The Bones of Paradise (33 page)

So there it was. He went back inside and added shells to the accounts book, for the Peacemaker he'd stuck in his saddlebag, and for the new shotgun Stubs insisted on, though it made the hair on his neck prickle with foregone conclusion. Oh, you would, a voice in his head mocked. He felt the suckling pig in the green silk cradled against his chest, warmer than the day's heat, the soft snoring contentment warring against the lightness that ballooned in his chest now that he was shoving shells in the revolver and breaking open the shotgun, careful not to nudge the baby awake.

You often see how things will go, he thought, and you are helpless to their untwining from your own desire. The flies buzzed on the pig shit tracked down the boards of the walk, tainting a town woman's long yellow skirt hem with a brown stain she wouldn't discover for minutes now, perhaps an hour, and would it be before or after the day went fatal? Already they walked on the plane of someone else's tragedy, and the details of the moment suffocated him: The brown dog with the long hair and limp, one ear cropped and cockeyed, lifting a leg against the wheel of a runabout from which
stepped Percival Chance. The quarrelsomeness of the sparrows in the cornices of the hotel across the street as the judge and Drum and Rivers entered with the oil and gas woman, Markie Eastman. The politeness that flourished between them didn't bode well for Cullen. They would conduct business over a white tablecloth with wine in glasses and heavy silverware, tolling the boy's future against the china plates as they shared a meal too heavy for the heat of the day.

Somewhere above them in his room sat Mr. Eastman, who let his daughter's charms do the business he was too old or ill or negligent to conduct, and his coughing, which the boy could hear as he stood so completely in this moment, the guns heavy in his hands, pulling him to the earth, and others to follow in this small space of time, losing time breath by breath by breath.

It was as if he could peer into the small houses and shacks behind Main Street and see the lives lived into the future. There was Black Bill at Vera's side, packing for the journey to her family, finally right again in her preacher father's eyes. Frank would not know this until he received her letter, and he would never be the same, a man broken into pieces by the weight of a single piece of paper.

The boy was put to mind of all the lives around him, and how they toiled, until there was such an accumulation, they were knocked apart for simply being present.

The Peacemaker was heavier than he was used to, for he had never killed a man, not even shot at one. He lifted the silk cradle from his neck and looped it over the saddle horn, ignoring the dun's flat-eyed expression. The horse sank his shoulder away from the imaginary weight and warmth of the pig's body—and it struck the boy that none of us wanted to shoulder the life of another. Then the horse snorted and straightened, and relaxed hipshot where he was tied and commenced dozing, eyelids sinking, as close to benign as he'd ever been, hide rumpled with dried sweat, tail burr clumped, mud and ticks twisting his mane in a wild apotheosis; he was finally at peace. The boy almost reached out and patted him, but stopped so the horse's world would remain inviolate, circumscribed by its nature.
There could be no breach. That was their fate, Cullen thought. Theirs and mine. So you're suddenly a man of words, the voice in his head mocked. No, that's the last of them, he answered, taking one final look around. He tipped his hat at the old men sitting in chairs along the hotel porch, glanced at Stubs, who bared his long yellow teeth, and waited like a shadow to walk into their time.

It took three places to find them, Sergei the Russian, Carter, Faro Jack, and Dance Smith, all laid out drunk and naked at Reddy's Shack, put up after the storm, where the girls now worked. Cullen stopped at the other bars, half hoping they'd gone, that he'd have time to consider whether to chase them or not, or hell, that they went back to the ranch to sleep it off. When he pushed open the door, there was a scurrying like mice when you go into a dark barn of a sudden. The first girl in her “room,” divided off from the others by blankets, grabbed fistfuls of filthy sheet to hide, and gave them a dirty look and opened her mouth to protest until she noticed the gun swinging upward. He couldn't say he wanted to shoot them, but now that the blood rose in his head, the black howl, he couldn't say he wouldn't. It was Stubs pushed down the barrel of the shotgun and growled, “Wait a minute.”

The man opened his eyes, took a moment to recognize them, and scrambled for clothes or guns or whatever, it made no never mind. The shotgun rose and there was a noise as it went off, splattering Sergei the Russian's head against the ample breasts of the whore, who howled as the buckshot punched holes in her arms. A tinny sound said, “Stop, damn it, stop!” as the boy let loose the second barrel. The left side of the Russian's face disappeared and the whore went quiet. A man crawled behind Cullen, who turned, took aim at the naked back, and this time used the Peacemaker. The body collapsed with a shiver on the bloody floor. He nudged it with the toe of his boot, and the sight of Carter's familiar weak chin and beak nose bent to one side evoked nothing. When the man opened his eyes, Cullen shot him in the face.

