Dirt

Chapter 2

2

 

Sammy dragged Birdie toward the back porch.  He refused to answer her endless questions or talk at all. This upset her all the more. The shock of finding his parents hanging from the barn rafters shook Sammy down to the bone.  It made no sense to him.  Why would they do something like that?  What had he and Birdie done to make them go away like this?  A torrent of questions bubbled up through the pain of losing the only two people in the world who had cared about him and his sister. He sat there on the rickety back steps rocking back and forth. His arms wrapped around his knees. He slowly realized that from this moment forward they were on their own. At thirteen years old, he had become the unintended head of their shrinking family.

“Why are Momma and Daddy up there in the barn?  How come they won’t come down?” Birdie pummeled her brother with questions.  “I want Momma.”

“Birdie, jus’ shut up yer mouth,” he shot back.  “I gotta think and I can’t do that when yer mouth is goin’ all the time.” He wanted quiet so he could think about what he had to do. But in reality, he didn’t want to think at all, he wanted to forget what he saw in the barn. Forget the pieces of conversation he overheard last night. He wanted to go back to the way things were, before the drought and dirt storms had ravaged their land here in Bosen Creek, Oklahoma.

Sammy rested his head on his knees.  His chest rose and fell in deep, haggard breaths.  He stole quick glances at the barn where his parents hung, trying to come to grips with their death.  Death was common on a farm; livestock, pets, and sick old people. Only this was different; his ma and pa weren’t old or sick. Or were they? He would never know. It’s not like he would ever have a way to ask them.

“Sammy...”

“I said, ‘Shut Up.’  They’re not coming down ‘cause they’re dead.  Okay?” Sammy shot a fist toward his sister. “An’ I don’t wanna hear you say nothin’ else.  I gotta make plans.”

She opened, and then closed, her mouth.  Her eyes, round as saucers, glared first at her brother, then toward the barn.  Her shoulders began to shake, her eyes filled with tears.  Her small bowed lips quivered.  Unable to hold the hurt inside any longer, Birdie let out a blood-curdling scream.

Sammy’s arm slid off his knee and his face fell, banging his lip against his knee.  “Damn,” he cried, wiping away the blood from his lip.

“Oh, yer in big trouble.  Yer swearing like old Miz Danner down the road.  Yer gonna get your butt whupped,” Birdie said between sobs.

“Yeah, and who’s gonna whup it?  Ain’t nobody ‘round to do it no how.”

Birdie backed off, scrunching herself up against the corner of the step.  She put her head in her lap and sniffled.

 

The sun reached its mid-day point while they sat there, Birdie, huddled against the step, and Sammy tried not to stare at the barn.  Breakfast, and now lunch, had come and gone.  Neither one of them wanted to move.  A thousand different thoughts raced through Sammy's mind.  As much as he wanted to make them all go away, they kept rushing in, one after the other.  Good memories would flash through his mind only to be buried beneath the vision of his parents swinging from the barn rafters. 

He thought back to last night when his ma came to his bed and lifted the sheet.  She had brushed a wisp of his dark wet hair that was plastered to his face and looked longingly at his young face, just now beginning to show his father’s features.  He had her nose, turned up on the end and her long fingers.  Everything else was pure Hank.  Large, deep brown eyes seemed to hold all the sights of the world in them, a strong chin that jutted out even farther when he let his stubborn streak take control, and his thick dark hair that never would stay where you combed it.  Tall and gangly, he was a handsome boy who one day would be a handsome man; just like his father.

His ma and pa kissed him and left the room.  Before closing the door, she whispered, “I love you, Sammy.”

How could she say she loved him and then go kill herself? He rubbed at the sides of his head. He couldn’t make no sense of it all.

The brown hazy sun sent ribbons of heat waves shimmering across the dry earth. Dead branches of the old Prickley Ashe tree rattled like skeleton’s bones in the wind beating out an eerie cadence to the emotions Sammy fought.

“Come on, Birdie.  We need to get Ma an’ Pa down ’fore someone comes by,” Sammy said.  He rose from the porch step and headed toward the barn.

Birdie shook her head. “I ain’t goin’ in there no more. I don’ wanna see ‘em.”

“Don’t be a big baby,” Sammy yelled back over his shoulder,   as he headed for the barn.

“I ain’t goin’,” she screamed.

“Then don’t.  I reckon I’ll have to do it myself.” Ain’t much she could be doin' anyways, he thought.

Sammy entered the cool interior of the barn and willed himself to look once again at his parents, silently hoping it had only been his imagination and they wouldn’t be there.  Hoping had nothing to do with his life now. As he stood beneath the dangling bodies, Sammy realized that.

He hesitated when he reached the ladder, took a final glance up, and then climbed into the empty hay loft. He pulled out the knife he got for Christmas last year.  The blade, once shiny and new, was crusted with dirt and God knows what else, since he never cleaned it.  As many times as his pa had nagged him about taking care of his things, he was still careless.  He felt bad now for not taking care of it and hoped it would be sharp enough to cut the ropes.  With hesitant steps, Sammy stepped over the two pair of shoes neatly set side by side and approached the rafter where the ropes had been tied.  He tried not to look at the bodies hanging beneath the loft.

Reaching as high as he could, he sawed at the thick rope from which his pa dangled, sending the body back and forth.  A thick swarm of black flies hovered around the body.  Sammy brushed the flies from his face and continued sawing, the rope braid becoming thinner and thinner until the weight of his father’s body broke the last thread.  It plunged to the dirt floor with a loud thud.  Cracking bones echoed in the barn, sending shivers up Sammy's back.

