Dangerous Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

“Who, Connie?”

  “The mother and father. And a neighbor too. He was just a boy. An eight-year-old boy.”

  “You’d better go on in, Barry,” said Pace. “We’ll be there in a moment.”

  As I entered the foyer, I heard whispered voices coming from the viewing room on the left, the one more comfortably called the Slumber Room. I was surprised that Mom had not left the family across the hall in the living room where the homey, informal atmosphere could put the relatives more at ease as they discussed funeral arrangements. The Slumber Room was reserved for visitation when the family greeted friends and neighbors coming to extend sympathy.

  A young woman sat hunched in a straight-backed chair, her face buried in her hands. She wore a threadbare cotton dress and should have added at least a sweater or a jacket for the autumn chill. At her side stood a slender man whose face still bore the marks of adolescent acne. His jeans hung on his hipless body like rags on an understuffed scarecrow. His brown eyes were puffed with red circles, and though the tears no longer flowed, he had to clear his throat before he could speak.

  “You Mr. Clayton?” he asked, skeptical of my youthful appearance. “We were told to ask for Jack Clayton.” What little weight he had he shifted from foot to foot in nervous agitation. The woman looked up and stared through me, revealing a thin face with translucent skin. Her features could be taken as childlike from a distance, but the sunken eyes and flat cheekbones told of age beyond her years.

  “No, I’m his son, Barry.”

  “Then would you find him,” ordered a voice from the back of the room.

  Out of the shadows where the dark green drapes hung behind the casket viewing area stepped a man. Light first caught his brown hair, scraggly and dirty, dropping over his shoulders like twisted strands of Spanish moss. The face had a gray pallor, created by unshaven stubble. His pale blue eyes looked out of place beneath heavy dark-brown eyebrows that merged together over his sharp, hooked nose. He raised an oversized black Bible in one hand, letting the scuffed leather cover fall open as if he expected the words themselves to leap from the page.

  “The Lord has need of him,” he proclaimed. He swept the Bible in a wide arc toward the couple. “There is nothing more we can do but praise His Holy Name.”

  The woman shook with silent sobs.

  “My father is ill,” I said. “I’ll take care of things.”

  Beyond the path of the Bible, I saw the child lying on the low oak pedestal where a casket would rest. The small body was stretched out, hands across the chest, face slightly canted toward the wall as if a mischievous boy mocked the solemnity of the grown-ups. I pushed past the Bible-toting neighbor and stood over the child. Dull quarters rested on his eyes, opaque monocles closing out a world filled with new wonder. With my good arm, I lifted them from his face one at a time. There was no need for such nonsense. The child’s eyes were shut forever.

  “Those are mine,” said the belligerent man.

  The coins slipped from my fingers and scattered across the hardwood floor. The Bible slammed shut as the man chased after his money. Other footsteps sounded from the hall, and I heard Reverend Pace’s gentle voice introducing himself. The father responded “Luke and Harriet Coleman” and the other man said “Leroy Jackson.” Then the murmur of conversation blended into a background hum as I focused all my attention on the boy. The sneakers a size too big, yet worn enough to have belonged to someone before him. Jeans rolled up in double cuffs, patches at the knees. A brown belt with scratched silver buckle shaped like a cowboy’s six-shooter. A sweatshirt decorated with a montage of Saturday morning super-heroes, animals or aliens, I didn’t know which, but a new cast of characters that had become the coveted property of eight-year-olds.

  The boy’s face carried a layer of summer tan beneath the dirt. A shock of coarse brown hair spread over his forehead while an untamed cowlick sent strands in a rooster tail against the polished wood of the pedestal. The twist of the mouth and the colorless lips drawn back over his teeth were chilling signs of the child’s final moments of pain and fear. I reached out and turned his face toward me. Two puncture wounds marred the taut skin just below the right ear. The purple swollen neck rose up like a demon’s brand, claiming the child in sadistic triumph.

  “What happened?” I spoke to the room, cutting through the voices and sobs, demanding an answer. “What happened to this child?”

  My eyes darted to each of them. Reverend Pace stepped closer to see for himself. The neighbor looked from me to the boy’s mother and father. He gave a slight nod.

