The Bones of Paradise (10 page)

D
ulcinea and Rose stopped their horses on the last hill overlooking the ranch and stepped down to stretch their legs after the long ride. Yesterday they left Rosebud, crossed into Nebraska, and stopped in Babylon for the night before coming into the hills. It was the end of the day, and Dulcinea could see lone cowboys on horseback driving cattle slowly out to summer pastures. They must be late this year because of J.B.'s . . . she could not say the word yet. Glancing at Rose, she felt the kinship of sorrow and could not begin to imagine the loss of a sister. There was no hierarchy to grief, she realized, and her knees nearly buckled as her feet sank into the sand underfoot, where the horse-and-wagon traffic had killed the grass. She was almost home and something made her pause.

To the right was a vast blue lake, the surrounding marsh alive with birds feeding and mating. The air bore the moist scent of water, so blue it put the distant white-blue sky to shame. She shaded her eyes to stare at the lake where pelicans floated peacefully. Nearby a pair of swans stretched their long necks searching the waters for food, and farther on, ducks dove and flapped, green necks glistening in the sun. Myriad red-winged blackbirds perched
on dried cattail stalks with brown heads shredding into the new green shoots below. Nearby, one bird straddled two cattails, feet clenched fiercely to hold its territory against the loud, hissing wind.

After she rode down this hill, nothing would ever be the same. Right now, Dulcinea was between two worlds, but soon she would be in the one without her husband. She stuck her hand in the pocket of her traveling coat, fingered the crumpled yellow paper that carried J.B.'s last coded message from March.
Soon the birds take wing with my heart.
She hadn't known about his poetic nature when they first married, or even after the boys were born. It took their separation for his silence to become eloquent in the anonymity of the telegram's compressed language. She fingered the paper's edge. She was wearing it soft as flannel.

Beyond the lake, the hills rose green and humped like ancient fallen beasts, their grass remorseless and brutal hair. There were few trees that thrived naturally here, the occasional cedar the men hacked down because it drew too much water, the sand willows, mulberries, wild cherry, and cottonwood by the small creeks and rivers. She used to miss trees terribly, their casual interruption of the sky, until she returned to Chicago for a visit, then she missed these ragged hills instead. She stooped to pick a wild pink rose, avoiding the tiny spines that slivered like unseen glass hairs into one's fingers. There was little scent, but the creamy softness of the petals like the inside of a dog's ear more than made up for it. She placed one on her tongue, and imagined she could taste the hills, the bittersweet tang of life.

“Those three men don't have any cattle.” Rose pointed east where the cowboys trotted their horses. Two of the men slumped in the saddle while the third rode with shoulders high and firm.

“Where did it happen?” Dulcinea asked. Rose would know. She'd already been out there.

Rose tipped her head at the three men. “That way. Water tank between Bennett lands.”

“Why was my husband there with your sister? How old was she?”
Dulcinea regretted her question the moment it left her mouth and Rose grimaced like she'd been slapped. “I'm sorry—” Dulcinea reached out, placed her hand on Rose's arm. “I don't understand.”

“I don't either,” Rose admitted. “She was going to meet a man who could help her—” She paused and picked up the reins she'd dropped to ground tie her horse. “She was a good girl. Told me he had information about our mother.” She appeared lost in thought as she watched the three men near the ranch yard. “Maybe it wasn't your husband she was meeting.”

Dulcinea stared at the other woman, who bit her lower lip to stop from saying more. She stepped back and picked up her own reins, then pretended to check the cinch on the saddle before she mounted again. What could J.B. know about Rose's family? She'd told him about befriending Rose when they met in March, and he seemed ignorant of her family. She looked westward, where heavy clouds lay above a gray veil that meant someone was getting the luck, and the rain. The sun hung near the lip of the horizon like a red ball at rest, and a low bush beside her suddenly exploded with lavender butterflies that clouded around her long skirt, washed up her bodice, and splashed against her face, their wings like an exhaled breath of powder as she closed her eyes. Something about the moment, its unexpected tenderness, made her long to hear him say her name again, just once more, “Dulcinea, Dulcie May,” as he'd whispered in her ear when last they'd met, in March.

