The Borrowed World Series | Book 8 | Blood & Banjos

by Horton, Franklin

  Those who’d been digging were proud of their efforts and took her to see the grave so they could get her approval. They’d worked hard but it was barely over two feet deep. They’d encountered a lot of tree roots that had to be chopped out of the way and it made for slow going. They’d have to go deeper today, though she couldn’t imagine they’d be able to reach the customary depth of six feet. They could deal with a few roots but if they hit a rock they were screwed.

  As a group, they’d also worked to organize a memorial service for their friend. Thinking it was best to keep it simple, they planned on playing several songs that were special to Oliver. Kay was in charge of helping with that today, making sure the children picked songs they were comfortable with playing, then helping them run through the setlist. Nathan and Stevie were going to have to work on the grave some more and Sharon intended to help them. She wasn’t all that good with a shovel but could swing a mean pick.

  She hoped Freda and Kendall came through with a means for getting the body up to the camp. Sharon was certain she could come up with something if forced to, but she didn’t relish the task. If it came down to her doing it, she’d need the children’s help and she was trying to protect them from that. She didn’t want them to handle the body or see it heaved around in an undignified manner. It would be too traumatic for them. They might have nightmares or experience lasting trauma from it. She’d managed to insulate and protect them during these trying times and she hoped to continue with that.

  Sharon swung out of bed and examined her body. Before doing anything else she needed to tend to the cuts and scrapes from yesterday. There were also deep bruises along her legs from the tumble down the embankment. It was nothing too bad but she treated the scratches to avoid infection. Even a scratch could kill her if infection set in. She had some alcohol and expired antibiotic ointment. She’d observed in treating the children that the ointment still did the job, it just took longer than it had when it was new.

  When she was done, she dressed and left her cabin. She saw no other signs of life anywhere else in the camp. The kids were not yet awake, despite the hour. They must have been as exhausted as she was. She went to the kitchen for a cup of the tea she had steeping in a glass jar. She would have preferred it hot instead of room temperature, but that one job, warming her tea, would require a whole lot of effort. She’d drink it like it was.

  Sharon went out on the front porch, the wooden screen door clattering shut behind her. Tendrils of fog hung in the valley extending before her. She knew from the hundreds of times she’d surveyed this view that the sun would soon burn that fog away. Dew glistened from spiderwebs draped between tall weeds. Crows called, the most verbal of birds at this hour. Her roosters crowed too, not wanting to be left out.

  Sharon knew this place. She knew these sounds and this view as well as she knew herself. She’d sat on this porch for thousands of mornings like this one. It was for this reason that the clatter of stones in the stillness distinguished itself and instantly put her on guard. When it came again, not exactly the same sound but similar, she was struck by how much more alone she felt without Oliver’s presence in the valley. He’d been their gatekeeper. Their watchman.

  Her second thought was of the pistol Oliver had offered her so many times since the collapse. She’d refused it, not because she was opposed to guns, but because she didn’t have any way to properly secure it from the children. She knew Oliver had more guns and she supposed that was something she would soon be dealing with. There would be so much to deal with.

  She set her tea down and moved to the edge of the porch. It was a wide affair, spanning the entire front of the dining hall, but she’d moved to the side closest to where she thought the sound had come from. She held her breath and listened hard.

  There were voices, a low murmur that sounded like people speaking between themselves. It appeared to be coming from the road. Sharon angled her chair so she could see in that direction but the road was wooded, hidden by thick trees and brush, until that last turn swung it into the camp.

  Sharon had no way down to the ground from this porch. There was no ramp on this high side of the building. She opened the screen door, hurried through the dining hall, and emerged onto the much smaller back porch. She rolled down the short ramp and onto the uneven ground facing the road.

  The voices were louder now. Clearly people. She had no idea who they were, what they wanted, or what she was going to do when they turned the corner. Then the first of them emerged from concealment and walked toward her. She couldn’t make out features at this distance but it didn’t appear to be anyone she knew. It was a slight, older man. He was wearing a red cap and a mint green button-down shirt. The shirt was tucked into gray dress pants, which were in turn tucked into black farming boots. He carried a shovel thrown across his shoulder like a rifle.

  A second man came behind, then a third. These two were younger, both in t-shirts and jeans. One carried a pick, the other a shovel. Behind those two came a larger cluster of people, a half-dozen more men carrying digging tools.

  The lead man spotted Sharon and tossed up a casual wave. When he approached, she could see that he was probably in his sixties. He removed his cap and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. She noticed he still had a full head of dark, curly hair with only the odd strand of gray.

  “You must be Sharon?”

  She gave a wary smile. “I am.”

  “I’m Cecil, a neighbor from up the road. I used to lease pasture off Oliver a few years back and we were buddies. I hated to hear of his passing.”

  “It looked like a stroke. It was probably merciful that he went pretty fast.”

  Cecil nodded. “Probably so. You all haven’t finished digging the grave, have you?”

  Sharon shook her head. “No. The children tried but it’s hard work for kids. They’re not very experienced at digging and they hit a lot of roots.”

