Chapter 15: Jonathon
It’s hard to leave the girls. I already feel some sense of responsibility for the twins, a need to protect them. Plus, they are one of the few elements of my life that might make me smile anymore. Jo and I have gotten along well these past few days, but once things return to any sense of normalcy our problems will return. The door subtly creaks behind me as I pull it shut, and the storm door slams against the frame as I walk to the car. With a turn of the key, the SUV comes to life and drifts forward from my prompting. Maybe the long drive will give me time to understand why I feel so compelled to bury this ranger.
With nobody else in the car, I’m a little less careful with the drive. It feels good to take the turns a few miles an hour faster than I should: like an amusement park ride. I give the steering wheel a particularly aggressive twist to the left, and the car turns just barely faster than traction should allow. The extra floating dust in my rear-view mirrors confirms the fishtail.
Alright, that’s enough goofing off. I need to remain in the right mindset if I’m going to keep everyone safe. No mess-ups. Not now, when there is no telling what the consequences could be. My driving becomes immediately smoother.
As the road flies below me, I turn my attention back to the ranger. I had originally felt a sense of duty or something to this man who had given us supplies that may save our lives as we get used to “living off of the land.” The more I think about it, the more I realize that it must be more than gratitude. I understand why I couldn’t explain it to Jo yesterday; I can’t even explain it to myself.
Maybe since I can't bury my father...
I glance at the radio several times and begin to seek through the stations. Each one is in static. We really are secluded here in the woods. Or maybe they stopped broadcasting. Who would be broadcasting anymore anyway?
The road is becoming less dusty, and I can see pavement up ahead. The ranger's station should be just over this hill. The sun is well into the sky now, and although the warmth is currently pleasing, it might get annoying when I’m trying to dig a grave. Is six feet a requirement or a suggestion? I don’t have a clue. It doesn’t really matter how deep it is. The grave will be up to my chest. That'll work.
The station is quiet. Undoubtedly much like the rest of campground: an odd sense of stillness. I throw the transmission into park and kill the engine. As I open the door, I hear the sound of birds chirping in the treetops. What would normally have been a serene string of tweeting was unsettling as it was at odds with the rest of the eeriness of the place. I shake my head to get focused. I need a shovel, and I need to find a place to dig.
Both present themselves immediately. On the side of the station, there is an array of tools hanging from a row of nails embedded in the trailer’s outside wall. Spades, shovels, rakes, hoes, hand tillers, and even a pitchfork are hung in no immediately apparent particular order. Wait...
Alphabetical? I muse, seeing that the cultivator is first and the watering pot is last. I continue, seeing that a compound bow and quiver is just a few nails to the left of the watering pot. An odd thing to just have lying around. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve shot, but you don’t lose something like that very quickly. Archery is more like riding a bike than swinging a golf club. I joined the school's club the past year and was a pretty good shot. I was saving up to by a bow this year. Looks like I will take this one for free.
Again, I need to focus. The place to dig the grave is clear as well. Behind the trailer are two wooden crosses sticking out of the ground. One has a small mound in front of it. The other is at the head of undisturbed soil. A chill shoots through my spine as I consider what it must have felt like for the ranger to lash a cross and hope that it would be over his final resting place.
I make my way into the trailer. The ranger lies on the couch, undisturbed. Only a few flies have found their way into the trailer, and they don’t appear to have decided where they want to land. I stop to observe the situation. Wrapped entirely in the blanket, he is just as easy to lift today as he was last night. I navigate carefully out the front door, around the trailer, and I lay him a few feet away from what will be his grave.
I reposition the ranger beside the cross marked patch of dirt and mark the edges of the grave. After hanging the spade back on the wall and trading it for a long, wide shovel, I come back to study the ground.
“Here goes,” I say, exhaling heavily through the words.
I was right about the sun. A few dozen shovel-fulls in and I feel the unrelenting heat saturating my back. It was unusually hot for this time of year. All those bodies in the streets – the parking garage, I can only imagine the reek that surrounds them now. Again, I am thankful for getting out of the city.
Time and time again, I stand, empty the shovel, and squat back down for another. Time goes by slowly, but eventually I can tell that the sun is no longer rising higher into the sky. At about the same moment, I start to measure the depth by leaning up against the hole's walls. The hole is a bowl at the moment, so soon I can just work on leveling out the bottom. I set down the shovel to look at my hands. They are sore and blistered in a few areas. My arms ache.
I need to know what time it is and give my hands a break; I don't want to get back to the cabin too late in the day. A quarter-turn of the keys in the ignition of the car shows that it’s still only one o’clock. Good; I have plenty of time.
I finish the grave rather quickly now and work through the pain each fling of the shovel delivers. I stand up against the wall to check. It comes right up to my chest. I hoist myself out and lay the ranger’s body next to the grave. After lowering myself back in, I pull the ranger off of the ground and lay him gently on the bottom.
Refilling the grave takes half the time of actually digging it. As I finish the mound, I consider making some parting remarks. There are only a few shovel-fulls left.
“Thank you, sir,” I begin, weakly. I empty the shovel onto the mound two more times. “You gave us some more time to get on our feet.” The last bits of dirt fall from the shovel’s edge. “Hopefully we’ll be ready by the time it runs out,” I say, more to myself than to him.
I’m glad I came back. Something about fulfilling this man’s final wishes gives me a sense of belonging here. There are no adults left to do adult’s work. I may be about as old as it gets, now. Although that thought is intimidating, I feel a kernel of confidence sprout in my mind that says if anyone can handle this situation now, it’s me.
I exhale as if the job is finished, but before I can look away, my thoughts return to my father. Paralyzed, I realize that I’ll never have the opportunity to recover his respect, if that was even possible.
“I swear, father.” I whisper while staring at the cross on the grave. “ I swear that I won’t.” I mean it. Whatever it takes. A few moments go by before I relax my grip on the shovel and use my dirty hands to wipe away the tears building in the corner of my eye.
I finished burying my father.
I turn my head toward the tool wall, and after a momentary pause, I collect its contents and pile them in the folded down back seat of the white SUV, including the bow and quiver full of white-finned red arrows. A wooden stop sign about 20 yards into the campground catches my eye. My hand grabs the bow.
I hope you were right about these woods ranger. remembering his note, and the reference to game. I hope the archery club at school taught me enough to do something about it. Despite the pain in my arms and the quarter sized blisters on my hands, I pull back on the string and notch an arrow. My split-finger hold grabs the arrow I take a squared stance, just like I was taught. My arm raises the weapon.
The pain from digging is gone for a single moment, and all I feel is the tension in my leading hand and a focused stillness as I release the arrow.