The Bones of Paradise (35 page)

P
ercival Chance neatly folded the
Omaha Herald,
laid it beside his breakfast plate, and picked up the china coffee cup. This was a splurge he couldn't afford, so he stretched out his morning by ignoring the waiter's increasing impatience, expressed through too much attention to his water glass. He glanced at his pocket watch, a heavy solid gold piece the young earl had carried. It was ten thirty and he'd met Harney Rivers at eight to plan their next step with the permits over breakfast, for which the older man paid. The trouble was Dulcinea hadn't been available for a month. The old man either. Chance tried to understand their grief, but the boy wasn't much of a go-getter. He could understand if Cullen were Frick or Carnegie, two men he read about in the paper, or J. J. Hill, now there was a man with destiny earned by his own two hands. It cheered him to read the life stories of captains of industry who began as he had, grabbed opportunity and shook it until it rained cash. He was mixing his metaphors, the voice of his old teacher at boarding school warned him. So be it. He smiled.

Chance was sent away to school at five when his father, a merchant ship captain, took his mother and sailed to the Orient. His father had already made a small fortune in ivory and spices, and
embarked on a longer journey to secure jewels, gold, and wild animals for the rising market in exotic species. They left funds for their son's schooling but failed to appear when the money ran out at age fourteen. Since leaving school, Chance lived by his wits, using his social polish and education wherever and whenever useful. For a time in his late teens, he clerked with a lawyer in New York City, until the man found him in bed with his wife. From there, he made his way into a circle of bankers always in need of a smart young man fast on his feet. He was twenty-two when he borrowed enough money from the bank to seek his fortune out West, without going through the formalities of signing papers. He was tired of the East anyway. The great fortunes to be made there were already taken and deposited in other people's accounts.

He met the young earl at twenty-five in Chicago and truth be told, he was in despair for his poor luck. He had tried commodities trading, but it was a closed world and he was an Easterner. He was actually considering work on a steamboat on the Great Lakes when he met the earl one night in a Gold Coast saloon. With his outlandish clothes and English accent, the earl was about to be spirited away and mugged when Chance greeted him with a hug like an old friend, and whispered the danger in his ear. He threw his arm over the young earl's shoulder and led him out the door into a horse cab.

It took three times around the lakeshore and park for the earl to spill his story and Chance to convince him that he needed a guide, a person who would protect and lead him through the wonders of the American West—Chance had never been farther west than Chicago, but he'd read a great deal. With the earl, Chance's life began an important new chapter that should have continued back to England, where he would remain a lifelong friend supported in the manner his parents had dreamed about.

Chance opened the paper, refolded it, and used the edge of his palm to sharpen its creases. He sipped the cold coffee, raised his finger, and pointed at the cup when the waiter arrived. The hopeful expression on his face slid away as he left for the silver pot.

What he had not foreseen, and what still troubled him, were the vagaries of the earl's taste—there was no other way to put it. His capacity for sexual adventure, nay, sexual experience, grew into a monstrous appetite for the strange, forbidden, and violent until it culminated ten years ago at the massacre known as Wounded Knee. It was as if all his vices were ingredients in a stew so vile the memory still turned Chance's stomach. Yes, they drank to the point of delirium in those days, a fever in the brain that burned away the edge of morality. Nothing was too outlandish. Chance lost himself, lost sight of who he was, what he wanted. The vanity of the old world became an acid on his soul.

“We can do whatever we want,” the young earl said with a flourish of his hand—and he did. When Chance remembered the acts he participated in or simply watched, he felt beyond shame, he felt damned.

He felt frustrated, too, because he only wanted to make his way in the world, as the promoters advised:
GO WEST
! He imagined himself with a fortune in gold or land. He imagined his parents miraculously returned, praising him for becoming so prosperous. That's all he wanted in life. Was it too much? He was willing to work. He'd proven that, damn it.

When the waiter returned, he gestured toward the empty cream pitcher. The man brought a fresh one and set it down heavily so it slopped over and he had to wipe it with his fresh white apron.

Chance finally took mercy on him and said, “A few more minutes.”

He would finish this damn business and be gone from this place. It was that girl, Star, who caused all the trouble. He was relieved the earl didn't discover her the night they killed her mother, Lord, that would have been a grisly scene—still, he tried to talk to her, to buy back the necklace, the last token of his mother and father, tried to use reason and deny his participation, but she would have none of it. He could not stop her. Maybe he should have told her how he took revenge on the earl, killed him and left his body to be eaten by wild
animals, the bones scattered across the reservation the last time they went up there. But she saw the pouch and knew what it was. He saved it as a reminder of how vile he could be. He would never cross that line again, ever. She wouldn't listen to reason, though. He was only a relic hunter, a tradesman, the way her people were, he said. The whole world was a marketplace, and they were doing what people for thousands of years had done, trading goods. But she looked at him and drew her skinning blade. He had to stop her.

