I faced the soundman. “You’ve got to clear this van out. Show a little respect.”
“I told the old man we’d move it,” the man snapped. “I’m just the soundman, and I don’t have the keys.”
Uncle Wayne shook his finger in the guy’s face. “That’s a lie. He’s stalling so his cameraman can get some shots of the caskets. And he tried to get me to say something on TV.”
Getting Uncle Wayne to talk on camera would be harder than getting Republicans and Democrats to balance the budget. I looked around and saw a cameraman and reporter breaking away from Harvey Collins.
Pastor Swanson forced his way between my uncle and the soundman. “Barry, I called the sheriff. We’ll get this vehicle towed.”
“Barry? Barry Clayton?” The reporter hustled toward me. He clutched the morning edition of the Vista under his arm. “This is the guy. Roll, Phil. Mike him, Nick.”
The fishing pole swung over my head and the camera lens flared in the sunlight.
“Pull him around,” yelled the cameraman. “He’s a silhouette.”
The reporter reached out to grab me.
In the past few days, I’d been knocked unconscious in my own funeral home, nearly drowned at the mill, and had a loaded pistol jammed in my ear. Being manhandled by a gung-ho news team shoved me over the top.
“Get the hell away from me!”
The man’s hand grabbed my left forearm. I slashed down with my right, pounding his wrist with my fist. He yelped and stumbled backwards, falling against the cameraman. The videographer had crossed one foot in front of the other as he tried to circle me while shooting, and he tripped over his own feet. Reporter, cameraman, and camera toppled into the soundman. The fishing pole flew up in the air high enough to mike a gaggle of geese and all three pillars of journalism crashed to the ground.
Other cameras approached, capturing the wrath of Barry. Reality TV comes to Gainesboro. A bearded vet holding the Rolling Thunder flag gave me a thumbs-up.
A short blast from a police siren drew attention from my carnage. Tommy Lee jumped from his patrol car. Kevin Malone raced from the passenger’s side. The newsmen floundered on the lawn, trying to disentangle from one another.
The vet waved his flag. “Three men decked with one blow, Sheriff. Sign him up.”
Pastor Swanson pointed to the reporter, now on his knees. “That man grabbed Barry first.” The good reverend turned his clerical collar to the nearest camera. “I saw the whole thing and I’ll swear to it.”
To my astonishment, Uncle Wayne leaned over Swanson’s shoulder and yelled at the camera, “That’s my nephew. He’ll teach people to respect the dead.”
Kevin slapped me on the back. “And you’re not even drunk. By God, I’m impressed.”
In a short time, Tommy Lee cleared the way and we were able to roll the caskets up the handicap ramp and into the sanctuary. The public had a ringside seat as no less than ten cameras documented every inch of the journey. Just before entering the church, I looked down over the sea of the respectful and the curious and saw Kevin slip a brown envelope to one of the Montagnards holding a Free The Dega People banner. Y’Grok’s funds would be used at last.
At the funeral service, mourners packed the pews so tightly one sneeze would have disgorged a whole row. More stood in the back and along the side aisles. Pastor Swanson banned all but one camera from the interior, and that videographer had to make his footage available to all.
Everyone in the church had read Melissa’s story. The article was one of the longest ever run by the Vista, and she must have written the story in record time. She indulged no puffery or sentimentality, but her clear prose captured the enormity of Y’Grok’s heart. Her description of the events in the condo painted a scene of Talbert’s villainy unmasked. Both Randall and Y’Suom came across as victims of Talbert’s greed and betrayal.
She wrote how I’d broken free of Talbert’s grip and how Kevin Malone had shot him before he could shoot me. Just as I’d said in my statement. She posed the question as to where Talbert had acquired the financing for his first movie and she asked how many other Y’Groks might be hiding in Vietnam. A smart network producer would already be tracking those angles.
Melissa concluded with a promise to follow up because Y’Grok’s story was a local story and our community now had a link to the Montagnard community. In a sense, Gainesboro had adopted the Montagnards.
During the service, General Weathers and Senator Millen spoke in elegant, personal ways that transported everyone back to the central highlands. I heard a few sobs, more male than female, as their words rekindled memories of loyalty, duty, honor, and fallen comrades. Comrades who, for the rest of us, were only frozen names on a black wall in Washington, D.C.
