Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

She turned to Willie, who looked over his shoulder at Higgs’s house with the front door hanging open. “Higgs, he packed and scooted, ma’am.”

Dulcinea took a deep breath, pulled together the last grains of strength, and stood straight, even though she became light-headed with the effort.

“Me and Willie will just mosey over there and clean up the place, then,” Larabee said.

Irish Jim stood and fixed her in his gaze. “I guess that stallion’s about broke out of the corral. I’ll go fix it if that’s okay with you.” The men looked at each other, replaced their hats, and ambled off the porch like dogs reluctant to leave their comfort.

“You want I should send the Indians up to the house?” Larabee called over his shoulder. She nodded.

She waited until the men walked away before stumbling back into the house. The coffee Rose had made was warm on the stove, and although it tasted like the contents of a spit can, she still drank a cup. When a space yawned unexpectedly in a person’s daily life, she often hastened to fill it, spreading chores to cover the place, as if it were an embarrassment, unseemly, and she must not be seen on its brink. Dulcinea had not spoken in a month for fear of what she might say.

She pushed away from the table, her hands unwilling to release the edge that had been rubbed smooth by men’s bodies over the years. Four months ago her husband lay here. A month ago, her son. Yet they continued to pass the platters of meat, the plates of bread and bacon.

She had held Cullen’s hand those final hours. This living hand, now warm and capable of earnest grasping, and the broken, dirt-lined nails, a boy’s hand still, the tiny scar rising up the thumb, the knuckle that wouldn’t bend on the index finger he’d broken, so young and already his skin grained with dirt, scarred and broken again and again. He was still a boy, palm narrow and delicate as a girl’s, but with thick yellow calluses beneath each finger; another scar crossed his palm, bisecting the fate line. She caressed that hand all night, willing him back to a childhood when he stood at her skirt protected and loved.

This living hand, now warm and capable of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold and in the icy silence of the tomb, so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights that thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood . . . and thou be conscience-calmed. Oh son, when you read Keats to Markie Eastman, did you know he would write your epitaph?

And now cups sat where his hands had rested, knives and forks outlined his hips, his thighs, his thin boy legs. Was her place at the table where his bare battered feet waited to be bathed? It was scribed over and over, this story, these bodies, this place, this table where she sat those long hours all those years ago waiting for Drum to return and take her young son. Yes, she knew he would convince J.B., knew he would demand and receive the child she had waited so long for, loved so hard as she nursed him through the dangers of being alive, only to lose him. She thought if she put distance between them, if she stayed away as Drum demanded, then she could stand it, because she couldn’t be within a day’s ride without going after him—which she did until Drum laid down the law, and she had to leave. A disguised kindness, she later saw. Your firstborn was always the most loved. Hayward she loved, but he was an afterthought. She lost Cullen years ago, and now she lost him again, resurrected, reclaimed, and then just as she filled with hope once more, snatched away. If Drum Bennett were not out there in the cemetery waiting to die, she would kill him. She hurled her cup against the wall, satisfied by the brown streaks and gouge.

When she heard horses in the barnyard, she forced herself to the porch. Graver on J.B.’s chestnut and Hayward on the gray stallion, so relaxed it shambled like a cart horse, passed by. Graver looked over and touched his finger to the brim of his hat; Hayward ignored her. Fine. He was correct. An annoying hum stirred in her arms, she silenced it. So what if they rode her horse? What on earth good was he now? The person who wanted him was gone. In the old days, she might have slaughtered the stallion to honor her warrior son when he died. Cullen asked for the favor and she refused him. She saw it in his eyes, in the way he watched from the shadows of the barn. Now the stallion seemed a bright toy the boy was denied purely for the opportunity to deny him pleasure. She thought she had time. She thought she would teach him to ride the horse, that they would share him, though she never told him of her vague plans. What a simple, obvious gesture it was, yet she stepped around it like an inconvenient branch fallen in her path.

She watched Graver and Hayward dismount. The boy stroked the stallion’s face and leaned his head against its jaw. She was too exhausted to open to the rush of love she should feel for this boy.

Irish Jim set down the hammer and followed the horses into the barn, where Dulcinea wouldn’t go anymore. Graver reappeared, walked toward the house in her husband’s hat, shirt, and boots. She imagined him wrapping his arms around her from behind, holding her despite herself. She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments and felt his lips touch behind her ear, the place only J.B. knew. How immense was her longing and her dread.

When she opened her eyes, Graver still walked with a stride that should cover the distance easily, yet he seemed suspended, moving toward her but never arriving. The coolness imprisoned her body, pulled her into it. J.B. had found her in the evenings, watching the gold light set the world afire, making the swallows glint like mica as they sailed in and out of the barn, the grass on the hills shining as if sewn with precious thread on an ancient tapestry, the cottonwood leaves rattling like pennies dropped in a collection box, and the horses’ gilded manes and tails shimmering in the falling light. There could be nothing amiss in such a world as her young husband held her, his lips promising the caresses that would bring their naked bodies into one, bathed in the same golden light as it turned orange, then red, and the world burned down around them.

The cool released her and Graver arrived, hat in hand. She pressed her hand over her heart to steady it. Since Cullen, everywhere she looked was specific, as if she were scrubbed clean and free. Graver was unaware that he leaned slightly to the right as he continued to favor the wounded shoulder, and that he tilted his head slightly to the left for balance. His eyes were brighter after his ride into the hills, where they had caught the blue of the sky and lightened. He thought he was an unhandsome man, but his rawboned aspect gave him rugged strength, from the white creases at the corners of his eyes to the strong nose and deep grooves down his cheeks. There was a notch in his chin from an old cut, and his face, as battered as his hands, revealed a life of working to earn his keep. Sweat darkened the front of his shirt, and his jeans, mud-streaked, bore a small tear on the thigh where barbed wire caught the fabric and the white of his leg peered through. She was embarrassed to be caught staring. He banged his hat against his leg to loosen the dust and opened his mouth to speak. She held up her hand to stop him and turned to go inside with an incline of her head. He followed.

“Where is my dog?” She was shocked by how low and whispery her voice sounded after a month of silence, and by her banal question.

He gazed at her, and seemed surprised that this was the sole thing occupying her mind.

“Staying with Jerome and Rose in the tipi.”

“Oh.” She swayed and sat down again. “I want you to take this table and chop it up. Burn it right now!”

He stared at her. “Make it hard for the men to eat.”