Letter to Belinda (48 page)

“No problem,” Cory said. “We should have plenty of time to spare.”

“Yeah, but we need to allow time for a flat tire, or something.”

“My dad has good tires on this truck, and it’s running like a top. What could go wrong? We’ll do fine. Don’t worry. When you start worrying, that’s when you
will
something to happen. Believe me, nothing is going to happen to keep us from getting home on time.”

“Are we getting our food to go?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, that will save time.”

They got their food, then went out and sat on the tailgate to eat most of it before they loaded up to go.

“Chris, are you going to ride up front with us?”

“Nah. I’ll ride in the casket. It’s less cramped.” He climbed in, taking his fries and drink with him. The other three loaded into the cab, and off they went. It was a ten mile ride to West Blocton, even taking the shortcut across Turkey Ridge. It was a less used road, and was full of sharp curves, and steep hills to climb, but it was the shortest rout. Their Dad had once told them, in jest, of course, that the dozer operator who made this road must have been either drunk, or chasing a snake, or both.

As Cory negotiated the curvy road, he took the curves a little fast, and the casket slid from one side of the truck bed to the other. Joey was getting concerned. “Be careful on these curves, Cory. We don’t want to ding up Dad’s casket!”

“The handles on the sides keep it from hitting anything. Trust me! I’m the son of an undertaker. I know these things.”

The steepest hill on the rout lay before them. Cory got up some speed to make the hill, knowing that there was a hair-pin turn at the top of the hill. They braced for the sharp turn, and again the casket banged against the side of the bed.

“Whoa! Enough of that, Cory! Pull over and let me put something on each side of the casket, to pad it from the sides.”

“Hey, you were the one complaining about us not getting back in time.”

Joey jumped out to see about the casket, and returned a couple of seconds later with a shocking report.

“He’s gone! The casket and all is gone!”

“Can’t be!” Cory said. “We just heard it bang the sides.”

“Then it just fell out!”

“
How
did it fall out? That’s what I want to know!” All three of them went to inspect the back of the truck. In the moonlight, they saw the answer to that.

“Calvin, you forgot to close the tailgate!”

“I did not! I remember closing the tailgate!”

“Well, it’s open now!”

“It don’t matter, guys! Let’s just go back and get him!”

“Don’t back up! You might run over him!”

“I’ll get my flashlight.”

With the flashlight, they ran back toward the sharp curve, where they were sure to see the casket lying on the side of the road damaged, and Chris shaken up. They even joked about how funny that must have looked, to see the casket sliding out of the truck. There was certain to be damage to the casket, and they hoped that Chris was okay. But when they got to the curve, they saw nothing.

“Where did he go?”

“He’s got to be right here! We heard the casket bang against the side of the truck, as we turned sharp. He’s got to be here somewhere!”

“Come look at this!” Calvin said. On the very sharpest part of the curve, where the road topped the crest of the ridge, there was fresh dirt sprayed over the grass. The arrival of the flashlight told the whole story.

“Look, the end of the casket hit the ground right here, and slid over the grass, and over the hill! He’s on the other side of the hill!” They stepped over the hump and shined the flashlight down the steep hillside, but still saw nothing.

“Where did he go?”

“See the grass and leaves flattened out? He obviously slid down the hill! Come on, let’s find him!”

“You guys go on. I left the truck running in the middle of the road. I’ll go pull it back to here and park it, then I’ll help you get the casket back up the hill.”

“He couldn’t have gone too far.” Joey said to Calvin, as they followed the flattened foliage down the steep hill. “He had to have hit a tree somewhere along the way.”

“Yeah, and it probably destroyed the casket! Dad’s going to kill us!”

“Let’s not think about that right now. We gotta’ make sure Chris is okay.”

“Look! See where he side-swiped that tree! There’s a piece of trim off the casket.”

“Save it. Maybe we can super-glue it back on.”

“There’s another piece!”

“Save them all.”

“And there’s another piece! I got a feeling there ain’t going to be enough to put back together!”

“Just save them! We’ll figure that out later. CHRIS! CAN YOU HEAR ME!”

