Burning Bright

by Ron Rash

  “I’d of not thought they’d bring that much,” I say.

  “I’ll not even tell you what a sword brings. You’d piss your pants if I did.”

  “So what’s that have to do with me getting some money?”

  “Cause I know where we can find such things as this,” Wesley says, shaking the paper at me. “Find them where they ain’t been all rusted up so’s they’ll be all the more pricey. You help and you get twenty-five percent.”

  And what I figure is some DOT bulldozer has rooted something up. Maybe some place where soldiers camped or done some fighting. I’m figuring it’s some kind of flimflam, like he wants me to help buy a metal detector or something with what little money I got left. He must take me for one dumb hillbilly to go along with such a scheme and I tell him as much.

  He just grins at me, the kind of grin that argues I don’t know very much.

  “You got a shovel and pickax?” he asks. “Or did the bank repo them as well?”

  “I got a shovel and a pickax,” I say. “I know how to do more than lean on them too.”

  He knows my meaning but just laughs, tells me what he’s got his mind scheming over. I start to say there’s no way in hell I’m doing such a thing but he puts his hand out like stopping traffic, tells me not to yes or no him until I’ve had time to sift it over good in my mind.

  “I ain’t hearing a word till tomorrow,” he says. “Think about how a thousand dollars, maybe more, could put some padding in that wallet. Think about what that money can do for your momma.”

  He says the words about Momma last for he knows that notion will hang heavy on me if nothing else does.

  I go by the hospital on the way home. They let me see her for a few minutes, and afterward the nurse says she’ll be able to go home in three days.

  “She’s got a lot of life in her yet,” the nurse tells me in the hallway.

  That’s good news, better than I expected. I go down to the billing office and the news there isn’t so good. Though I’ve already paid three thousand I’ll be owing another four by the time she gets out. I go back to my trailer and there’s no way I can’t help pondering about that money Wesley’s big-talking about. I think about how Daddy worked himself to death before he was sixty and Momma hanging on long enough to be taught that fifty years of working first light to bedtime can’t get you enough ahead to afford an operation and a two-week stay in a hospital. I’m pondering where’s the fair in that when there’s men who do no more than hit a ball good or throw one through a hoop and they live in mansions and could buy themselves a hospital if they was to need one. I think of the big houses built up at Wolf Laurel by doctors and bankers from Charlotte and Raleigh. Second homes, they call them, though some cost a million dollars. You could argue they worked hard for those homes, but no harder than Momma and Daddy worked.

  By dawn I know certain I’m going to do it. When I say as much to Wesley at our morning break he smiles.

  “Figured you would,” he says.

  “When?” I ask.

  “Night, of course,” he says, “a clear night when the moon is waxed up full. That way we’ll not give ourselves away with a flashlight.”

  And him thinking it out enough to use moonlight gives me some confidence in him, makes me think it could work. Because that’s the other thing bothering me besides the right and the wrong of it. If we get caught we’d be for sure doing some jailhouse time.

  “I done thought this thing out from ever which angle,” Wesley says. “I been scouting the cemeteries here to Flag Pond, looking for the right sort of graves, them that belongs to officers. I’m figuring the higher the rank the likelier to be booty there, maybe even a sword. Finally found me a couple of lieutenants. Never reckoned to find a general. From what I read most all them that did the generaling was Virginians. Found Yankee soldiers in them graveyards as well, including a captain.”

  “A captain outranks a lieutenant, don’t he?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but them that buys this stuff pay double if it’s Confederate.”

  “And you can sell it easy?” I say. “I mean you don’t have to fence it or anything like that?”

  “Hell, no. They got these big sellings and swappings all over the place. Got one in Asheville next month. You show them what you got and they’ll open their billfolds and fling that money at you.”

  He shuts up for a moment then, because he’s starting to realize how easy it all sounds, and how much money I might start figuring to be my share. He lays his big yellow front teeth out on his lower lip, worrying his mind to figure a way to take back some of what he just said.

