This Side of Jordan (22 page)

“Where'll we bury him?” asked the dwarf.

“In one of the stalls,” Alvin answered, reaching down with his free hand to grab the lantern, “under the dirt and straw where nobody'll find him.”

“Oh, that's very clever.”

Rascal wrapped both his arms around the boy's thigh and hoisted one whole leg out of the mud. Meanwhile, Alvin tugged the boy's torso up toward his own chest and began hauling the corpse back into the barn. Wind tore at the boy's coat, flinging it open into the dwarf's face. From an inside pocket, a flurry of papers slipped out and blew free into the air.

“Wait!” The dwarf let go of the boy's leg and ran after the papers, scattering now across the yard.

“Leave 'em be!” Alvin shouted, trying in vain to support the boy alone. His weight shifted, tilting the stiff corpse off balance, which caused Alvin's feet to slip in the mud. The boy fell away from him, landing face down in the mud. Alvin coughed harshly and put the lantern down and called for Rascal to help, but by now the dwarf had chased to the end of the rainy yard, collecting soggy papers one after another and stuffing them down the front of his romper. Across the prairie to the east, lightning stitched the night sky. The rumble of thunder reverberated in the yard. Maybe the storm would pass on by, Alvin thought, dumping a few buckets of rain, then hurrying off somewhere else. If a twister hit now, they'd be finished. Aunt Florence had hid herself in a fruit cellar at Gorham when the great spring tornado of '25 blew that town off the face of the earth. Witnessing one up close gave her a fright she had never forgotten. When the cellar doors blew off, she saw a full-grown milk cow fly over a barn upside down, and a row of chicken sheds come apart and vanish into thin air—boards, wire, nails, chickens, all gone in the snap of a finger. If Alvin caught sight of a whirlwind out here tonight, he'd take off running and never look back.

Black droplets struck him on the head as he stood searching into the dark for the dwarf. Down by the fenceline that ran from the ramshackle house on out to the road, Rascal dashed from post to post gathering up the last of the papers. When he was done, he checked the sky for signs of lightning, and dashed back toward the barn.

“What'd you go running off for like that?” Alvin yelled, as the dwarf reappeared out of the dark.

“The wind blew his letters away. I had to recover them.”

“What for? He don't have no more need of them.”

“They're his, nevertheless. They belong to him. If you'll recall, the Egyptian pharaohs were buried with many earthly possessions.”

The farm boy smirked. “You think he's Egyptian?”

“I doubt it, but the principle is the same—honor and duty regarding the dead.”

Alvin watched the dwarf begin stuffing the papers back into the boy's inside jacket pocket. “What sort of letters were they?”

“I didn't read them.”

“Why not?”

“It's none of our concern.”

“Give 'em over,” said Alvin. “Let me see.”

The dwarf stopped stuffing and held one hand over the coat pocket. “Of course not.”

“Huh?”

“I can't let you see them. They're private.”

“He's up there pushing the clouds around,” Alvin said. “Who's going to pay any mind?”

“It wouldn't be proper.”

Rain began falling harder again. If the storm had indeed drifted south, maybe a few straggling thunderheads had found the farm and released their burden.

“Honor is one of the transcendent virtues,” Rascal continued, his face solemn and gray. “Our lives are meaningless without it.”

Lightning flashed nearby. Thunder cannoned in the sky. Rain cascaded across the yard in cold black sheets.

Drenched, Alvin growled, “Goddamn you.” Then he reached down, grabbed under the boy's arm, and lifted. The dwarf stuffed the rest of the letters deep into the boy's pocket and took his other arm to help raise him up.

“Get the lamp!”

Rascal snatched the lantern, shuffling it into the crook of his arm. Together they dragged the dead boy through the barn door. When he was safely out of the rain, they dropped him and stepped back to rest. The body was caked now in mud, head to foot.

“Might I express an opinion here?” Rascal asked.

“No.”

The dwarf frowned. “Well, that isn't fair. I've as much a right to a voice in this as you do.”

