Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

“Oh, they can sit on the porch or stand or something . . .”

“Can I get you anything?” he asked in a voice that was warm and cool and confusing.

“I want to thank you for taking Hayward to ride.” She sounded insane.

“Maybe a glass of water?” he said.

“And the horses. Yes, that’s kind of you.” She meant the riding, but he pumped her a glass of water, then one for himself. She took it automatically and brought it to her lips. It was rare indeed, fresh and cool, with the crisp mineral taste of the hills. She had missed this water. They said it flowed beneath the hills in a great sea thousands of years old, and that was why it was pure blue when it came to the surface. Oh son, you will miss this world, won’t you? She put her face in her hands but no tears would come. She should be out there with Drum Bennett, letting her tears water her son’s grave. Why did she have to be so very alive when he was so very dead?

“Ma’am?” Graver was like a gnat that wouldn’t let her alone.

“What? What do you want? Why are you still here? Higgs quit. The other men will quit. Go. Just go.” She opened her eyes and found he sat at the end of the table in Higgs’s place, and before him, J.B.’s. He studied her a minute, then gazed at the wall where pine shelves held her new blue dishes. Another bold, useless gesture.

“Now people have let you be for a good while, Mrs. Bennett. You’ve been in your grief and we let you be. Nobody asked a thing of you, and it has been hard. No denying it. But ma’am, it is time for you to stiffen your shoulders and start walking like you own this place again.”

Graver scratched behind his head, and pushed his gray-streaked hair off his face. It had grown over his collar and he grabbed the damp curls and pulled them back. He rubbed his mouth, grimaced, and fixed her with a stare. “I’ll tell you what I think, then you can do what you want—fire me or stand up.”

She hesitated, wound her fingers together in her lap and forced herself to sit very still, the attitude of a child in the schoolroom. As he said, she could fire him.

“I am sick to death of the waste around here. You people act like there’s nothing for it but to throw each other away, kill your animals off for the folly of it, and ruin every piece of land you can get your hands on. Those oil and gas people? Do you have any idea what it looks like when they’re done? Your boys? They needed you and you ran off. Your husband, he didn’t have the nerve to come take you back either. That old man out there? He should be running his own place—that’s what killed Cullen, trying to do a man’s job when the man was in town being played the fool so he could get his hands on more money.” He stood so he towered over her.

She pushed back her chair, ready to slap him hard.

“Sit down, I’m not done yet!” His voice rose and he paced back and forth with his slightly irregular gait. “Speaking of money, the men haven’t been paid and unless you have a trunk full of money upstairs or in the bank, we got nothing to run this place on without shipping cattle or selling off some land.” He stopped, inspecting the room as if seeing her improvements for the first time. “You can’t spend money on pretties when your men are hurting. We need to make the tally, cull the herds, get the hay in, reserve the stock cars with the railroad, contact the buyers and study the market figures. Ma’am, we have not done one thing, and unless we ship it’ll be a mighty lean winter.”

He looked at his hands, turning them over twice before they dropped to his sides. His voice lowered. “I’m not speaking for myself, you understand, I’ve put in the lean years. I’m used to it. It’s you and the boy and what hands you can afford to winter over.”

“I’m broke? How? My husband put money in my account every month. There was always plenty of money.” As she said it, she realized that she hadn’t ever asked how the ranch was doing, if cattle prices were holding, if he lost many head in the early or late blizzards. She just assumed—

Graver nodded and closed his eyes, something J.B. used to do, as if the ignorance of the other person was too embarrassing to witness.

She shivered. The repairs that weren’t done, the state of the linens, for God’s sake. Cullen and Hayward’s poor clothing. Too few men to do all the work on a ranch this size. Oh Christ, what had she done?

“How long since we, since anyone has shipped?” Her voice quivered.

“Couple of years at least. Eighteen ninety-nine winter was coldest we’ve ever had. That and the drought, well, not a good time to be ranching. Some places have just turned the cattle loose, letting them fatten on open range or other people’s land. Better than slaughtering them. Reservations buy some, but government gives bottom dollar, real bottom, and doesn’t care what kind of cow gets sent, sick, skinny, old. Same price per head. According to Higgs, your husband wouldn’t ship those and he couldn’t lose prime stock. Drum didn’t share his sentiments.”

She got up and walked into the living room, jerked the curtain away from the window and peered outside. It was no use. She couldn’t seem to find her dog anywhere.

Graver cleared his throat and when he spoke again, he sounded worn out. “You still have a son out there—a good boy who can grow to be a man in these hills. He’ll do, if he has some backing. Don’t throw him away. And don’t throw away this ranch. You know how lucky you are? My wife and I—we would’ve given the world to have a place like this instead of what we settled for. You’re going through hard times. It’ll change. It always does if you have a place to ride it out. And you do.” He rested his hands on the back of the straight chair at the end of the table and looked at her. “I’m done now.”

She gathered herself, tried to force down the tide of anger and fear before it sheeted her eyes red and black. “You are never to mention my son Cullen again. In fact, you are not to interfere in my dealings with my other son either. Is that clear?”

He nodded and set his mouth in a tight line.

“But, since I am apparently without a foreman, I would appreciate it if you would stay and manage the men until I find a replacement. You may move your things into the foreman’s house.”

He nodded and a smile played at his lips until she held up her hand. “One more thing. You are to teach my son how to ride and care for my horses.” He shrugged and nodded, not meeting her eyes.

“Finally, I want you to go out there, put Drum Bennett on his horse, and take him home. I’ll expect you back in the morning. We’ll discuss the cattle then.”

He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and shook his head.

She hadn’t told the truth about why she had left her husband and children. She’d never told anyone, it was part of their bargain, for what good it did. She collapsed in the chair and gestured for him to sit. “I need you to understand something about Drum and me.

“It was the first break in the weather in mid-March when I tried again to take back Cullen. J.B. had left early to meet with the bank and cattle buyer in town and the hired girl had taken Hayward out to see the new calves in the barn. She’d moved in after Drum stole my boy and I went crazy. I had one of the men hook my half-blind mare to the runabout. I was determined not to fail this time.

“I found the old man at the smithy forge, naked to the waist, holding a red-hot horseshoe in pincers over the coals as he pumped the bellows. The gray horse being shod was tied to one side. My boy nowhere to be seen. I remember that Drum’s skin was only a little loose for a man his age, and his muscles still looked hard as he pounded the shoe into shape, then plunged it into a waiting bucket of water and heated it again.