It was no use. He tried to be a good man. He was usually a
nice
man, polite and good-natured. But maybe he wasn't a good man after all. Maybe a person had to do good
after
he made his fortune, as Carnegie urged. He didn't know whether Star had told her sister about him, or if Rose found the necklace and knew it would lead to the killer. Honestly, he was tired of killing. The earl shot every living creature he came across. On days when big game was scarce he shot prairie dogs, rabbits, birds, cattle, and wild horses. For a while he employed a photographer to accompany them and capture the triumphant earl with his kill: rows and rows of snow geese left to rot after the picture was taken, five antelope also left because their horns were too small, and a dozen wild burros and horses trapped in a box canyon and slaughtered for joy. The man deserved to die. Chance did the world a service that day. He nodded to himself.

If he could explain that to Rose, maybe she would understand. He knew it was wishful on his part. He had a fortune to be made here, and he could not allow a youthful misdeed to stand in the way. He was sorry. He was very sorry. Civilized people understood how it was in battle. The soldiers were awarded medals for the massacre. Why was he any different? The tension in his neck and shoulders relaxed. This was how he could explain himself. He was helping the army that day. And later, he was a relic and antiquities dealer—nothing illegal. He was a fair and just man. He was even a moral man in some circumstances. He definitely wasn't any worse than most.

That being said, he drank the last of his coffee, stood, put on his
hat, brushed the crumbs from the front of his waistcoat, and left the hotel dining room. With a new energy in his step, he tipped his hat at the couple outside the hotel and went directly to his law office to draw up new papers for Mrs. Bennett to sign. And by Jesus, she would sign this time. Fortune smiles on those who force her hand.

T
he cowboys argued beneath her bedroom window and the day was gray. Clouds massed on the horizon and pushed toward the ranch like an invading Old Testament army bringing submission and doom while the hands argued like sparrows, back and forth, building the nest of disagreement into which they would eventually settle.

Dulcinea went downstairs and pushed open the door, startling the men, who jumped to their feet. She clutched the shawl she carried as a chill worked its way down from her scalp and drenched her in cold as if she were caught in the rain.

Irish Jim's intense blue eyes with their bright glitter like semiprecious jewels took her in, then relaxed. “Just passin' the time, ma'am.”

She looked at Larabee, second to Higgs.

“Nobody give us orders,” he said and belatedly remembered to remove his hat, and the others snatched theirs off, too.

She turned to Willie, who looked over his shoulder at Higgs's house with the front door hanging open. “Higgs, he packed and scooted, ma'am.”

Dulcinea took a deep breath, pulled together the last grains of
strength, and stood straight, even though she became light-headed with the effort.

“Me and Willie will just mosey over there and clean up the place, then,” Larabee said.

Irish Jim stood and fixed her in his gaze. “I guess that stallion's about broke out of the corral. I'll go fix it if that's okay with you.” The men looked at each other, replaced their hats, and ambled off the porch like dogs reluctant to leave their comfort.

“You want I should send the Indians up to the house?” Larabee called over his shoulder. She nodded.

She waited until the men walked away before stumbling back into the house. The coffee Rose had made was warm on the stove, and although it tasted like the contents of a spit can, she still drank a cup. When a space yawned unexpectedly in a person's daily life, she often hastened to fill it, spreading chores to cover the place, as if it were an embarrassment, unseemly, and she must not be seen on its brink. Dulcinea had not spoken in a month for fear of what she might say.

She pushed away from the table, her hands unwilling to release the edge that had been rubbed smooth by men's bodies over the years. Four months ago her husband lay here. A month ago, her son. Yet they continued to pass the platters of meat, the plates of bread and bacon.

She had held Cullen's hand those final hours.
This living hand, now warm and capable of earnest grasping,
and the broken, dirt-lined nails, a boy's hand still, the tiny scar rising up the thumb, the knuckle that wouldn't bend on the index finger he'd broken, so young and already his skin grained with dirt, scarred and broken again and again. He was still a boy, palm narrow and delicate as a girl's, but with thick yellow calluses beneath each finger; another scar crossed his palm, bisecting the fate line. She caressed that hand all night, willing him back to a childhood when he stood at her skirt protected and loved.

This living hand, now warm and capable of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold and in the icy silence of the tomb, so haunt thy days and
chill thy dreaming nights that thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood . . . and thou be conscience-calmed.
Oh son, when you read Keats to Markie Eastman, did you know he would write your epitaph?