  “Course they ain’t going to pay near the price I showed you on them sheets. We’ll be lucky to get half that.”

  I know that for a lie before it’s left Wesley’s lips, but I don’t say anything, just know that I’ll damn well be there with him when he sells what we find.

  “What do we do next?” I say.

  “Just wait for a clear night and a big old harvest moon,” Wesley says, looking up at the sky like he might be expecting one to show up any minute. “That and keep your mouth shut about it. I’ve not told another person about this and I want it to stay that way.”

  Wait is what we do for two weeks, because that first night I look up from my yard the moon’s all skinny and looks to be no more than something you might hang a coat on. Every night I watch the moon filling itself up like a big bowl, scooting the shadows out in the field back closer to the trees. Momma’s back home and doing good, back to where she’s looking more to be her ownself again. The folks at the hospital say she’ll be eligible for the Medicaid come January and that’s all for the good. That means I can go with Wesley just this one time, pay off that hospital bill, and be done with it.

  Finally the right night comes, the moon full and leaning down close to the world. A hunter’s moon, my daddy used to call it, and easy enough to see why, for such a moon makes tramping through woods a lot easier.

  Tramping through a graveyard as well, for come ten o’clock that’s what we’re doing. We’ve hid his truck down past the entrance, a few yards back in a turnaround where, at least at night, no one would likely see it. We don’t walk through the gate because that’s where the caretaker’s shack is. Instead we follow the fence up a hill through some trees, a pickax and shovel in my hands and nothing in Wesley’s but a plastic garbage bag. It’s late October and the air has that rinsed-clean feel. There’s leaves that have fallen and acorns and they crackle under my feet, each one sounding loud as a .22 to me. I catch a whiff of a woodstove and find the glow of the porch light.

  “You ain’t worried none about that caretaker?” I say.

  “Hell no. He’s near eighty years old. He’s probably been asleep since seven o’clock.”

  “He’d not have a fire going if he was asleep.”

  “That old man ain’t going to bother us none,” Wesley says, saying it like just his saying so makes it final.

  We’re soon moving amongst the stones, the moon brighter now that we’re in the open. Its light lays down all silvery on the granite and marble, on the ground itself. It’s quieter here, no more acorns and leaves, just cushiony grass like on a golf course. But it’s too quiet, in a spooky kind of way. Because you know folks are here, hundreds of them, and not a one will say ever a word more on this earth. The only sound is Wesley’s breathing and grunting. We’ve walked no more than a half mile and he’s already laboring. A car comes up the road, headlights sweeping over a few tombstones as it takes the curve. It doesn’t slow down but heads on toward Marshall.

  “I got to catch my breath,” Wesley says, and we stop a minute. We’re on a ridge now, and I can see a whole passel of stars spilled out over the sky. As clear a night as you can get, and I reckon it’s easy enough for God to see me from up there. That thought bothers me some, but it’s a lot easier to have a conscience about something if you figure it all the way right or all the way wrong. Doing what we’re doing is a sin for sure, but not taking care of
the woman who birthed and raised you is a worse one. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

  “It’s not much farther,” Wesley says, saying it more for his own benefit than for me. He shakes his shoulders like a plow horse getting the trace chains more comfortable and walks down the yonder side of the hill until he comes to where a little Confederate flag is planted by a marble tombstone.

  “Kind of them Daughters of the Confederacy biddies to sight-map the spot for us,” Wesley says.

  He pulls up the flag and throws it behind the stone like it was no more than a weed. He flicks his cigarette lighter and says the words out loud like I can’t read them for myself.

  “Lieutenant Gerald Ross Witherspoon. North Carolina Twenty-fifth. Born November 12, 1820. Died January 20, 1890.”

  “Dug up October 23, 2007,” Wesley adds, and gives a good snort. He lights a cigarette and sets himself down by the grave. “You best get to it. We got all night but not an hour more.”

  “What about you?” I say. “I ain’t doing all this digging alone.”

