown children, she thought, what harm
could find them here? “Boys, be back here in two hours. I'll need your help then.”

Hayward nodded nervously and glanced at his brother. Cullen shrugged and dismounted.

“Take care of the horses,” she said to Graver, who rolled his lips and nodded. “I have a few errands.”

Graver stared at his boots an infuriatingly long time, then nodded again and turned toward the store.

“Where are you going?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew the tone was all wrong.

“Vera gave me a list.” He smiled unexpectedly and her mouth responded before she could control it. He wasn't afraid of her. He wasn't even interested in keeping a job with her. Maybe Drum was right. Maybe he was the killer. Dulcinea noticed that Rose watched him closely from the back of the runabout, where she still sat, posed like a visiting dignitary.

When she entered, the store assaulted her senses in a multitude of ways—first it was the riot of stink, the high crafty stench of a half circle of pale cheese the size of a wagon wheel, the myriad smells of harsh black bars of store soap and braids of garlic so old the dust hung in long strands as if the gray-white bulbs wept, barrels of apples and squash and potatoes with the rich scent of ripeness turning to rot, the dry stale odors from bins of flour and rice and beans and sugar, the acrid aroma of coffee beans, the half-rancid layer of lard and butter and milk left too long in the warm room, the damp ashes in the stove, the deep-smoked grease of bacon and ham strung on rope that had begun to carry the green hue of the molding skin rind, the thinner, sharper tang of sausage loops that spanned the corner of the meat counter like Christmas tree strands, the rich shine of the brown-red casings decorative against the drab browned plaster walls.

In the women's goods, a thin layer of cheap perfume hung in the air, a too-sweet idea of flowers that clung to the nose and mouth,
competing with the odor of bran mash, straw, and hot downy bodies from the feed area, where the baby chicks, goslings, and ducks were corralled in separate pens, crowding and cheeping in the corner under the heat of kerosene light. She leaned over and inhaled the manure-and-mash smell, reached down and cupped a downy black chick and brought it squirming to her face. It flapped and protested, its tiny eye blinking furiously as it paddled the air, and stabbed its beak at her fingers. She cooed and stroked its head until its eyes drooped sleepily, then held its body against her cheek, closed her eyes, and she was there, that first spring when J.B. brought the chicks home from town in a wooden box he had wrapped in burlap against the cold—fifteen chicks, and she insisted they keep them in the corner of the kitchen where it was warm. She never minded their stink, because she never tired of watching them chase each other until they collapsed in a heap in the corner of the pen, eyes squeezed tight against the light, tiny chests pumping slowly in and out. She wanted to make them her pets, to press that plump downy ball into the hollow of her neck and feel the soft search of its tongue against the underside of her chin—but the coyotes and snakes took every one as soon as they put them outside. For the next batch they built a coop and a large pen to contain them until they were grown and smart enough to be turned loose. They only lost five of those. Were the chickens now at the ranch descendants of those survivors?

Near the implements she noted the source of the oily smell that put a sheen over the whole store—the leather, guns, shovels and rakes and hoes, the spools of chain and rope and wire all wore it: saddles, harness, strap goods, boots and shoes, even the long waxed coats shared it—the odor of preservation, of what it took to keep their lives out here, if not smoothly, then at least withstanding. It had been so long since any of this mattered to her that she wanted to pause, run her fingers over the goods, and let the rich scent soak into her skin.

Suddenly, the indefinable spice of her husband after a day of hard work, the heavy sweet sweat that smelled so intimate it could be coming from her own body. She turned abruptly, and Graver was watching her, his arms spread across the aisle, hands resting on the plank shelves. She blushed and dropped her eyes, opened her mouth to speak and found the words had disappeared. In the dimness, he looked ever so slightly like J.B. Nonsense, she chided herself and blinked away the tears.