Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

“Believe he’s tuckered out.” Larabee walked up and spit not an inch beyond his own boots. “Unusual, but in his place, I believe I’d do the same. Might could use a beer when he wakes up.”

Jim looked up at Graver as the horse snored with a regular rhythm.

“He’ll be fine. Seen a few take this approach to no harm. Let him be.” Graver looked at the people avoiding the animal as they walked past.

Larabee cleared his throat and stuck his hands in the back pockets of his trousers, his eyes focused on the racetrack. “You need to see this.”

Graver’s heart sank. Was the boy giving the horse grief?

Chance was still on the raceway, his tall boots coated with dust while his mare stood with its right front leg hanging limply from the knee, unwilling to place weight on it. The horse’s breath came in short, staccato rushes, and shivering waves rolled over her body, some so strong she tried to shift her weight back on the injured leg and had to be steadied by the lawyer.

“Your chestnut cut us off! That boy’s dangerous!” Chance shouted as soon as Graver and Larabee came in earshot. “This is a valuable horse! She’s won every race she ever entered.” The horse tossed her head, tried to lurch back and away.

“She’s so dear, I’m surprised you put her in a two-mile race over rough country.” Larabee lifted and resettled his hat so it shaded his eyes. “Hot out, ain’t it.”

Graver approached the horse, laid his hand on her right shoulder, and spoke to her quietly as he ran his other down the injured leg. She calmed, snorted, and dropped her head when Graver stood, stroking her long neck where the pain made the muscles stand rigid until they, too, began to release in quick ripples.

“Broken?” The lawyer looked at Graver, the horse, and back at Graver, who pinched the mare’s skin between his fingers and released, noting how long it took to relax.

“Needs water pretty bad.”

Chance threw up his arms, dropping the reins. “What’s the point?”

Graver stepped into the punch, and hit the lawyer so hard his head snapped back and he staggered to his hands and knees. Behind him, Larabee picked up the reins to stop the horse from panicking and running away.

The lawyer struggled to his feet, and felt to see if his jaw was broken.

Larabee unfastened the cinch and set the saddle and blanket in the dust.

“You think so much of her, take her,” Chance said, his voice muffled by the bulb starting to swell on the right side of his jaw.

“Don’t forget your saddle!” Larabee spat a long brown stream at it as Dulcinea arrived, followed by Willie Munday, who struggled with two full buckets of water.

“How’s—Oh no!” Dulcinea glanced between the two men and the horse. “I’m so sorry—” She touched the lawyer’s arm. He shrugged her off and stepped around her to pick up his saddle.

“My own damn fault,” he muttered, then shouldered the saddle and limped away. Graver stared after him a moment, thinking the man might have some grit after all.

It began at dark when the prize money was passed out in the tent beside the grandstand. The group of Indians waited patiently at the end of the line for their race winnings, as if they knew that was where they were expected to be. It wasn’t the whole group, only six young men, plus three of the older men, and Rose and Some Horses. The race organizers had passed out cheap bottles of whiskey freely after the win, and the older people wondered about the tactic. A couple of the young men had so much to drink they had to be supported by their Sioux brothers, those who saw the ruse for what it was. Now the little group wavered unsteadily as if an ill wind built its ire against them. Irish Jim stood with the Bennett Ranch cowboys while Jorge counted his money. Men from other ranches stood in similar knots inside and outside the tent. As darkness fell an electrical tension had spread among the crowd. Now left with little to do but drink, they focused their attention on the Indians, who had finally made it to the pay table.

“What can I do you for?” the bland-faced, white-haired man asked as his fingers flashed through a stack of bills, fanned them like cards, then shuffled and squared them. When he looked up he had an oval, fleshy, boneless face that reminded one of a mask as much as anything. The impulse was to dig a finger where the cheekbones should be to see if anything firm lay behind it or if his face could be peeled off like a rubber mask. A cigarette resting in the corner of his mouth bounced as he spoke, barely parting his thick lips. “Chief?”

Rose strode through the little group and placed her blue ribbon and cheap tin loving cup on the table, not slamming it down but making such a definitive move there was no question about her feelings.

“Won you a trophy and a ribbon, I see, well good for you,” said the bland-faced man with the bloodless smile.

“I want the prize money goes with it,” Rose said. Jerome and the other Indians murmured behind her. The cowboys enjoying the scene either nodded or shook their heads. Then one enterprising man removed his hat and offered odds on the Indians getting their money, and the men with fresh dollars in their jean pockets stepped up to bet on whether the man would successfully fleece the Indians.

“I gave your braves all the whiskey they could swallow right after the race. Now let me get back to my figuring.” He made the dollars between his fingers disappear and began to stack the coins, then they vanished, too, like he was some kind of illusionist.

Rose stepped closer and rested her hands on the table. He merely eyed her fists and continued counting. When he’d made another stack of coins and bills disappear, he reached under the table, lifted a Colt revolver, and placed it next to his last stack of money.

The Indians behind Rose were silent as knives slipped into the hands of the younger men. They pressed forward. Irish Jim slid outside while Jorge stayed and reached for the knife he hid in his boot. Some cowboys left while others inched forward to back the man at the table.

“I won the race,” Rose said in a low firm voice. “I want my hundred dollars.”

The bland-faced man made the last of the money disappear, placed his hands palm down on the table and rose, the pistol sliding smoothly into his hand as if it had a will of its own. “And that was a hundred dollars’ worth of whiskey. You people don’t even know what money is.” When he smiled it was a boyish grin that likely disarmed most. Jorge slipped around to the other side, halfway between Rose and the man behind the table. He held the knife low, the blade up in gutting position.

Rose stared at the man so long she seemed mesmerized, until her face slowly relaxed, shifted, and she leapt at him so quickly he didn’t have time to shoot or move before she’d yanked the gun from his hand and pressed her skinning knife to his throat. The struggle was nearly over before the other men joined the action, swarming the fighters, and then taking on the Sioux and each other. Jorge swiped his knife at the barrel-chested steer wrestler, sliced his red shirt in half, and the man spun away, wiping the bloody scratch with one hand and holding the other up in surrender. Jorge stepped back and looked for another way to defend Rose as a crowd rushed the tent; so many piled in, the ropes squeaked and pulled the stakes from the ground, collapsing one side and pushing the fighting men outside to spread like wildfire through bunchgrass. In a matter of minutes, half the town was embroiled in the melee. What began as standing for the Bennett brand was now well beyond that as men burst noses and broke fingers and arms and teeth with abandon.

The Indians quickly dispersed, and with them the strongbox that held their prize money in addition to the rodeo proceeds. No one saw them except Irish Jim, who laughed and punched the man standing beside him in the ear. Jorge straddled the bland-faced man’s back, whipping and spurring him like a bull as the man tried to buck him off. Hayward traded punches with a town boy who always seemed to mock him, mimicking his every move when he brought the ranch list to the store or went to church. They’d eyed each other since they were eight and now was the time. The other boy outsized him by forty pounds and three inches, but his body wasn’t as lean and quick. Hayward hit him repeatedly in the kidneys with short jabs that built deep bruises and took his breath until the boy finally dropped to one knee and held his head. Hayward looked around to see if anyone had witnessed his victory, and since no one had, he shrugged and wandered toward the hotel where his mother was staying. He had been hit enough that the world was fuzzy and tilted. He put his eye on the open doors of the livery stable and staggered inside.