The Bones of Paradise (38 page)

Graver saw the boy had listened and held the chestnut in check. Let the others run the legs off their horses. The distance was too far for a front-runner to win. As the swirling dust settled, he removed his hat and waved the air in front of his face, then wiped his mouth with his hand and spit. The horses were spread out now, a long dark string pulled by the small bunch in front, like a child's toy. Squinting against the dust, Graver could make out the figure of Irish Jim hunched low on the rough bay's neck, and what looked like Hayward at his side while a big gray paced Chance's Thoroughbred in front. Behind, a horse in the middle of the pack stumbled and nearly fell, scattering those that followed and driving several up against Irish Jim's bay, who held on, switching leads as it absorbed the bump and leapt forward.

Then suddenly they were there, the wall of horseflesh pounding, shaking the ground, foam and dirt flung against the spectators, great lungs heaving for air, a rhythmic roar rising over the crowd's shouts, absorbing and annihilating, and it wasn't until the front-runners were well beyond that it was possible to sort their order again. Half the horses slowed after the first mile, chests labored, legs wooden, clumsy, heads flung, eyes wide, nostrils flared red, teeth bared against the bit, riders foam flecked, faces masked with dirt, already rising upright as their beasts faltered beneath them, broke into a trot, and pulled up in front of the spectators. Jumping down, the riders quickly dragged their horses off the raceway as the leaders neared the far turn.

Graver noticed Rose's spotted pony maintained a steady pace the whole time and now passed those in front, picking them off one by one as more slowed. A white horse staggered to a walk, then halted while the rider kicked uselessly. Graver started out there at a fast walk, but a man on horseback passed him, saying, “I got it.” He hurried back before he was caught as the horses headed into the last quarter mile.

The gray, Hayward, Irish Jim, and Rose were neck and neck, thundering down on the people that pressed back at the vision: Would they make the final turn or simply run headlong into the crowd?

That was when Hayward made a young man's mistake. In his eagerness to win he flailed the horse with the end of his reins. The animal, already full out, slowed, which drove Hayward to slash him again and the horse stopped, tossed his head and humped his back. If he weren't exhausted, he would've bucked at the injustice. Instead he whipped his head around and bit the boy's leg, hard enough that he yelped in surprise and stopped flailing, sat back, and rubbed the spot. The chestnut, satisfied, picked up a trot, then a lope, and joined the stragglers.

The gray slowed and dropped into a choppy lope, head burrowing toward the ground, and the race came down to Irish Jim
and Rose. The bay Jim rode was still game, but it foamed pink from its mouth and blood streamed from its nose. The lean spotted horse that had maintained the same rhythmic pace, unaltered for nearly two miles, surged ahead and swept over the finish line to a stunned silence. The Indians grouped to the side glanced nervously at the white crowd, nodded to each other and smiled, then quickly dispersed. The paint pony passed Graver with enough energy left to cast a malevolent eye and snap its teeth at the silent mass. Graver and Larabee laughed and the noise that followed was like a giant's breath, expelled in guffaws and hoots and applause. For a time it looked as if the temperature of the day had suddenly cooled.

Dulcinea pushed through the crowd as Hayward led the horse to where they stood. Grinning, the boy shook his head and rubbed the chestnut's neck. Graver stepped forward and patted him on the back. Lesson learned. Hayward looked at him, eyes shining with pride and newfound humility. This boy would do. Graver touched the brim of his hat.

“Son . . .” Dulcinea stepped closer, and Hayward stepped back.

“Have to see to the horse,” he mumbled and walked on.

Dulcinea spun on Graver. “You simply must obey my orders!” She was all drawn up, like a dog on point, almost quivering in anticipation of the explosion.

“No, ma'am, I cannot obey orders that go against good sense.”

She stared at him for a good long minute, then something shifted in her eyes. “You were right. He rode a wonderful race, didn't he?” She reached out for his arm. “I have to go congratulate my son.”

Graver watched her ease through the crowd, and smiled despite himself.

“Guess we been skunked,” Larabee drawled. “Never guessed that spotted pony had bottom. A woman riding it, too. Put us all to shame.” A tall, white-haired stranger on the other side of Larabee spat and looked them over before he turned his bland face away
and shouldered through the crowd. Graver searched for Hayward among the horses with heaving sides walking in circles, their backers disputing what went wrong in loud voices.

Irish Jim, next to the water trough, poured buckets over his little bay, which stood spraddle-legged and shaking. Jim stopped, took off his shirt, soaked it in a bucket, and then covered the animal's head with it. The horse groaned and Jim removed it, squeezed water between its ears so it ran down its face, and gently sponged the nostrils, crooning and murmuring to it the whole while, “There's a stout lad.” He dipped the shirtsleeve in the bucket and dribbled water in the horse's mouth.

