Death's Half Acre

by Margaret Maron

  “I gotta get up there with my oil can,” he said.

  I didn’t respond and the silence stretched between us.

  I blinked first. “So how come he signed over to you practically everything he had? What did he think he was getting in return?”

  Daddy didn’t answer.

  “If you got his land fair and square, how come he doesn’t just tell people he sold it to you?”

  “You see any dollar amounts on them deeds?”

  “Just the one dollar everybody says when they don’t want to tell how much money’s changing hands.”

  “Well, then. He must know about that computer stuff, too, and how people can go poking their noses in other people’s business so easy. If it didn’t worry him, I don’t know why it’s worrying you.”

  “I’m not worrying, Daddy, and I’m not trying to mind your business, but when I see you with a shark like Faison McKinney—”

  “Oh, he won’t much of a shark, shug. More like a little ol’ goldfish. Besides, if you read them deeds, then you seen I didn’t keep none of the ones he give me.”

  “I know. But why would he bankrupt himself and his church for nothing?”

  “Well, now, maybe he felt like he was getting a good trade.”

  A sudden thought chilled me. “You have something on him? You blackmail him into giving back those deeds?”

  “I’m done talking about this, Deb’rah. You got questions, you go ask that preacher.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. But I thought maybe he’d fast-talked you into thinking he could help you get straight with the Lord.”

  “Me and the Lord’s doing just fine.” His tone was mild, but it was clear he did not plan to talk about land deeds or Faison McKinney any more. He stood up and said, “Let me get the paint ’fore it gets dark.”

  He stepped inside the house and was back a few minutes later with a rag, a can of black paint, and a small trim brush.

  As we walked down the slope with Ladybelle at our heels, the sun was still three fingers above the western horizon and the sweet smell of wild crab apples hung in the air.

  The stone that Andrew had brought for Blue’s grave was about the size and shape of a five-gallon bucket. Daddy sat on a nearby rock and pried up the lid of the paint can.

  With the rag, he brushed the dirt away from a fairly flat area on the stone and dipped his brush in the paint.

  “Do you believe in a life after this?” I asked him from my perch on a rock that marked the grave of Aunt Sister’s ugly pet goat. “In heaven?”

  “Wings and halos and streets of gold?” He smiled and shook his head. “Naw, that never made much sense to me.”

  “What do you believe in then?”

  He shrugged. “Just because I don’t believe in heaven don’t mean I believe there ain’t nothing after this. We can’t never know, can we? I used to study on it, ’specially when your mama was dying. Now I’ve quit worrying about it. If being alive’s a accident, then we’re the luckiest accident in the universe, ain’t we?”

  He finished lettering Blue’s name and the day’s date, then capped the can and leaned back against the fence to watch the sun slip lower. A light breeze brushed our faces and ruffled his white hair.

  “You ever think about them stories your mama used to read y’all? Stories from all over the world about old gods?”

  “The myths?” I asked, surprised that he recalled them.

  “I reckon. One of ’em was about a chief in one of them cold countries where they have mead halls. Adam wanted to know what a mead hall was. Your mama said it was where they had big feasts, with singing and laughing and beer made with honey.”

  I smiled, having no memory of this.

  “Anyhow, somebody asked the chief if there was anything after this and the chief pointed to a moth up near the roof timbers that’d got in and was flying down the length of the mead hall. He said that moth was like life. It comes in out of the darkness, it stays awhile to see the feasting and laughing and song-making and storytelling and then it flies back out into the darkness. We can’t see in the darkness, but the moth flies on like there might be something better a little further on out there.”

  “Is that what you believe, Daddy?”

  He stubbed out his cigarette with the toe of a scuffed brogan and smiled over at me. “Well, shug, I got to say it makes more sense than angel wings and streets of gold.”

  The sun sank below the horizon in a blaze of reds and purples and oranges. “But for right now, this is one mighty fine mead hall, ain’t it?”