:: Jan’s Writing Place ::

By Jan Whitaker

Chapter 1 –The Burial
June 1976

Nancy felt her butt bump against the bed of the pickup as they drove down the rutted dirt road. Paul was dead. She was alive, and afraid. The man at the wheel was dangerous, even though he was her father, maybe because he was her father. She huddled in the corner propped up against the sidewall, her head near the cab’s rear window. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied the body laid out beneath the mud-spattered tarp beside the wheel well.

Moonlight glinted from the dew on dying weeds in the ditch as they continued past the lane to the equipment shed. She shivered in her threadbare sweatshirt jacket and pushed her fists deeper in the pockets, searching for warmth. Her thin cotton shorts rode up as she drew her bare knees up to her chest, shrinking away from the remains of the midnight events.

How had it come to this? Paul Brady wasn’t a threat to anyone, least of all to her family. They had all grown up together, and it wasn’t until recently that she had started to see him as someone special, not just her brother’s friend. She remembered when she was five. Paul was two years older, same age as George. They had pushed her into the mud along the creek when they were hunting crawdads. Then they laughed at her as she ran away crying. She knew she would get a whipping as soon as Mom saw her dirty clothes. The mud on the tarp across his lifeless body was from that same creek. The dried tears on her face tonight were for much different reasons. Her fourteen-year-old heart was breaking.

The pickup slowed to a stop. She heard Pa get out, leaving the engine idling; the exhaust assaulted her nose as it filtered up from the rusted out muffler. The gate chain rattled as he unlocked the padlock put on months ago to keep out the local hot-rodders who used the remote pasture for a track. The rusty hinges creaked when he opened the gate, setting her teeth on edge.

Peeking over the edge of the back window, she watched him saunter back to the cab, his boots leaving marks in the sodden track. He climbed back into the driver’s seat then shut the door.

The truck lurched forward into the field, down the worn tractor path toward the dark outline of trees along the riverbank. The creek behind their farmhouse flowed into this river, the creek where the unthinkable had happened, where Paul had breathed his last. Nancy squeezed her eyes tight to black out the images that kept forcing themselves into her mind, wishing away that final sound that accompanied them, dreading what Pa was going to make her do with the shovel lying next to Paul.

They bumped along the rocks and ruts of the track between the rows of emerging green corn in the summer field. The truck stopped again and he turned the engine off. The water lapped at the river’s edge as an owl hooted in the pine tree on the bank. Crickets chirped in the rushes in time with croaking frogs. Usually these sounds were soothing sounds of life to Nancy when she lay in her bed listening to the dark, but not tonight. She doubted they would ever be comforting again.

‘Girl. Get out. Now.’ Pa stood at the rear of the truck, undoing the latches on the tailgate.

Nancy took her left hand from the pocket of her jacket and pushed herself up, struggling to straighten her cramped legs. Standing in the truck bed and looking back toward the open field, she towered over the surrounds, even over Pa. Glancing down, the shape beside her feet reminded her of why they were there: Paul was going to disappear. She groaned like a wounded doe.

‘Hush. There’s no one out here, but you don’t need to raise the dead.’

She cringed at his choice of words.

‘You!’ Nancy leapt toward her father with raised fists, wanting to smash him as hard as her fear of him would allow.

He caught her wrist before she could strike and pulled her down onto the ground. Her left foot twisted painfully beneath her; her bare right hand scraped along the gravel. Tears flowed again. She had never hated her father more than she did at that moment.

She rolled onto her side and looked up at the old man pulling the bundle toward him by the toes of the tennis shoes. The tarp slid off Paul’s legs and she could see the ragged edge of his jeans. She leaned over into the grass and was sick.

‘Stop that. Get up here and grab that shovel.’

She watched him struggle with the weight of the body as he spun it around pulled it toward him along the corrugated surface of the truck bed. The tarp caught on a sharp edge of a rusted hole; he tugged the canvas sideways to release it and the arm that had pitched in the championship only a few days before slid out.

She considered running but knew she wouldn’t get far, not with a bad ankle. Besides, Pa had too many connections with the surrounding farms for her to think she could hide for long. Being the sheriff had certain advantages, at least for him.

