by Peg Kehret
Although I wanted to get on with my plan, I didn’t want to leave if she needed help.
“I’ll scrub the carrots,” I said. I picked up the brush and turned on the faucet.
When I finished, Aunt Ethel said, “Could you shred them for me, too? I’m feeling better, but I don’t have the strength I used to have.”
Using her old-fashioned grater, I shredded all the carrots, managing to nick my knuckle once.
Aunt Ethel stood and began sifting flour. “I’m fine now,” she said. “You go ahead on your hike.”
I watched her measure and stir ingredients for a few minutes, to be sure she didn’t have another dizzy spell. Then I slipped on my backpack and headed for the tree house.
Birds chittered in the treetops, greeting the sunshine. I walked quickly.
As I approached the tree house, I saw Mrs. Stray eating breakfast. I stopped moving and watched. I could tell she saw me, but she continued to eat.
“Hello, kitty,” I said. “Good kitty, kitty. Nice Mrs. Stray.”
Her tail swished back and forth, but she kept eating. A sudden movement in the bushes behind her caught my eye. A small orange kitten trotted out of the undergrowth, followed by a black-and-white kitten. Last came a third kitten, who looked exactly like Mrs. Stray. The kittens nudged their faces under her belly and began to nurse.
I waited, wondering if there were more, but the kitten parade ended. How was I going to tame and rescue four cats? One had been enough of a challenge.
“You going to stand there watching them cats all morning?”
Willie leaned out one of the tree-house windows. The cats scattered when he spoke, so I knew they could hear him. I wondered why animals could hear him when most humans couldn’t.
“Hi, Willie.”
“I saw your spade and the flowers. Good idea, bringing the flowers.”
I picked up the bucket of daisies and the spade, then headed toward the old railroad trail. Willie floated along beside me.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you carry those,” he said. “ ’Course, if I could manage a shovel, I’d have dug the leg up myself long ago and wouldn’t be bothering you about it.”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
“I look able-bodied, but the truth is, it’s all I can do to pick up a book, and I had to practice two years before I could manage that. At first my hands went right through the pages. I’ve got the hang of it now, and I can move an object or two before I run out of strength.”
I didn’t answer; I was too jittery for conversation. The closer we got to the cemetery, the more I worried someone would see me and call the police.
I spotted another railroad spike, which I worked loose and put in my backpack.
We reached the Y and turned toward the cemetery.
Soon I stood at the edge of the graveyard, looking carefully in all directions. It was as empty and still as it had been the day before. No cars on the street, no people anywhere in sight. Even the birds were silent.
I planted Florence’s flowers first. I walked straight to her grave, then stomped on the shovel. I worked quickly, removing a twelve-inch circle of sod, then digging up the soil inside the circle. I dug down about four inches, then stuck a clump of daisies in the hole. Kneeling beside them, I patted the loose dirt around the roots. I stood, then poured some of the water from the bucket into the indentation around the daisies.
So far, so good.
My heart started to race as I went toward the grave of Willie’s leg. My stomach did handsprings, threatening to give back the apple.
When I reached the small W.M.M. stone, I hesitated, looking around and listening for any approaching vehicles. I saw no cars and no people. Except for a fly buzzing around my head, I heard nothing.
I had assumed Willie would want to watch, but he had disappeared. I hoped he was keeping his promise to act as my lookout on the street, ready to alert me if anyone came this way.
I removed the brown towel from my backpack and spread it on the grass beside the grave.
I licked my lips, took a deep breath, and plunged the spade into the dirt. I removed a bigger circle of sod this time, but when I tried to dig deeper into the soil, the tip of the shovel clunked against something hard. A rock? I moved the shovel over a couple of inches and tried again. Clunk!
I jabbed the spade into the dirt several times, moving it an inch or two each time, but the result was always the same. Clunk. Clunk. It was a metallic sound. Willie had told me his leg’s little casket was made of wood, not metal, and surely it would have been buried deeper than this. Each time I tried to dig, my shovel stopped when it was only four or five inches below the surface. If I was hitting a rock, it was a big one, more than a foot across.