A red-tailed hawk glided up and over the hill, the white winter belly almost obscured by summer brown, and then dipped toward the valley they traveled, swift as an arrow. It hit a rabbit running a ragged pattern through the switchgrass along the road ahead. The rabbit uttered a single choked scream, then went limp and hopeless, back broken, eyes fixed as the bird swept upward. A single drop of blood splashed Rose's faded-gray-cloth-covered arm, the edges feathering out and sinking, already permanent. Rose followed the hawk's flight until it was out of sight. “Star,” she whispered. “Star is making sure we're safe.”

Dulcinea knew they should go down the hill to the ranch. It would be dark soon, and late for supper. She used to be the one cooking, along with whatever cowboy's wife they could hire. She knew what it meant to have extra mouths at the table. Rose didn't eat much, though, and she hadn't been hungry since they'd left the reservation, but she'd have to eat to keep track of things. She was going to find the person who killed J.B. They were already sentenced to death in her heart. She glanced at Rose. What kind of vengeance did she plan? In the years she'd known her, Rose had been a fair person, but anything to do with family was outside fairness. Dulcinea felt the same.

“Your husband left you a lot of land,” Rose said, her eyes squinting into the distance.

“I wish he hadn't.” Dulcinea was surprised by her bitter tone, as if she blamed the land itself. She had thought of nothing except getting home and making certain that Rose was right. Stranger things happened. Maybe J.B. was still alive and it was—she couldn't think what.

She half expected her husband to see her from atop another hill, to gallop toward her, waving hat and arm, as he had every other time she arrived.

“What are we going to do?” Dulcinea turned to the other woman. Rose stared at the ranch below, and then shifted her eyes back to Dulcinea.

“We're going to find out who did this. Look and listen. Someone knows something. My sister will help us.” Rose looked down at her mount's wind-tangled mane, combed it thoughtfully with her fingers as the horse gazed longingly at the others going home for the night.

Dulcinea pulled up in front of the house and Rose stopped beside her. Her gaze followed the picket fence around their first home, where the foreman now lived, and then on to the second, larger
house J.B. built for her when she was pregnant with their second son. It needed paint, but the windows were intact. The lilacs in the side yard had grown tall and straggly, the blooms spare, purple and white glimpses amid the dark green leaves. She hadn't been this close in years. She was too afraid of Drum catching her or her husband forcing her to explain why she couldn't stay. She dismounted and started for the house, then shifted her gaze to the fenced-in pasture beyond the barns. He wasn't in the house. He'd be out there. They couldn't wait. She lifted the skirt she still wore from school and started toward the cemetery where her husband rested.

The sound of the house door closing made her glance over her shoulder as Vera Higgs strode to the gate, lifted the latch, and stopped with her hand shading her eyes, taking in the new arrivals. She was a tall, slender African, dressed for work in men's canvas pants and a faded blue shirt cinched with a wide leather belt. She stared at Dulcinea without expression, as if the wind in the hills had picked up a feather and blown it to her doorstep. A few years ago, J.B. introduced them in town, and it was a painful, awkward moment with him tongue-tied between them. Dulcinea nodded without speaking to the woman, whose gaze shifted to Rose, who still sat atop her horse.

“I take it you're with Mrs. Bennett,” Vera said. “If you ride over there, one of the men will take your horses. You're welcome to have supper with us.” Her low contralto voice held a music Dulcinea envied, and she was jealous that another woman invited her friend into her own house. She immediately shook the notion from her head.

She started toward the cemetery again, took only three steps before she heard, “Vera! Who is that? Vera?” Only one man had a voice like that: loud and harsh enough to wake the dead. Her eyes flitted from the cemetery to the house to Vera at the yard gate, and her mind filled with a roar.

“Do not tell me that Drum Bennett is in my house!” She glared at Vera standing in her way as she half ran to the gate and then
yanked it out of the other woman's hand, marched up the walk, climbed the rotting steps, crossed the porch, pulled open the door, and strode inside.