  Cecil gestured at the folks ganged up behind him. “I figured that’d be the case but we can take care of that. I brought some friends and neighbors with me. Some of us are old hands at running a shovel. We should be able to knock it out for you. It’s the least we can do for Oliver.”

  “I-I don’t know what to say,” Sharon stammered. “I appreciate your help very much.”

  “Reckon we just need you to show us the spot and we’ll get on with it. Figured we’d get an early start, before the heat of the day.”

  “Follow me,” Sharon said, spinning her chair and starting toward the Fairy Circle.

  She led them past the dining hall to a smooth trail through the woods. The children kept the path groomed and free of debris specifically for Sharon. In a few minutes, they were at the Fairy Circle with its log benches and crude seats.

  “Seems a right nice spot,” Cecil commented.

  “Oliver liked it here. This is where he told stories. The children loved it. They like the idea of him always being here with them. They thought he might like it too.”

  “Reckon he would at that.” Cecil gestured toward the shallow grave. “Yonder, boys. Best get to it.”

  The rest of the men headed in that direction. One with a mattock wasted no time jumping in the hole and slinging the tool with a mechanical efficiency.

  “What’s that for?” Sharon asked, pointing to a man with a medieval-looking ax in his hand. The handle was not aligned with the head in the normal manner but angled away from it at a thirty-degree bend.

  “Grave-digging broad ax,” Cecil said. “Folks quit using them when backhoes come along. I had one in the barn. Granddaddy used it for smoothing the walls of a grave. Made it look nice for folks. It’s something my family always took pride in, digging a nice grave.”

  Sharon found herself welling with tears in what she imagined would not be the last time that day. The kindness of the neighbors and the attention that they paid in this final gesture of respect to Oliver was almost too much for her to bear. She’d been to enough funerals in her life to know it wasn’t only the loss
of a loved one that got to you. It was those hundreds of tiny gestures. Those little things people did and said, the memories they shared. When she’d lost her sister, those were the things that got her. The things she’d never have known about her sister if someone had not made the effort to share them with her. It taught her a lot about how to help people grieve.

  Cecil awkwardly patted Sharon on the shoulder. Like many men, he was uncomfortable with offering solace to women he didn’t know. “Now, you don’t worry about a thing. We’ll take care of this. The women are heading up this way later to bring you all some lunch.”

  Sharon waved a wand. “That’s not necessary. People don’t have enough to be sharing right now. They don’t have to do that.”

  Cecil wasn’t hearing any of that. He held up a hand. “It’s tradition. Just ‘cause times are hard doesn’t mean you turn your back on doing what folks have always done for each other. You take food to the bereaved. It’s what you do.”

  When he put it that way, Sharon understood. It was like the grave digging. There were things the men traditionally did and the women had their own tasks. It wasn’t just how the community supported each other, it was the essence of what made them a community in the first place. It was how rural folks, mountain folks, and poor folks had always retained their humanity when they had very little. It was by holding onto their traditions, many of them so ancient that they were brought here from other continents.

  She smiled. “That’s so kind of you all. We appreciate it very much.”

  “It’s what neighbors do.”

  “Well, if you don’t need anything from me, I’m going to go wake the children. We have some cleaning to do before company comes.”

  “Don’t put yourself out now,” Cecil said.

  “It’s fine. We just have a few things to straighten out before the place is fit for company. If you men need any water, there’s a spigot outside the dining hall that’s fed from the spring. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  Sharon headed back toward the dining hall. She needed to wake the children and get them moving. Not having to dig the grave was a huge relief but there was work to do. The dining hall looked very lived in at the moment. There were toys, blankets, and musical instruments scattered everywhere. She didn’t expect the children to work a miracle, but she’d like to be able to offer their guests a place to sit down.

  32

  The Camp

  By afternoon, the camp was bustling with more folks than they’d seen since the attacks. While the grave-diggers labored, their wives and daughters had appeared next. They rode on a hay wagon driven by a man even older than Oliver. A grin stretched across sallow cheeks and toothless gums as he worked his team of horses. It was as if he’d waited his entire life for this very day. Despite the heat, he wore a long checked shirt with a white t-shirt beneath it. Black suspenders held up brown polyester pants that may have once fit but were now too big.

  The harness attached to the wagon was old but appeared to have been preserved out of love more than utility. The leather straps and traces had been maintained with a treatment that left them supple and glowing. The yoke and singletrees were varnished as if the entire rig had come straight from a museum wall to the backs of these sweating horses. The metal tongue connecting the wagon to the harness showed that the trailer had recently been used with a tractor, but even this ancient operator understood that adaptability was the greatest attribute of a farmer. It was the ability to forge the broken into the functional. It was the talent of squeezing one more season out of collapsed, broken, and rust-seized equipment.

  Females from age eight to eighty scooted off the wagon while the whip-thin driver held the horses steady. Some of the women wore thin scarves to keep their hair in line. They reminded Sharon of the aunts she’d known from her childhood in the 1960s and 1970s, those women at family reunions with their beehive hairdos and long menthol cigarettes.

  “See if you can give them a hand,” Sharon instructed the campers.