And now cups sat where his hands had rested, knives and forks outlined his hips, his thighs, his thin boy legs. Was her place at the table where his bare battered feet waited to be bathed? It was scribed over and over, this story, these bodies, this place, this table where she sat those long hours all those years ago waiting for Drum to return and take her young son. Yes, she knew he would convince J.B., knew he would demand and receive the child she had waited so long for, loved so hard as she nursed him through the dangers of being alive, only to lose him. She thought if she put distance between them, if she stayed away as Drum demanded, then she could stand it, because she couldn't be within a day's ride without going after him—which she did until Drum laid down the law, and she had to leave. A disguised kindness, she later saw. Your firstborn was always the most loved. Hayward she loved, but he was an afterthought. She lost Cullen years ago, and now she lost him again, resurrected, reclaimed, and then just as she filled with hope once more, snatched away. If Drum Bennett were not out there in the cemetery waiting to die, she would kill him. She hurled her cup against the wall, satisfied by the brown streaks and gouge.

When she heard horses in the barnyard, she forced herself to the porch. Graver on J.B.'s chestnut and Hayward on the gray stallion, so relaxed it shambled like a cart horse, passed by. Graver looked over and touched his finger to the brim of his hat; Hayward ignored her. Fine. He was correct. An annoying hum stirred in her arms, she silenced it. So what if they rode her horse? What on earth good was he now? The person who wanted him was gone. In the old days, she might have slaughtered the stallion to honor her warrior son when he died. Cullen asked for the favor and she refused him. She saw it in his eyes, in the way he watched from the shadows of the barn. Now the stallion seemed a bright toy the
boy was denied purely for the opportunity to deny him pleasure. She thought she had time. She thought she would teach him to ride the horse, that they would share him, though she never told him of her vague plans. What a simple, obvious gesture it was, yet she stepped around it like an inconvenient branch fallen in her path.

She watched Graver and Hayward dismount. The boy stroked the stallion's face and leaned his head against its jaw. She was too exhausted to open to the rush of love she should feel for
this
boy.

Irish Jim set down the hammer and followed the horses into the barn, where Dulcinea wouldn't go anymore. Graver reappeared, walked toward the house in her husband's hat, shirt, and boots. She imagined him wrapping his arms around her from behind, holding her despite herself. She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments and felt his lips touch behind her ear, the place only J.B. knew. How immense was her longing and her dread.

When she opened her eyes, Graver still walked with a stride that should cover the distance easily, yet he seemed suspended, moving toward her but never arriving. The coolness imprisoned her body, pulled her into it. J.B. had found her in the evenings, watching the gold light set the world afire, making the swallows glint like mica as they sailed in and out of the barn, the grass on the hills shining as if sewn with precious thread on an ancient tapestry, the cottonwood leaves rattling like pennies dropped in a collection box, and the horses' gilded manes and tails shimmering in the falling light. There could be nothing amiss in such a world as her young husband held her, his lips promising the caresses that would bring their naked bodies into one, bathed in the same golden light as it turned orange, then red, and the world burned down around them.

The cool released her and Graver arrived, hat in hand. She pressed her hand over her heart to steady it. Since Cullen, everywhere she looked was specific, as if she were scrubbed clean and free. Graver was unaware that he leaned slightly to the right as he continued to favor the wounded shoulder, and that he tilted his head slightly to the left for balance. His eyes were brighter after his ride
into the hills, where they had caught the blue of the sky and lightened. He thought he was an unhandsome man, but his rawboned aspect gave him rugged strength, from the white creases at the corners of his eyes to the strong nose and deep grooves down his cheeks. There was a notch in his chin from an old cut, and his face, as battered as his hands, revealed a life of working to earn his keep. Sweat darkened the front of his shirt, and his jeans, mud-streaked, bore a small tear on the thigh where barbed wire caught the fabric and the white of his leg peered through. She was embarrassed to be caught staring. He banged his hat against his leg to loosen the dust and opened his mouth to speak. She held up her hand to stop him and turned to go inside with an incline of her head. He followed.

“Where is my dog?” She was shocked by how low and whispery her voice sounded after a month of silence, and by her banal question.

He gazed at her, and seemed surprised that this was the sole thing occupying her mind.

“Staying with Jerome and Rose in the tipi.”

“Oh.” She swayed and sat down again. “I want you to take this table and chop it up. Burn it right now!”

He stared at her. “Make it hard for the men to eat.”

“Oh, they can sit on the porch or stand or something . . .”

“Can I get you anything?” he asked in a voice that was warm and cool and confusing.