The scene at the burial erased my irritation with Archie and the mayor. There hadn’t been room for both Y’Grok and Y’Suom to be interred at Grace Lutheran’s small cemetery. General Weathers and Senator Millen had accepted the mayor’s offer of a double plot at Heaven’s Gate Gardens overlooking the valley. The clear blue sky complemented the landscape with a purity and serenity that touched the spirit.
Tommy Lee’s son Kenny was home on spring break. He concluded the graveside ceremony by playing “Amazing Grace” on his bagpipes. Funny to think a man and his son, born in the wilds of Southeast Asia, would be laid to rest in the Appalachian hills under the haunting melody of an ancient Scottish instrument. But, as my father always told me, and probably still remembered in some corner of his diseased mind, funerals are not for the dead but for the living.
As the bagpipes’ final note faded on the breeze and the mourners turned away, Kevin Malone walked to Y’Grok’s casket and touched it one last time. I stood still, and then looked away when I saw the tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Life is funny, Barry.” Kevin looked at me, unashamed to be weeping. “Just when you think you’ve got life figured out, something twists you by the neck and makes you think again.”
“What’s that?”
“I’d say hope.” He smiled. “You think I’m speaking nonsense, don’t you?”
“I believe in hope.”
“Yes. I know you do. But I didn’t. For me, hope had died with my divorce, my partner, even my will to live. And then I got Y’Grok’s letter.” Kevin glanced back at the two coffins. “Y’Grok was a man who had seen a thousand times more pain and injustice than me. He’d witnessed members of his family murdered. He’d seen his way of life destroyed as his so-called American allies left his people to the retributions of the North Vietnamese. Yet something kept him going. With all he had been through, the betrayals and hardships, he still believed in justice, and he hoped to have justice done for a man who died over thirty-five years ago. You can’t see that kind of hope and not be touched.”
“No, you can’t. Y’Grok put his hope in you, and you didn’t let him down. That hope should stay with you.”
Kevin rubbed his hand along the casket and then stepped close to me. He gripped me by the arm, the same arm the reporter had grabbed. “Tommy Lee let me read your statement. I haven’t had a chance to thank you. What wasn’t written tells me you understand why I did what I did. Not that I was right, not that I was wrong. Maybe that’s all any of us can hope for. To be understood.” Kevin loosened his grip, but held onto my arm. “What about you? Are you going to be all right with what you did?”
I’d asked myself the same question a hundred times since handing Tommy Lee a sworn statement that Talbert would have killed me if Kevin hadn’t fired first. The fact that Kevin now stood before me, concerned for my well-being, provided the answer. I gave a slight shrug. “I’m prepared to face the consequences.”
Kevin turned and walked toward Tommy Lee standing by the patrol car. Suddenly, he stopped and wheeled around. “At funerals my granny often quoted a tombstone she remembered from her native village in Ireland. ‘Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, Love leaves a memory no one can steal.’” The impish grin broke across his face. “
So I won’t be forgetting you, my young friend. And something tells me I’ll be seeing you again.”
With that remark, Kevin left with Tommy Lee. I gave a wave as the patrol car disappeared into the trees.
“He’s a good detective, isn’t he?” Archie Donovan walked up beside me.
“The best. Boston Detective of the Year.”
Archie looked around at the graves. “This worked out real well. I hope everyone was pleased with the way things looked.”
I felt magnanimous enough for even Archie. “Very nice. And your kindness won’t go unnoticed.”
He beamed. “Do you think there’s any chance we’ll get Franklin Talbert?”
“Sorry, Archie. Frankfort, Kentucky and Daniel Boone outbid us.”
Archie didn’t realize I was kidding.
Chapter Twenty-six
Baby leaves on the oaks and dogwoods rippled in the light breeze. The temperature promised to ascend to the seventies, and spring ruled from the highest peaks to the deepest valleys.
Through this pastoral paradise, I drove with Susan beside me and a loaded picnic basket on the floor behind me. She held the Asheville Sunday morning paper in her lap and nursed a cup of coffee. Just the two of us in a perfect world. I’d left poor Democrat moaning at the cabin. His dark brown eyes had begged me to let him come, but today I didn’t want to worry about what he’d chase or roll in.
Susan glanced out the window as we passed the road leading to our usual spot. “Didn’t you miss your turn?”