I continued to poke the spade into the dirt, moving it farther from the center of the circle, until it went straight down without clunking.
I angled the shovel to take out shallow scoops of dirt. It took only a few minutes of digging to uncover a smooth gray metal surface about eighteen inches long and six inches wide, topped with a handle.
The metal box did not look old. It was enclosed in a heavy plastic bag that had been stapled shut. I didn’t know when plastic bags or staplers were invented, but I was fairly certain it was later than 1903. I realized someone else had dug here after Willie’s leg was buried and had left this box in the grave.
“Willie?” I said. “Are you here?”
No answer.
I pulled apart the bag where it was stapled and opened the plastic so I could grip the box’s handle. I yanked as hard as I could, but the box stayed securely in the ground.
Abandoning the spade and digging with my fingers, I loosened the dirt around the metal until I could lift the box out of the hole. I tore away the rest of the plastic bag. The gray metal box looked like the small fireproof box that Gramma kept the deed to her house and other important papers in. A brass lock held the top closed. I wondered who had the key.
The box fit in my backpack so I stuffed it in and continued to dig. About two feet farther down, I came to chunks of rotted wood. Kneeling in the dirt on the side of the grave, I picked the pieces of wood out of the hole and tossed them aside.
The hole smelled like rich garden soil after a rain. I hoped there were no worms. I’ve never minded handling worms when I go fishing, but this was different.
Gritting my teeth, I thrust both hands into the damp dirt at the bottom of the hole.
My fingers closed on something solid. I swallowed hard, then pulled it up. I tried to remember the names of human leg bones. Tibia? Femur? Which was the big one?
All I knew for sure was that I held part of Willie’s leg in my hand. I didn’t bother to brush off the dirt that clung to the large bone. I laid the bone on the towel and stuck my hands back in the hole.
Nervous sweat soaked my shirt. If anyone had sneaked up behind me and whispered, “Boo,” I would have fainted and toppled headfirst into the open grave.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I wiggled my fingers in the dirt, feeling it jam up under my fingernails. I found another, smaller bone and then a whole group of bones so little they might have been chicken bones. Willie’s toes?
I laid all of the bones together on the towel and kept searching. When I had dug with my hands for several minutes without finding any more bones, I used the spade to turn over the dirt at the bottom of the hole.
I unearthed more hunks of rotting wood, but no bones.
I decided I must have found them all. I folded the towel tightly around them and put the bundle in the backpack. I tossed all the rotten wood back into the hole, then threw in the torn plastic bag. I didn’t know what else to do with it. I couldn’t leave it on the ground, and I had too much in my backpack already. I shoveled most of the dirt back into the hole, leaving enough space for the rest of the daisies.
I stomped the dirt down hard all around the clump of daisies before I emptied the rest of the water from the bucket. Breathing hard, I looked in every direction, rel
ieved to see I was still alone.
I left the bucket at the edge of the cemetery. There was no need to carry it up the hill and back; I’d pick it up on my way home.
I considered leaving the metal box, too, since it added a lot of weight to the backpack, but I suspected that whatever was in the box had value. Otherwise, why would someone go to so much trouble to hide it? I didn’t want to leave it sitting around unguarded, even in the empty cemetery.
As I walked away from the graveyard, I felt energized. No one had seen me. The dangerous part of my mission was finished.
“I got them, Willie,” I said. “I got all your leg bones.”
I thought the least he could do was come to offer his congratulations.
Halfway up the hill between the cemetery and the river, I stopped to rest. The metal box was heavy, and I wished I didn’t have to carry it uphill and back. The hatchet and the shovel weren’t light, either.
I took the box out of the backpack and fiddled with the brass lock, which held securely.
“What do you have?” Willie appeared, finally, and sat beside me.
“I found this buried in the grave with your leg,” I said. “Do you know what it is?”
