The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,92

up into Henry’s eyes as the body raked the sides of the hole, making them water even more. It was just as well that he couldn’t see. He might have wondered why old Elmer hadn’t settled as flat as he should have in his earthly resting place. The portly paunch of Reverend Randall Ward Howe was a hard hump upon which to rest. But it was of little importance in the scheme of the living still left on earth. Henry bent down, picked up the shovel, and started to scoop as the preacher began to speak.

“All in all, a man’s time on earth is short,” Eulis began.

Henry paused in the midst of his third shovel full of dirt and nodded in satisfaction. The words were big and deep, just like he’d expected to hear from a ‘real’ man of the cloth. Old Elmer would be proud to know that he’d kept his word.

Anxious that the funeral not become a public scene, Eulis felt the need to hurry. Someone might actually wonder why it was that the bereaved was doing his own burying when it was the place of the gravedigger, namely himself, who usually did the honors.

“Therefore it is only fitting that a man’s burying should also be the same. Ashes to ashes and uh… dirt to dirt.”

“Dust,” Letty hissed, and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “It’s dust to dust.”

Eulis nodded. “So it is, little lady. So it is. It’s mighty dusty out here, at that.” And he proceeded to repeat the Twenty-third Psalm. It was the only thing out of the bible that he knew by heart.

Letty sobbed.

Henry gave the woman a kindly look. It was a nice touch to the solemnity of the situation. It was right nice of her to shed a few tears for a man she’d known only briefly in her bed.

Little did he know that she was shedding tears for her own deeds. The body lying beneath Parson Sutter would be forever hidden from the eyes of man, but it wasn’t them she was worried about. It was God. He saw everything and knew everything. And He knew that Leticia Murphy had been mad at Him for some time now, and after the incident with the preacher, had committed a grievous sin. It was for herself that she cried the most.

Within the hour, it was over. Eulis and Letty stood silent witnesses to the last thump of the shovel upon the hand-carved cross that Henry Wainwright planted at the head of the grave. Or maybe it was at the foot. After the bear and the time that had passed, it had been hard to decide which was heads and which was tails of what was left of old Elmer.

“There now. It’s done,” Henry said, and shoved the shovel into the ground for the next grave that would be dug.

He took off his hat, revealing a rim of yellow-white hair and a shiny spot of skin at the crown of his head that was encrusted with an accumulation of grime and scars.

“Elmer Sutter… you’ve been a good and true partner. I might even find myself missin’ your damned preachin’.” He sniffed and swiped at the tears and snot running down his lip. “Rest easy old pard. I reckon I’ll be seein’ you soon enough as it is.”

This time, Letty cried for the man who’d died, and not the one she’d killed. Even Eulis was hard-pressed to keep a straight face. When he died, he doubted a single man—or woman—would shed tears over his body. It was a soul-searching thought and one on which to end the occasion.

“Well now,” Eulis said, thumping the old trapper on the back. “It seems you’ve been a true friend to this man. Giving him a proper burial was a fine thing to do.”

“Oh hell,” Henry said, as he turned to catch his horse’s reins. “I didn’t bring him all this way just for a funeral. I brought him so that a real preacher could say the right words over his body. It’s what he always wanted. Now he can rest easy in heaven.”

With that, Henry Wainwright mounted and rode off. West out of Lizard Flats. Back toward the Rockies and his untended traps. He just hoped to hell that when he got there, the danged Indians hadn’t made off with them all.

Eulis couldn’t look at Letty, and Letty couldn’t find the words to say to make it right. Because of their deception, a man’s dying