“Need help?” Graver asked. When Irish Jim looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

The horse sighed and slowly collapsed, sat down like a dog for a moment before folding his front legs and rolling to its side, eyes closed.

“No!” Jim knelt, panicked. The horse answered with a deep rattling snore and smack of its lips.

“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.

I
t 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.

As if he were the ringleader, the fighting mob followed, men staggering in and out of contact, trading blows and sometimes just hugging each other, refusing to give up the battle as they collapsed from the beating and were later found in each other's arms like drowned lovers. Hayward was dimly aware of the commotion at his back as he entered the stable and walked down the long line of cheap straight stalls toward the back, where four box stalls held his mother's stallion and the chestnut, the lawyer's mare and the stable owner's personal animal, an ancient gelding he'd had since a young man.

At first Hayward thought he was still groggy from the fight, wiped his face with his hand, shook his head to clear it, and then accepted it as true—his mother and Graver were in each other's arms, kissing.

“What the hell,” he murmured, took a step toward them and stopped. Graver stepped back first and glanced at the lawyer's mare dozing in the corner of the stall. His mother pressed her fingers against her lips. Hayward almost rushed to her then, thinking Graver's kiss unwanted, but stopped when he saw her tiny smile. She spoke in a low voice he couldn't quite hear and Graver lifted his gaze to her. She spoke again and the man shook his head, paused, half turned to leave, then turned back and swept her into his arms. It was like a scene from one of the dime novels the hands traded in the bunkhouse.

He couldn't interrupt them now, Hayward realized. A funny ache gripped his gut and spread its fingers up his spine until his shoulders and neck stiffened and hurt from holding his head upright. His father hadn't made her stay, and the blame had grown into hate until he was almost relieved when his father died and
his mother returned. He wasn't sure how he felt now, things had changed. He heard the brawl move slowly down Main Street, away from the sound of broken glass, and the shouts of fighters and onlookers. That would be the store, where Haven Smith ruled their lives like petty cash, and would now discover the mob looting each freed bag of flour or pair of socks with the kind of malicious glee reserved for tyrants and bankers. One by one, Hayward heard the windows shatter along the street, followed by triumphant cries from the rioters. His brother would have joined them, no doubt, but he didn't feel the same enthusiasm for destruction. Truth be told, as he watched his mother and Graver embrace, he felt only one thing, the familiar sense of longing for comforting arms he'd had his entire life.

A gunshot rang out, followed by the explosion of a shotgun, more breaking glass, screaming and yelling and people running. A saddled horse galloped by the open door of the stable, eyes flashing, broken reins flapping in the air while the stirrups banged its sides, urging it to go faster, faster, faster. The joyfulness of the crowd changed into panic, and then to outrage as they spun and hurried back toward the source of the shots. Hayward half turned to watch through the open doors as the last building at the far end of the street burst into flames. The fire quickly dissolved into thick gray-white smoke more like heavy fog than burning as it billowed along the street, briefly blanketing the crowd, then passed beyond, leaving the figures shrouded in what seemed a mist as they coughed and straggled away. He knew the horses would panic if the cloud of smoke entered the stables, but if he moved, his mother and Graver would know that he watched. The horses in the straight stalls shifted and sniffed the air. Ironclad hooves banged against the wood sides and a horse sent a high questioning call into the darkness, to be answered by several low, reassuring nickers.

The stallion sensed Hayward's presence, and recognized his scent. He had been watching the melee, too. He recognized the
smoke as from a smothered fire, and stood calmly as wisps entered the stable and disappeared into the blanketing darkness.

It was calmer now, business owners were tidying up, and the sound of tinkling glass could be heard in concert with the swishing of broom bristles against sidewalk boards. Here and there, men staggered together down the street toward one of the bars, arms across shoulders or hands locked like children struggling to reach home in a storm.

The dentist-sheriff, mysteriously absent during the riot, appeared with his hat slightly askew and his shirttail, untucked, hung over a large gun belt slung much lower than usual, as if he'd dressed in a hurry. His gait as he patrolled the sidewalk had a slight hitch and weave to the side that he struggled to straighten. It would be two hours before he was discovered in his office, near death with a knife wound in his back, the victim of an angry husband or dental patient, it was never determined which.

It would not have surprised Hayward that Dulcinea's skirt brushed his leg as she walked past on Graver's arm, oblivious of her sleeping son or the fray that had swept through town, or of the figure who watched them from the dark alley as they crossed the street and made their way to the hotel.