Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

As the shock wore off, the noise began, families shouting and crying, and animals screaming in fright and pain. Graver and Larabee quickly dispersed the men to help wherever they could and to find the horses, although they all knew the animals would head back to the ranch and their own herd as soon as they got beyond the storm.

Graver watched Lucille wander the edges of the floor, pausing in front of the wall bearing her sister’s story, then continuing until she had traced the entire perimeter, before she turned and retraced her steps. This time when she stopped at the remaining wall, she seemed to stare for a long time at one picture, and then she reached up, snatched it off the wall, balled it in her fist, and dropped it. A frenzy seemed to break loose inside the woman because she began ripping down the posters, newspaper clippings, and photographs, shredding some, dropping others to be picked up by the breeze and sent across the floor into the street.

When the wall was bare, she stepped back, nodded, and said, “There.” Then she turned and walked across what was left of the room, stopping on the boardwalk to shake off the few bits of paper that clung to her long, faded black skirt. She squinted into the dark and tossed her head, then stepped down into the debris-littered street and headed east toward home. She didn’t bother to glance at Dulcinea, Rose, and Chance, who led a string of horses past her. The women looked around anxiously, while Chance seemed unmoved by the chaos.

Graver turned away before they spotted him. The girl from the basement still hadn’t appeared. He thought about leaving well enough alone, but it wasn’t in his nature, he supposed, so he sighed and went back down the stairs.

There was a half-full bottle of whiskey on the table in front of the girl now, and she was drinking from it with a determined rhythm, setting it down between each long swallow. Graver stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching. He wasn’t sure she even knew he was there. Finally, he simply lifted her off the chair and cradled her in his arms. When he turned toward the stairs she lifted the bottle off the table and pressed it into his chest with her head. She weighed next to nothing, only a little more than his eldest daughter had, and he was still thinking of his girl’s hazel eyes, like her mother’s, when he rose up out of the basement and stopped at the top with the girl in his arms. The whole street could see him, and when he lifted his eyes, Dulcinea, Rose, and Chance were five feet from where he stood, glaring at him.

The lawyer tipped his hat with a smile. “See you found Pearl Stryker. Family’s probably looking for her.” Dulcinea appeared puzzled and the gray stallion chomped the bit. The girl in Graver’s arms stiffened and banged the bottle against his chest so hard he almost dropped her.

“Seems she’s done being rescued,” Chance said as he stepped from his saddle and handed the string of horses he led to Larabee.

“Put me down,” Pearl slurred and pushed against Graver’s chest. When he let her legs drop, she gave him a shove and almost fell. Her head came up and she squinted her eyes. “Where am I?” She turned to Graver, raised the bottle as if to crown him over the head with it. “What did you do?” she screamed. Larabee stepped up, took the bottle from her hand, and awkwardly patted her back. She snatched the bottle again, cradled it against her stomach, stepped off the boardwalk, and fell flat on her face in the muddy street in front of the horses.

“You men certainly have a way with women,” Dulcinea said. “You just going to leave her there?” Rose smiled and covered it with her hand.

The lawyer looped his reins over the hitching rail and stepped carefully through the mud to the girl. “I’ll take her home. I know Stuart and Mary must be worried sick about her.” He eased the girl onto her side and tried to sit her up, but she was floppy as a set of old clothes, so he bent down and lifted her over his shoulder and stood, ignoring the mud smearing his shirt and pants. Dulcinea beamed with approval and patted her horse on the neck.

Rose’s gaze followed the man. “Not many houses that direction . . .”

Graver pulled his hat lower and started down the block, where a crowd had gathered.

“Graver!” Dulcinea called after him.

He stiffened his shoulders and thought of that Tennyson poem he’d memorized when he was eighteen and living in a line camp one winter in Wyoming, nursing cows and trying not to go crazy. Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred . . .

He heard the stallion huff up next to him as he strode along the boardwalk, skirting debris. “Mr. Graver.” Dulcinea’s voice was high and nervous. “Please—”

Graver knew he should keep walking. “Lady,” he began. “You don’t own me. I’m going to see if those people up there need any help. If they do, I’m going to stay until the job is done. Now you take that fancy horse and your fancy manners and your orders and . . .” He looked at his hand, realized he had grabbed the rein and Dulcinea was trying to ease it away. When he suddenly let go, she tipped back and the horse rocked on its hind legs and reared.

Her face blanched as she urged the horse forward and down.

“I’m sorry—” He put one hand on the rein, the other on her foot. He could feel the tremor through her boot.

“I just wanted to know if you’ve seen my sons? They left right after you—” She turned to search the faces along the street.

“I’ll start looking now.” He knew in his heart those two would be fine. They were the kind always came away clean while everybody around them got taken down.

“I am sorry,” she said so softly he wasn’t certain he’d heard it. Rose, on the other side of her, stared intently at the scene. He remembered what Some Horses had said earlier. He’d have to convince Rose he didn’t murder her sister or J.B. before she made a mistake.

Irish Jim trotted up the boardwalk that had miraculously survived the powerful winds, waving at them. “Ma’am? Mrs. J.B.?”

Dulcinea turned her horse to face the cowhand, her eyebrows raised, a smile on her lips.

“It’s the blacksmith, Tom Farr, forge fell on him. Got himself a broken leg.” Irish Jim was sobered by the storm, and blood streaked his shirt and pants. “Doc’s busy with Omar’s wife gone into labor and Omar got himself a good knock on the head when the porch roof was took by the storm and the five little ones all tossed and tumbled around like to have barely survived they got so many cuts and bruises but no broken bones and their dog—”

Dulcinea held up her hand. “Where is Mr. Farr?”

Irish Jim looked confused for a moment, and then pointed toward the livery stable at the end of the street with the blacksmith shop beside it.

“I’m not a doctor, but I’ll do what I can.” She touched the stud into a light trot.

Graver glanced around at the torches and bonfires people had lit since the new electric streetlights were taken out by the storm. The two men cast huge jittery shadows that paced them across the buildings on the opposite side of the street as they followed the cyclone’s path.

“Where’s this new peace officer I keep hearing about?” Graver asked.

“Went to North Platte with the family. Says he thinks he’s solved J.B.’s murder.” Irish Jim shrugged. “Not sure about that. He’s the undertaker, you know. And dentist.” He opened his mouth and pointed to a black gap where one of his upper teeth used to be. “Slick as a whistle, that one.”

The men caught up with Dulcinea at a pile of debris that blocked the street, and their shadows paused briefly over her with a deeper darkness. It was the kind of moment Graver would later recall and ponder when Larabee’s drunken words came back: a bad thing never dies.