A fierce cough shook Alvin's chest and his eyes watered. “No, you don't. Chester put me in charge of burying the kid. Not you.”

“That isn't so. He told us both to bury him.”

“He meant me, though. Hell, you can't even lift a shovel, much less bury someone on your own.”

“Why, I've buried several persons.”

“When?”

“On that expedition into the Black Hills you'll recall I discussed with that banker's family on our visit to Stantonsburg.”

“You mean the trip you took with Teddy Roosevelt?”

“I never said the President was there with us, only that he was impressed with the collection of arrowheads I'd brought back from the Belle Fourche River. Why do I bother carrying on a conversation with you? You never listen to anything I say.”

Alvin coughed again. “Tell me who you buried.”

“Mary Alexandra Foxweather, a fine woman who sadly succumbed to the spotted fever three days' ride out of Fort Dodge. Mary's husband George decided that as it had been Mary's desire to travel out West, she ought to be put to rest in her heart's country. Therefore, we found a restful knoll just across the river from our camp and laid her in the ground. Seeing as how Mary and I had become so close during our journey, and since George suffered greatly from clavicle arthritis and was under his physician's instructions to avoid physical exertion of any sort, I was elected to perform the duties, which I did.”

“Was everyone else crippled?”

“Sarcasm is the last resort of the devil's logic.”

Alvin shook his head. “Quit your sniveling and let's get this over with. I'll go bring the shovel.”

He walked back out into a soft drizzling rain and stood there several minutes, watching for lightning strikes on the cloudy sky. When he fetched the shovel from the mud and brought it back into the barn, he saw the dwarf had taken a bucket full of rainwater and washed most of the mud off the corpse. He had also cleared a space in the second stall for a gravesite—all the old damp straw piled up to one side and an outline drawn in the dirt. Alvin stared at the boy still lying where they'd dragged him, his jacket buttoned, cuffs folded down.

“He looks swell.”

“Thank you.”

“Like to do some digging?” Alvin asked, walking over to the stall. He felt light-headed with fever and wanted to get this over with so he could go back to bed.

“I'd rather not.”

“I thought you were the gravedigger here.”

“I never said so.”

“Well, that's what I heard.”

Rascal averted his eyes. The electric lamp hanging from a nail above the dwarf draped a silhouette across the dead boy beside him. A cold gust of wind shook the roof of the barn, cascading more dirt down off the shingles.

“Well, don't trouble yourself,” Alvin said, hoisting the shovel, “I'll do the digging. You'd just be in the way, anyhow.”

He entered the stall and jabbed at the ground with the tip of the shovel, testing the firmness of the earth. It was muddy and soft only half a foot down; after that, he'd have to work at it. Maybe the exercise would be good for him.

He dug for half an hour.

By then, the storm had passed, leaving only a cold stiff wind behind to shake the barn roof and bring a draft inside. Alvin's shoulders ached from the effort of his work and his eyes burned with fever. When he had dug four feet down below the level of the dirt floor, he quit and climbed out of the hole and rolled onto his side, thoroughly exhausted. Once Alvin's breathing eased and he quit coughing, he said, “Let's put him in.”

The dwarf, who had been sitting quietly holding the boy's hand and whispering to him in the dark, crawled now to the edge of the grave and peered in. “Is it deep enough?”

“For who?”

“To shield the deceased from life's grand and awful misery.”

“It's deep as it's gonna get unless you do some of the digging.”

“I believe we owe him a decent burial.”

“And he'll be getting one,” Alvin said, struggling to his feet, “soon as you help me put him in the ground.” He tossed the shovel over to the wall and grabbed the lamp and held it over the hole he'd dug. Down at the very bottom, water was seeping in from all sides. “It's flooding.”

Rascal leaned into the hole for another look. “You must have dug into a well.”

“It ain't that deep,” said Alvin. “I'd guess it'd be runoff from the storm.”

The dwarf stared hard into the hole. “Perhaps we ought to dig another hole elsewhere.”

“We?”

“Well, we can't have him floating out of his own tomb.”

