Last Words

Thomas E. Jordan

October 2005

With the skill that comes from a life of doing so, the three dig the grave. The older man, Jeremiah Stufflebean, long in the face with dead, dark hollow eyes and a beard of black and white stubble, works in the hole squaring the corners and smoothing the walls. He wields a worn, short-handled spade his father had used for the same task.

The younger man, Daniel Tilburn, is still new to this work having just replaced his deceased father at it a few months before. He's lean, almost emaciated, and naked to the waist despite the late fall's coolness. Daniel works behind the older man using a round-nosed shovel to collect the soil dislodged from the walls. He takes thin slices of dirt mingled with small stones from around their feet steadily taking them farther into the Earth a fraction of an inch deeper with each scoop.

It's a complicated dance they play. As Jeremiah moves around inside the pit performing the finish work, Daniel remains behind him sweeping up the spoils and sending them to the surface.

The final member of the group, Samuel Miller, is tall and muscled with broad shoulders. His arms reveal all too readily that he has spent a lifetime at manual labor. Too large to comfortably fit in the holes they prepare, he always works above the others collecting the passed up soil with a small, square-nosed sand shovel. He places each scoop onto a two-wheeled cart hitched to a skinny mule barely larger than a donkey.

The three don't make a sound as they work. No voices, no grunts or groans. Around them is only the sound of blades slicing the ground followed by that of clods of soil landing either out of the hole or on the cart. Overhead in the canopy of black oaks and walnuts, a calliope of birds and squirrels call out to defend or mark their territories. If the men wished to make the effort to note it, they could. But they don't. It has been part of the background of their lives for so long, they hardly ever notice it anymore.

When the grave is uniformly to the top of Jeremiah's head, a narrow wooden ladder is lowered into the hole. The two inside hand their tools to Samuel and perform an act of resurrection. While they climb out, he leaves their shovels on the cart in the same position he has dozens of times before.

With the grave completed, Daniel lays two split fence rails and stout ropes across the pit to receive the casket. He nods at their product, then steps aside to allow the others a look.

Jeremiah wipes his face with a faded red cotton handkerchief before checking their handiwork. When he speaks, his voice is deep and Ozark, almost Elizabethan in its cadence. "A poor grave for a good man," he says.

Daniel pulls a thick blouse over his head and shoulders. The others look at him while he tugs at the hem making it hang correctly on his sparse frame. When he's finished, he steps to the edge of the grave and gives it a quick inspection. "A good grave for a poor man," he replies.

"Fare for the boatman, " says Samuel, tossing a small handful of coins into the hole.

The trio ignore a youngish man with the outline of a barn owl, the Reverend Alexander Buchanan, dressed in a simple black suit with a dark narrow tie, riding up on a brown and white gelding. He calls to them over the lichen-covered stone fence surrounding the cemetery as a creak of leather accompanies his swinging down out of the saddle. "You've finished just in time, men." Buchanan motions over his shoulder while hitching the horse to a rail there for that purpose. "They're just a little ways behind me."

While Daniel leads the mule away, the others trail behind. They stop at three tree stumps almost out of earshot at the back of the burial ground just inside the fence. When the moon signs turn right, they plan to burn out the stumps.

A wagon, drawn slowly by a team of matched black horses, rolls into sight. A small, straggling crowd of people walk silently behind it. To the rear of the procession, a line of wagons and buggies follow to take them away after the service has been completed.

When it reaches the cemetery, the wagon halts at the gate. The man driving it, somewhat formally dressed in black attire, doesn't look back over his shoulder as six sad-faced men draw a plain, wooden casket from the wagon box. After lifting it onto their shoulders, they carry it through the gate to the fresh breach in the ground. The crowd follows coming together to fill the space around the grave.

Before to he settles onto the middle stump, Jeremiah reaches under the cart's seat and produces a mason jar filled with clear liquid. After removing the tin lid and taking a sip, he hands it to Daniel. "This'll keep you warmed up while you're not working," he tells the lad.

Daniel takes a small, polite drink. Violently he shakes his head trying to force the sensation from his mouth and throat. On the edge of shaking, he climbs to his feet and gives it to Samuel.

"You'll get used to it in time, boy," Samuel says, softly, before taking a sample of the liquid himself. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. There's a bite to the drink that seems to skim away every dead cell of any flesh it contacts. "It was a good batch." He pauses a moment, then adds, "for a change."

"The best the Reverend ever made, I think." agrees Jeremiah, retrieving the jar for another drink.

In short order Buchanan is tossing a handful of dirt into the grave while the casket is lowered into the darkness. The pallbearers manning the lines let them slowly and steadily slip through their hands. After it bottoms and Buchanan has said his final words, the crowd breaks up. Some head immediately for the gate and their waiting rides. Others linger visiting the graves of family members to check on how they look. Soft bits of conversation mixes with the chatter of children at play outside the fence.

As the last family leaves, the local sheriff, in his brown and tan uniform, a straw-colored western hat and black cowboy boots, enters the graveyard. Without looking around he goes straight to a juvenile post oak a few feet from the open grave and leans against it. He studies the low branches above his head for a few moments before pulling his pen knife from his pocket and slicing a length of timber to start whittling down to fodder for starting camp fires.

Buchanan nods to the Sheriff before turning to motion for the men to finish their work. The Sheriff barely acknowledges Buchanan with a slight wave of his knife.

As the three begin shoveling soil from the cart back into the hole they'd created, Buchanan stands to the side and watches. The tone of the landing dirt slowly changes from a hollow drum-like sound as the first shovelfuls cover the casket to a more solid plodding sound as the hole fills.

