Higgs grimaced and worked his way up the shoulders to the neck.
“Lift his head,” Vera interrupted. She draped the suit over the back of a kitchen chair and held a comb and brush for his hair.
“I wouldn’t—”
She elbowed him aside and lifted the back of the head with one hand, comb poised in the other. The flopping skull stretched the skin and groaned—Vera lurched backward. The head landed on the kitchen table with a resounding thump that sounded too much like a pumpkin being squashed. Higgs stood frozen, watched as a fly found the blackened flesh of the wound and tentatively probed the ragged hole with its front legs. Vera stared at the hole for a moment, and then backed farther away, shoveling the air with her empty hand.
“Turn your head,” Frank ordered.
He quickly tied the flour sack he’d used to dry the body around the wound as if Bennett were readying himself for a duster. Higgs stepped back and surveyed his work. Most of the blood and dirt were gone. He took the comb and brush from his wife, wet the hair with the pink water, parted it down the middle, and flattened it as he’d seen his friend do for as long as they’d known each other. It felt more intimate than bathing him had—the last thing a man could manage to do for himself if he were still breathing and had at least one working arm.
With Vera’s help, he dressed Bennett in the one suit he owned, the one he wore to meet bankers and to get married all those years ago. The black wool sleeves were moth eaten, the lapels faded, the collar dark with grease and dirt. Vera adjusted the high standing collar so it sat straight.
“A Bible, Frank? Where’s his—”
There was a knock at the back door, followed by a muffled voice saying the wagon and men were ready. Hayward pounded down the stairs and strode into the kitchen as the men hauled in the hastily constructed coffin from the back porch. Irish Jim let his side slip and tilt, banging Willie’s fingers against the doorframe as they struggled to keep it upright. Willie swallowed his curses and cast the other man a baleful expression.
They’d made the coffin with planks from the new barn door, and only guessed at the length. When J.B. didn’t quite fit, they removed his tall black boots and bent his knees to one side so he lay twisted at the waist.
Hayward edged between them to stand beside the coffin, and that seemed right. It wasn’t until he raised his hand that Frank saw the eagle wing, worm-eaten and brittle, so dusty it smeared the black wool coat when the boy placed it on his father’s chest.
Vera let out a sobbing breath. Otherwise the room was silent, acknowledging what was imagined as the boy’s benediction.
“Get his hat.” Higgs crossed J.B.’s hands on the wing and placed the black cowboy hat on top.
“The lid will crush it,” Vera said and lifted it out again. “Brand-new hat.”
Higgs nodded to the other men to help him with the lid. He didn’t need to say any more good-byes. The sooner this was over, the better it would be for Hayward.
They fought the windblown sand to keep the hole deep and long. When they grew exhausted, they dropped the shovels and lifted the coffin over the hole. As they lowered it, the bulky box tilted and slipped, and then dropped so hard the planks split apart. They could see the black suit through the gaps. Higgs picked up the nearest shovel and heaved sand and dirt for all he was worth. They’d say a few words afterward. J.B. wasn’t in a position to argue.
The graveyard, which until now held only a favored dog, Vera’s cat, and the boy’s first horse, stood to the left of the barn and corrals, far enough from the houses that a person could almost forget what was there. They’d strung barbed wire to keep the cattle out, and placed a couple of worn-out wagon wheel rims, bleeding rust into the yellow sand around the switchgrass and bluestem, and the cream separator that never worked right over the graves to keep them still. Now they’d have to find more trash to hold down the coffin. In a day or two, Vera would plant wild roses, see if they’d take with the water Higgs would carry there. They might do better to copy the people on Rosebud and leave a body out for the elements, he thought. With land like this, it was a lot of work to be so damn civilized.
“We done here?” Hayward asked. He clapped his hat on his head and drew the string under his chin to keep the wind from pulling it off. The cuffs of his jacket were so short they stopped halfway down his forearm, Higgs noticed with a jolt. The kid was shooting up. He’d top out at his father’s height, six two or three. Old enough and big enough to get into some real trouble.
“Where you off to?” Higgs asked.
The boy glared at him, spun, and started toward the barn, picking up speed until he was running. By the time he made the corral, put a rope on one of the horses, fashioned an Indian war bridle, and sprang on its back, Higgs wasn’t halfway there. At least the boy didn’t turn all the horses loose when he leaned down, opened the corral gate, and went through. He swung it shut again and waited for the latch to fall.
As the men watched the boy leave the barnyard and lope down the road, Vera tucked her arm through Higgs’s.
“Little bastard rides like his da,” Irish Jim said.
“Let’s get something to drink,” a voice behind them said.
Back in J.B.’s office, Higgs picked up the fresh brandy bottle, gave it a shake, heard the liquid slosh, and set it down, carefully positioning it next to the short glass. He sighed, picked up the small beaded turtle J.B. had bought at the trading post for Hayward. Below it were newspapers from Omaha, Denver, and Rapid City. Old stories about Wounded Knee. Higgs seemed to remember J.B. going up there for the ghost dancing before the massacre, or maybe it was afterward. He and Vera had taken the train to Denver that December so he wasn’t around during that whole uproar. J.B. didn’t talk about it much, but what he saw must have troubled him plenty. Higgs ran a light finger over the tiny beads crusted with dirt. A person could always give it back, Higgs had suggested when J.B. told him what the turtle held, but J.B. shook his head and frowned. He was ever a man to ponder a situation. That was for damn sure. Higgs pushed back from the desk and reached for his hat. On second thought he pulled a pistol from the holster J.B. kept hanging off the desk chair, tucked it in the back of his pants, and covered it with the black suit coat he’d worn for the funeral.
He glanced back at the bottle, wiped his mouth and chin with his hand, and pulled open the door. He’d spent a good part of his life doing what J.B. wanted; now he’d have to spend the rest doing what he thought J.B. would want. It just never got easier, did it.
J.B.’s wife should’ve taken the second boy with her when she moved to town. He was a devil on animals and men alike these days. Running like hell’s half acre was on fire. J.B. couldn’t do much with him, and since he was the only son J.B. had after Cullen was taken by Drum, he didn’t want to do much with him anyway. J.B. was raised hard, and he was caught between wanting to be kind to the boy and also thinking he needed the lessons that stuck with a person. It ended up being the worst possible way to raise a son. None of them Bennetts know how to raise a child, Vera swore at Higgs nightly. They ruin every one they get their hands on.
Now he had to deal with this Graver. A part of Higgs hoped he’d done the killing so they could hang him and clean up the mess before dark. It was never that easy, though, he told himself as he left the house, pulling down his hat so the wind wouldn’t lift it.
The mulberry trees had grown rapidly. They shaded the roof of the bunkhouse windows to the east and clumps of seedlings had sprung up, creating a grove. Only problem was the mess. Men ate the berries, but birds got to them faster, leaving splashes of purple all over the ground, the roof, and any clothes or saddle blankets the men hung out. Coyotes liked the berries, too, and late at night he’d seen a couple on their hind legs in the moonlight, pulling ripe ones from the limbs. Their scat turned loose and deep purple and made a terrific stink, but he never could bring himself to lift the rifle those nights he sat on his porch, unable to sleep for the deep ache in his back that shot pain so sharp along his ribs and into his shoulders it hurt to lie there next to Vera.