  “We’d just get in the other’s way doing it as a team,” Wesley says, then takes a big suck on his cigarette. “Don’t fret, son. I’ll spell you directly.”

  I lift my pickax and go to it. Yesterday’s rain had left some sog and squish in the ground so the first dirt breaks easy as wet sawdust. I get the shovel and scoop what I’ve loosed on the grass.

  “People will know it’s been dug,” I say, pausing to gain back my breath.

  And that’s a new thought for me, because somehow up to now I’d had it figured if they didn’t catch us in the graveyard we’d be home free. But two big holes are bound to have the law looking for those that dug them.

  “And we’ll be long gone when they do,” Wesley says.

  “You’re not worried about it?” I say, because all of a sudden I am. Somebody could see the truck coming or going. We could drop something and in the dark not even know we’d left it behind.

  “No,” Wesley says. “The law will figure it for some of them voodoo devil worshippers. They’ll not think to trouble upstanding citizens like us about it.”

  Wesley flares his lighter and lights another cigarette.

  “We best get back to it,” he says, nodding at the pickax in my hand.

  “Don’t seem to be no we to it,” I say.

  “Like I said, I’ll spell you directly.”

  But directly turns out to be a long time. When I’m up to my chest I know I’m a good four feet down and he still hasn’t got off his ass. I’m pouring sweat and raising crop rows of blisters on my palms. I’m about to tell Wesley that I’ve dug four feet and he can at least dig two when the pickax strikes wood. A big splinter of it comes up, and it’s cedar, which I always heard was the least likely wood to rot. I ponder a few moments why that grave’s not a full six foot deep and then remember the date on the stone. Late January the ground would have been hard as iron. It would have been easy to figure four foot would do the job well enough.

  “Hit it,” I say.

  Wesley gets up then.

  “Dig some around it so we got room to get it open.”

  I do what he tells me, clearing a good foot to one side.

  “I’ll take over for you,” he says, and crawls into the hole with me. “Probably be easier if you was to get out,” he adds, picking up the shovel, but I ain’t about to because I wouldn’t put it past him to slip whatever he finds into his pocket.

  “I wouldn’t be one to try and hide something from you,” Wesley says, which only tells me that’s exactly what he was pondering.

  We wedge ourselves sideways like we’re on a cliff edge to get off the coffin. Then Wesley takes the shovel and pries open the lid.

  The moon can’t settle its light into the hole as easy as on level ground so it’s hard to see clear at first. There’s a silk shirt you can tell even now was white and a belt and its buckle and some moldy old shoes, but what once filled the shoes and shirt looks to be little more than the wind that blusters a shirt on a clothesline. Wesley lifts the garment with his shovel tip and some dust and bones the color of dried bamboo spill out. He throws his shovel out of the hole and flicks his lighter. Wesley holds the lighter close to the belt buckle. There’s rust on it, but you can make out C S stamped on the metal, not CSA. Wesley lifts the buckle and pulls off what little is left of the belt.

  “It’s a good one,” he says, “but not near the best.”

  “How much you reckon it’s worth?”

  “A thousand at most,” Wesley says after giving it a good eyeballing.

  I figure the real price to be double that, but I’ll be there when the bartering gets done so there’s no need to argue now. Wesley grunts and gets on his knees to sift through the shirt, even checking inside what’s left of the shoes.

  “Ain’t nothing else,” he says, and stands up.

  I lift myself from the hole but it’s not as easy for Wesley. Though the hole’s only four foot he’s not able to haul himself out. He gets halfway then slides back, panting like a hound.

  “I’ll need your hand,” he says. “I ain’t no string bean like you.”

  I give him a tug and Wesley wallows out, dirt crumbs all over his shirt and pants. He puts the buckle in the pillow sheet and knots it.

  “The other one’s down that way,” Wesley says, and nods toward the caretaker’s shack. He slides up his sleeve and checks his watch. “One fifteen. We making good time,” he says.