"Well, it looks like even with the Reverend here dying on us, we're still having a pretty successful revival," Buchanan says to make conversation after watching the work for a few minutes. "Last night we had two more young girls come down and give their souls to the Lord."

Samuel nods his head and purses his lips while he continues working. "Those young people will probably manage to keep it going for another week or so, I'd say."

Buchanan's eyes dart towards Samuel. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing much. It's just that a big, long-running revival like you're having here is a good chance for them to meet and do some courting they wouldn't be getting to do any other way," explains Jeremiah.

"The real measure of just how successful you are at harvesting souls'll come when you hold your baptizing," grins Samuel. "So I wouldn't be counting my chickens from this one until I saw just how many of those young people comes forward for that step."

"I don't believe you," Buchanan blurts out, shaking his head.

The men work on silently, keeping to their own thoughts. Steadily the level of soil in the grave rises. Occasionally one shifts from removing soil from the cart to stab at the soil in the grave with his shovel compacting it a bit to forestall some of the settling certain to follow.

Buchanan, uncomfortable with the lack of conversation, breaks the silence. Something the Reverend Thomas Henderson had told him from his deathbed was weighing heavy on his mind. "I hear you have a quaint, interesting custom around these parts with burying your dead," he said, when the grave was about half-filled.

Jeremiah stood and rubbed his back, working it straight. "And what would that be?"

Buchanan paused for a moment before saying anything, wondering if he should or not. Finally he spoke, almost haltingly. "That you're not allowed to speak ill of the dead after their grave is filled," he said.

The two other men stop working. Slowly they look towards Buchanan. The look on their faces make him feel as if he had uttered an unspeakable truth.

"Is that true?" asked Buchanan.

Samuel nodded. "It is, but we don't talk about it all that much."

A boy like you from a good Fort Smith family would probably have trouble getting your hands around something like that," Jeremiah added.

Buchanan let the remark pass. He pointed with his chin toward a grave on the other side of the cemetery that looked like its covering soil had collapsed and dropped a little over a foot below the ground around it. "I guess that would explain that."

"That's "Bloody" Bob Carmichael." Jeremiah spit in that direction. "Our fathers and grandfathers buried him a full twelve feet deep to give the devil an extra chance at him."

"And then they never finished filling it in just so we could talk about the old bastard like this with a clear conscience," added Samuel, going back to work with the others.

Buchanan pulled a white handkerchief from his inside pocket and patted his forehead dry. He didn't know what had brought the perspiration to his face. The day wasn't that warm. In fact, as it was getting later, it was getting cooler. "Surely he wasn't that bad of a man?"

"He hung my great, great, great grandfather," Daniel spouted.

Jeremiah swung a scoop of dirt into the grave. "Carmichael commanded the Union Home Guards in these parts during the war--"

"Union? War?" Buchanan asked. "You're not talking about the Civil War, are you?"

"Bastard lived until 1897," said Samuel. "Up there in his fine house on that hill in the middle of all that land he bought off the widows and orphans he'd created during the war."

"But that was . . . ." Buchanan was at a loss for words. "Surely you're still not-"

Samuel stopped working. He looked Buchanan in the eye. "The people he killed aren't any less dead." He paused a second before asking, "Are they?"

"Just like old Bill Tilley over there." Over his shoulder, Jeremiah asked, "You know the Reverend here brewed up that batch of hooch that killed him?"

Daniel stabbed his shovel deep into the pile on the cart while glancing towards the Sheriff. "I heard that when you asked him about it, the Reverend lied to your face. That true, Sheriff?"

The Sheriff's voice was slow and deep. "Told me him and Tilley had had a falling out and that he'd bought the stuff that killed him over in Madison County. I went through the motions, went over and asked a few questions, but couldn't ever find anyone to lay the blame on. So I just had to let it go."

"Heard he also had a woman he used to see down along the river." Samuel looked at Buchanan. "You talked with him before he died. You know anything about that?"

"She was in Spadra," Jeremiah offered. "The Parson here was in Clarksville at the Bible College. He wouldn't know about things like that."

Samuel held a scoop of soil on his shovel over the open grave. "That was how he covered his tracks for going down to see her. He'd say he had church business down to Clarksville and then he'd slip off to her while he was down there." He twisted his wrist and dumped the shovel. The dirt falling into the grave landed with a dead, final sound.

Daniel kept working at the same pace. "Heard she ran a bar, or something-"

"'Or something' would be one way to put it," interrupted Jeremiah.

"And just what do you mean by that?" Buchanan asked. He was suddenly learning more about the dignified old man he'd been called upon to aid and comfort on short notice than he'd ever expected.

Jeremiah stopped working. "Well, Leroy Pervis was down to Clarksville one day and saw the Reverend hitch hiking out of town."

"So? He didn't own a car or anything. How'd you expect him to get around?" asked Buchanan.

"He was south of Clarksville bumming for a ride into Spadra," added Jeremiah. "He watched him get out of a car in front of a bar down there and just go in like he owned the place."

Buchanan stood his ground and tried to make reason of what he was hearing. "Maybe it was the only place around there to get a cold drink? There's spots where it's like that down that way I hear."

"Maybe so," Jeremiah replied, "But after he left and caught a ride back towards Clarksville, Leroy went inside and asked a few questions."

Near breathless, Daniel asked, "What'd he find out?" Jeremiah could hear the boy's hunger to know what life was like in the exotic flatlands to the south.

"That the Reverend Henderson had just finished passing a measure of time with a woman of negotiable virtue."

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