“The slide marks keep going down the hill!”

“I can’t believe he slid this far down the hill without catching on something!”

“Chris might be dead!”

“Don’t say that! Just keep walking! He’s got to be down here somewhere!”

“I bet that casket was
moving
on
, by the time it got this far!”

“You know it was!” The boys looked at one another, and burst out laughing. “You know this is going to be one of the funniest things that Chris has ever done!”

“He’ll never be able to live it down!”

“Yeah, we’ll be laughing about this for years, if it didn’t kill him!”

“Look, more pieces of trim.”

“Yeah, and see here? Bronze colored paint on the side of this rock. The casket is going to be totally destroyed by the time we catch up with it!”

“That will be ass whupping number one, with many more to follow.”

The trees were getting thicker, the farther down in the valley they went, and still no casket, but a clear path told them that it had been here. It had bounced off the sides of trees and rocks for what seemed like a quarter mile, before they got to the river valley, where the hillside sloped right down to the river itself. The two boys stopped on the river bank.

“Oh my God! He went into the river and drowned! See the fresh dirt, where he hit the bank?”

“And went right into the river! Yeah, he had to go into the river. Ain’t nowhere else he
could’a
gone!”

“Did he sink?” Calvin asked.

“I’m looking! The water ain’t deep here. See? Nothing on the bottom. If he didn’t sink, then he had to have floated! See anything down-stream?”

“Can’t tell. There’s a bend in the river. If the casket is floating, he probably already went around that bend. Want to follow him on the river bank?”

“No, too many briars and snakes, and besides, the water is too swift. We couldn’t ever catch up with him.”

“Suppose he snags on the bank somewhere along the way? Or suppose the casket leaks and sinks somewhere?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay, you go back up the hill and get with Cory, and go down river with the truck to try to intercept him somewhere. I’ll take this flashlight, and walk the riverbank, in case he snags on something.”

“What’s the nearest place we can drive around and fish him out?”

“Probably the railroad bridge at Piney Creek. But by the time you walk out, and drive around, he probably will be drifted past that point. You and Cory stop and check anywhere along the river you can get to. I’ll follow on this side of the river.”

“Where do we pick you up at?”

“I don’t know. If I don’t see him, I’ll probably walk the river all the way to the Presbyterian Retreat. He’s sure to hang up on something or sink somewhere before he gets that far.”

“Do you think Chris is okay?” Calvin asked.

“How should I know? Either way, we got to find him!”

“What’s our story going to be, in case we see Mom before we see you?”

“Hey, this place is on the way to the Retreat, where we were
supposed
to be going anyway. We tell her that Chris was riding in the casket, because it was cramped in the truck, and somehow, because
somebody
didn’t close the tailgate, he slid out the back, and down the hill, and into the river!”

“I told you, it wasn’t me! I closed the tailgate!”

“But apparently not good enough, and it fell open!”

“But it wasn’t
my
fault that the tailgate latch came open! It’s an old truck! Old things fall apart! Cory was driving like a bat out of hell!”

“Okay, we can blame it on Cory!”

“So we ain’t going to say anything about going to McDonald’s, or Dari-Delite?”

“No, we leave that part out. No sense digging our graves any deeper than we have to. Pass that on to Cory too.”

Calvin paused and looked at Joey. “Mom is going to be pissed about us missing our curfew.”

“Don’t you know it! She’ll be even more pissed if we can’t find Chris. We’ll be grounded until we’re 40!”

*     *     *

When Miranda heard the screech of tires on the highway, and the dull thud, she was just arriving at her house, having walked through the woods in the dark. She could think of only one thing:
I
hope
that
wasn’t
Lennie
that
someone
hit!
She quickly got into her car and drove up the driveway to her mailbox and stopped. She saw a large 4x4 pickup truck with monster wheels, stopped in the middle of the highway, between her driveway and the Judge’s. The headlights were on bright, and two men were standing in the road in front of the truck, looking down at something they had hit. As an almost involuntary response, Miranda found herself running toward them. To herself she was saying:
Let
it
be
a
deer!
Please,
please
don’t
let
it
be
Lennie!
But as she got closer, she saw Lennie’s smashed bike on the far shoulder of the road. She yelled at the men. “You killed him! You ran him down!” The two men turned to see her approaching them, they themselves looking like deer in the headlights.

