Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

“I am Mary Morning,” she said in carefully enunciated English, and her black eyes softened for the first time as she glanced shyly at the cow’s stomach again. When her face relaxed, it became almost pretty, and Drum felt a brief quickening in his heart. But he wasn’t a boy anymore. He had already lived a hard life on his way to the Nebraska Sand Hills, and she wasn’t the first woman to claim something from him.

He thought now of how different it might have been had he not been raised by that mean old man, had he not shot Bennett Shear and fired the homestead, killing those youngsters, there, he’d said it, had he not done any number of wrong things before they were done to him afterward. For two years before he came to Nebraska he made his way around Colorado and what became New Mexico, prospecting, fighting, barely scraping by, and he’d done some things out there that still haunted him. One in particular, the mine he stumbled upon in the Spanish Peaks, on the way to Fort Morgan. It showed some color, and he couldn’t figure out why it was abandoned until the afternoon the owner showed up with two pack mules and a scattergun aimed at his belly while he slept in the man’s bed in the lean-to at the front of the mine opening. He was sure he’d die that time, and given how hungry and tired he was from trying to scratch a living out of rock, he wasn’t sure he cared.

Drum drained the coffee from his cup and struggled up to pour another. Not a soul stirring. Lazy so-and-so’s. He stood on the porch, surveying his son’s ranch. He had to hand it to J.B., the buildings were placed right where he would’ve done it—so no matter the weather a man could tend cattle and livestock in the home pastures and corrals. The hay yard wouldn’t be snowed in, and water was always close by. Drum had to admit that when he built his own spread, he wasn’t so circumspect, and extra work was needed in the winter to keep the stock watered. If he had it to do over—He bit off the idea with a quick grimace and a shake of his head.

The gold weighed more than he expected coming down that Colorado mountain and crossing Wyoming and up into the Sand Hills, but he was still a young man then, strong as an ox, and the mules were from Missouri and wouldn’t quit. He had stayed almost a year with Wilke, and they’d dug out enough gold to keep them from despair. Wilke said he’d split it down the middle when the time came, but Drum saw how that left them each with merely a small mound. “I know there’s a big vein in there,” Wilke always claimed when the boy grew despondent. Tomorrow, he promised. When the vein finally showed itself, it was too late, really. Drum had planned on leaving for weeks. It was his pick that pulled down the soft stone shelf, revealing a wide vein that Wilke attacked, heedless of the rock trembling above him. It didn’t all come down that morning, and they were able to pull out a sizable amount of gold before they quit for the day. The vein widened, which seemed impossible to the two men who labored carefully now, scooping up the gold gravel and crumbles along with the nuggets.

Wilke was beside himself, slapping Drum on the back, swearing they would be millionaires now, as soon as they could haul their find down to the assayer’s office. That night as they lay on beds set on either side of the fireplace, Wilke insisted they plan for their fortunes. As far as Drum could tell, there still wasn’t enough for the ranch he intended to build, to show his dead grandfather who suspected he was too weak to hold the land. Drum could never admit to himself that night was the beginning of it. Even now he couldn’t be sure that he was the one who caused the cave-in, with Wilke trapped on the other side. They worked for three more weeks. The vein was wide and some of the purest ore either man ever saw. Their fortunes were substantial with no end in sight. Then the entire roof gave way. Drum escaped with a couple of broken fingers and cuts and bruises, but he was in the front and plunged outside as soon as he heard the first crack. Wilke went deeper that morning to follow the seam along the roof into the mountain, picking here and there to reveal the gold. At first there was silence as the dust rose into the still morning air and then the birds in the jack pines around them started yammering again.

He called Wilke’s name and pulled rocks out of the way, but heard nothing so he gave up, resting on his heels as he surveyed their little camp and imagined the trip down the mountain for help. Except there was nowhere to go. By the time he made it to La Veta or Fort Garland, Wilke would be dead if he wasn’t already. Drum thought of Wilke’s last words, “Good Lord, the whole roof is gold, Drum, it’s a gold dome!”

He heard the first sounds as he was rolling up his bed and figured it for imagination, the wind or the birds whose voices could sound human in the peculiar angles and depths of the mountains. As he packed the camp utensils onto the mules, he heard the voice more clearly. Wilke calling his name. He stopped, and stared at the wall of rock plugging the mine. Wilke was hurt, he could tell from the weakness of his voice. There was too much rock. The pieces too big, even if they were riddled with gold. He had enough now. He began to load the gold equally on the mules, and when it appeared to be too much, he unloaded them again, put a few cooking utensils into his pack, and discarded the picks, shovels, and tools. Then Wilke’s voice grew louder, more demanding.

“My legs are busted, Drum, you got to get me outta here.” When that didn’t raise a response, the voice whined, “I’ll give you my share, boy, I swear, you can have it all. I can dig more. Just help me . . . You have to see this gold, Drum, it’s more than we ever imagined. We’ll be kings. Just help me . . . Drum? You there, boy?”

Drum started back up the slope to the opening, then stopped. A man with two busted legs would have to be nursed for months, right into winter. They’d be stuck here, low on food, regardless of the piles of gold. They might not make it. Probably wouldn’t. So there’d be two dead instead of one. Maybe Wilke could dig himself out, though Drum doubted it, maybe he could get himself down the mountain, though Drum knew that was impossible. There was nothing for it. He surveyed the lean-to and in a last impulse grabbed Wilke’s pack and shouldered it, feeling the wooden Hopi kachina doll the other man had set such store in digging into his back. He picked up the mules’ lead ropes and started down the mountain.

At La Veta, just over the mountain pass, he tied the mules in an arroyo outside town and took a small cache of money Wilke had hidden among his clothes. He bought a decent horse, a rifle, a pistol, and the supplies he would need for the trail. His story was that his horse ran off in a thunderstorm coming through the pass and he was on foot. The man at the livery nodded. He’d seen it happen. He sold Drum a bay horse with three white socks that had wandered into his corral wearing a saddle and bridle late one night. No brand to speak of after Drum blotted it with a hot cinch ring. He cropped the mane and tail and fed the animal corn and water to bloat it. As soon as the brand scab fell off, he used a root dye to darken the white sock on the front leg. He’d wait awhile to sell the saddle and bridle.

Making his way across Colorado, along the high plains and down into the Sand Hills, Drum had time to consider the problem of the gold, especially those nights coming into winter when the wind blew Wilke’s voice. Even now, sitting on the front porch of his son’s house, he could hear his name when the morning breeze caught the edge of the roof. Sometimes it made him so mad he had to hit something. Most of the time he pushed it aside, willed the sound to stay buried with the rest of it.