The Bones of Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

wounded shoulder. Graver passed out again and the men lifted and shoved him onto the horse before Irish Jim got up behind to hold him. There was something unnatural about leaving the Indian girl unburied behind them, and the four men stole glances over their shoulders as the procession moved into the darkness toward the ranch.
    â€œFrank?” Willie Munday, their newest cowboy, rode up beside Higgs and leaned over in a whisper. “Looked around, noticed another set of tracks out there. Small-footed horse and a man in moccasins.”
    Higgs searched the man’s face. “Keep this quiet. Soon as we take care of J.B. and this Graver fella, you, me, and Larabee’ll come out here and God willing find something.” Although he didn’t know much about Munday, Higgs thought he could trust him. Man did his work. Wasn’t hard on the horses. Good tracker. Kept his mouth shut, not like Irish Jim or a couple of others who wore a man down with their constant yapping.
    It was eight miles back to the ranch but it seemed a thousand to the men flanking the foreman’s horse, burdened with its double load. The sky had dropped into the darkness of extinguishing stars when they finally entered the ranch yard. Tired horses shuffled and sighed as they made their way to the barn. Jim and Willie stepped down with Higgs and Larabee outside the main house and unlashed the body, and while Willie held the gate, J.B. was borne up the brick path. They hesitated at the door. Higgs reached to rap hisknuckles, and then realized the person who granted permission to enter was dead in their hands. He turned the knob and pushed it open. The room was dark. The boy asleep upstairs, Higgs’s wife, Vera, likewise asleep in the foreman’s house, some four hundred yards away.
    â€œWait.” Higgs turned and felt his way through the dark to a kerosene lamp on the small table between the sofa and reading chair, found the sulfurs beside the lamp, and lit the wick. As soon as the gold glow pushed back the shadows, Higgs gestured, and the men brought the body to the brown-speckled cowhide sofa and carefully lowered it. Later the hide would bear the dark smudge of Bennett’s blood, but it never occurred to anyone to get rid of it.
    The men stood looking around the room, hats in hands, clearly uncomfortable to be in their boss’s good parlor and in the presence of his body.
    â€œGo on. Irish Jim, you take care of Graver’s wound, but make sure you tie him to the bunk. Late call tomorrow; get some sleep.” Higgs grimaced, laid his hat on the table beside the lamp, and promptly picked it up again. Larabee let the others pass, then looked over his shoulder at Higgs, who nodded.
    At first, Higgs thought about going upstairs and waking Hayward with the news, but he thought better of it. You always knew bad news soon enough. Best to sleep while a body could. He glanced at the dead man, startled by the fact that the eyes had closed, as if he could finally be at peace now that he was home.
    â€œOkay.” Higgs breathed deep and sat in the big, overstuffed chair upholstered with a burgundy plush that had worn thin and dark on the arms and back where J.B.’s head had rested for years. The wife’s doing. Something called “Turkish Victorian,” all done up with tassels and fringe the dogs and boy had taken turns pulling off until the furniture sat like aging relatives, fat and old-fashioned, beside the dainty mahogany table with claw-and-ball feet and carved foliage up the legs. An heirloom from her family, J.B. had noted with a touch of humor one night. That, and the whatnot corner thingy thatheld Hayward’s Indian relics and the silver belt buckle he’d won riding goats at the ranch rodeo when he was ten.
    Higgs glanced back at the body, examined it more closely in the light now that he was alone. The chest wound was ugly. They were always ugly. He pulled up the lace antimacassar pinned to the