  “Snakebite,” replied the father. He steadied himself by resting his hand on his wife’s shoulder. She stared at the floor. “Rattlesnake. Jimmy was playing on some rocks near the house. Musta crawled up under a ledge. We heard him screaming.” The man’s voice faltered. He looked at Leroy Jackson.

  “I was just driving up to their house when it happened,” said Jackson. “The boy was gone in a matter of minutes. I was the one killed the snake. It’s out in the truck.”

  “Did you call a doctor?” I asked. “There should have been more time.”

  “No phone. And I couldn’t put no tourniquet round the kid’s neck, now could I.”

  “Call Ezra Clark,” I told my mother. “It’s required procedure,” I explained to the others. “He’ll need to sign a coroner’s statement.”

  “I don’t want him cuttin’ on my Jimmy,” said Luke Coleman. His wife started sobbing again.

  Mother started for the telephone, then hesitated. “Barry, we should get Travis McCauley.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Leroy Jackson. “We don’t need a lot of people in here gawkin’.”

  “Mr. McCauley runs a furniture store,” I said. “He also makes a few caskets. We don’t have one appropriate for this child.”

  The father cleared his throat again. “I’m afraid we’re kinda short on cash money.”

  “That can wait, Mr. Coleman. I’ll make the calls to the coroner and Mr. McCauley. This boy deserves a decent burial.”

  “My wife and I’ll be carrying him back to Kentucky,” said Luke Coleman. “It’s where my wife’s people are buried.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “But first there are necessary things we have to do regardless of where he’s going to be interred. I suggest you and your wife follow my mother back to the kitchen for a cup of tea. We can talk about those arrangements there.”

  Then my mother said something that made me want to hug her. “And Mr. Jackson, I suggest you either be of comfort to these good people or you be quiet.”

  “Sorry, I’ve done it again.” I made the apology as soon as Susan opened her front door. “I really couldn’t say much on the telephone. I was standing in Mom’s kitchen.”

  She nodded. “I hope you didn’t look as pitiful as you do now. Well, our dinner reservations are beyond salvaging, and I expect you’re in no mood for a night on the town. You may as well stay awhile.”

  I went to my customary spot, an overstuffed armchair across from the sofa.

  Fifteen minutes later, I still sat in the armchair, but my clothes sloshed in the washing machine, and a beer sloshed down my throat. Susan convinced me of the wisdom in spending the night in Gainesboro and then going straight to the sheriff’s office at dawn to rejoin the search for Dallas. I pulled the terry-cloth bathrobe tighter around my waist so that I could rest the ice-cold beer bottle on my lap without singing soprano.

  “I just couldn’t leave those people,” I began.

  Susan stretched out on the sofa opposite me. She had changed into a silk dressing gown and wrapped her delicate surgeon’s hands around a long-stemmed glass of white wine. Her dark brown eyes stared at me over the rim of the glass. I would willingly lie on any operating table if that angelic face were looking down at me.

  “Of course, you couldn’t,” she said.

  “Uncle Wayne came in a few minutes after I called you. He’d been walking track in the northern part of the county. He’s no spring chicken, and he and hi
s partner tried to cover too much ground. He was exhausted, but he still came back to the mess at the funeral home as soon as he got word.”

  “The Colemans. Does anybody know them?”

  “No. They’ve been down from Kentucky about a year. Luke Coleman is on the crew clearing the Broad Creek dam site. Ten or so families migrated here to work on the project. Evidently, the power company has let them build a shanty commune on some of their land. They keep to themselves. And Jimmy, the little boy”—I paused as I saw the child’s face in my mind—“the family’s adamant about no autopsy.”

  “Well,” said Susan, “that’s understandable. I’ve witnessed enough to know the procedure is pretty dehumanizing. If it were a child of mine, I don’t know how I’d react. No question about the snakebite? Ol’ Ezra Clark is not the sharpest coroner in the world.”

  “We saw the rattler. It was huge, over six feet, and the venom must have gone directly into the jugular. This Leroy Jackson, their neighbor, smashed its head with a stone. Snake blood was all over the front seat of his truck from where he tossed it in. Still writhing according to him. He quoted the old wives’ tale about snakes not truly dying until sundown. If there were any question about the cause of the boy’s death, an autopsy would be mandatory. Ezra said it’s pointless to put the mother and father through that ordeal.”