“It ain’t my leg coffin, that’s certain. You’ll need a file or a heavy pry bar to open that box without the key.”
“Your wooden coffin was rotted, but I think I found all your leg bones.”
“Could I see them?”
I laid the towel on the ground and carefully unwrapped the bones.
Willie touched the largest one, running a finger gently down the length of the bone.
“This was a fine leg,” he said. “All the years I walked on it I never gave it a thought, but I missed it sorely when it was gone. I didn’t appreciate what I had until I lost it.”
I wrapped up the bones and put them in the backpack again. “Someone must have used your leg’s grave as a hiding place,” I said as I slid the metal box in beside the towel.
“Who would bury something with my leg?” He sounded as puzzled as I felt.
I thought of the “five W’s” I had learned in school—the questions a news story should answer: Who? What? When? Where? Why? I knew where I’d found the box, but I didn’t know who had buried it, what was in it, when it had been put in the grave, or why. Five questions, one answer.
I drank more of my water, then hiked the rest of the way to the river. The sun was high now, and when we emerged from the trees to the open riverbank, the rays beat down on my back. I could almost hear Mom’s voice: “You need sunscreen on your face and arms.”
I always used to get annoyed at her nagging. Now I missed it. Nobody cared if I read past midnight or if I went to bed without brushing my teeth.
I wondered what she and Steven were doing today. Maybe this afternoon when Aunt Ethel and I got the mail there would be a letter for me.
I set the backpack beside Willie’s grave and removed the hatchet. I raised and lowered my shoulders a few times, working out the kinks.
The hatchet cut through the rose branches, but it was slow work; the thorns grabbed my hands as I chopped. I wished I had asked Aunt Ethel for some gloves. I tried pulling my sleeves down over my fingertips, but they didn’t stay down.
After I cut off each branch, I used the hatchet as a hook to drag the branch to one side. By the time I got all the brambles off Willie’s grave, my hands and wrists were covered with scratches. I wiped the blood on my pant legs and used my teeth to remove one especially large thorn from my thumb.
I picked up the spade and began to dig. The soil here was more sandy than at the cemetery, which made the digging easier.
As I worked, I thought about the metal box. Yesterday I’d told myself it was OK to dig up Willie’s leg because I wasn’t really taking anything from the grave; I was only moving the bones to a new location.
Now I had taken something. The metal box didn’t belong there in the first place, but it wasn’t Willie’s, and it certainly wasn’t mine. The excuse I’d practiced, in case I got caught, was “I didn’t remove anything except Willie’s bones.” I couldn’t say that anymore.
I had believed that once I dug up the bones and got safely away from the cemetery without being seen, my worries were over. Now I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t think there was any way I could be linked to the removal of the box, but it made me uneasy all the same. I hoped whoever had buried the box wouldn’t discover it was gone until fall, when I was safely back in Minneapolis.
When I’d dug down about two feet, I paused to wipe the sweat from my forehead and to drink some more of my water. Puffy blisters had popped up on both of my palms. I eliminated grave digging from my list of possible future careers.
I wondered how deep I needed to go. I didn’t want to dig until I found Willie’s skeleton. I was getting used to freaky situations, but that would be too weird even for me. On the other hand, I didn’t want to bury the leg so shallow that a dog or coyote would dig up the bones and run off with them.
Willie made the decision for me. He looked into the hole I’d dug and said, “You’re deep enough.” I don’t think he wanted to look at his skeleton, either.
I laid the towel at the edge of the hole, then unwrapped the bones. I lifted one long side of the towel and gently shook it until the bones slid down into the hole. I grabbed the spade and shoveled the dirt back in, quickly covering the bones.
When I had replaced all the dirt I’d removed, I used the hatchet to drag some of the rose brambles back on top of the grave. I heaped them all across the dirt so if anyone happened this way, it wouldn’t be obvious that someone had recently been digging here.
When I finished, I looked at Willie. He stood beside the pile of branches, smiling at me. “I’ve waited a long time for this,” he said.