“No. We’re not going to Pisgah. I’m afraid it’ll be too crowded.”
“Too crowded?”
Susan and I had a secret place in the national park that lay in the fork of two streams. Rarely did we encounter others.
“On a day like today, everyone not in church will be outside. I’ve got a new spot I want you to see.”
She patted my thigh. “Okay. I like surprises.” She set her coffee in the cup holder and flipped the paper to scan the stories on the front page below the fold. “Here’s an article about Montagnards.”
“Another follow-up?” More than a week had passed since the Friday funeral and the revelations about Franklin Talbert. I’d shunned repeated requests for interviews, granting only one to Susan’s aunt, Cassie Miller, who produced a local TV newscast in Asheville. That had been given under the condition that Cassie not run the footage of me knocking down the news crew.
“No. This has an AP dateline from Vietnam.” She read the article to herself, punctuating the silence with an occasional sigh.
“What’s the matter?”
“Reports trickling out of the central highlands claim the Vietnamese government broke up Easter services last Sunday as Montagnards gathered to worship. Official sources deny the allegations of beatings and imprisonment, but added that the so-called religious services are often fronts for politically subversive rallies.”
“On Easter Sunday? Is there any day with the exception of Christmas when they wouldn’t have more desire to worship?”
“The article says there have been credible accounts in the past of persecution and abuse on holy days. Senator Millen is requesting the President summon the Vietnamese ambassador and he’s calling for hearings.”
“Hope,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Hope. Y’Grok had hope. Maybe something good can come out of his death. Funny. We buried Y’Grok and Y’Suom on Good Friday. Do you think that story would have been on the front page if Y’Grok hadn’t done what he did?”
“No.” Susan set the paper on the backseat. “So, where are we headed?”
“To a rendezvous with destiny.”
I steered the jeep carefully over the slat bridge and parked between the old house and the stream.
“Is this the place?” Susan asked. “Is that the mill?”
“Yes. I hope you don’t mind. I thought you’d like to see where Y’Grok lived. The field’s got some smooth rocks where we can spread our picnic blanket.”
We stopped at the foot log and I pointed upstream to the waterwheel. “You can see how high the level came. Those broken branches are above where I found the ammo case.”
Even I was shocked at the sight. The bottom part of the wheel had been washed away up to the section where Y’Grok had hidden Raven’s remains. Debris showed that the stream had crested a good foot higher.
Susan trembled. “You went in water that high? It must have been a torrent.”
“More than I bargained for. But if I hadn’t, the ammo case would have been lost.”
She turned to me. “That was about the most foolish thing you’ve ever done. You could have died.”
“No. I had a lifeline.”
Before she could remind me that I’d pulled Melissa and the rope into the swollen stream, I bounded across the log to the other side. I turned and called to her. “Set down the basket and come over.”
“What about our picnic?”
“Just humor me.”
Susan started across and I stepped on the log to meet her.
As she carefully put one foot in front of the other, she kept her eyes on mine. “You’re crazy.”
“I thought you said foolish. Make up your mind. But for me this is a beautiful day for foolish undertakings.”
She looked down at the flowing stream. “For foolish undertakers is more like it.”
I reached out and clutched her hand. “This undertaker needs you to meet him halfway.”
“Don’t even think of pushing me in.”
“No. I just wanted to show you what I discovered up here.”
She looked around. We stood on the middle of a narrow log six feet above the water. “Okay. What have you discovered?”
“My true lifeline. The only woman who can keep me from falling.”
The sparkle of the ripples on the water wasn’t half as bright as her smile. “Barry. This is so corny. I love it.”
“I love you. And I’m sorry if I haven’t always shown my love. But twice I came close to dying, once in this stream, and once at the wrong end of a gun. Both times made me think about the fragility of life and what’s really important to me.”
Her eyes moistened. “And what is important?”
“You.” I squeezed her hand and pulled her closer. “I’ve seen how easily I could lose you. And as if death weren’t bad enough, I nearly lost you over something as silly as a petty misunderstanding. I don’t want either to happen.”
She kissed me. “Neither do I.”
For several moments, we stood on the log in silence, holding each other. Then Susan laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Barry, do you realize one of us is going to have to walk off this log backwards?”
“Walk? We’ll dance.” I grabbed Susan around the waist. “And I’ll lead.”
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Foolish Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series Book 3) Page 25