“It wasn’t my fault!” one of them said. “He rode right out in front of me, and there was nothing I could do!”

“Yeah,” the other guy said. “He tried to avoid hitting him, but the fellow just steered right into him!”

“Oh, I don’t care about that! Is he okay? Is he still alive? Have you called an ambulance?”

“No, I don’t think an ambulance can help him. He was pretty much killed instantly.”

“Let me see him!”

“He’s pretty messed up, Ma-am. You don’t want to see him!”

“Yes I do! I want to see him! Do you have a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“Then call the police!” She brushed past them, dreading what she was going to see, but she had to see it. She saw Lennie lying in an awkward position, with a massive head wound. It looked like he hit the radiator of the truck head-first. “Oh Lennie! No, no, no!” She had to look away.

“Like I said, Ma-am, it wasn’t my fault!”

“Yeah, I’ll testify in court that it wasn’t his fault!”

“I told you, I don’t care about that! He’s dead! What does it matter who’s fault it is!”

“Well I’ve got a few speeding tickets. I don’t want this to get my license pulled.”

“My God! Is that all you’re worried about? This man is dead!”

“Are you related to him, Ma-am?”

“No, but I know who he is. He’s a retarded man who lives down the road. He rides his bike all the time. Now call the police!”

“Yes Ma-am!”

The two men walked away from the scene, as one of them made the call. Miranda was crying uncontrollably. She couldn’t believe he was gone, just that quickly. She had just been talking to him, and now he was gone!

But then a thought occurred to her.
This
was
perfect!
Now
he
can’t
mess
things
up
by
talking
to
the
police!
It was a hard thing to admit, but this was probably the best thing that could have happened, from her perspective. She felt in her pocket. She still had the Judge’s wallet. Why not take this a step farther, while she had the opportunity?

She turned and saw that the two men were facing the other way, one talking on the phone, and the other was watching him with interest. Neither of them was looking her way. She quickly squatted down, and slipped the Judge’s wallet out of her pocket, and into Lennie’s right front pocket, then stood up again. Good, they were still looking the other way, and had not seen her little ‘deed’. She was still standing near the body when they walked back her way.

“The police are on the way.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Were you a friend of his?”

“No, not really. I just knew of him. But I can’t believe that he’s dead! I just saw him earlier today, riding his bike!”

“Well, he shouldn’t have been out riding after dark! I couldn’t see him until it was too late!”

“I saw him come out of that driveway up there, and down the side of the road, but as I got close to him, he just turned right into me! I tried to swerve away, but I didn’t have time!”

“Yeah,” the other guy said. “It was almost like he
wanted
us to hit him!”

“Wait! What you are saying, is that he committed suicide? Is that what you are trying to say?”

“Well, no. I’m sure he didn’t, but I swear, it sure looked like it! I mean, he was smiling, and looking right at us, right up till he hit us! He put his head down, like he was gonna’ head-butt us!”

“Surely not,” Miranda said, but she had to wonder if it was true. She thought back to just a few minutes ago. What was the last thing Lennie said before he rode away on his bike?
‘I
love
you,
Miranda’.
That was the first time he had ever said that to her. That, together with some of the
other
things she had said to him, about sending him away, so he couldn’t mess things up. Lennie could have taken that to mean that she didn’t want him around any more. And if he could have read her thoughts, he would surely have thought that she wanted him to die and end her problems.
Surely
he
couldn’t
read
my
mind!
But
he
was
pretty
good
at
reading
between
the
lines.
Yes,
he
probably
knew
that
he
could
best
help
me
by
dying.
And
Lennie
already
said
he
wanted
to
help
me!
He
might
have
helped
me,
by
steering
headlong
into
this
truck.
He
knew
he
was
dying
anyway,
and
he
wasn’t
afraid
of
death.
Oh
my
God!
He
actually
did
it!
He
committed
suicide,
because
he
thought
it
would
help
me!