The Bones of Paradise (40 page)

D
rum 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.

N
early 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 rider. 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.

“You sure? Last opportunity. All this sand, usually find something. Can't say there's oil for sure, but what do you have to lose? Get money for exploration, much more if we find something.” He paused and watched a calf struggle against the branding iron, then it kicked a cowboy's thigh so hard the man fell down. “Beats this.” He spread his hand to include the roiling cattle and distant hills.

“My mother said no. As co-owner, I back her.” Hayward stood over him. “You've had your fill, now ride.” He stepped back. “Don't let me catch you here again.” He hooked his thumbs on the twin holsters he still wore.

The man shrugged. “Missing an opportunity. Were me, I'd much rather see derricks pumping black gold than cattle slopping up the place with green crap. You folks will die poor. What about your children? Don't you owe them something?”

Hayward shook his head. “Ride three hours north, you'll get to a railroad.” He moved to Dulcinea's side and put his arm around her. She nearly broke down with relief, but knew better and stood straight, biting her lip to keep the tears from springing to her eyes. It didn't matter that he dropped his arm the moment the man was out of sight.

“Have to keep them off the land. More coming and we can't tolerate it. I'll march them off at gunpoint if I have to.” He sounded so grown, she smiled.

“That's good, son,” she said and bent to stir the beans and beef again as the cowhands drifted in for their meal.

Without Chance to advise her, Dulcinea realized she wasn't sure of her legal rights to deny the exploration of her land. She hoped the other ranchers would lend their support. Tookie would. They had spoken briefly at Drum's burial in the graveyard next to J.B. and Cullen. No one had much to say about the old man, and most were too embarrassed by the quickie wedding to stick around and talk to
Dulcinea or Hayward. Tookie did mention the lawyer's face was so battered by the runaway horses that he had to be identified by his clothes and the papers in his pocket.

They were down to the last five calves and despite the odd haziness of the sky, Dulcinea thought the weather would hold long enough for her to ride to the line shack that had been Cullen's while the others finished the work. The boundary between the two ranches was nearby, and she could follow the barbed wire fence to the cabin. Over the past few weeks she'd started to piece together the fragments of his life after he was taken by Drum. Everything she found made her feel closer to her son. When she reached the windmill, she stopped to allow the stallion a drink. Soon she would have her men tear down the fence dividing the land. A breeze from the north pushed the windmill blades around with an uneven squeal that ground in her ears like she was chewing sand. She and J.B. had always laughed about this one. The memory brought tears to her eyes, and she vowed never to replace it no matter how much it irritated.

She thought back to the moment she finally understood what the ranch meant to J.B. and what it had cost them all.

It was early spring after Drum took Cullen, and before she left. She couldn't eat or sleep, paced days and nights, searching for the reason J.B. allowed this to happen, and why he wouldn't do a thing to bring back her son. She took to getting up in the night once she heard his light snoring, and thought nothing could allow her to sleep as naturally as he did. One night she hoped a glass of brandy would help close her eyes, and went to his office. She never sat in his chair, it hadn't seemed right, but she did that night. She sat too low to command the desk the way he did, and poured a glass of their wedding brandy. The thick, sweet bite threatened to turn her stomach. She clenched her teeth, drank until her throat grew numb,
her head light, and her body unsteady. She decided that night that she would leave in two weeks as Drum had ordered.

She had married Drum to secure the ranches for Hayward, but she also did it to save herself, to save something for herself—these hills, this dream, when for a short, lovely time she believed that her life, their life, meant this place and what they did here, what they learned by living and loving each other. It was because she still felt him here, J.B., he touched her, and nothing could change this place, this land, lest he and Cullen were left alone in their separate graves.

It was how she understood the Indians like Rose and Some Horses who mourned the land, not as wealth but as the place where all was alive, all living, in one form or another. The whites took it but the dead still walked it, the spirits, whatever they were. Her faith had removed God, dispersed him like seed or gravel. It was not that God didn't exist. It was that he wasn't alone, but in pieces, parts, always whole, sufficient, always multiple. So like the ancient Greeks she trod lightly, carefully, tried to give no offense to the land, the sacred grass her feet crushed, the ants hurriedly preparing caverns for the winter, pushing tiny yellow boulders out of a hole the size of a bee's leg. Oh the offense, to walk so clumsily through the world, to crush and bring havoc, that they couldn't help. But to give no recognition to the cost of their being alive, to the price paid for their dreams by everything else? J.B., Cullen, now Drum.

