by Dot Jackson
Rose was being awfully quiet, still. We were sitting at the table and she was not eating; she sat there staring at the stove, with her elbow on the table and her thumbnail between her front teeth. I wondered what she was thinking. It was something that almost made her smile.
Finally, she said, “Sen…?”
“What, darlin?” I said.
“I think it’s time we brought my daddy home.” Something, I think it was life, stirred in me for the first time in a long time. I remember I smiled, and it felt like something altogether new. ’Course if I had had a lick of sense I would have said, “How?”
“I think you’re absolutely right,” I said.
I can’t say we sat there and planned how to rob a grave. We did talk somewhat about physics and found it most too weighty. We were not born engineers. But over several days we gave it thought. More than that, we took action.
We went methodically about our project, working backwards. We took our shovels and went up on the hill, inside the wrought-iron fence. Where would we put Ben Aaron? At the foot of Aunt Arie and Uncle Dave or by his sister Lucy, and her little baby? (Her Gillespie man had married again, long ago.) By Aunt Nam? She would treasure that.
“No,” I said, “that’s too close to the fence. I want room for me, next to him.”
“I’d like there to be room for me, on the other side of him,” Rose said softly. So we decided to start a new row. We decided to put him cornering on Nam, at her feet. We went about it like we were fixing to plant roses. With the point of a shovel we laid off a grave. It crunched in the spewed-up ice. We whacked and stood on the blade and worked up a sweat, in the cold. We even talked about laying his box right there on the ground and building a cairn of stone. And we laughed out loud. But then we dragged up brush and punk and built a fire. We laid on big stuff and let it burn, and burn. Over the next couple of days we dug. We put our minds to it and dug a fine grave, that I could not see out of. And then we set about the bigger operation.
We had to wait on nature to help us; we needed the Lord’s lantern, since one of our own, bobbing along in the graveyard, might have set off the alarm. As a bonus, the sun shined bright a couple of days, and it was really warm, a false spring. We were counting on that Episcopal clay not being impossibly hard, at least where it had already been dug five months before. Digging would be one thing; lifting, quite another. One arthritic mule was not going to do it. “We need us a good stout team,” Rose said. She had been back up to her uncle’s and seen about the boys and had brought down a pile of mending. She had also, I gathered, spent some time in the cemetery, for more than mourning. “We might borry a team from Barz,” I said.
“Might,” she said, “but he’ll ask questions. He’d hockey his britches if he had any notion what we’re doin’.” She rocked and sewed. If you saw her face in the firelight you could have seen the wheels turning. “They’s oxen up at the livery that ain’t got Sofa’s name on ’em, no more than they got mine,” she said placidly, with a certain set to her mouth.
“We can’t get to ’em,” I said.
“Can,” she said. “Pap worked ’em all the time. Had a key to the gate. It’s a-hangin’ on a big long strop, right now, up at the house.”
“We gon’ steal ’em?” I said.
“We goin’ to borry ’em,” she said, not looking up from her work. We talked all we knew about fulcrums and winches and blocks and tackles, and the like. That didn’t take us long. Even if we knew anything we couldn’t hardly go up there in the daylight and build some fancy rig over that grave. And we wouldn’t dare wake up the town dogs.
So in the end, we set out by the rising moon one night, with the mule and an old sled and a little dragpan and some shovels and harness and odds and ends, and a backbreaking set of logging chains. We went about this business with light spirits, walking on light feet. The clock in the church spire struck one as we came down into the Forks. There were no houses, I am glad to say, directly on the road where we would pass. We passed the Presbyterians who were all long past hearing. Just this side of the Episcopal Church, Rose left me to go on alone. She fished the magic key out of her pocket and slung two halters over her arm and melted off like an Indian into the shadows, leaving me in a little grove of trees to wait. It was not cold; it was unusually warm for a winter night, but I stood there shaking, huddled to the mule, listening to my heart go thunk…thunk…thunk…Little clouds began to pass over the moon, just flying, making spells of total dark. Down at the end of town a jackass brayed. I guessed Rose had waked him up. I held the mule’s mouth shut with my arms, in case it tried to answer.
And then, almost as quiet as she had gone, Rose came into sight with a huge, lumbering ox on either side. I hoped she knew what to do with them. I had never been on speaking terms with one. But as easy as I might put on my petticoat, she yoked them up. “One could probably do it,” she said, “but I think we’ll do better with two, to get us home.” The sled was frightfully noisy on the road so we went across the field, and around the far side of the church to spare the lawn as best we could. The moon came out and there our duty lay before us.
We took our shovels to it, first. We dragged back the remnants of the rug of “grass,” and dug in. The ground was fairly loose and soft. We struck a determined rhythm. It picked up faster and faster. The dirt was flying. It was like I was hearing a fiddler in my head playing some old reel, with a little whiskey on his breath. It was intoxicating. We were not ready when we heard the thud. It came too soon. Our loved one, it turned out, had not been buried very deep. If it was a shock to him, this intrusion (I don’t for a minute think it was), it was sobering as the devil to us. We stood there in the grave, wordless, leaning on our shovels. And then, deliberately, we went ahead.
