Jonis Agee - The Bones of Paradise

Drum moved his head and fixed him with his stare. Hayward cleared his throat and inched closer, opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, licking his lips. His hair fell forward across his cheek and he brushed it back impatiently. The small moment of order strengthened him and this time he squared his shoulders and spoke.

“I know you got no use for me, sir. That’s as it may be. I wanted to say something.” He looked at the crack where the whitewashed wall met the raw cedar ceiling. “I miss my brother, sir, much as you.” He paused and swiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “But I ain’t a baby. I’m grown enough to run the ranches and that’s what I’m fixing to do, sir!” His voice rose on the last words and Drum gave a deep guttural groan that made him leap to his feet and eye his grandfather with horror.

“Need gold,” the old man struggled to say.

“No, sir. I can make them pay on their own. You always low-rated Cullen and me, and I’m gonna show you.”

Drum shook his head and coughed so long it seemed he wouldn’t stop. Hayward reached to lift his head, and the old man said it again, “Gold.”

Dulcinea rushed in and placed a hand on her son’s chest. “Stop it!” she commanded in a harsh whisper. Hayward spread his arms and shook his head before stepping back against the wall.

“I didn’t do anything!” He pouted as the adults did an elaborate dance, trading places around the bedside until Graver was back where he started at the foot.

Dulcinea looked at the judge on the other side of the bed. “Are you ready?” She picked up Drum’s hand.

“Ma’am?” The man was balking like a calf on a rope. Hayward couldn’t figure it out.

“Do it now.” When the judge merely raised his brow, she continued. “You’re to marry us, remember?” She used the clasped hands to point to Drum and herself while Graver took a step back and Hayward a step forward as if to stop her.

The judge looked at the old man to make sure his eyes were open, and then at Hayward, who fingered the felt brim of his hat. With a deep sigh, the judge lifted his chest, ran his fingertips lightly over the top of his head as if smoothing a baby’s downy hair, and began the ceremony, which after five brief sentences concluded with: “I pronounce you married.”

Dulcinea nodded and pressed the battered old hand against her lips, with her head bowed and eyes fixed on Drum’s face, over which spread the slightest glow of pleasure, as if he had waited an entire lifetime for this moment. When he muttered “Geneva,” the name of his first wife, J.B.’s mother, everyone pretended not to hear. Hayward felt the sting of her deceit deep inside his chest.

“I’ll get the papers now,” the judge said. His face wore a peculiar expression like he struggled not to laugh, as if he’d just seen the mouse swallow the cat whole.

“Please hurry,” Dulcinea said.

Hayward straightened off the wall and seemed to grow several inches in his outrage. “What the hell is this, Mother?” He grabbed her shoulder, yanked her to face him.

She looked at him but held her tongue until he released her. “Go run the ranches. This marriage means we have a clear title, son, don’t you see? Your father wanted you to have the land.” Her cheeks burned pink under his glare. “We can talk later.”

“No. No, we won’t.” Hayward’s mouth twisted and white foam appeared in the corners. He merely stared at the tableau of the widow bride, the hired man, and the old tyrant who finally closed his eyes.

He looked at his mother. He hadn’t seen this coming and didn’t have a name for it. If the old man pulled through—He grimaced. Didn’t have a name for that either. He looked at the woman he’d recently vowed to protect and realized he didn’t understand her at all and had completely underestimated her. He wouldn’t be surprised if she lay down on the bed right there and then and took the old man in her arms. The hated old bastard, her new husband.

Hayward pulled on his hat and walked away, and didn’t turn when she called him back. Cullen had been right about her the whole time.

Drum died at dawn after their wedding night, as if mocking all marriage for all time, except no, that was her. Dulcinea sat by his side, held his hand, and restrained him when he tried to rise at the end, reaching with his other hand as if to stop some vision. He cried out a name, Wilke, and a horrified expression crossed his face. He tried to speak, his throat clogged with blood, and still she held on, refusing to let him flee. “You’re mine now,” she whispered so Graver and the doctor standing at the foot of the bed could not hear. “I’ve got it all now.”

Drum shook his head and slapped the bed with his other hand as if to signal, but it meant nothing. He began to choke, then finally drowned in his own bright blood. When Dulcinea left, clutching the marriage certificate, instead of the triumph she’d expected, she felt burdened by a terrible sense of waste. Graver was right. This dreaming land had killed them all. It didn’t stop her, though. After sitting with the dead man until midmorning, she sent word to the judge, Stillhart, and Rivers to meet her at the hotel. She had made up her mind about the oil and gas leases.

She turned to Graver, who lingered in the corner of the room, a watchful expression in his eyes, and motioned him outside, leaving Drum Bennett without a backward glance. The old bastard had finally given her family a future.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said as soon as the door to the doctor’s house closed on them.

Graver put on his hat and crossed his arms, staring at the dusty toes of his boots.

“I did it for my son. Drum would have taken it all and corrupted Hayward in the process. You know what he was like.” When she met with silence, she put a hand on his arm. “I couldn’t give him another son. I couldn’t let him take everything J.B. and I worked for, and he would have. You know he would have. He was going to sell us out, too. Everything can go back to the way it was now . . .” Her voice fell and she dropped her hand. “What passed between us, what we did in the stable, I—It’s too soon. I want, I hope—” She stopped when he shrugged and turned to walk away.

“I’m not finished!” She almost stamped her foot she was so tired.

“I need to round up the hands and get back to work, ma’am.” There was no inflection in his tone. Neither he nor her son understood or forgave her. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and begging him to stay. Across the street she saw the judge and Rivers enter the hotel. She had to take care of business now. She’d finish this later.

She knew what they thought, it was written on their faces, the bright, expectant eyes and smiles despite Drum’s passing. She let them sit, hands folded like expectant schoolchildren anticipating cookies, and looked down at her white silk shirt, dotted with Drum’s blood, noting the dark constellations like a reversed sky.

“I’ve made up my mind,” she announced. They nodded, and Stillhart pushed the contract toward her while Rivers uncapped his pen and laid it next to the papers, in charge now that Chance was dead. The men seemed to have little reaction to his passing. She realized that he had no allies or friends among them. It was just as he’d described when they first met: no one in town wanted to know him. Thinking back, she’d always felt Chance had other irons in the fire, plans she might not like or approve of, as if he were steering her in his own secret direction. She never trusted him, and she sensed these men didn’t either. He was a stranger passing through. No past and no future. It was likely that in a few years, no one would remember he was ever here. She looked at the men before her, men she would spend the rest of her life dealing with in one way or another. They needed to understand each other.