Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

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.”