Moe said, “He’s dead, ain’t he.”
The man sounded like he wanted it so. But wait. Dead? He wasn’t dead, was he? He could see everything, yet he felt nothing. He heard the distant call of Pap’s voice, years gone now, saying his name. How was this possible? Without warning, he was filled with a strong urge to separate himself from this experience, refusing to accept this outcome, his will so compelling it swept over him like the grain, and then it was corn all around him again. He felt himself moving, sliding, the sensation like falling backward. Crushing pain came, blossomed, and something akin to a lightning strike blinded his view of what he’d seen.
Del gagged, choked, and flopped onto his belly. He threw up. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw brilliant green stripes. He shut them, opened them again, and blades of grass came into focus. He rolled over and stared into the troubled faces of Woot and Hicky, gaping at him in openmouthed surprise. He felt like he’d been beaten, his body aching all over.
Hicky said, “Hey. Kin you hear me?”
Moe still puffing his cigar, said, “Thought sure you was a goner.”
Del felt certain he was disappointed. He coughed some more, trying to rid himself of what he’d breathed in. He sat up, noticed his arms covered with the shapes of kernels dimpling the skin. He lifted his shirt, and his chest was worse, with bruising along his ribs. His legs felt numb, so he flexed them and rotated his feet on his ankles. They felt swollen, and looked it. He was wrung out, like he’d been working all day.
Woot said, “I ain’t ever known nobody who come out of one a them after being buried and live to tell it.”
Hicky said, “I ain’t either. This here’s one lucky son of a gun. God done laid His very hand on him.”
Del hacked up phlegm, spit it out, and whispered, “Water.”
Woot got a canvas bag from the truck and gave it to Del, who tipped it up, gulped it down.
Del wiped his mouth and said, “Where’s the other guy?”
Woot and Hicky gave each other a look and said, “Who? Tyndall?”
Del said, “Don’t know his name. There was a man shoveling. On the other side.”
Moe said, “How you know that?”
“I seen him.”
The three men digested this, then Hicky said, “When you come out a the bin, he went on back to work. But hell, that was ten minutes ago. You was still out.”
Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Del was remembering what he’d seen. It was etched in his mind the way the grain pitted his skin. Those marks would fade, but he couldn’t forget what happened. It was too bizarre. The other men watched him, their expressions wary.
Del stared at Moe and said, “You had’em open the door.”
Moe said, “Hell, what do you know about any of it?”
“Hicky here, he was banging on my chest.”
Woot said, “He’s talking crazy now. How’s he know that?”
Hicky said, “Hell if I know.”
Even Moe got to acting a touch nervous. The other two men backed away, retrieved their shovels, appeared ready to get back to work again, or maybe they only wanted to get away from him. Del continued to sit on the ground, thinking about what had transpired. Moe finished his cigar and dropped it in the dirt.
He apparently had recovered from his initial surprise, and said, “Well? You gonna sit there all day or what? I ain’t paying you for that.”
Del stood, wobbly kneed, but he was upright, and he was alive.
He said, “Well. Reckon I’ll get back to it. Grain’s loose now.”
He slapped his hat against his thighs to knock off the dust and plopped it on his head. He winked at Woot and Hicky, who were still spooked, their wide-eyed expressions following him as he limped over to the pile of corn, his feet still feeling half numb and swollen. He went in search of the shovel he’d had. He found it buried in the middle, close to where the bin spit him out. He began to shovel corn again, and when Moe lumbered off, he stopped long enough to watch him go. He’d bet a dollar the man would come up with something else. Woot started asking him questions again.
Woot said, “Tell me again, what you seen exactly?”
Del leaned on his shovel and closed his eyes.
He said, “I saw the other man come running up, open the door on the opposite side, and he started shoveling corn. He had on a blue shirt.”
Hicky chimed in and said, “And you seen us too?”
Del concentrated on the images in his head. The incident had all the makings of a dream about to slip away.
“Yes.”
Hicky said, “Don’t see how it’s possible. You was buried, man!”
Woot said, “What else?”
Del said, “Moe didn’t do nothing except puff on his cigar. Hicky, you said, ‘Hey! Hey, man!’ just like what you said after I come to. And you was beating on my chest.”
Woot said, “Huh.”
Hicky said, “Dang. I ain’t ever heard a such.”
Woot said, “My granny said her uncle got sick, and he died. Then, law, she said he come to right ’fore they was ready to start laying him out. Told everybody he’d seen family members who’d passed years before standing right next to his bed.”
The men shoveled a while without talking and when the silence broke again, it was about something new, not about Del.
Woot caught his interest when he said, “My brother wrote me, said there’s work to be had in some a them turpentine camps. Mentioned one called Swallow Hill somewheres east of Valdosta.”
Hicky said, “Them camps is all over here and Floridy. Hoowee. Now that’s a rough life.”
“Can’t be no worse’n working for Moe, ain’t it right, Del?”
Del said, “Wonder if they’re hiring?”
Woot said, “Could be. You done turpentine work, have you?”
Del had. Actually, his family had been turpentiners starting with his granddaddy, then his pap.
He said, “Some,” then he got quiet.
He felt dizzy, sort a strange, and his mind was on Moe. He didn’t trust the man not to try again. By the end of the day, the last bin was emptied, and Moe had returned, gnawing on a fried pork chop.
He inspected what had been done, pointed at Del, and said, “Tomorrow, we’re gonna bring in some field corn. I want you back inside these bins here, ever one of ’em, and make sure they’s ready. Clean’em out good, then we fill’em again. Maybe this’ll be your reg’lar job. What’choo think about that?”
Del made a gesture like he didn’t care.
Moe said, “All right. Quitting time.”
Del went back to his shack and laid on the bed knowing he wouldn’t ever go back inside a bin. He didn’t like to hightail it and run. It made him look bad, like he was weak, scared, or plain worthless. These days, a man’s name and his reputation were all one had, and the most one could hope to keep, but he determined the best thing for him to do would be to slip away in the dark. Who cared what Moe Sutton or any of the rest thought of him?
Night came, a black blanket pulled up and over the landscape, and that’s when he gathered what little he had. The extra pants and shirt. He didn’t have any more beans or Vienna sausages, but he had leftover corn bread. He wrapped it in some brown paper he had and tucked it in a tin bucket he’d saved from one of the farms he’d been on. He looped the handle of the bucket through his belt so he wouldn’t have to carry it while wishing he had a water bag, like Woot’s, but wishing got him nothing. He patted his shirt pocket, made sure he had Melody, grabbed his shotgun from over the door, and worked his arm through the leather sling.