  “What happens now?” asked Susan.

  “Wayne put a call into a funeral home in Harlan, Kentucky. He’s making arrangements for transportation of the body and he’s coming in tomorrow for the embalming. We agreed I’d do more good looking for Dallas. Tomorrow night at seven-thirty there will be a short visitation. You’ll be gone by then.”

  “Me?” Susan’s eyebrows arched into question marks.

  “Mom’s invited you for dinner. At six. It would really cheer her up.”

  “And you knew I just couldn’t say no,” Susan said, stealing the words from my lips.

  “Wayne will be there, getting ready for the Colemans. And Reverend Pace. He’s staying in town for some meeting with his Bishop. I’ll be back from the search by then. With luck, tomorrow we’ll find Dallas and this will become just an unwanted souvenir.” I patted my wounded shoulder. The beer did wonders for the itch.

  Chapter 5

  Reverend Pace blessed more than the food. Starting with the Creator, in five terse sentences he moved from the cosmos through the plant and animal kingdoms, across the fields of the farmers, to the God-given culinary talents of my mother.

  “Amens” echoed around the table. I opened my eyes to see Pace looking at Fats McCauley. Pace must have been watching him while the rest of us sat with heads bowed and eyes closed. “Soul-tending,” my grandmother would have called it: the ability to see a troubled spirit.

  The serving dishes heaped with Sunday fixings began their clockwise loop around the dining room table. Mom could have fed three times as many as the six of us. Dad had eaten earlier up in his room. More than a few people around him made him nervous.

  By the time I had gotten home from the search party, showered, put on a coat and tie, and picked up Susan, we had been nearly fifteen minutes late. Again, the hunt for Dallas had yielded nothing. Since Reverend Pace had had to preach at his churches and meet with his Methodist bishop, Tommy Lee had paired me with Deputy Hutchins. We scoured more than ten miles of the main line track between Gainesboro and Asheville.

  The trek had been exhausting. Not that the physical effort was that great. It was the tension. Any bend in the track, any depression in the roadbed could have concealed the man who tried to kill me. I had felt both frustration and relief when, mid-afternoon, the bottom of the gray heavens opened, and a cold, brittle rain drenched us. Neither Reece nor I could have gone any farther. We had walked back a half mile to my Jeep, and I had driven the deputy to his patrol car parked at Allied Concrete’s rail yard, the spot where we had begun our search. The two-vehicle shuttle had saved the time and effort of hiking all the way back to the start.

  The rain still beat against the dining room window, but I was no longer wet and cold. I was starving. Fortunately, I stared at a table laden with Thanksgiving proportions.

  Mother had included Fats McCauley at the Sunday evening feast. He and my Uncle Wayne had brought the Coleman boy’s casket over by hearse, and it had been easy to convince Fats to stay for dinner. All of us called him Travis to his face, but at three-hundred-plus pounds, “Fats” was the nickname most commonly heard around town.

  When the dinner plates had been smothered in fried chicken, coleslaw, crisp cornbread muffins, and mounds of mashed potatoes coated with brown gravy, the flow of conversation trickled to limited exchanges of observations on the weather and compliments on the food. My mother, satisfied that each had been well-served, joined in the discussion.

  “Was your meeting this afternoon important?” she asked Pace.

  The preacher looked up from a drumstick and laughed. His face cracked into hundreds of weathered crevices, and he pushed back the strands of gray hair that dangled from his high forehead. “Are you saying some Methodist meetings are unimportant, Connie?”

  Mom blushed. She knew he was teasing, but his question embarrassed her. “Oh, no,” she rallied. “I’m sure it was very important if the bishop himself came.”

  “Yeah, that old coot,” said Pace. “If Gabriel sounded his trumpet tonight for Judgment Day, Bishop Richards would organize a committee for how the Methodists should respond. We’d be the last in line at the Pearly Gates.”

  “No,” said Fats. “If it were bingo night, the Catholics would be behind the Methodists. Especially if they held double cards.”

