Burning Bright

by Ron Rash

  The old man looks the twenty over careful, like he’s figuring it to be counterfeit. Then he folds the bill and puts it in his front pocket.

  “Course you could double that easy enough,” Wesley says, “not do a thing more than let us dig here a while longer.”

  The old man takes in Wesley’s offer but doesn’t commit either way.

  “What are you all grubbing for anyways,” he says, “buried treasure?”

  “Just Civil War things, buckles and such,” Wesley says. “No money in it, just kind of a sentimental thing. My great-great-granddaddy fought Confederate. I’ve always been one to honor them that come before me.”

  “By robbing their graves,” the old man says. “That’s some real honoring you’re doing.”

  “I’m wearing what they can’t no longer wear, bringing it out of the ground to the here and now. Look here,” Wesley says. He unknots the bedsheet and hands the buckle to the old man. “I’ll polish it up real good and wear it proud, wear it not just for my great-great-grand-daddy but all them that fought for a noble cause.”

  I’ve never even seen a politician lie better, because Wesley lays all of that out there slick, figuring the old man has no knowing of the buckle’s worth. And that seemed a likely enough thing since I hadn’t the least notion myself till Wesley showed me the prices.

  The old man fetches a flashlight from his coveralls. He lays its light out on the stone. “North Carolina Sixty-fourth,” he reads off the stone. “My folks sided Union,” the old man says, “in this very county. Lots of people don’t bother to know that anymore, but there was as many in these mountains fought Union as Confederate. The Sixty-fourth done a lot of meanness in this county back then. They’d shoot a unarmed man and wasn’t above whipping women. My grandma told me all about it. One of them women they whipped was her own momma. I read up on it some later. That’s how come me to know it was the Sixty-fourth.”

  The old man clicks off his flashlight and stuffs it in his pocket and pulls out an old-timey watch, the kind with a chain on it. He pops it open and reads the hands by moonlight.

  “Two-thirty,” he says. “You fellows go ahead and dig him up. The way I figure it, his soul’s a lot deeper, all the way down in hell.”

  “Give him his twenty dollars,” Wesley says to me.

  I only have sixteen and am about to say so when the old man tells me he don’t want my money.

  “I’ll take enough pleasure just in watching you dig this Hutchinson fellow up. He might have been the one what stropped my great-grandma.”

  The old man steps back a few feet and perches his backside on a flat-topped stone next to where we’re digging. The shotgun’s settled in the crook of his arm.

  “You ain’t needing for that shotgun to be nosed in our direction,” Wesley says. “Them things can go off by accident sometimes.”

  The old man keeps the gun barrel where it is.

  “I don’t think I’ve heard the truth walk your lips yet,” he tells Wesley. “I’ll trust you better with it pointed your way.”

  We start digging again, getting more crowded up to each other as the hole deepens, but leastways we don’t have to worry about noise anymore. We’re a good four foot in when Wesley stops and leans his back against the side of the hole.

  “Can’t do no more,” he says, and it takes him three breaths to get just the four words out. “Done something to my arm.”

  Sure you did, I’m thinking, but when I look at him I can see he’s hurting. He’s heaving hard and shedding sweat like it’s a July noon.

  The old man gets off his perch to check out Wesley as well.

  “You look to have had the starch took out of you,” the old man says, but Wesley makes no bother to answer him, just closes his eyes and leans harder against the grave’s side.

  “You want to get out,” I say to him. “It might help to breathe some fresher air.”

  “No,” he says, opening his eyes some, and I know the why of that answer. He’s not getting out until he’s looked inside the coffin we’re rooting up.

  Maybe it’s because Lieutenant Hutchinson was buried in May instead of January, but for whatever reason he looks to have got the full six feet. The hole’s up to my neck and I still haven’t touched wood.

  The old man’s still there above me, craning his own wrinkly face over the hole like he’s peering down a well.

  “You ain’t much of a talker, are you?” he says to me. “Or is it just your buddy don’t give you a word edgewise.”

  “No,” I say, throwing a shovelful of dirt out of the hole.