We were working in more dark than moonlight. We cleared the top of the casket and climbed out to plot our next course. What we had to do was to cut out the end of the grave, slanch-wise. The ground was harder, of course, where it had not been dug before. We hacked away at it with the shovels. And then Rose hooked up the pan. Talking softly as she could, leading them by the halter while I stood on top of the casket, precariously guiding the pan, she led the oxen forward, and backed them, and forward, and back, scooping out an exit ramp. It was not what you’d call going smooth. But it was working. I thought, if a locomotive could be moved this way, thank you Lord…
A few little drops of rain fell on us, as we dug in the dirt with our fingers, clearing the handles. We barked our knuckles bloody on rocks and felt no pain at all. Triumphantly we looped the chains through the handles, and unhitched the pan, and fastened the chains to the harness. And softly Rose coaxed, and the oxen moved ahead, and strained, and wood and metal creaked, and the end of the casket tipped upward, and moved toward freedom. Now I could only watch and listen and hold my breath. There was a horrid possibility; what if it came open? What would we do? What would it be like? And then there was this splintering jerk and clatter of chain.
A handle had come off. We couldn’t see a thing; after we came back down to earth we gathered the nerve to feel around and found that’s what had happened. “We’ve got to get a chain round it,” Rose said. We got the loose end and slid down into the hole and brought it around the box and hooked it. She spoke to the oxen again, and they moved slowly. The coffin inched up, and out, and was clear. And there it sat. There sat the prize. I couldn’t help what happened. I drew the biggest breath I had allowed myself in almost a year, and all the hollering I had not done, when it needed so bad to be done, I did right then, when we could afford it least.
“Damn you, Sophier!” I heard myself yelling, “Damn you to hell. You get him back now! Let me see you get him back now!” It was awful. “Hush, hush,” Rose said, smothering me into her shoulder. “We can’t have nobody hear us.” She patted me like a baby, rocking back and forth out there in the drizzle. But Providence helped us again, I guess he forgave that blasphemy, there in the churchyard, for he sent us a great wind that blew the weeping and wai
ling away, toward the mountain. It blew a regular gale and then it set in to really rain. We had to move along. We pushed the sled into place and set down some little boards for runners. And after a lot of jimmying and tugging and praying we got the end of the casket started toward the sled. Rose spoke to the oxen and they moved again so slowly, and the chain tightened, again, and up it came. And we chained it firmly in place, as best we could.
One last thing: we had to fill the hole. Which we had just made so much bigger. We stood there watching the rain fall into the blackness. The churchyard was so cussed neat there was not a pebble to help us. We didn’t have half enough dirt. Yes, we thought of it. The empty casket would have done it nicely. We would have gone to almost any length, but we drew the line, finally, at that. I left Rose then and went scouting. I went across to the drugstore. There was nothing loose. So I went around behind the row of stores. Back behind I reckon it was the cafe, there was a trash barrel about half full of garbage. Something, I guess a rat, jumped out of it while I was toting it along. Years later, when someone dug into the grave of my cousin Ben Aaron Steele, in the churchyard of All Saints, we would have loved to see their faces when they dug down to that old drum and pitied the great man so casually put away. The rain battered us as we laid the funeral grass back on the mound. It followed us and smoothed our tracks. We piled on our tools, and Rose got on the mule, and I, by my choice, climbed onto the casket, and we started out for home. We moved very slow; the road was rough, and we were in no hurry. At the Boney Creek Bridge we stopped and rested out of the rain. Ben Aaron was making his last night ride. If we had met some travelers and scared them half to death, he would have loved it.
When we came, finally, to that open bend above The Birches, where my children had seen him that very first time, there was a streak of pink across the sky. I had never felt the kind of love for anything, or anybody like I felt for this piece of earth, right then. And for what we were about to add to it.
30.
ROYAL FLUSH
ON THE HEELS OF OUR ESCAPADE IT TURNED BITTERLY COLD. ROSE had a terrible cough from being outside all night in the wind and rain. Ans sent two of the little boys down to see about us, when we had been out of pocket for a couple of days, and I sent him word that Rose was too sick to go home, that I would bring her when the weather eased.
My conscience hurt me terribly about letting her get in that plight, but between spasms of smothering she was absolutely gleeful over what we had done. I could only delude myself so much. That was still Sophia’s hillside where he lay—if, as Ben Aaron had once said, a deed ever meant real ownership. I did not feel like a trespasser when I walked up there. When I squatted by that mound and replaced the roots of violets and strawberries I was not moved to think, “This is Sophia’s mud.”
My mind was clearing. One thing, I realized for the first time since Nam died that I might have the money to buy The Birches; she certainly would have wanted that. Land prices were sinking. I figured on the basis of what Ben Aaron had paid for places, and I figured I might have enough. Only, I knew this: Sophia would never sell. Not to me. But I could try.