She stood up beside the truck and wiped the vomit from her chin with the back of her scraped hand. The sight of Pa holding Paul’s limp body by the shoulders was unreal, like a black and white episode of the Twilight Zone. The legs hung by the heels over the edge of the tailgate, butt sagging toward the ground. As the blood flowed to her feet and hands, she fought the light-headedness and crept to the side of the truck to retrieve the shovel.

With the body slung over his shoulder like a feed sack, Pa pushed his way through the weeds toward a sycamore tree. The shadows from the branches created a curtain from the scant amount of moonlight, but she could just make out the form of the man she despised most in the entire world taking the boy she had loved to his final resting place. She dawdled after him through the damp weeds, feeling the dew soak into her canvas shoes, her head down, dragging the shovel through a trail of trampled grass.

Pa dropped his load to the ground with a thud. He kicked away the smaller twigs with his scuffed leather boots, and using his heel, made an outline in the shape of a grave. �Clear away those leaves but keep them for covering up afterwards. We don’t want to leave no traces, do we girl?’

Nancy pushed the sharp tip of the shovel into the ground, feeling it slide into the rotted leaves and dirt. The scent of decay rose from the earth as she tossed the first small shovelful to the side, repeating until the space Pa had outlined was bare. As she dug deeper and the ground became harder, she felt the muscles in her shoulders cramp and the sole of her foot ache like the pain in her heart, bruised through the thin rubber bottom of her tennis shoe. She stopped to rest, leaning against the handle.

‘Stupid girl, give me that. I can see I’ve got to do this myself.’ Pa stubbed out his Lucky Strike on the ground and grabbed the shovel.

She glared ice-cold hatred at his back as he pitched the dirt, deepening the trough. She glanced at Paul and wondered what he would have thought of her weakness.

After what felt like seconds, Pa finished digging and tossed the shovel into the grass where it clanked against a rock, waking the crows in the surrounding trees. They cawed out their false-dawn dirge.

‘Give me a hand. I can’t clean up your mess all by myself. Grab a corner and pull.’ He took hold of the tarp and dragged it headlong toward the grave. She bent over and pulled, struggling with the dead weight.

Pa moved toward the side of the body and pulled up the canvas, unrolling the corpse into the hole. He thrust the shovel toward her. ‘Fill it in.’

She took it and gently placed the loose dirt over the body, her throat constricting with grief and guilt. A blister on her thumb stung where the skin had torn away. Her shoulders ached with every movement as she filled the hole. Her mind watched as if someone else were making Paul disappear, the loose earth filling the folds of his favorite denim jacket. She left his blond head for last, the traces of blood matted against his skull where the brick had battered him out of existence.

Pa lit another cigarette while she worked. She smelled the smoke and knew he was watching her. When she had put the last of the dirt in place, he walked up behind her. ‘Fold up that tarp and put it back in the truck with the shovel. Put those leaves and twigs back where they were, too. Don’t want any hunters seeing anything they shouldn’t.’

She nodded, folded the canvas, and put it and the shovel in the back of the truck. She watched him pushing the weeds around and making the place chaotic and natural, camouflaging footprints and any marks made by a straight edge. Nature abhors straight edges except in some rocks or crystals, she thought. Mrs Jacobs had taught them that in eighth grade science class. �Bricks have straight edges, don�t they, Paul?�

Whack! The sting of Pa’s hand across her cheek brought her to her senses. ‘You’d better forget about bricks and boys for awhile, girl. You don’t want to go saying anything foolish now, do you?’

She blinked back the tears and rubbed her face. Looking up at the man beside her at the rear of the truck, she shook her head. ‘No, Pa.’

‘Get in the cab. You need to clean up and I need to get to the office early this mornin’. Hurry yourself up. I can’t wait all day.’ He walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in. He started the engine and put the truck in gear.

She scurried to the other side and pulled herself up beside him onto the bench seat with the broken spring. Her arms hurt as she moved them across her body and fastened her seat belt. Looking down at the blisters on her palms and the dirt under her stubby fingernails, she began to whimper. She wished she were dead as the truck pulled away from the scene of the end of her world.