  The women on the hay wagon were unloading boxes containing Tupperware and white CorningWare. They had clear casserole dishes and stainless steel bowls, the tops covered with clean linen dishtowels in the absence of foil and plastic wrap. The children went forward with some apprehension but were greeted warmly by the neighbor women. They were hugged, patted, and complimented. By the time everyone made it inside to spread the food on the table, the camp children had overcome their apprehension and were basking in the attention. The women understood what the children had gone through and were supportive.

  “I can’t believe you all have been back here for a year and we haven’t visited,” Cordelia said. She was Cecil’s wife and the organizer of the group.

  “Oliver was very protective,” Sharon explained. “He told me he was afraid for people to know we were back here. He thought that was the best way to keep us safe.”

  Cordelia tilted her head. “He might have been right. There’s ugliness out there. We do our best to stay away from it and only socialize with them what lives around us. The good Lord has kept us safe and fed. We ain’t well off but we’re getting by.”

  “Same here. We’re getting by. Anything we needed and didn’t have, Oliver tried to track down for us. He was our connection to the community.”

  Cordelia stuck out a hand and rested it gently on Sharon’s shoulder. “Cecil and I will try to help with that. I know Kendall and Freda are going to check in on you too. You’ll need people so don’t be afraid to ask.”

  The sound of shod hooves on gravel reached Sharon’s ears and she moved to the window of the dining hall. The old wagon driver had hauled the grave diggers back down to Oliver’s house to help Kendall and Freda load the body. Now they were returning, leading the funeral procession. Behind them, a single horse pulled the most elaborate enclosed buggy Sharon had ever seen.

  “My God,” she mumbled.

  “Horse-drawn hearse,” Cordelia said. “Belongs to my Uncle Donald. He’s the old man driving the hay wagon. He’s been collecting those buggies since people quit driving them. He’d find them in fields and bring them home to restore. That hearse is his pride and joy. Keeps it in the barn all covered up. It’s in better condition now than when it left the factory. He shows it at fairs and stuff, but that’s all it’s been good for, until now.”

  The buggy pulled alongside the dining hall and stopped at the beginning of the path to the Fairy Circle. It was as far as the wagon could go. Beyond that point, the trail got too narrow and there was nowhere to turn a team of horses.

  Sharon stared at the buggy in amazement. It seemed almost delicate with its tall, spoked wheels and spare construction. It was flat black and the driver sat high on the front, like a stagecoach or buckboard wagon. Arched glass windows made up each side and the back. There were elaborately carved moldings applied to the flat surfaces. Brass lanterns mounted alongside the driver’s seat allowed him to operate at night.

  Through the windows, Sharon spotted a newly-made coffin. Oliver was in there. She put her hand to her mouth. “Someone made a coffin,” she commented, feeling stupid for stating the obvious. She didn’t know what else to say.

  “The boys had some boards in the barn. Ain’t nothing fancy, but they did what they could. He deserved more than a sheet.”

  “I should have thought of that,” Sharon said.

  Cordelia waved her off. “Only so much one woman and a houseful of kids can do. I’m surprised you get anything done beyond caring for these kids.”

  “Speaking of kids, I reckon I better get them wrangled up,” Sharon said, backing away from the window. “We should probably get on up there. No use putting this off any longer.”

  “Can you get up in those woods alright?” Cordelia asked, ready to offer assistance if it was required.

  Sharon smiled. “I’ve been doing it for twenty years. I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

  Cordelia returned to the kitchen to gather the other women. Sharon went to the center of the
dining hall and called to the campers in the same manner she always did. It was part of their routine, part of the structure she maintained.

  “Campers!”

  The children responded to her voice, gathering around her in a circle.

  “It’s time for us to go say good-bye to Mr. Oliver. I need you to get your instruments and follow me. We’re not going to talk a whole lot because we want to be respectful. Don’t strum on your instruments until it’s time for you to play. Funerals are a time for being quiet. If you need me, just ask. If you need to cry, that’s fine. If you need to hug each other, that’s fine too. This is going to be hard on all of us, but we’re going to get through it together. Okay?”

  The children nodded, their hesitancy belying uncertainty.

  “You’ve got this,” Sharon said. “You’re going to play for these folks and it’s going to be the best you’ve ever played in your life. Right?”

  Sharon brought them in for a hug, as much for herself as for them. When they parted, the bigger kids helped the smaller ones get their instruments ready. Everything had been tuned that morning. The children filed out and Sharon fell in behind them. The women who’d been working in the kitchen were also outside now and they walked together as a group.

  Everyone deferred to Sharon and she took the lead, though she was no more anxious than the children to go down that trail. It felt different this time, knowing what lay ahead of them, but she went on. At her movement, everyone else fell in behind her. It was like sand pouring through the hourglass after the first shake sets it in motion.

  When she reached the clearing, she moved off to the side to allow the others to pass. She directed the children to line up beside her. Everyone’s eyes fell on the crude wooden coffin, sitting on cinderblocks like a broke down car. A gaping hole lay beside it, now at the proper depth. Sharon noticed that the men had done as they said, using the broadaxe to smooth the walls to a uniform finish. It was somehow the most orderly aspect of the entire scene. In this jungle, among this motley gathering, this perfect and exact hole in the soil waited to receive their friend.