Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

Graver felt a chill. “That so?”

Hayward shifted to his side, then pulled his gun belt around so he wasn’t lying on the pistol, his mouth working against itself the whole time. “Cullen and me met with these Indian kids at the rodeo in Babylon. Cousins. Two boys wanted to get drunk. Girl didn’t. Cullen had some whiskey. Didn’t take much. They weren’t used to it. Me neither. Cullen was.”

Hayward scrubbed his face with his hands, knocked his hat into the grass. Squeezing his eyes shut, he continued, “We hung out after they closed the rodeo for the night. Then we snuck into the stock pens. Cullen and the Indians, Raymond and Little Knife, wanted to ride the bulls. I wasn’t so drunk. Star, that was her name, tried to talk them out of it. They treated us like babies and it riled me up, but she asked me not to do it, so I didn’t. We went off under the bleachers with the last of the bottle.

“Turns out the rodeo people had guards and they caught them soon as they opened the gate. Star and me ended up talking and holding hands. Her parents were dead, and I told her about my mother leaving and my father and brother. We weren’t paying attention to time, except to notice the moon making its way across the sky. Around dawn Cullen and the other two found us and there were some ugly words. They’d got the crap kicked out of them by the guards and were plenty sore we hadn’t stuck around to help. Raymond kept looking at Star like he wanted to accuse her of something and Little Knife was plain loaded for bear. Cullen stared at her and me like he knew a secret, with that grin on his face. Finally I said nothing happened and he looked happy. Her cousins didn’t believe me. Little Knife walked up and whispered that he’d cut out my liver and eat it I ever come near Star again. Raymond pulled him off and they left.”

Hayward sat up and picked his hat off the ground. Smoothing his hair back, he put it on and tugged it down so it shaded his face, which glistened with tears he didn’t bother wiping away.

Graver had a feeling he knew what came next.

“I figured I’d never see her again, her being on the reservation and all, and J.B. and Drum telling us boys to stay away from there.” He took a deep breath then let it out in a long sigh. “But Cullen said we had to go up and find her and kick the crap out of her cousins if we got the chance. I never knew which he wanted more. I don’t think he ever, I mean, I don’t think he was ever with a girl. They were afraid of him. They didn’t understand.

“So one day we sneak up there and there’s some kind of deal going on, Sun Dance, on the Buffalo Grounds, and we’re the only white people and everyone’s staring at us and nobody will talk to us. There’s all this drumming, men sitting around a big drum the size of a cow tank, dancers in the middle of this ring surrounded by posts covered with cedar boughs, families sitting in the shade around the circle. A cry goes up, drumming gets louder and louder and everyone’s watching this thing going on by this tall lodge pole in the middle of the circle with ropes and colored strips of cloth tied to it. The dancers are only wearing breechcloths and some of them are bleeding from cuts on their backs and chests. I grab Cullen’s arm and tell him we better go, but he gets that weird light in his eyes and points at this cluster of men at the center pole. It was the cousins, Raymond and Little Knife. Little Knife was already attached to the pole by strips of deerskin pulled through cuts on his chest. He’d back up until the rope stretched tight, pulling the skin to the point of breaking, all the while chanting and dancing with the drums, then he’d move toward the pole again. I guess he was praying. Two old men worked on Raymond, getting him ready. One with a knife slashed twin lines in his chest and pushed a deerskin strip through, then knotted it to the rope while the other man held him still, chanting to him. There wasn’t much blood, and I couldn’t stop watching. Next thing I knew, Cullen was gone.”

Hayward stood, then squatted. “Think we should get back?”

“Finish your story, son.” Graver flicked the rein end at the stallion when it grazed too close. This might be his only chance to find out what happened the day that brought him to the Bennetts.

“He found Star with her family watching her cousins, so he stood beside her and grinned at the two boys. It was enough.”

The silence filled with the sound of horses pulling grass and chewing.

“They claimed we ruined the Sun Dance and the coming year for their tribe. I guess they think one of us ruined Star, too. We met up a few times after that, and I wanted to give her something, but J.B. never thought I needed money. And I never had before. Cullen told me to do it, to run off with her, marry her. We’d catch sight of the cousins once in a while, but always managed to duck them in town. They had to be gone by dark so it wasn’t hard. Town doesn’t like Indians after dark. Saves wear and tear on the white folks, I guess. We didn’t think they were serious. Star and I just wanted to get to know each other.”

Something in his voice made him seem a boy again, and Graver reckoned that when a boy’s mother leaves it takes him the rest of his life to fill the hole—if he ever could. He had a sudden vision of Hayward as the sort of man who would pursue women as other men followed dreams of gold or land. A cowbird landed on the edge of the churned sand by the tank and began pecking seeds out of a splash of cow manure, its silver beak stabbing quickly between moments when the brown head swiveled to keep an eye on the men and the horses. Finally the motion of the horses’ tails flicking flies sent it soaring away, the dark body a glistening smear crossing out of sight.

“I didn’t know half of what Cullen was doing, taunting the cousins, getting in fights with them, making them madder and madder, until something had to give. Little Knife wanted to marry Star, but she wouldn’t. We came out here once and she liked it, said her ancestors used to camp here. Then she told me she had to meet somebody here, something about her mother. I told her I’d come and protect her, hide so he wouldn’t see me. She wouldn’t tell me who it was—” He choked and coughed and took a deep breath. “I was late.” He paused again and wiped his face with his hand. “Maybe Little Knife followed her. I don’t know what J.B. was doing here. Saw two bodies but didn’t realize it was my father until Frank told me the next morning. I was so upset I didn’t notice it was J.B.’s horse either. Thought it was whoever Star went to meet. I asked you if he was dead . . . It’s all my fault—I was too late—” He sobbed and his shoulders shook as he buried his face in his hands.

The boy dropped his hands. “Little Knife must have killed her. Then shot Pa, and—”

“Cullen was never here?”

The boy shook his head. “I thought you’d done it. Then I didn’t know what to think until Cullen told me.”

“What?”

“Raymond said Little Knife was gone to Canada or Montana or someplace, but he’d be back to finish the Bennett boys. That’s when we started buying guns and practicing.”

Graver sat up. “Is that who shot at me that day we went hunting?”

“Little Knife is still gone, far as I know. Guess it couldn’t be him. It sure wasn’t Cullen. Nobody understood my brother, Mr. Graver. He wasn’t like the way he appeared. He never killed anything he could help it.”

“It was you shot me here, then.”

The boy nodded. “I’m sorry for it now.”

They rode back in silence while Graver ruminated. It wasn’t the boys. J.B. probably came upon the girl same as he did. It all came back to the girl.

Percival Chance neatly folded the Omaha Herald, laid it beside his breakfast plate, and picked up the china coffee cup. This was a splurge he couldn’t afford, so he stretched out his morning by ignoring the waiter’s increasing impatience, expressed through too much attention to his water glass. He glanced at his pocket watch, a heavy solid gold piece the young earl had carried. It was ten thirty and he’d met Harney Rivers at eight to plan their next step with the permits over breakfast, for which the older man paid. The trouble was Dulcinea hadn’t been available for a month. The old man either. Chance tried to understand their grief, but the boy wasn’t much of a go-getter. He could understand if Cullen were Frick or Carnegie, two men he read about in the paper, or J. J. Hill, now there was a man with destiny earned by his own two hands. It cheered him to read the life stories of captains of industry who began as he had, grabbed opportunity and shook it until it rained cash. He was mixing his metaphors, the voice of his old teacher at boarding school warned him. So be it. He smiled.