The Siege (16 page)

Ted turned a little green.

Mia snatched the piece of bacon out of his hand.  “Honestly.”  She tossed it over to Maggie who absolutely could not believe her luck.

Murphy moved by the three and headed downstairs where Burt was finishing up on the grave.

“There you are.  I expect Mia’s parents have arrived,” Burt said.

Murphy was flabbergasted that he could see him.

“Yes,” Cid replied, moving around the stunned ghost.  “They’re making good time.”

Burt was talking to Cid, not him.

“Murphy’s watching you from the stairs,” Cid notified Burt.

Burt directed his gaze before speaking, “Ted did a bang up job.  He ran out of steam at four feet.  I had the easy job.  What do you think?”

Murphy moved to the edge of the hole and nodded at the neat lines of the excavation.

“Charles has a liner we can use until this spring when we’ll pour a nice vault to house your coffin,” Ted said from the top of the stairs.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“Hey, all in a day’s work for PEEPs.  I’d shake your hand, but I can’t move my arms.”

“Shame Mike lives so far away, I’m sure he’d like to be in on this,” Burt said.

Murphy pushed his hat back, lost for something to say.

“He’d probably drop a whoopee cushion in the casket before the bones went in,” Cid said.  “After all, Murphy, he’s a few jokes behind.”

Murphy nodded.  Cid had broken the somber mood.  Murphy walked over to the well and ran his axe along the top that Ted and Cid built to secure it.

Burt and Ted started laughing.  Cid looked confused.

Ted explained, “Mike, in a flair of being dramatic, had me film him going down the ladder the first time we entered the basement.  He stepped off the last rung and right into the well.”

“He still thinks that Murphy dug the well just for him to fall in,” Burt added.

The two continued to tell other tales of Mike and his camera obsession.  Murphy seemed to enjoy listening to the conversation.  Cid noticed that Murphy seemed a bit more himself.  Mia had called him over to see if he could settle Murphy down.  He took pride that of all the people here, Mia depended on him to manage the situation.

“I’ve never met anyone that, aside from a few quirks, was so down to earth and instinctively handled matters of the heart so well,” she had told him.  “Ted’s been very lucky to have you to enjoy and balance his lunacy.”

“Heads up,” Dave called down before he tossed a few bundles of tarps with “Property of the Field Museum” stamped on them.

Cid walked over to Murphy.  “I think it’s time for you and me to go for a walk for a while.  Let’s see if we can suss out what those foreigners are up to.”

Ted watched the two leave.  He turned to Burt and confided, “I always thought, I’d like to be
around
for my funeral, but I think I’d prefer not to be there for an exhumation and reburial.”

“I don’t think that’s something you or I will have to worry about,” Burt said, patting Ted’s back.

“Ouch!  Dude, are you trying to kill me?”

Burt laughed.  “Pills haven’t taken effect yet?”

“No, I just took them.”

“I suggest then, you have yourself a nice cup of coffee and let the professionals handle the interment.”

“I’d like to be involved,” Ted said.

“You can supervise.  I don’t think Mia’s going to be too happy if we have to take you to the hospital when your back seizes up.”

“You’ve got that right.  Okay, up the stairs I go.”  Ted got as far as the landing when he turned around and asked, “How are you feeling, considering you’ve just had your mind messed with?”

“Surprisingly good,” Burt admitted. “I have all these ideas nagging at me.  I suspect Mia’s behind that.”

“She did say she was struck by your drawings.”

“Drawings?”

“In your mind, your comic book ideas appear as drawings, or that’s how she saw them.  She did say that her breasts were never that big.  I’m not going to ask you to explain that one.”

“Do I see your insecurity waning?”

“You gave me some good advice.  I decided to take it,” Ted explained.  He walked up the last few steps and out of sight.

Burt picked up the tools and straightened up the gravesite.  He thought about how good it felt to be regarded once again, not simply put up with.  Little by little, the corruption of his mind was falling away, and he started to feel like his old self.

~

The grad student laborers appreciated Mia’s fortifying sandwiches and beverages.  The dismantling of the mausoleum had been taxing.  They sat around the table as they ate.  Dave, who had been volunteered by Mia to be a runner, came back into the kitchen with a message from her mother.