“Get out!” she shouted at the figure on the parlor sofa, leg propped on a pillow while he yelled himself red in the face, white spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog.

He blinked, mouth gaping. “You!” he growled. He had a full head of greasy white hair, and a mustache hung with a curd of egg over lips so thin they looked to be drawn on his fleshy, boneless face. The brows were thick white, too, as if he had fallen in a boiling laundry tub of lye soap. His skin was shiny hard, brown as a beetle's, and his eyes were the same ugly white-blue. To ask for any kindness would be as fruitful as inquiring of a bolt of fabric how the day was progressing. It pleased her to see the sweat bead his forehead and dampen his chin. If she could pry open those razor lips and jam her traveling pistol down his throat, she would do it.

She pulled off her hat and tossed it on the rocker across from him. “You need to leave.” It was then she noticed someone sat in the corner of the room, legs clad in dirty, torn denim stretched out in front of him as he slouched in the chair, hat pulled halfway down his face as if napping. Slowly the legs pulled under his body and the figure thumbed his hat back and sat up, still managing to slouch. Cullen. The same wolf white-blue eyes as his grandfather, the same insolent sneer on his lips. She couldn't catch her breath, felt like she'd run a footrace and was on all fours panting.

“Hello, son,” she said, keeping her voice soft as she would for a young child. He stared at her as if she were a stranger.

“We had a bargain, woman.” Drum pulled himself more erect and wiped his mustache, the egg curd dropped to his sleeve.

“That bargain's lying out there in the ground. Call your men. Get on your horse or wagon for all I care, but get out of my house.”

“You're the one needs to stay gone, missy. Soon as I'm up again, you—”

“You'll what? J.B. is gone.” She folded her arms and rocked back on her heels.

“I didn't kill him,” Drum said in a low voice.

“However it happened, you killed him,” she said. Cullen's laughter from the corner made both adults glance over. Drum's face paled and his mouth hung for a moment, then his expression darkened.

“You're out of your mind—” He licked his lips.

“You didn't protect him, did you? Look at you, you're a used-up old man. You can't even take care of yourself now.” She gestured toward the broken ankle, and he stretched his hand down his leg as if to protect it from her.

“Cullen, get the hell out of here,” Drum said. The boy laughed again, shook his head this time, as if realizing he was out of everyone's reach.

Drum glared at her. “Think it's safe here now?” His whispery voice made her shiver.

“Oh no.” She braced herself on the back of the rocker. “I talked to the sheriff in Babylon this morning. He's coming out here to investigate. I said it was more than likely your doing.”

His eyes settled on the glass of water on the table beside him, then glanced quickly at her. He let his hands drop in his lap and stared at the wall. “You have to sleep sometime,” he said.

“I'm not worried about an old cripple.” She pulled her traveling pistol from her skirt and held it loosely in her hand. He saw it and shook his head. There was a sharp intake of breath from Cullen's corner as he straightened with hands on the chair arms and feet under him, ready to spring.

They waited in silence. It reminded her of the special musk of the reptile house at the zoo in Chicago when she was in grammar school, a dry, fetid stillness fueled by the unwashed and unrepentant man and the long stewing rage of the woman beside him. She wondered what Cullen thought. She cursed the fact he was here to see this. She'd meant their reunion to be much different.

“Too late to take the boy, lady.” Drum's smile was more smirk. “Maybe he's the one you have to watch out for now.”

She had to pretend he lied because his words came too close to her fears. She saw the mirth leave Cullen's face, replaced by the alert expression a hunted animal might wear. Had he—

She turned abruptly and went to the kitchen for coffee. The coffeepot was in its usual place on the warming shelf on the back of the woodstove, which turned the contents to bitter black soup by end of day. J.B.'s favorite, a bitterness that made a person's tongue swell and teeth brittle as if they'd been grinding sand.

“Cup would be fine by me,” Drum called.

“Same for me,” Cullen's singsong mocked the two adults.

She took a sip, savored the harsh bite with the tip of her tongue, and glanced around the well-kept kitchen, noting the orderly arrangements and feminine blandishments of flowers and her old lace curtains.