“That's enough.” Stubs put his hand on his arm, not the one
holding the pistol, and Cullen wondered where his shotgun had gone. He slipped on the bloody floor and Stubs held him up. “Them others is hiding back there. Let them go.”

He looked at Stubs, who now seemed lost, tears in his eyes as if he hadn't urged this war, brought him to fight it. Cullen shook his head, let himself ride the clear even tide as he tore down the blanket and prepared to squeeze the trigger on a bed holding two young whores, naked bodies pressed together as if made whole, whimpering, then shook his head again and lowered the gun.

This was not what he meant—and then he heard a terrific roar and the room was suddenly red and black and he was on his back, watching the flies bump the low pine ceiling as the flood rose quickly up his legs, spread into his chest, filling him so he could not catch his breath to ask the man leaning over him, rifle barrel pressed to his throat, who would ride his mother's horse now?

M
arkie Eastman stood and smiled at the table of men she had just convinced to sell their mineral and subsurface rights when a ragged boy ran into the dining room and yelled, “Shootin' at Reddy's place!”

Judge Foote, Harney Rivers, and Percival Chance stood as Drum Bennett leaned back and drained the remaining inch in his brandy glass. He knew the Eastman woman was prepared to pay more, but the other men were greedy and couldn't wait. He hated doing business when others gummed it up.

“Aren't you coming?” the judge asked.

“None of my dogs in that fight.” Drum reached for one of the cigars the lawyer had passed around so freely before they were interrupted. Rivers hesitated, glanced between the judge and Miss Eastman while Chance strode away.

“Go on,” Drum urged. “Might meet a man needful of your services.” He laughed and twirled the cigar in his fingers. He shook his head. First he thought Dulcinea was going behind his back, now he had to figure out how to convince her to sign over those rights so he could make his deal and drive her out of the hills again. He and Rivers had lied about the deal, and he was thankful that damn
grandson of his hadn't shown up to cause more trouble. Far as he knew Cullen was out in the hills running horses to pieces and tending cows like he was supposed to be doing. He'd make a decent hand he ever grew past those notions of his.

As he smoked he noticed the dining room had cleared, and he heard shouting in the street and voices like a crowd gathered. Maybe somebody got themselves killed, he thought, maybe it was their lucky day. He grimaced as his leg and arm picked up the staccato of the street voices with a steady jabbing ache in the healing bones, despite the whiskey he'd used to numb the pain. Must be weather moving in. Now he was going to be one of those old farts who sat around complaining and prognosticating, like that damn Stubs with his war wounds.

He gazed at the empty room, the tables covered in stained white cloths that'd seen too many days of service, the fireplace along the far wall with the pale green marble columns and mantel, over which hung a big oil painting of Indians chasing down buffalo. He never understood why people made such a thing of the past, as if white men hadn't come in and killed the buffalo and as many Indians as they could so they could take the land. It was warfare, and a person didn't sit around feeling sorry about all those Southern boys got themselves killed protecting a bunch of rich sons of bitches wanted their Negroes waiting on them, did they? Better to hang a painting of men working cattle. He'd mention that to Riley, the hotel owner, soon as he got the chance. He stretched his legs and stared at the dingy ceiling with its sooty plaster roses clustered in the center.

“Drum Bennett here?” someone yelled into the lobby, followed by the irregular thumping of Stubs, hobbling toward the table.

Drum looked up, ready to bless him out, but stopped once he saw the man's face, blood-smeared hands, and shirt. Suddenly he couldn't catch his breath, and his heart bumped hard enough to hurt.

Stubs shook his head and licked his cracked lips. “It's Cullen.”

It was to Dance Smith's credit he didn't pull the trigger that would have ruined Cullen's face. The thought circled Drum's mind during the long journey in the shambling livery stable wagon. A ruined ragbag of a man drove the spavined, broken-wind, rack-of-bones horses at a maddening walk or a shambling trot that almost bounced them out of the bed. Drum held his grandson's body in his arms and braced his own against the splintered side that creaked ominously at every hole the wheels found. And that was the other thought that circled Drum's mind, as relentless and stark as the rolling hills of grass, without relief of tree or rock or body. He wondered that he had ever loved this land. First his son, now his second son, his grandson who was to carry the Bennett name into the future, his legacy, but that wasn't a thought he allowed himself to entertain as the flies found the dried blood on Cullen's shirt, and overhead, the turkey vultures circled in a relentless arc, lowering themselves as they followed the wagon's poor progress.