“Sorry, Pa. I jes couldn’t do it no other way.” He wiped away the tear that had escaped from his eye.  He turned away from the rafter from which his ma’s body hung and walked to the back of the loft.  Squatting, he held his head tightly between his knees, grappling with the horrific thought of cutting down  his poor ma.  He rocked and rocked until calm enough to finish the task at hand.

Sammy raised his head, took a deep breath and walked back to the other rope. He made quick work of the job only he could do, sobbing with every stroke of the knife.  As the last thread stretched, Sammy steeled himself and covered his ears, to mute the sound of his mother falling to the ground.  Instead of landing next to his father, she fell across the front of the truck and then slid to the floor.  Sammy’s knees buckled. He slid to the loft floor, heaving large sighs of emotional pain.  He couldn’t look at them, not yet.

The worst part was done. Now, he had to dig the graves and bury his parents.  If only he could get Birdie to keep their secret, it could buy him some time to make plans.  He knew those government folks would come for him and Birdie. He’d seen it happen to other kids whose parents died, ‘cept those parents weren’t stupid enough to kill themselves. No way would he allow the state to take him and his sister, split them up and give them to someone else to care for.  He wouldn’t go, and he wouldn’t let his sister go neither.  Never, for the rest of his life, would he ever understand how his parents could leave them this way.

Sammy stood and made his way across the dusty loft and started down the ladder, averting his eyes from the two bodies on the floor.  He reached the last rung and jumped to the dirt floor.  Skirting the bodies, he ran out of the barn into the fresh air.

Birdie hadn’t moved from her corner of the steps.  From the look of her face, she had been crying the entire time Sammy had been in the barn.  She watched her brother as he scuffed across the hot yard to the miniscule shade of the Prickley Ashe tree. He stood looking out across the fields.

Finally, Sammy returned to his seat on the porch steps, sitting with his back toward the barn.  Ignoring his sister, he tucked his knees up under his chin and rested his head on his knees.  He squeezed his eyes shut as if to block out all he had seen and done.  He knew nothing would ever remove those images that burned behind his eyes, or the sound of the bodies falling.  Sammy thought he was going to heave, not that there would be anything in his stomach to throw up; he hadn’t eaten since last night when his mother had made them a skinny bean sandwich.

“Sammy,” Birdie whispered.

“What?” Sammy said.

“What’re we gonna do?  There ain’t nobody to take care of us now.”  Birdie scooted down the steps to sit beside her brother.  She rested her head against his thin shoulder.

“We ain’t goin’ to no state home.  We’re gonna stay right here.” He tried to assure her.

“But, Sammy, Momma ain’t here to cook fer us and Daddy... well... how we gonna git any food or stuff?” She pulled on his arm to get his attention.  “Huh?”

“I’ll take care of us.  I can work the farm and cook too.  We don’t need nobody to help us.  We’re stayin right here.”

“But, Sammy....”

“Jus’ shut up, Birdie.  I said I’ll take care of us.  But you gotta make me a promise,” he said.

“Sure, Sammy.  Little pinkie promise.” Birdie raised her pinkie finger, having to hold down the others with her other hand.  At seven she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of keeping one finger up with the others curled down.

He gave his sister a squint and a scowl.

“I said I promise,” Birdie whispered, cowering under her older brother’s glare.

“We can’t tell nobody about Ma and Pa being gone.”

Her head jerked up and her eyes opened round. “Why?”

“Cause, stupid, the mean ol' people from the state’ll come and git us.  They’ll take you one place and me to another.  Then, we won’t never see each other again.”

Birdie took a deep breath and shook her head.  Her eyes grew even larger, tears threatening.  “I don’ wanna go to the state.  I don’ want them people to take me away from you.” Now, tears flowed, making new tracks in the dirt on her cheeks.  “I want Momma.”

“Well, you can’t have her.  She done hung herself and Pa, too.  They ain’t never gonna be here no more.” He stood and glared down at his sister.  “Now, promise not to tell.”

“Okay.  Okay.  I promise,” Bride agreed, a frown crossing her face.    “What’re we gonna say if somebody asks?”

“I’ll think of somethin’.  We don’ gotta go to no school now since it closed, so’s nobody’s gonna ask. Jes’ stay at the house and keep your mouth shut.”

Sammy glanced at the barn.  He knew he had to bury his parents before the heat got to them.  He wasn’t looking forward to the job.  He strode to the barn and grabbed the shovel and walked around the yard trying to decide where the best place to dig would be.  He finally chose a spot near the berry bushes his ma had planted.  Not that the bushes would ever grow those sweet berries again.  Dead prickly branches still clung to the weathered boards of the barn.

Each shovel of dirt thrown out was replaced by loose sandy earth sliding back down from the sides.  Digging two graves became as much work as digging four. By the time the holes were dug deep enough, Sammy could barely raise his arms.  He climbed out of the hole and sat on the ground, his back resting against the pile of dry earth piled beside it. 

The sun was sinking behind the hill when he finished shoveling the last dirt on his parent's grave.  He threw the shovel down and stood looking at the lonely mounds beneath the dead berry bushes.  Birdie stood beside him, a pitcher of cold water in her hand.  Sammy reached for the pitcher and drank the cold sweet water until he thought his stomach would explode.

They both stood together for a few moments more.  The wind picked up and gritty dirt stung their faces and arms.  Sammy turned away from the mounds, weary and heartbroken; he walked as if in a daze.

Birdie ran up behind him and pulled on his arm.  “Are we gonna eat supper?” she asked.

Too tired to do much more than grunt, Sammy continued walking toward the house.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Such a horrible ordeal for anyone, but especially for a brother and sister so young. In a situation like this, one hopes and prays they'll at least be watched over by guardian angels. For now, it looks like they only have each other.