Eighteen
The following morning we went in search of my Dad, and breakfast. “Do you know what a buckeye is?” I asked, taking a mouth watering bite of a country ham biscuit and washing it down with a cup of coffee that was strong enough to hop out of the cup and do a jig across the floor.
Mom and her sister had gone on their annual bus tour to Branson. Dad and the rest of us were left to fend for ourselves. Fortunately, she had made a couple pans of biscuits and had frozen them before she left.
“Sure I do. It’s a nut from the buckeye tree. As a matter of fact, I have some in a box in the bedroom closet. My daddy used to always carry one in his pocket all the time when I was little. He said they brung him good luck.”
“Do you know where a buckeye tree is?” Teri asked, devouring her second biscuit.
“Yep, they’s one close to Rocky River. That’s the only one in the area that I know of. It’s on top of a hill beside the river. I ain’t been to it in probably ten year. The older I get the harder it is for me to climb that hill. I guess the tree is still standing though.”
It had to be. “Where is it, Dad?”
“You know that field where I plant my watermelons and cantaloupes every year?”
“Yes.” The thought triggered another memory. It was a memory of watermelon juice running down my chin onto my shirt, and me spitting the seeds at my sister.
“The tree is on top of that hill behind the watermelon patch. Why? You girls need some luck?”
“No, we need to bury someone.” I proceeded to fill him in on everything that had happened.
“After you finish burying that child, pick us a ripe watermelon.” Dad didn’t seem at all disturbed by my revelation. “And how about bringing me back a couple of buckeyes for luck if you find any.”
We hopped in the old river truck and rode down to the watermelon patch bursting with ripe watermelons and cantaloupes. “Don’t point at the watermelons. Dad says they will fall off of the vine if you point at them.”
“Now that is just superstitious nonsense and you know it. You know how much I love your dad, but where in the world does he get these weird sayings?”
I smiled to myself as I walked ahead of her, knowing that she was pointing at every watermelon she passed. “He also says if you fish on Sunday you will catch the devil and that if you plant a cedar tree, when it gets tall enough to shade your grave you will die. Mom planted one years ago and when he got home from work you should have seen him ripping that tree out of the ground.”
We made the long trek up the steep hill sweating profusely and gasping for breath. It was almost straight uphill. My thighs were on fire! I sat down and leaned against a tree and guzzled hot water from my fanny pack. “How much farther is it?”
“I think we’re almost there. Come on, you can do it.”
At the top, I spotted the tree that looked identical to the one in the picture. It was about 60 feet tall with rough patches of flaking bark. The tree was heavy with nuts that hadn’t fallen yet. “This is it.” I stretched out on the soft sandy dirt under the tree. “Let’s take a nap under the shade of Buttercup’s tree.”
“Huh! You go to sleep if you want to, but I’m just going to rest.” She was peering anxiously into the tree. “You know how helpful he tries to be. What if he decides we need a shovel and tosses one down?”
“Good point,” I said, coming fully awake.
“I guess now all we have to do is dig Seth’s remains up and bring them here.”
Okay, I was almost certain that digging up someone’s grave wasn’t exactly a legal thing to do. Unfortunately, it looked like grave robbing was about to be added to my growing list of law breaking activities. “You know we could get into serious trouble for disturbing someone’s final resting place.”
“Like I keep reminding you, Eve. Since when has getting in trouble concerned either of us?”
An hour later we were standing over Seth’s grave. I was sweating in rivulets, as was the diva, but we continued to dig. With each shovel of dirt that I tossed out the hole became deeper and the burning ache in my arms intensified. “How deep did they bury people back then?” We had dug at least 4 feet and my arms were screaming with pain. I would be in bed for a week after this. “Aren’t your arms hurting?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have feeling in them anymore. But I do know that I have never been this tired in all my life. It can’t be much deeper.”
Teri had sweated until her mascara ran in ugly black streaks down her cheeks and her hair, that she had taken such pains with that morning, was plastered to her head. Even her high perky boobs looked limp and defeated.
I was so tired of digging I could have collapsed on the spot and slept in the hole in the cold, damp earth until morning. I had to rest. I sat down on the ground and leaned my head back against the hard dirt wall. “Maybe we should come back tomorrow and finish.” I said just as her shovel struck what sounded like wood. I got a sudden burst of energy and helped her uncover a tiny mahogany, elaborately carved coffin. It was at that moment, I realized I was standing on a coffin and, becoming surprising agile for a fifty-year-old woman, shinnied out of the hole.
“Can you lift the coffin out?” I peered down into the hole and asked from a safe distance away.
“Hell no, get your ass in here and help me!”
Against my better judgment, I climbed back into the grave and helped her lift out the tiny wooden coffin. Once it was safely on the ground we went to the back of the truck to get Diet Pepsi’s from the cooler. I took a sip and glanced over at Teri. Never once in fifteen years had I seen the girl looking so disheveled!
Our hands were a mass of ugly, red blisters and our drenched clothes were glued to our bodies and caked with mud. Teri was missing 4 of her French manicured nails. We were as filthy as either of us had ever been, but we had finished phase one.