When Rose and I went back up to the Forks, the end of that week, I went by the mill to see if I could catch Harmon Garrison. I thought it would be better to take it up first with the company lawyer. Oh, that is not so; I just didn’t want to confront Sophia, even in the mail, and give her the chance to make me so mad I would go after her with the axe.
I went up to the office and had to knock. The door was locked. Directly one of those outland people came strolling up from behind a rotting slab pile, looking annoyed. “We are not open for business today,” he said.
“We are not?” I said. It just popped out. He looked at me like I was trying to be funny. Well, of course they were not open; they had no orders and nobody to saw anything. “I thought Mr. Garrison might be in today,” I said, “but I don’t see his car. I’d like to leave a message for him, when he comes by.”
“Mr. Garrison does not represent the Caney Forks Lumber Company anymore,” the fellow said. “Our attorneys are in Boston.”
“Our attorneys, eh?” I itched to smack him hard with a slab. “Man,” I said, “Your ass is cravin’ stovewood.” Neither the voice nor the saying were exactly mine. I don’t believe the man got it, anyway; he was puzzling on it when I thanked him all sweet and humble and went to the road.
Going back over the mountain I realized I was alone, on that road, for the first time since the morning after Ben Aaron died. And I thought about things. I had not seen my children in six months. I missed them something awful. It came down on me like a rock that what I was going to do, I was going back to Charleston and close the door on what had become my life. There were things, of course, that had to be taken care of first. I had to make a home, somewhere, for a few things from The Birches. Nam’s house was crammed, and its future was uncertain. What were we going to do with it? Rose and the boys could move into it, but they were well fixed where they were. In my mind, as I rode along, I inventoried Daisy’s attic. The furniture the Steeles had made. The dolls and books and dishes. Daisy’s clothes, and all those family portraits. I would see Sophia Orpington in hell before she should set my daddy’s cradle out to rot. I could hear her going room to room, dickering with some mincy antique dealer. I would have to do something.
At least it was a pretty afternoon. Mild. The trees had that rose-gray look that is hopeful about spring. I unhitched the mule down in the barn lot and got on its back and rode up the field, before I went to the house. It was like checking on a child in the night. I wanted to see that Ben Aaron was still there, and undisturbed. Someday, I thought, when the coast is clear I shall have a stone made, more to our taste, and put it up here. Until then, only Rose and I would know.
I rode on back down to the barn, then. I did not feel alone. I was putting the mule in the stall when I thought I heard an automobile coming over the ridge. Who in the world? Directly here came Harmon’s little roadster, grumbling along. I ran out to meet him, and flung my arms around him. “You must have got my message,” I said into his neck.
“Where did you leave me a message?” he said.
“I stopped up at the mill and talked to a sum-bitch,” I said. “I told him I wanted to see you.”
“I haven’t been there in weeks,” he said. “I have to talk with you about that.
“No,” he said, “what I really came down here for, I came to see if you would marry me.”
“I would marry you instantly,” I said, “if I were not so awfully much married already.”
He looked at me intently. “I know,” he said. “I know. And in the state in which you are married, there is no such thing as divorce.”
He was a good man. It was the most comforting thing that could happen to me, to be hugged by him, right then, very long and very tight. We climbed up and sat down on the steps, then, in the sun. “You didn’t go by the mill?” I said.
“No, I went by Panama’s. I thought I would see you, but the house was all closed up.” I told him how we had left it, and how vague our plans were, for everything.
“So what is this?” I said. “Have you dropped Miss Sophier as a client?”
“Miss Sophier most decidedly dropped me,” he said. “You don’t think she would keep somebody so firmly devoted to you to do her legal work, my dear. No, she got a little bit impatient with me. We parted our ways back right after Nam died. We parted through her lord chamberlain and pages and footmen over there, of course; I have not seen nor heard from Mistress Steele, direct, since she went back to her folks.”
“Well,” I said, “as her minor partner in that business, I am a little bit depressed. From what it looked like in there this morning, I think we are going broke.”
“You mean,” Harmon said smirking, “that you have not been consulted as a partner?”
“Never,” I said. “I may as well not exist.”
“Ah,” he said, “that is why I came to see you, really. Because yo
u DO exist. Would you like to hear something interesting?”
“Tell me!” I said.
“Are you my client?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Well, then. The Caney Forks Lumber Company is for sale. In fact, it may be about to be sold. Before I left there they had a bid from Intermont-Atlantic—that’s a tremendous outfit. Big in hardwoods. Not much of a bid, near nothing, considering what that mill and standing timber ought to be worth, in decent times. But apparently it looked good to Sophier.”
“Is she broke?” I said.
“Oh, she’s not hurting,” Harmon said. “Don’t you worry about her. She just don’t know how to run a sawmill. None of her friends and relations know how to run one either and that’s all she’s got left up there. This is one time she’s smart enough to make a sensible move.”
“Oh, I think she might have made another, time to time,” I said. He smiled and picked some burrs off his britches. I was suddenly ashamed I had let the weeds grow right up to the front steps, while I was so distressed.
