It was hard
work digging through roots and Georgia’s
hard clay. When they finally pushed the body
towards the deeper side, Eli wondered
if that was enough.
“No,” Vernon said, the body still stuck
up on one side. “We gotta fit him in and cover him up good
or we won’t get paid.”
Eli spit a mouthful of dirt. “Why’s Georgia
dirt get so hard in the sun?”
“Iron,” Vernon said. “Georgia soil’s gotta
lotta iron in it. That’s what makes it so hard.” He always
felt proud when he had an answer to one of Eli’s stupid ass
questions. “That’s why it’s so red. The iron rusts when it
mixes with rain.” He paused to let Eli appreciate his smarts. “I
sure like the way these woods smell in the rain.”
“Yeah. Me, too. Remember how when we was
kids we’d run through the wet woods nekkid? Give Mama a fit.”
They continued digging. It was noon and
the sun took no pity on them. Their T-shirts stuck to their
bodies; their jeans looked like they’d have to be scraped off.
An hour later they had dug The Fat Man’s
grave almost four feet deep. There was still a little hump
along the middle of the hole, but the brothers decided it would
do. They laid out The Fat Man’s body until he looked almost
comfortable and began shoveling dirt and leaves over him. A
mound formed by The Fat Man’s belly remained visible, but they
covered the hole with more leaves until the mound evened out.
“You think we should say a prayer
or something, Vern?”
Eli was back with his damned questions. “Wouldn’t
do no good,” Vernon said after a few seconds. “Only prayer
I know is ‘Now-I-Lay-Me-Down-to-Sleep.’ I reckon it’s
too late for that one.”
“Vern,” Eli had on his serious face,
the one where his forehead wrinkled and his eyebrows
met. “Are we bad people for doing this?”
Vernon answered immediately. “No,
sir. The man deserves a grave, don’t he? We’re giving
it to him. We didn’t kill him. Now, that’d be wrong.
We just doing a honest day’s work for a honest day’s
pay, just like Mama always says.” He leaned on his shovel. “When
we get the money, we’ll give her some and she’ll give
part of it to Reverend Atwater. So the way I see it,
we doing God’s work.”
Proud of himself, Vernon topped
off the grave with more leaves and tree branches. “I
reckon this here’s as fine a grave as The Fat Man deserves.”
The two brothers stepped back to
admire their work, threw their shovels into the back
of their car and drove off to collect their pay.
#
In less than two hours, a pack
of dogs happened on the shallow grave and uncovered most
of the body. Soon after that, a young couple driving
down the deserted dirt road searching for wild blackberries
saw the mangled corpse and called 9-1-1 on their cellphone.
An hour later, Sheriff Erskine Calloway identified what
was left of the body as Horace Latimer, aka The Fat Man,
a local loan shark. He specialized in loans of twenty
to one hundred dollars to illegals and gamblers, often
demanding twice that if the loan wasn’t repaid within
twenty-four hours.
“At least we won’t have a problem
finding folks who wanted to kill him,” the sheriff told
his deputy. He sniffed at the body like a bitch in heat. “Sure
is getting ripe out here in the sun. Don’t reckon he’s
been dead too long, though. Can’t see no gunshot or stab
wounds, but it’s hard to tell with all these dog bites.
The man’s so fat he just might have ate himself to death.
But I doubt seriously he buried his damn self.” Sheriff
Calloway looked at his deputy who was writing furiously
in his ever-present notebook. “You getting all this down,
son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We won’t know nothing for sure
till Doc Robbins has himself a look-see. Probably won’t
know much then, if Doc already drank his lunch.” He turned
to his deputy. “It sure ain’t like that CSI on television.”
#