“Okay, the hard part is over.” She tilted her soda for the last swallow.
“How did you come to that conclusion when we still have another hole to dig?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot all about that. I’m simply not accustomed to manual labor.”
After a five-minute break we lifted the coffin into the back of the truck.
“Don’t you want to see what’s inside?” Teri caressed the top of the coffin just itching to lift the lid. “Haven’t you always wanted to know if bones really turn to dust?”
“Nope. I most certainly have not. And don’t you even start with that nonsense or I’m dumping your ass out right here and heading home.”
“You big p-ssy.”
“Whatever.” I had no desire whatsoever to view the contents of the coffin. What person of mediocre intelligence would? “My best guess would be that the coffin is filled with buttercups. And I’m warning you Teri. If you decide to lift the lid on that coffin, you will walk home!”
Thankfully, for once, she let it rest and climbed in the truck.
“I’m starving,” I said. “Let’s go home and eat before we start digging again.”
“Do we carry the coffin with us?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” For some reason I didn’t think Seth would be overjoyed if we carried his coffin through the cornfields and past the gate. But we couldn’t leave it sitting out in the open for a hunter or fisherman to find. “No, let’s just go eat a watermelon. That will satisfy the hunger pangs for a while.”
“It will be hot,” the diva whined, doing her best Mallory impression. “I like my watermelon already sliced, seeded and ice cold.”
“Good luck finding that down here.”
At the watermelon patch I split a large Moonstar watermelon on the ground and dug out a juicy chunk. She was right it was hot, but delicious. I spit a mouthful of seeds at her.
“You are truly one nasty old cow! Now that you have finally remembered it, it doesn’t take much to make you revert back to your childhood does it?”
“Here, have half.”
“I am not eating that!”
“Suit yourself.” Watermelon juice dribbled down my chin and onto my shirt as I devoured half of the sweet melon. “Man, I wish I had a saltshaker. Watermelon is so much better with salt on it.”
“Would you just look at what you are doing to your shirt?”
“Teri, honey, take a gander at your own shirt.”
She glanced down at her filthy clothes for the first time and appeared quite faint. “If anyone should see me looking like this I would be run out of Charlotte! Here, hand me the watermelon so I can eat the thing and we can finish this!”
She dug into the watermelon like it was a slice of prime rib. Finished, she daintily wiped her mouth with the hem of her grimy shirt and walked over to the coffin and motioned for me to join her.
Even though the coffin was tiny it was a chore carrying it up the steep hill. We stopped half-way up the hill to rest and catch our breath.
After all these years, you were the first person with the gumption to follow Seth. Aren’t you proud of yourself, Eve?”
“I can’t take all the credit. I would have never returned to these woods if it hadn’t been for you.”
“True. We share equal amounts of credit. You know, life will seem rather boring when this is all said and done. What should our next thrilling adventure be?”
Oh, please let my life be boring. I lived for the day this adventure was behind me. “What do you say we finish this one before we plan another one. I wonder how deep we should bury the coffin.”
“I wouldn’t think it needs to be too deep. I’m sure Seth is hiding in a tree somewhere and has already seen where his mother is buried.”
We lifted the tiny coffin and continued up the hill. At the top, we placed the coffin carefully on the ground and picked up the dreaded shovels. Blistered palms throbbing, we again began the arduous task of lifting out shovels of earth. However, the dirt was much softer under the buckeye tree and scooped out almost like sand. We had the hole dug in less than fifteen minutes.
After gently lowering the little coffin into the ground, we covered it with dirt and walked on it to pack the dirt down. Then we stood back and surveyed our work with satisfied smiles.
“All finished,” Teri said, looking up into the tree like she expected Seth to show up with a bouquet of buttercups and personally thank us.
“Yes, we are. Job well done,” I said, and high fived her. Then I picked up a handful of buckeyes for Dad and put them in my pocket before heading back down the hill.
We were almost to the bottom of the hill when Teri said, “Damn, I left my sunglasses.”
“Just leave them. I’m sure you can afford another pair.”
“Eve, those are Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses, thank you. I most definitely will not leave them.”
I followed her back up the steep hill grumbling and complaining every step of the way.
“Eve! Would you look at that!”
The sad little angel with the outstretched arms, that had been perched on Seth’s tombstone, was now standing sentinel over Seth and Buttercup’s grave amid a spray of magnificent buttercups. Only now, she was smiling. “Look, she’s happy now.”
“Yes, she is. Thanks to us, they are together again after all these years.”
Neither of us spoke as we walked back down the hill. We trudged to the watermelon patch for Dad’s watermelon both deep in thought about what we had witnessed. If the truth be told it would be a long time before my nerves settled back down, and the enormity of the situation hadn’t truly sunk in for either of us. For now we left with a good feeling having made Seth happy and the little angel smile.
As I walked through the patch thumping melons in search of a ripe one, Teri said,” Why don’t we sleep at your parent’s house tonight?”
“Whatever for?”
“To see if the covers get pulled off us.”
“You know, Teri.” I giggled. “Tammy and Mallory were right. You are one crazy woman!”
The End