  “At least a bingo game ends,” said Pace. “Well, I’m not being very Christian now, am I? The bishop is all right. Somebody has to make the tough decisions and weigh their theological implications. He leaves me free to wander the mountains serving my three little churches.” The Reverend took a second bite from the drumstick.

  “And the meeting?” asked Susan.

  Pace smiled as he swallowed. “Should have known I couldn’t duck the question. The bishop is assigning a young seminary graduate to assist me. Just for a couple months. You know, ride the circuit, get out of the classroom and into the flock.”

  “Who is he?” Susan asked.

  Reverend Pace winked at me. “Quite a sexist assumption. It’s ‘Who is she?’”

  “A woman? A woman preacher?” Fats McCauley’s eyes widened at the astonishing prospect.

  “I haven’t actually seen her,” replied Pace, “but the name Sarah Hollifield implies we won’t be sharing the same tailor.” The preacher rubbed the lapel of his worn tweed sport coat. “She’s driving over from Asheville with the bishop tomorrow. I’m not sure he is so keen on the idea of a woman ministering to the mountain folk, but she applied and it would reflect poorly on modern Methodism if she were denied the assignment.”

  “What do you think?” asked Susan.

  “If the mountaineers accepted me, a wet-behind-the-ears Duke graduate, forty years ago, anything is possible. Sarah Hollifield will get my full support. God’s work is done by a multitude of hands, male and female.”

  “God moves in mysterious ways, doesn’t She,” said Susan.

  “Humph,” grunted Pace. “I’ll leave that question for the bishop and a committee.”

  The business telephone rang as Mother served coffee and apple cobbler. Wayne excused himself, slid back from the table, and glided into the adjoining room. His lanky, thin frame was what the locals described as “a tall drink of water” or “high pockets.”

  Uncle Wayne and my parents were a disappearing breed. They personally cared for the funeral needs of their community in much the same way Reverend Pace cared for the spiritual needs of his flock. They were not employees of a large chain of funeral homes. Mom and Dad literally lived where they worked. Their antebellum, white-columned house, set off the street on a gently sloping lawn, was a beautiful home in the tradition of family residences and town funeral businesses.
I had rejected both the home and the business when I moved to Charlotte. Clayton and Clayton Funeral Directors was a dying entity in more ways than one.

  In a few minutes, Wayne returned, his normally pale complexion flushed. “That was Freddy Mott. He was coming in to help us tonight, but he thinks his distributor cap has got moisture in it. Must be the rain. He can’t get his car started.” Wayne glanced at his wristwatch. “The Colemans will be here in less than thirty minutes.”

  “I’m planning to stay,” I said.

  “We can all help,” offered Pace. He stood up and tossed his white linen napkin on the table. “Make us earn our supper.”

  Mom barred everyone from the kitchen. Even Fats McCauley offered to help with the dishes, but she would hear nothing of it. “The rest of you get things ready for the Colemans,” she ordered. “I’ll work faster alone.”

  Susan arranged silk flowers in the Slumber Room and set out a “Those Who Called” book. Wayne and I wheeled in the casket on a rolling cart and Reverend Pace helped at my end to transfer it to the pedestal. We removed the lid and stopped for a moment to look at the boy. Pace said a spontaneous prayer.

  The child appeared to be sleeping. Last night my mother had washed and mended his clothes. Gone was the swelling and discoloration from the snakebite. He looked as if a call from his Mom or Dad, or the bark of his dog, would set him in motion, sneakers skimming across the ground in pursuit of a new day.

  Fats had had the child’s coffin in his inventory. It had been meticulously crafted as a final cradle, a work of art to ease a family’s pain that could never go away. The size was right. I hated the thought of a little boy lost in the wide span of satin and ruffles that adults required.

  Fats ran a soft cloth over the brass corner trim, wiping clean the dull haze of polish residue. The stillness of the moment was broken by his muffled sob. He turned away, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “Y’all leave now,” a voice called from the doorway. Leroy Jackson stood with his Bible under his arm and swept his gaze across the room. No one moved. “I said you should leave. You ain’t needed. I’m here on behalf of the Lord.”