Behind the wagon Stubs followed, leading the dun with the sobbing pig still tied to the saddle in its green silk sling, and Drum's horse. He wouldn't allow Stubs to ride in the wagon bed with Cullen. The old warrior had done enough. Since Cullen was dead, the dentist-sheriff had arrested Dance and Faro Jack, but Drum didn't care. It was too late. The men would be set loose tonight and told to leave town. It was good Dance hadn't pulled the trigger and blown his grandson's face to pieces, Drum thought. At least he could give his mother that comfort.

When they neared the ranch, Stubs rode ahead while the team increased their impossible gait to one that jerked the wagon so hard Drum grabbed the side and trapped Cullen's body with his own legs to keep him. It was strange how light the boy had become. In Drum's experience bodies grew heavier, heavy as stone, but Cullen was light, almost as if he were made of straw or feathers, while Drum's legs and arms must have weighed a hundred pounds apiece.

“It's for your own good,” he murmured. “It always was, every last lick of it, son.” He tested the sound of the word,
son,
found it
foreign and hollow, his tongue too thick to shape it. As the wagon began its bone-cracking descent to the ranch house, Drum and Cullen were shoved against the broken seat back, and a splintered board gouged Drum's shoulder but he didn't move. Hair fell over the boy's eyes. Drum brushed it back and it flopped back down, and he remembered how mad he would get when the boy slunk around with his hair covering his face. There was nothing for it, he discovered, the hair had a will of its own, and he was thankful again Dance hadn't pulled that trigger. As the horses slowed to a plodding walk up the road to the ranch house, the cattle and horses raised their heads to stare at the spectacle. Drum knew he should hate Dance, want his heart carved out in old vengeance, but the truth was Cullen started it, he was always headed here, and nothing Drum could argue made things any different.

Dulcinea stood at the gate, clutching the posts as if to launch at him, while Hayward waited in the barnyard, legs slightly apart, hands resting on the butts of his pistols. Apparently someone from town had ridden out to break the news, and Drum was oddly relieved. Higgs took charge of the horses, and Graver came around to the wagon bed and lifted the boy out as if he were a child merely gone to sleep, leaving Drum to half drag himself to the tailgate and ease his legs to the ground. When they wouldn't hold him, he had to hang on to the wagon. Dulcinea lifted a hand to touch her son; Graver shook his head and carried him to the house, mounted the steps easily and entered without having to adjust his burden. Hayward stood his ground, continued to stare at his grandfather as if he intended to cause a ruckus. Drum dropped his eyes, found the steadiness in his legs and began the long trudge to the house. Higgs clucked to the horses and led them to the barn. The old driver didn't move, as if he were permanently fastened to the bench and bound to bring only the ill winds of poor fortune.

Inside the house the silence was so heavy it seemed to have always been there, resting in dusty vigilance against the windowsills and chairs, sparing nothing. Graver took Dulcinea by the shoulders and
turned her away from the body laid on the table while Rose pulled the blood-stiffened shirt from the trousers. The buttons were sealed to their holes with blood and Graver sliced off the shirt with a knife, the sound of the material tearing like a saw across Drum's teeth as Dulcinea flinched. It should not be strangers who did these things, but he couldn't move as the bare chest with pale down between his breasts was revealed. When Graver peeled away the shirt, it stuck to the skin and the dark holes of the wounds seemed too small. He might still be alive—Drum stopped the thought and nearly reached out to Dulcinea, who started and took half a step forward before collapsing, arms wrapped around her body, silent but for her ragged breath.

They removed his pants and his worn undergarments and his patched boots and holey socks, revealing the toes bent and rubbed with calluses, and the shame rose inside like bitter bile to choke him. He could not catch his breath or swallow, it seared his lungs and burned his throat. Every scar, every untended wound, every bruise belonged to him. Dulcinea caught her breath and stared at him, her eyes full of dead reckoning, words over the contended boy unnecessary now.

Rose handed Dulcinea a pail of hot soapy water and she began to swab Cullen's body with long, tender strokes of a rag. She washed his hair, rinsed and toweled it carefully so it spread like a shiny brown shawl around his head. She patted his face clean, the blue shadows under his eyes, the slack muscles of his jaw, the cracked lips that had finally released their reckless sneer. Drum noticed how the sun had bleached the eyebrows and lashes to a gold-white against the deep tan of his face, and how there was a white line across his forehead from the hat that rested just so. He noticed the nose slightly off center from breaking. The white welt of a scar at the corner of his eye. Dulcinea's hands paused at the ear, stroked the lobe as if trying to remove some stubborn stain, until Graver touched her arm. She shook him off this time, took a deep breath, looked toward the door at her other son, and said, “Hayward, go and find clothing for your brother.”