  It’s getting harder now after five hours of digging and shucking it out. My back’s hurting and my arms feel made of syrup.

  “Which no you siding with?” the old man says.

  “No, I don’t talk much.”

  “You wanting one of them buckles to wear or you just along for the pleasure of flinging dirt all night?”

  “Just here to dig,” I answer, glad when he don’t say nothing more. I got little enough get-go left to spend it gabbing.

  I lift the pickax again and I hit something so solid it almost jars the handle from my hands. That jarring goes up my arms and back down my spine bones like I touched an electric fence. I’m figuring it to be a big rock I’ll have to dig out before I can get to the coffin. The thought of tussling with a rock makes me so tired I just want to lay down and quit.

  “What is it?” the old man says, and Wesley opens his eyes, watches me take the shovel and scrape dirt to get a better look.

  But it’s no rock. It’s a coffin, a coffin made of cast iron. Wesley crunches up nearer the wall so I can get more dirt out, and what I’m thinking is whoever had to tote that coffin had a time of it, because Momma’s cast-iron cooking stove wouldn’t lift lighter, and it took four grown men to move that stove from one side of the kitchen to the other.

  “I’d always heard they was a few of them planted in this cemetery,” the old man says, “but I never figured to see one.”

  The coffin spries Wesley up some. I dig enough room to the side to set my feet so they’re not on the lid. Rust has sealed it, so I take the flat end of the pickax and crack the lid open like you’d crowbar a stuck window. I about break my pickax handle but it finally gives. I get down low but I can’t lift the lid off by myself.

  “You got to help me,” I tell Wesley and he gets down beside me.

  It’s no easy thing to do and we both have to step lively in hardly no room to keep the lid from sliding off and landing on our feet. Soon as we get it off, Wesley puts his left hand on his right shoulder, and I’m thinking it’s some kind of salute or something, but then he starts rubbing his arm and shoulder like it’s gone numb on him.

  “The Lord Almighty,” the old man says, and Wesley and me step some to the side to get where we can see good too.

  Unlike the other one, you can tell this was a man. The bones are most together and there’s even a hank of red hair on his skull. You can tell he’s in a uniform too, raggedy but what’s left of the pants and coat is butternut. I look over at Wesley and he’s seeing nothing but what’s made of metal.

  There’s plenty to fill up his eyeballs that way. A belt buckle is there with no more than a skiffing of rust on it. Buttons too, looking to be a half dozen. But that’s not the best thing. What’s best is laying there next to the skeleton, a big old sword and scabbard. Wesley reaches for it. The sword’s rusted in but after a couple of tugs it starts to give. Wesley finally grunts it out. He holds the sword out before him and I can see he’s figuring what it’ll fetch and the grin on his face and the way his eyes light up argue a high price indeed. Then all of a sudden he’s seeing something else, and whatever it is he sees isn’t giving him the notion to smile anymore. He lets the sword slide out his hand and leans back against the wall, his feet still in the coffin. He slides down then, his back against the wall but his bottom half in the coffin, just sitting there like a man in a jon boat. His eyes are still open but there’s no more light in them
than the bottom of a coal shaft.

  “See if they’s a pulse on him,” the old man says.

  I step closer to Wesley, footlogging the coffin so I won’t step on the skeleton. I lay hold of Wesley’s wrist but there’s no more alive there than in his eyes.

  I just stand there a minute. All the bad fixes I’ve been in are like being in high cotton compared to where I am now. I can’t even begin to figure what to do. I’m about to tell the old man to level that shotgun on me and pull the trigger for my brain’s not bringing up a better solution.

  “I don’t reckon he’ll be strutting around and playing Johnny Reb with his sword and belt buckle,” the old man says. He looks at me and it’s easy enough for him to guess what I’m feeling. “You shouldn’t get the fantods over this,” he says. “His dying on you could be all for the better.”

  “How do you reckon that?” I ask, because I sure can’t figure it that way.

  “What if he was speaking the truth when he said we’re the only three that knows about this?” the old man says.

  “I never said a word.”

  “I got no doubting about that,” the old man says. “Far as I can tell you don’t say nothing unless it’s yanked out of you like a tooth.”