“Do you want to say a prayer or something?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Sarah prayed for me the first time,” he said. “Nobody needs two funerals.”
“I guess we’re done then.” I rolled up the towel, put it and the hatchet in my backpack, and slid my arms into the straps.
Willie still stood beside the grave. He removed his miner’s hat, then laid it gently beside the pile of branches. I realized Willie wanted a marker for this spot, something permanent like the gravestones in the cemetery.
I thought of Florence’s gravestone that said BELOVED DAUGHTER, SISTER, AND TEACHER and wondered what Willie’s ought to say. LOVING HUSBAND AND FATHER seemed appropriate, but I knew there would be no such marker.
I wished I had dug up the small W.M.M. plaque and brought it along to identify this grave. I didn’t offer to do it now, though. I had dug up the bones and made it out of the cemetery without being seen; the last thing I wanted to do was return to dig up Willie’s marker. Especially now, after I’d taken the box from the grave.
After Willie laid his hat on the grave, he noticed me watching.
“Something to mark the spot,” he said.
“When you disappear, your hat does, too,” I said.
“Only if I’m wearing it. I can leave it here.”
“Won’t you miss it?” I asked.
He rubbed one hand across the top of his head. “Yes, and I worry someone will take the hat, but it’s all I have.”
I picked up the shovel and started to walk away, then turned back. “Keep your hat, Willie,” I said. “I’ll remove the little gravestone with your initials on it, bring it here, and put it in the proper place.”
“You are the best friend this old coal miner ever had,” Willie said as he put the hat back on.
My arms ached, my back hurt, my legs were sore, and the blisters on my hands were oozing, but I felt good inside. After more than one hundred years, Willie’s leg was finally reunited with his body.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The straps on the backpack chafed on the way downhill, but my good mood overcame any discomfort. I had done it!
Willie floated beside me, grinning at me all the way.
T
he sun hid behind gathering clouds. By the time we reached the cemetery, the wind had come up.
I collected the bucket, then headed up the railroad trail. By the time I got to the tree house, every muscle in my body ached. I looked forward to a hot shower and a cold lemonade, but first I wanted to try to pry open the box I’d found.
I didn’t see Mrs. Stray or her kittens, but the cat food was gone. I refilled the dish, then climbed up the ladder and sat on the big pillow.
I removed the heavy metal box from my backpack and fiddled with the lock for a minute. It held fast. Then I remembered the railroad spike in my backpack. I stuck the narrow end of the spike under the box lid, then pressed down as hard as I could on the spike’s head. The edge of the metal lid bent slightly. I moved the spike half an inch and tried again. The metal bent there, too. I worked my way methodically along the edge of the box, prying the lid as much as I could.
Around and around the box I went. Each time I pressed on the spike, the box lid gave a tiny bit more. I shoved the spike in as far as I could and pressed with both hands until one side of the lid raised up far enough so I could peek inside.
I held the box up to the window so the light shined inside it. Then I peered into the box and gasped. The box contained money! I couldn’t tell if there was a whole stack of paper money or merely a bill on top of something else. I also couldn’t tell what denomination the money was. The opening I’d made wasn’t wide enough for me to stick my fingers in and pull the money out.
In my excitement, I forgot all about my hunger and thirst and aching muscles. I focused on opening the metal box. I pried the edge of the lid a while longer, trying to loosen the hinges, but I couldn’t open it farther. I needed sturdier tools. I’d gone as far as I could go with the old railroad spike.
I left the spade and hatchet outside the tree house, then carried the box to Aunt Ethel’s house. Although I was curious about the contents, I was starving, and I needed a shower. I itched where the sweat had trickled down my neck.
I decided to eat first, get cleaned up, then take the box out to the barn, where all the tools were. I’d open it there and see how much money it contained. Maybe it’s only play money, I thought. The box might have been buried by kids pretending to be pirates. There might be a pretend treasure map showing the cemetery, with a big X on the grave of Willie’s leg.