“She needs you down at the icehouse.”

Mia put on her coat and left the house.  She noticed how quickly night was falling.  She followed the floodlights to the excavation and saw her mother reverently bending over a tarp.  Amanda covered what she was working on when she heard Mia approach.  She got up and took a moment to take Mia’s hands in hers.

“It wasn’t a pretty death.  I don’t think you should see his bones or what’s left of them.”

“Thank you for being sensitive, Mother.  Dave said you wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I didn’t find a wedding ring.  Now I know that most men didn’t wear them in Murphy’s time, but I wanted to make sure we haven’t left anything behind.”

Mia closed her eyes a moment and studied her memory of Murphy’s hands: the hands that held the axe in battle, the hands that pulled her out of the vortex, and the hands that held her face.  “No, I don’t believe he had a ring.”

“There was this tin matchbox.  It was under the remains of the table.  Inside, I found a locket.  It’s very unusual for a man to have one.  I expect it was his mother’s.  But why would she bury it with her son?” Amanda questioned.

Mia took off her glove.  “Mother, may I have it a moment?”

Amanda walked over to the folding table where Charles had his equipment lined up and returned with the box.  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Mia nodded and closed her eyes.  She felt the cold metal before the visions assaulted her.

A young woman with a tearstained face looked in the mirror.  She tore a slender chain from her neck.  She tossed it in the fireplace.  A very young Stephen Murphy was quickly on his knees.  He rescued the locket with only a few minor burns.  Stephen got to his feet. “It was not my doing.  My mother made the match.”  The girl turned her back on Stephen and walked away.  Mia looked down to see tears spatter on the face of the locket.  Stephen opened the locket and looked at the painted miniatures inside.  On one side was the girl smiling.  On the other was Stephen sitting primly.  Even in a painting, Mia could see he was uncomfortable with posing.

Mia opened her eyes.  “Mother, miniatures were costly to have made, weren’t they?”  Mia opened the locket and saw that both tiny paintings had survived the years.

“Yes.  You had to be people of financial means.  Do you know who they are?”

“The stiff is Murph, but the girl isn’t known to me.”

“Ah, so the enigmatic Mr. Murphy had a past before he married,” Amanda speculated.

“What I don’t understand is, Murphy had the family jewels hidden in the rafters of the house for safekeeping.  Why wasn’t this amongst the treasures?”

“Dear, I think he had the tin in his pocket when he died.  There is some corruption around the exterior of the box.  Because of the nature of being crushed, his people didn’t remove his clothing.  As time wore on, the clothes rotted, and the box fell between the bones to the floor before the table collapsed over it.  The question is, does he want this buried with his remains?”

Charles climbed out of the open pit.  He wiped his brow.  “Ah, you’re here.  Did you ask her?” he addressed his wife.

“Yes, she doesn’t think he had a ring and knows nothing about the box.”

“Mia, we’re just about ready to transport him.  My students will have the liner in soon.  I expect the coffin’s in the garage.  Please, find Murphy and ask him about the ring and the box.”

Mia nodded and walked down the path and took the drive up to where Cid had hung Murphy’s bell.  Mia reached up and pulled the cord down once.

The chime of the bell echoed through the countryside.  Cid waited for another tone and, satisfied there wasn’t an emergency, turned to Murphy.  “I expect that’s for you.  I’ll head over to the barn and wait for Charles and Amanda.”

Murphy saw Mia walk from the bell to the picnic table.  She brushed the accumulated snow away to clear a spot for her to sit on.  She climbed up and sat down facing the hillside where they used to watch One Feather ride together.

He studied her a moment before announcing his presence.  She seemed consumed in thought.  He scratched the ground with his axe.  Mia turned towards him and smiled.  “My dear friend, I have a few questions to ask you.  First, my father didn’t find a wedding ring. Did you have one?”

“No.”

Mia nodded.  “I thought not.”  She opened up her gloved hand and nestled inside of it was a slender tin matchbox.  “There’s a locket inside.  Amanda thinks that it was in your pocket when you died.  Do you want it buried with your remains?”

Murphy stared at the box but said nothing and made no move to open it.