  “I don’t think he’d have spoke about this,” I say. “There’s not many that would think good of him if he did, and some might even tell the law. I don’t figure him to risk that.”

  “Then I’d say he’s helped dig his own grave,” the old man says. “Stout as he is, I don’t notion you could get him out of there alone and I’m way too old to help you.”

  “We might could use a rope,” I say. “Pull him out that way.”

  “And what if you did,” the old man says. “You think you can drag that hunk of lard behind you like a little red wagon. Even if you can, where you headed with him?”

  That’s a pretty good question, because here to the truck is a good half mile. I’d have a better chance of toting a tombstone that far.

  “It doesn’t seem the right sort of thing to do,” I say. “I mean for his kin and such not to never know where he’s buried.”

  “Those that wears the badges ain’t always the brightest bulbs,” the old man says, “but they won’t need the brains of a stump to figure what he and you was up to if they find him here.” The old man pauses. “Is that truck his or yours?”

  “His.”

  “You leave that truck by the river and the worst gossip on your buddy there is he was fool enough to get drunk and fall in. You bring the law here they’ll know him for a grave robber. Which way you notion his kin would rather recollect him?”

  The old man’s whittling it down to but one path to follow. I try to find a good argument against him, but I’m too wore down to come up with anything. The old man takes out his watch.

  “It’s nigh on four o’clock. You get to filling in and you could get that grave leveled by the shank of morning.”

  “It’s two graves to fill,” I say. “We dug another one up the hill a ways.”

  “Well, get as much dirt in them as you can. Even full up they’ll be queer looking with all that fresh dirt on them. I’ll have to figure some kind of tall tale for folks that might take notice, but I been listening to your buddy all night so I’ve picked up some good pointers on how to lie.”

  I look at the sword and think how the blade maybe killed somebody during the Civil War and in its way killed another tonight, at least the wanting of it did.

  “He was lying about this stuff not being worth much,” I say. “I need the money so I’m going to sell it, but I’ll go halves with you.”

  “You keep it,” the old man says. “But I’ll take what’s in your partner’s wallet. He’ll need it no more than the lieutenant there needs that sword.”

  I pull the wallet from Wesley’s back pocket, give it to the old man. He pulls out a ten and two twenties.

  “I knew that son of a bitch was lying about having no more money,” he says, then throws the wallet back in the hole.

  I reach the sword and scabbard up to the old man and then the buckle and buttons. I think how easy it would be for him to rooster that trigger and shotgun me. He leans closer to the hole and I see he’s still got that shotgun in his hand and I wonder if he’s figuring the same thing, because it’d be easy as shooting a rat in a washtub. He gets down on his creaky old knees, and I guess my fearing is clear to him for he lays down the shotgun and gives me a smile.

  “I was just allowing I’d give you some help out of there,” he says and offers his hand. “Just don’t jerk me in there with you.”

  I take his hand, a strong grip for all his years, and reach my other hand over the lip. It’s one good heave and I’m out.

  I fetch the shovel and set to the covering up, dead tired but making good time because I’m figuring if it doesn’t get done I’ll have some serious jailhouse time to wish I had. Plus it’s always easier to fling dirt down than up. I get the hole filled and walk up to the other grave, the shovel and pickax in one hand and the sword and bedsheet in the other. The old man and his dog follow me. I get it half full before the pink of morning skims Bluff Mountain.

  “I got to go now,” I say. “It’s getting near dawn.”

  “Leave the shovel then,” the old man says. “I can fill in the rest. Then I’m going to plant chrysanthemums on the graves, let that be the why of the dirt being rooted up.”

  I have no plans to find out if that’s what he does do. My plan is not to be back here again unless someone’s hauling me in a box. I walk on down the hill. It’s Sunday so I don’t see another soul on the road. I park the truck down by the river, no more than a mile from Marshall. I get my handkerchief out and wipe the steering wheel good and the door handle. Then I high-step it, staying in the woods till I’m to the edge of town. I hunker down there till full light, figuring it’s all worked good as I could have hoped. They’ll soon find the truck, but no one spotted me near it. Wesley and me never were buddies, never went out to bars together or anything, so there’s none likely to figure me in his truck last night. I hide the sword and bedsheet under some leaves to get later. When I cross the road in front of Jackson’s Café, I figure I’m home free.