The sound of her voice startled the silence awake and Drum could hear Stubs shouting at someone outside and Higgs arguing and hoofbeats as someone else galloped into the barnyard. He was tempted not to move, but knew he would at the same moment he had the thought. Outside, Stubs and Higgs argued, the two men nearly at blows, though they should know better. Lawyer Chance walked to the house, his lathered horse tied at the gate, and a buggy came down the hill toward the ranch. The neighbors and the curious from town would pile on them now, professing all kinds of sympathy and useless words as if they ever cared one lick for that boy in there, as if they hadn't every one of them wished him the worst there was. Since they missed J.B.'s funeral, they felt they'd earned this one.

The rage stirred in Drum's belly like an old friend, and he opened himself to it. He grabbed Chance's arm, spun him away from the porch, and pushed him back.

“Dulcinea—” the lawyer said.

“Leave her alone,” Drum said. “She has family in there.”

Chance opened his mouth, gazed at the porch, thought better of it, shrugged, and turned back.

“Stubs, you take care of the lawyer's horse. Higgs, you make coffee. People are coming. We'll put them to your place for now.” Drum tried to make his voice ring with the old authority, but his heart had gone out of it. Recognizing the truth, the men avoided his eye as they trudged off to their work. As if the news were carried by express rider across the hills, the cowboys returned early from their work. Hats in hand, Irish Jim and Willie Munday came to the gate, asked Drum what they should do. He sent them to help Higgs set up chairs and planks on sawhorses for the food and drink that would soon arrive.

The buggy pulled up and Judge Foote stepped down and offered a hand to Markie Eastman. Drum felt his belly stir again and it was all he could do not to horsewhip them both off the place, woman be damned. Somehow he felt it was their fault, this business distracted
him when he should've been running cattle, his ranch, and that boy. Cullen had no business taking after those men like that, and Drum could only blame himself, and the others around him. He nodded curtly at the judge but wouldn't look at the Eastman woman or acknowledge her words of condolence. He pointed toward Higgs's small home, and with a brief glance at the house behind him, they turned away. They would want to see him, see the wounds, see his face in that final repose. It was a bitter thought. By heaven, he was the only one who cared for that boy all these years, he should be the last one to see his face, not these strangers, not even his mother—but there his thoughts hit a rough place, because he knew he was wrong.

In that moment Drum Bennett had his first real doubt, a luxury he had not afforded himself in years. His grandson had died a man's death, doing a man's job, though he was but half-grown, a job he was made to do because there was no other way. Drum had beaten it into him, and truth be known, if the boy weren't in there lying on the kitchen table, his grandfather would still be beating it into him, one way or the other, and for that, he was, by God, accountable. Drum felt his knees buckle, as if a two-hundred-pound bag of feed dropped on his shoulders, but he wouldn't allow that luxury either. He held the closed gate, blinked away the water in his eyes, and stood his ground, because he could go neither back toward the house, nor forward into the yard where people would want to talk.

The rest of the afternoon and into dark the yard continued to fill with wagons and buggies and horses. After a while, Graver came out of the house and for some reason, Drum yielded and allowed himself to be led inside to sit and wait in the parlor, stiff-backed, eyes cast to the figured carpet at his feet. Dulcinea would not leave Cullen's side, so they brought her a straight-backed chair and placed a glass of water in her hands, which she held like a chalice in her lap as she stared at her son's sleeping face. Drum took in the spectacle and wouldn't look at anyone after that. Hayward stood behind his mother for a while, became restless and began pacing
the length of the house, finally expanding to the porch and then the walk, circling like a dog on alert. No one allowed in or out. Where was Graver? Drum looked up quickly and spied him in the barnyard pointing new arrivals to Higgs's place, telling them where to tie their horses, acting like he ran the place. He should go out there himself, but he couldn't move—he'd send Cullen instead, and in that breath, a tide of emptiness rushed in.

He looked over at the boy, willed him to rise, but the only movement was his mother reaching out to brush a fly from his cheek. Although she would not want it, Drum rose and walked into the other room, dragged a straight wooden chair from the wall to the opposite side of the table, and sat down, placing his hand on the boy's arm for the cold comfort of it. Later he would not remember his thoughts that long night, only his refusal of food and drink, and the annoyance at the least disruption of the short time he had left.