Mia carefully slid the box open and extracted the locket.  She managed to open it and placed it in her palm with the pictures facing Murphy.  She watched his face, and her gut twisted when tears fell from his steely-gray eyes.  He turned away.

“She was very beautiful.  I saw her.  I sensed that the two of you were in love.  Can you remember her name?”

“Marie Sarah Lemont,” Murphy said softly.  “Her father owned a shop in the next town.”

“You don’t have to tell me any more,” Mia said, her voice shaking.  “Do you want this buried with you?”

“Yes, please,” Murphy said, not meeting Mia’s eyes.

“We all love.  One day when you’re ready, I’d like to hear about her.” Mia eased her large body off the picnic table.  “Do you want to see her image one last time?”  She held out the locket.

Murphy turned around and nodded.  He took a few minutes to compose himself before speaking.  “Thank you, Mia.”  Murphy disappeared from her eyes.  Mia walked back to her parents.  She handed the tin box to her mother.  “He never had a wedding ring, and he would like this buried with his remains,” she reported.

Amanda looked at Mia.  She noticed that Mia’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.  Her face seemed a bit pinched.  “I’m not what you call an emotional woman, but I am capable of giving a damn good hug when necessary.”

Mia moved into Amanda’s embrace and cried.  Charles looked on, moved by Amanda’s attempt to bond with her daughter.  He didn’t ask what Mia was crying about.  He didn’t think it was his place to know.

~

Amanda reached in and laid the tin box on top of the crushed bones before she sewed the canvas bag closed.  She had no illusions that when the coffin was being taken down the stairs, the bones would all remain in place.  She and Charles went to the trouble of laying Stephen out to ensure that they had all of his remains.  She nodded to her husband, and he gently lifted the bag into the cedar coffin Cid had made.

Cid fitted the top over the box and laid a line of silicone caulk before screwing the lid down firmly.  He aligned the brass identification plate and fastened it securely.

A mechanical whirling caught the attention of the three.  Amanda took a step back as a centipede-like machine moved up the legs of the workshop bench and onto the coffin.  It moved back and forth across the center of the box in a deliberate manner, electricity sparked along the drive train.  Amanda thought she smelled cedar burning.

“I smell fire,” she said, moving towards the fire extinguisher.

“Wait,” Cid called, “Look.”

Curly moved off of the coffin.  Underneath the plaque with Murphy’s name and dates, there were words burned into the lid.

Remember, my friend.  Death is never the end.

“Amen,” Charles said.

Amanda sniffed.  She would never get the smell of burning cedar out of her nostrils.  She walked outside and lit up a cigarette.

Mia stood beside Ted by the well and watched as the four young men maneuvered the box down the steps with dignity.  Gone was the laughter they indulged in upstairs.  They understood the solemn nature of the task.  Her parents had chosen their assistants well.

Ted grabbed her hand and squeezed it before he advanced to the casket.  He read the inscription Jake had left and smiled.  He turned to the small group and began, “Our friend Murphy asked for no prayers to be said.  He just wanted me to thank you all for your time and energy in exhuming and replanting his remains.  He reminds us that life is but a small part of our existence.  Enjoy each living day and prepare for the adventure that is yet to come.”

Ted nodded, and the casket was lowered into the liner.  The lid was fixed before they filled in the rest of the grave.  Charles had a section of marble brought down, and with great effort, it was laid over the grave.

“Thank you, everyone, there are refreshments upstairs in the dining room if you would like to join us,” Mia announced.

Charles took a long pull from the beer Ted had given him.  “That is ambrosia of the gods.”

“More like Milwaukie drain off,” Amada said, topping off her glass of wine.

Mia snorted. “Just be happy you’re allowed the booze.  Me, I’m drinking punch, not even the spiked variety.”

Amanda wanted to tell Mia she didn’t refrain from anything, especially cigarettes, when she carried her but stopped herself.  She knew that Mia’s low birth weight was a sore subject with her daughter.  “Was Murphy there?” she asked Mia.

“I didn’t see him,” she answered and added, “I can understand why though.”

Amanda nodded.

“Mother, what are you blogging about these days?”

“I’ve been doing a series about the need for us to study the past so we can avoid future mistakes.”