  But I’m still careful. I don’t go inside, just wait by some trees until I see Timmy Shackleford come out. He doesn’t live far from me and I step into the parking lot and ask if he’d mind giving me a ride to my trailer.

  “You look like the night rode you hard,” Timmy says.

  I look in the side mirror and I do look rough.

  “Got knee-walking drunk,” I say. “Last thing I remember I was with a bunch of fellows in a car and said I needed to piss. They set me by the side of the road and took off laughing. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a ditch.”

  That’s a better lie than I’d have reckoned to spin and I figure I have picked up some pointers from Wesley. Timmy grins but doesn’t say anything else. He lets me out at my trailer and goes on his way. I’m starved and have got enough dirt on me to plant a garden, but I just fall in the bed and don’t open my eyes till it’s full dark outside. When I come awake it’s with the deepest kind of fearing, and for a few moments I’m more scared than any time before in my life. Then my mind settles and I see I’m in the trailer, not still in that graveyard.

  Come Monday at work I hear how they found Wesley’s truck by the river, and most figure him down there fishing or drinking or both and he fell in and drowned. They drag the river for days but of course nothing comes up.

  I wait a month before I try to sell the Civil War stuff, driving all the way to Montgomery, Alabama, to a big CSA convention where a whole auditorium is full of buyers and sellers. Some want certificates of authenticity and such, but I finally find a buyer I can do some business with. A lady at the library has pulled up some prices on the Internet and I’ve got a good figuring of what my stash is worth. The buyer’s only offering half what the value is but he’s also not asking for certificates or even my name. I tell him I�
�ll take what he’s offering but only if it’s cash money. He grumbles a bit about that, then finally says, “Stay here,” and goes off and comes back with fifty-two hundred-dollar bills, new bills so crisp and smooth they look starched and ironed.

  It’s more money than the hospital bill and I give what’s left to Momma. That makes what I’ve done feel less worrisome. I think about something else too, how both them graves had big fancy tombstones of cut marble, meaning those dead Confederates hadn’t known much wanting of money in their lives. Now that they was dead there was some fairness in letting Momma have something of what they’d left behind.

  The only bad thing is I keep having a dream where that old man has shot me and I’m buried in the hole with Wesley. I’m shot bad but still alive and dirt’s piled on me and somewhere up above I hear that old man laughing like he was the devil himself. Every time I dream it, I rear up in bed and don’t stop gasping for nearly a whole minute. I’ve dreamed that same exact dream at least once a month for a year now, and I guess it’s likely I’ll keep doing so for the rest of my life. There’s always a price to be paid for anything you get. I wish it weren’t so, for it’s a fearsome dream, but if it’s the worst to come of all that happened I can live with it.

  THE ASCENT

  Jared had never been this far before, over Sawmill Ridge and across a creek glazed with ice, then past the triangular metal sign that said SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK. If it had still been snowing and his tracks were being covered up, he’d have turned back. People had gotten lost in this park. Children wandered off from family picnics, hikers strayed off trails. Sometimes it took days to find them. But today the sun was out, the sky deep and blue. No more snow would fall, so it would be easy to retrace his tracks. Jared heard a helicopter hovering somewhere to the west, which meant they still hadn’t found the airplane. They’d been searching all the way from Bryson City to the Tennessee line, or so he’d heard at school.

  The land slanted downward and the sound of the helicopter disappeared. In the steepest places, Jared leaned sideways and held on to trees to keep from slipping. As he made his way into the denser woods, he wasn’t thinking of the lost airplane or if he would get the mountain bike he’d asked for as his Christmas present. Not thinking about his parents either, though they were the main reason he was spending his first day of Christmas vacation out here—better to be outside on a cold day than in the house where everything, the rickety chairs and sagging couch, the gaps where the TV and microwave had been, felt sad.