The Last Child

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Johnny dug in the dirt. He felt his stitches pull, but he ignored the pain. He was doing this for a reason. He told himself that. Repeated it. Levi Freemantle sat slack-lipped, with one hand spread on the raw pine coffin, his eyes intent on Johnny, and on every scoop of dirt that came out of the ground. He nodded as the boy struck a rock, then pried it out and heaved it up.

“Thank you.”

Johnny barely heard it, but that didn’t matter. He’d heard it twenty times already, small offerings that came as he worked. He nodded and dug. The sun beat down as thunderclouds stacked up in the south. Johnny looked at Jack and offered the shovel. “You want to take a turn?”

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

For ten minutes Jack had stood with the gun raised. When he finally lowered it, only Johnny noticed. Now Jack sat on the stone wall, gun in his lap. He swatted mosquitoes and looked bored.

In a way, Johnny was glad that Jack refused to dig. Johnny knew nothing about Levi Freemantle, not why he was there or how his daughter had died, but he understood the man’s loss in a way that Jack never could.

So he dug and he hurt. He thought about the things that David Wilson said at the bridge: I found her. The girl that was taken. Johnny had run in panic and blind fear before Wilson could tell him what he meant. But Freemantle had come after. Johnny eyed the big man, shovel falling, then coming up heavy.

He’d come after.

If Freemantle found David Wilson alive, then maybe Wilson told him where he’d found the girl. Maybe Freemantle knew.

Johnny tossed out dirt, and Freemantle dipped his head.

Maybe.

Johnny heard the word as he dug.

Maybe.

After more than an hour, two crows landed on a low branch of the oak tree that stood at the center of the cemetery. Johnny only noticed because Freemantle went still, then leaned across the coffin. He stared at the black birds, fear and hate on his face. One bird dropped to a headstone, a black knot that threw out its wings at the last moment. It cocked its head at the coffin, then lifted oiled feathers as it preened. Suddenly, Freemantle was on his feet. He charged the bird, stumbling, screaming. Jack twitched and the gun came up.

There were words in the scream, Johnny was certain, but there was no understanding them. The bird flapped to another tree, and Freemantle returned to the place he’d been sitting. He stared long at the bird, then closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross.

Johnny looked at Jack, who shook his head, white-faced, and held on to the gun like grim death.

Two more crows landed in the trees, then another three. Johnny returned to work and the minutes stretched as a wind kicked up. The soil was loose and easy to dig, but Johnny dug deep. He ignored the pain in his hands, the greasy, peeled skin that oozed clear, sweet-smelling liquid. He ignored his back, the pull on his stitches, the sweat that stung his eyes. He had all day to get what he wanted, so he planned it out, the best approach, the questions he would ask once the big man’s child was in the ground.

Johnny glanced at Freemantle.

The blade bit.

He shoveled hot, sandy earth as storm clouds massed over crow-flecked trees.

When Johnny climbed from the hole, the sun was dim behind the storm’s leading edge. Treetops thrashed. An ozone smell hung in the air. “It’s coming,” Jack said.

The hole was not as deep as it might be, but it was the right size, the right shape. “That’s all I’ve got,” Johnny said. “All I can do.”

“I have rope.” Freemantle gestured at the coffin.

“All right.”

They moved the coffin to the edge of the grave. Once there, they slipped rope through the small metal handles and worked the coffin down. It looked pitiful in the raw, rough hole. The ropes came out with a rasping sound, and Freemantle folded them together, big hands deft but slow. “I’d like to do this last part by myself.” He ducked his head. “Barn’s dry if you want to lay up.” Freemantle looked at the compressed, purple sky, the leaves gone silver. “She never did like storms.” He turned back, lifted the shovel and a yellow light pulsed in the belly of the clouds.

“Lightning,” Johnny said.

But the big man did not hurry. He dropped a handful of earth into the grave. Leaves clattered in the wind. “Lightning falls.” He dropped more earth on his daughter’s coffin. The wind grew. Jack was already through the gate, but Johnny had no desire to follow. Freemantle stared down at the coffin, unmoving. “God sounds like my daddy.”

“Is that right?”

Freemantle nodded. “Not like the other voice.”

“Other voice?”

“Like chocolate gone soft in the sun. Sticky sweet. Hard to swallow away.” He looked up at the storm. “I hear him when the crows come close.”

Freemantle hefted a stone and threw it at a group of crows in the low branches of the oak tree. He came close, then paused for a long time, and Johnny didn’t push him. The man was crazy insane. Johnny looked for Jack, but Jack was gone. “I’m scared of lightning,” Freemantle said. He raised his face to the storm but did not appear frightened, in spite of what he’d said. “God won’t talk to me anymore.”

The grief was tangible. The loss.

“Here. Wait.” Johnny took the shovel from Freemantle and stepped to the oak tree. The crows called raucously, then flew off, and Johnny used the shovel blade to gouge a circle in the bark. “That’s supposed to protect you from lightning. Only on oak trees, though. It won’t make a difference on any other kind of tree.”

The big man stood, solemn and tense, good eye moving from the scarred bark to the boy. “Black magic.”

“No.”

“Says who?”

“The Celts. They’re dead now. A long time dead.”

“How you know it works if all them Celts is dead?”

“I read it somewhere. It’s not important.”

Freemantle shook his head, doubt all over his tortured face. “Lightning falls,” he said again. “All you can do is pray God it don’t fall on you.” He faced the mound of fresh-dug earth. “She should have words as the dirt goes in.” He turned, face full of hope and inexplicable trust. “Do you have a Bible?”

“I don’t.” Suddenly, Johnny was embarrassed. “But I know some words.” Johnny saw no reason to share his own beliefs on the matter, not here with this strange man and his fear of crows and lightning and voices like sugar. “I’ll say them for you.”

A burst of rain hissed in the treetops. Freemantle’s face twisted in relief as Johnny stepped closer and felt the man’s great height beside him. The scars were puckered and gray, the bad eye iridescent when the yellow light burst. Johnny thought back to long nights reading the Bible, to hours of his mother’s fevered prayer and his own search for meaning. For a long moment, his mind was blank, then he said the only words he could remember. “Our Father who art in heaven…”

Cold rain fell hard.

“… hallowed be thy name.”

Levi Freemantle wept as he buried his daughter.

Johnny stood in the rain and waited for lightning to fall.