  We start down the hill, weaving our way through the stones laid out like a maze. Then a cloud smudges the moon and there’s not enough light from the stars to see our own feet. We stop and I have a worrisome thought of something holding that cloud there the rest of the night, me and Wesley bumping into stones and losing all direction, trapped in that graveyard till the dawn when anyone on the road could see us and the truck too.

  But the moon soon enough wipes clear the cloud and we walk on, not more than fifty yards from the caretaker’s place when we stop. We’re close enough to see the light that’s been glowing is his back-porch light. Wesley flares his lighter at the grave to check it’s the right one and I see the stone is for both Lieutenant Hutchinson and his wife. His name is on the left so it’s easy enough to figure that’s the side he’s laying on.

  “Eighteen and sixty-four,” says Wesley, moving the lighter closer to the stone. “I figure a officer killed during the war would for sure be buried in his uniform.”

  I get the shovel and pickax in my right hand and lean them toward Wesley.

  “Your turn,” I say.

  “I was thinking you could get it started good and then I’d take over,” he says.

  “I’ll do most of it,” I say, “but I ain’t doing it all.”

  Wesley sees I aim not to budge and reaches for the pickax. He does it in a careless kind of way and the pickax’s spike end clangs against the shovel blade. A dog starts barking down at the caretaker’s place and I’m ready to make a run for the truck but Wesley shushes me.

  “Give it a minute,” he says.

  We stand there still as the stones around us. No light inside the shack comes on, and the dog shuts up directly.

  “We’re okay,” Wesley says, and he starts breaking ground with the pickax. He’s working in fourth gear and I know he’s wanting this done quick as I do.

  “I’ll loosen the dirt and you shovel it away,” Wesley gasps, veins sticking out on his neck like there’s a noose around it. “We can get it out faster that way.”

  Funny you didn’t think of that till it was your turn to dig, I’m thinking, but that dog has set loose the fear in me more than any time since we drove up. I take the shovel and we’re making the dirt fly, Wesley doing more work in fifteen minutes than he’s done in twelve years on the road crew. And me staying right with him, both of us going so hard it’s not till we hear a growl that we turn around and see we’re not alone.

  “What are you boys up to?” the old man asks, waggling his shotgun at us. The dog is haunch
ed up beside him, big and bristly and looking like it’s just waiting for the word to pour its teeth into us.

  “I said, what are you boys up to?” the old man asks us again.

  What kind of answer to give that question is as far beyond me as the moon up above. For a few moments it’s beyond Wesley as well but soon enough he opens his mouth, working up some words like you’d work up a good spit of tobacco.

  “We didn’t know there to be a law against it,” Wesley says, which is about the stupidest thing he could have come up with.

  The old man chuckles.

  “They’s several, and you’re going to be learning all of them soon as I get the sheriff up here.”

  I’m thinking to make a run for it before that, take my chances with the dog and the old man’s aim if he decides to shoot, because to my way of thinking time in the jailhouse would be worse than anything that dog or old man could do to me.

  “You ain’t needing to call the sheriff,” Wesley says.

  Wesley steps out of the two-foot hole we’ve dug, gets up closer to the old man. The dog growls deep down in its throat, a sound that says don’t wander no closer unless you want to limp out of this graveyard. Wesley pays the dog some mind and doesn’t go any nearer.

  “Why is that?” the old man says. “What you offering to make me think I don’t need to call the law?”

  “I got a ten-dollar bill in my wallet that has your name on it,” Wesley says, and I almost laugh at the sass of him. We have a shotgun leveled at us and Wesley’s trying to lowball the fellow.

  “You got to do better than that,” the old man says.

  “Twenty then,” Wesley says. “God’s truth that’s all the money I got on me.”

  The old man ponders the offer a moment.

  “Give me the money,” he says.

  Wesley gets his billfold out, tilts it so the old man can’t see nothing but the twenty he pulls out. He reaches the bill to the old man.

  “You can’t tell nobody about this,” Wesley says. “None but us three knows a thing of it.”

  “Who am I going to spread it to?” the old man says. “In case you’d not noticed, my neighbors ain’t much for conversing.”