“I want to thank you for taking Hayward to ride.” She sounded insane.

“Maybe a glass of water?” he said.

“And the horses. Yes, that's kind of you.” She meant the riding, but he pumped her a glass of water, then one for himself. She took it automatically and brought it to her lips. It was rare indeed, fresh and cool, with the crisp mineral taste of the hills. She had missed this water. They said it flowed beneath the hills in a great sea thousands of years old, and that was why it was pure blue when it came to the surface. Oh son, you will miss this world, won't you? She put
her face in her hands but no tears would come. She should be out there with Drum Bennett, letting her tears water her son's grave. Why did she have to be so very alive when he was so very dead?

“Ma'am?” Graver was like a gnat that wouldn't let her alone.

“What? What do you want? Why are you still here? Higgs quit. The other men will quit. Go. Just go.” She opened her eyes and found he sat at the end of the table in Higgs's place, and before him, J.B.'s. He studied her a minute, then gazed at the wall where pine shelves held her new blue dishes. Another bold, useless gesture.

“Now people have let you be for a good while, Mrs. Bennett. You've been in your grief and we let you be. Nobody asked a thing of you, and it has been hard. No denying it. But ma'am, it is time for you to stiffen your shoulders and start walking like you own this place again.”

Graver scratched behind his head, and pushed his gray-streaked hair off his face. It had grown over his collar and he grabbed the damp curls and pulled them back. He rubbed his mouth, grimaced, and fixed her with a stare. “I'll tell you what I think, then you can do what you want—fire me or stand up.”

She hesitated, wound her fingers together in her lap and forced herself to sit very still, the attitude of a child in the schoolroom. As he said, she could fire him.

“I am sick to death of the waste around here. You people act like there's nothing for it but to throw each other away, kill your animals off for the folly of it, and ruin every piece of land you can get your hands on. Those oil and gas people? Do you have any idea what it looks like when they're done? Your boys? They needed you and you ran off. Your husband, he didn't have the nerve to come take you back either. That old man out there? He should be running his own place—that's what killed Cullen, trying to do a man's job when the man was in town being played the fool so he could get his hands on more money.” He stood so he towered over her.

She pushed back her chair, ready to slap him hard.

“Sit down, I'm not done yet!” His voice rose and he paced back
and forth with his slightly irregular gait. “Speaking of money, the men haven't been paid and unless you have a trunk full of money upstairs or in the bank, we got nothing to run this place on without shipping cattle or selling off some land.” He stopped, inspecting the room as if seeing her improvements for the first time. “You can't spend money on pretties when your men are hurting. We need to make the tally, cull the herds, get the hay in, reserve the stock cars with the railroad, contact the buyers and study the market figures. Ma'am, we have not done one thing, and unless we ship it'll be a mighty lean winter.”

He looked at his hands, turning them over twice before they dropped to his sides. His voice lowered. “I'm not speaking for myself, you understand, I've put in the lean years. I'm used to it. It's you and the boy and what hands you can afford to winter over.”

“I'm broke? How? My husband put money in my account every month. There was always plenty of money.” As she said it, she realized that she hadn't ever asked how the ranch was doing, if cattle prices were holding, if he lost many head in the early or late blizzards. She just assumed—

Graver nodded and closed his eyes, something J.B. used to do, as if the ignorance of the other person was too embarrassing to witness.

She shivered. The repairs that weren't done, the state of the linens, for God's sake. Cullen and Hayward's poor clothing. Too few men to do all the work on a ranch this size. Oh Christ, what had she done?

“How long since we, since anyone has shipped?” Her voice quivered.

“Couple of years at least. Eighteen ninety-nine winter was coldest we've ever had. That and the drought, well, not a good time to be ranching. Some places have just turned the cattle loose, letting them fatten on open range or other people's land. Better than slaughtering them. Reservations buy some, but government gives bottom dollar, real bottom, and doesn't care what kind of cow gets
sent, sick, skinny, old. Same price per head. According to Higgs, your husband wouldn't ship those and he couldn't lose prime stock. Drum didn't share his sentiments.”

She got up and walked into the living room, jerked the curtain away from the window and peered outside. It was no use. She couldn't seem to find her dog anywhere.

Graver cleared his throat and when he spoke again, he sounded worn out. “You still have a son out there—a good boy who can grow to be a man in these hills. He'll do, if he has some backing. Don't throw him away. And don't throw away this ranch. You know how lucky you are? My wife and I—we would've given the world to have a place like this instead of what we settled for. You're going through hard times. It'll change. It always does if you have a place to ride it out. And you do.” He rested his hands on the back of the straight chair at the end of the table and looked at her. “I'm done now.”