She turned the stallion back toward the dim path that led to the line shack and thought of Hayward. He was seeing Pearl Stryker now. She was too old and experienced for him. He was also seeing the new schoolteacher from Ohio. And a girl from Rosebud Reservation. And several others. In a dream J.B. told her he would love many women, unable to resist them, but he'd marry and live a long life, have a son and send him to military school in Missouri, position him to inherit the Bennett fortunes, and though she would not live to see it, a long line of children followed. There was a red smear on the white tile wall of the future. People couldn't help the
pain that rode them like overbroke ponies and tired them too soon for the length of a life.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice the weather change until the cold breeze made her shiver and she realized the hazy sunlight had thinned and the air turned gray-blue. She put her heels to the stallion to hurry him. Overhead heavy gray-white clouds eased back and forth, casting dark shapes across the valley. To the north a wall of gray-white, a mile away and several miles wide, rolled toward them, sent by the sudden gusty wind that lifted the stallion's mane and scattered it, breaking the sky to pieces. He stopped and danced sideways, swinging his haunches into the wind, and called long and loud into the empty hills, ears pricked, waiting for a reply that didn't come. She looked at the empty horizon and saw she was the only vertical thing for miles. The wind, filled with bits of sand, stung the skin and threatened to fill their eyes. They'd never make it home; she'd have to try for the line shack though it meant riding straight into the storm. She turned the stallion and slapped him with the reins.

The sun disappeared and the wind became a roaring whirlwind and she couldn't tell direction anymore. After a while, she understood that it was snow and ice that pelted her bare skin, not sand. Her chest hurt as she held her breath against the cold that encased her in her soaked clothes, and trembling waves rose up her legs into her arms and teeth that she clenched to keep from chattering. Don't stop, she urged the stallion, keep moving. They were in one of those early blizzards that came sweeping across the hills without notice, stranding cattle and killing people. She looked into the white walls of whirling snow and called for help, but the wind whipped her words away with a loud roar. Her eyes were heavy with ice, and she decided it was better to close them than have them freeze open. She pulled her hair from the bun and tried to wrap it around her neck, but the wind caught it, filled it with snow and ice and flung it back like a club beating against her shoulders and head. She buried her hands in the stallion's snow-filled mane, fought to
keep her fingers tight on the reins. She should knot them around her hands, she thought, she should knot the reins so they didn't slide over his head, she should knot them, and put the end in her mouth, or under her thigh, she should stop, remove the saddle, wrap herself in the blanket and ride bareback so his body would keep her warm, but how to remount, he was too tall, so she lay on his neck for protection. The stallion lifted his head to push her back, and she was forced to open her eyes. When he whinnied, the sound started deep in his belly and shook his body, again no answer. Dulcinea became aware of parts she rarely thought about, the tops of her thighs that burned and then grew numb, her knees that felt as if she knelt on a frozen lake, her elbows so sharp with cold they rubbed raw where the frozen cloth of her shirt touched.

In her delirium, she saw a picture of J.B. and herself and their old dog Jesse James, named after a distant relative in Missouri, caught in a blur of motion in front of their half-finished house. They were so young and handsome and the snow turned the world white around them. She saw J.B. reflected in the window of their completed house, fingerprints from his hand on the glass as he called to her. She startled awake. “I'm here! Help!” The wind snatched her words.

She saw him gather his old buffalo hide coat, hat and scarf, and horsehide mittens lined in rabbit fur, and pull out the bag he kept at the ready for winter mishaps when stranded cattle and folks on the road needed rescuing. She was trapped between alternating wind shears and storms, and felt snow crisscrossing in front of her face. “Keep moving,” she heard J.B. say. “Don't stop.”

Then she was sure he was there beside her, reaching for the ice-encased rein, pulling the stumbling horse along, rubbing the horse's shoulder and speaking low words of praise, telling the stallion he was brave and strong, calling him his night horse, blowing his own breath into his nostrils dripping with ice, stroking his nose and heating the ice until his face dripped and his large eyes gained brightness and he fought fiercely onward, lifting his legs high
above the gathering drifts, marching to the music of his words. She felt him rest his hand on her small boot. The leather warmed and a sigh escaped her lips. He moved his hand up her ankle, calf, knee, and thigh, and his extraordinary heat relieved the numbness of her muscles, the bitter cold that had begun to settle in her bones. His heat pushed beneath her skin, deep into her flesh. She imagined he could feel her blood as he swam up onto the horse's back, settled behind her, wrapped his coat and arms around her, and held her in the saddle. All he wanted was her forgiveness, she realized. The horse stumbled to a stop, nose pressed against the door of the old line shack. When the door unlatched, the animal stepped inside to the warmth of a small fire and a candle flickered in the sudden gust of blown snow.