“He won't,” Alvin assured the dwarf. “We'll just bury him quick before the water gets too deep down there. Come on, help me get him over here.”

Together, they dragged the boy's body to the hole and dropped it in. The corpse landed with a muffled splash. Water soaked immediately into the edges of his clothing and Rascal removed the lamp from over the hole.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Alvin said, wiping his hands dry on the front of his shirt. “It's done. Give me the damned shovel.”

“We owe a prayer to the deceased,” said the dwarf, placing the lamp in the dirt beside the hole. The electric light seemed to flicker. “For honoring the dead even as we cherish the living.”

“I don't know no prayers,” Alvin growled. “You say something.”

“Are you certain? In the eyes of the Lord, performing a recitation of the common prayer in a burial of someone close is held in the highest esteem.”

“I never even seen him before Chester brought him here. You just go ahead and do it. I don't have nothing to say.”

“If you wish.”

“I do.”

Alvin picked up the lamp. He was tired and sore and his throat hurt from coughing.

“All right.” The dwarf bowed his head and clasped both hands together at his belt buckle, then drew a long deep breath, shivered once, and began reciting, “Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Then Alvin filled the hole and covered the grave under straw. When he was finished, he returned the shovel to the cellar where he had found it, and followed the dwarf by electric lamplight back through the wet cornfield to the county road. By midnight they were both asleep in the tourist cabin again.

 

An hour or so after dawn, the farm boy and the dwarf ate meat sandwiches and a pair of mushmelons for breakfast at the roadside stand, then left the auto camp and headed down the county road to Allenville. The skies had cleared and the sun felt warm and dried their clothes as they walked along, suitcases in hand. The dwarf kept to the shoulder of the road, while Alvin strolled down the middle, humming a tune his grandmother had taught him when he was a baby. He'd had sweaty dreams all night long about the kid they had buried, but now that his fever was gone, he was doing his best not to remember. They hadn't seen any traffic since sunup when a truck carrying a load of hay drove by heading away from Allenville. The driver honked and gave a wave as he passed and the dwarf saluted in return. The farm boy just watched. None of the roads near Allenville had been paved yet, so the wheel ruts and damp earth made walking arduous. The dwarf seemed unconcerned. He meandered in and out of the weeds along the shoulder of the road and talked unceasingly about people and places Alvin had never heard of.

“Of course,” said the dwarf, “had our guide warned me of the dangers of the cave beforehand, I'd have never dared take such a risk, at least not alone. Fortunately, I was able to keep my wits about me and devise a plan to mark my progress until a solution presented itself. Can you guess what I did?”

“No.” Alvin was keeping count of black crows on the fencelines from the tourist camp to Allenville. If he reached a dozen, he would stop and make a cross in the dirt of the road ahead.

“Well, I'm sure you recall how Theseus unraveled a ball of string in the labyrinth of the Minotaur. That was my inspiration, but as I had no string, I was forced to improvise. You see, at such depths within our earth, the stygian darkness evolves creatures whose very skin glows phosphorescent, thereby creating visibility where sunlight never shines.”

“Glow-worms,” said Alvin. “I seen 'em before. They ain't nothing special.” He watched a pair of crows take flight several hundred yards up the road. That made six since breakfast, a bad sign. “Me and Frenchy used to fix lanterns out of fruit jars and fireflies when we were kids so's we could fish in the dark. That's what you ought to've done.”

“Perhaps,” replied the dwarf, “but seeing as how I had no jars, nor were there any fireflies in the cave, a different solution was required. Nor were the creatures I spoke of glow-worms. Rather, they were a peculiar form of fungus that grew along the cave walls. What I did was to secure great handfuls of them for storage in my haversack and I used them to finger-paint arrows along all the maze of passageways leading to a subterranean river where at last I discovered a secret crevice in the cavern wall underwater and took advantage of a favorable current to float to safety. I emerged less than a mile from our camp. Afterward, I was told by our guide, a full-blooded Shawnee, that my escape was most remarkable and that he'd never before heard of such cleverness.”