Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

“Why have you sent me this contract, Mr. Chance? I told you I wanted nothing to do with those people.”

“You must be feeling better, Dulcinea, you’re looking lovely today.” He leaned back with a smile and combed his hair from his temple with a forefinger.

“Your one job was to clear probate on the will. Do I need to find another attorney?”

He smiled. “If you will be patient for a few minutes—”

“I’ve been patient all summer and look at the results.”

He took out a gold pocket watch embellished with an elaborate family crest, consulted it, and tucked it back in his waistcoat as if his time were more important than hers.

“That’s it. Consider yourself fired.” She stood, picked up her purse, and turned toward the door, which opened precipitously, forcing her to step back into the tiny space.

“Sorry, sorry we’re late.” The judge, Harney Rivers, a stranger, Stillhart the banker, and finally Drum Bennett came through the door, causing all to stand elbow to chin. “Town’s filling up with rodeo crowd and it’s hell getting anywhere. I don’t know how they do it in those Eastern cities.” The judge tipped his hat. “Mrs. Bennett, Dulcinea.”

“What are you doing here?” Dulcinea asked Drum, who lingered behind the taller men.

The men removed their hats, put them back on, and then took them off again.

“Come in here, you can sit and I’ll stand,” Chance offered. “Dulcinea, you sit right there where you were before.”

She almost protested, and then was overcome with curiosity. In her new state of mind, it was all she could do not to laugh them right out of their boots, as if they were caught in a ridiculous folly that any minute was going to split apart to show the awful, soul-grabbing horror beneath. She sat with a grimace. Across from her Drum kept his eyes on the flat-brimmed tan cowboy hat in his hands that he kept turning, stopping to brush off a fleck of lint every once in a while. His face, covered in greasy sweat, had aged twenty years, ravaged with wrinkles and hollows and sagging skin as if he were dying of a cancer or lung ailment. There was a slight tremor in his fingers. She looked away, unable to stop the stirrings of sympathy.

The stranger, an out-of-town lawyer who introduced himself as Joshua Kidd, possessed dark eyes that peered through dime-sized glasses perched on his nose. His jaw worked as if he chewed something not quite pleasant, something he could neither spit out nor swallow. Next to Chance’s clothes, the man’s appeared fresh, shelf-creased. He was too current, probably sold a bill of goods by some smart young clerk in Omaha whose job it was to get rid of fashions no one was buying. In contrast, the judge must have inherited his clothing from an older, deceased relative. The black wool coat was too thick, the cream linen shirt too heavy, and the silk cravat too boldly colored in yellow and blue swirls. Stillhart, the banker, wore a dove-gray Western suit with overstitching and a black leather string tie with a rough turquoise nugget the size of her fist holding it snug at his throat, like something straight out of a Denver catalogue. Harney Rivers wore his usual plain wool suit and black vest with a gold watch chain stretched across the front. Only his gold-and-green silk tie made him fit company for the others. She felt set upon by mannequins out of the Emporium window across the street.

“Dulcinea—May I call you Dulcinea?” the judge began, as if he hadn’t sat at her table and drunk her husband’s brandy of a night.

She waved her hand impatiently and concentrated on the wart on his chin in an attempt to still herself while her fingers worked J.B.’s ring on her thumb, twisting it back and forth until it began to saw her flesh.

“Let me say that we’re all real sorry about what happened to your boy.” He glanced over at Drum, who wouldn’t meet his eyes, but the tremor in his fingers increased. “I know how broken up both you and his grandfather have been.”

The ring sprang off and she felt around in her lap before it could drop to the floor. The room was warm and stuffy and her breath wouldn’t quite come.

The judge snuck a look at the lawyers, carefully avoiding Drum, who still stared at his hat, although his face, burned from the days living outside, burnished to a deep red.

“Be that as it may”—the judge raised his finger in the air as if to punctuate his speech from a campaign platform—“we in the hills have long-standing traditions,” he began in a sonorous tone, and it was all she could do not to reach across the table and grab his lapels. “We, the founding families, like to keep things, our holdings, our business, among our families and friends. We don’t need outsiders, folks who don’t know or appreciate our ways—you understand.”

She nodded, and remembered how long it was before anyone would do more than say a polite hello when she’d married J.B.—and when Drum took Cullen she couldn’t find any lawyer interested in helping her get him back.

“We have business to conduct here, and it behooves you to listen. Please.” He smiled to lighten the words and she clenched the ring in her fist.

“Just get to the point,” Drum finally said, and she was grateful.

“All right. Your lawyer sent the gas and oil contracts to you, so you know what we need here. The deal only works if all of us in this room allow for the exploration and eventual bringing to the surface. Now”—he raised his hand to stop her interruption—“in return, Drum here drops the inquiry into the legitimacy of your husband’s will. Yes, yes, I know it’s valid, but I’m not acting as the court here and your father-in-law wields enough goodwill with the court to delay your possession for a long time.”

She started to stand, and Chance came off the wall and put his hand none too gently on her shoulder, pushing her down. “It’s best you listen.” She slid the ring on her thumb and began twisting it so hard she felt it on the bone.

Drum startled awake. “No, damn it, that’s not the way we talked about it.” He glared at the other men, then fixed his half-mad expression on her. “Dulcinea, I know this is sitting hard, and what I’m about to say will sit even harder, but you need to consider Hayward and all J.B. worked for here more than your needs. You mean to sell the ranch, I know that, especially—” He brushed his hand as if to push recent history aside. “But I can’t let that happen. Now I don’t have the cash to buy you out, you know that, it’s a cow business, not a bank. So here’s what I figure, and it’s only to keep the Bennett name alive, after J.B. and Cullen—well, I figure you might owe something here, too.”

She pushed her fingers into her purse, and felt for anything sharp she could stab through his heart.

Drum put his hat flat on the table, took a deep breath, and leaned toward her. “I think we should get married.”

The judge’s and banker’s heads jerked up from reading the papers on the table. Harney Rivers had to stop himself from laughing, she noticed. Chance, still behind her, placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Since she didn’t try to kill him, Drum continued.

“I’ve thought long and hard about our problems and it’s the only thing for it. Merge our two places, make it one of the biggest spreads in the hills, and I can help finish raising Hayward and together he and I can run the ranches while you go off to Europe or wherever—that is, you’d be my wife in name only. You’ll continue to be supported as you were when my son was alive.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.

She shuddered at the thought of Drum’s proposal, the obscenity of it. The other men looked surprised and a little scared as they watched. They were probably wondering the same thing she was: Had he lost his mind?