Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

“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.

“Cup a coffee, sister,” Drum said. Cullen slouched again, hands folded on his lap, his expression amused. Where was her boy, her sweet boy of old? She shivered, and then stopped herself. Couldn’t afford to show weakness in front of the old man.

She went to the chair across from Drum and moved it closer to the low table on which rested his sundry goods: a battered metal comb one would use on a horse’s mane and tail, a pair of tiny wire spectacles, a smooth pebble veined with gold and silver, and a book whose spine and cover were so worn, the printing was a series of gold hieroglyphs, unreadable to her eye. Drum Bennett with a book. Truly he must be at wit’s end. No sympathy rose in her heart. She recalled the weeks and months after giving birth when that old man arrived to browbeat her out of bed, weak and ill, into cooking for him, despite the boys crying hungrily. “We’ll make a ranch woman out of you yet,” he’d declared.

She sat, lifted her skirt, and placed her left foot on the table, kicking the pebble and comb onto the floor. When he saw her right foot about to join the other, he rescued his glasses from being crushed, although the book slid off and landed with a spine-breaking thump, loose pages flittering. She settled her skirts and leaned back, allowed the muscles sore from riding to find the contours of the chair. Her knees protested when straightened and her calves took a minute to relax their contraction.

“He took up with an Indian girl, you know, that’s what got him killed. Found her out there right beside him.”

She responded with silence, and he nodded. Cullen shifted restlessly in his chair, then rose and went quietly through the doorway to J.B.’s office. They listened as the cork hissed from a bottle and liquid sloshed into a glass. He reappeared with a half-full glass of brown liquor in his hand and began prowling the room with catlike grace, silently weaving among the chairs and tables while taking small sips. He stopped at the whatnot shelves and picked up the belt buckle Hayward had won riding goats as a boy and let it drop with a thud on the walnut shelf. He took a longer drink.

“You didn’t know he was seeing that girl?”

She gulped the burning-hot coffee to scald the lump caught in her throat. Cullen stopped behind her chair, rested his hand on the back of it. She was unsettled, she wanted to lean forward but remained still, even when he began to play with the chignon at the back of her neck. When his ragged fingernail scraped her skin, she couldn’t stop her shiver and he placed his hand on her shoulder. She waited a moment before reaching up to touch his fingers, afraid he’d jerk them away. He sucked in his breath but held still, and she stroked his fingers three times before he lifted his other hand to drink again. She could smell the heavy spice of their wedding brandy. That’s what they’d always called it.