“By the way,” she says. “I got a call from Arthur Pine this morning.”
“What did he want?”
“He said he had a check for me. An insurance policy I knew nothing about.”
“Huh. That’s weird.”
“I thought so, too. Because it was a big one.” She gives me a knowing look, then stands on tiptoe and kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”
After Quinn moves on, we choose a vantage point on some elevated ground across the lane, where we can see the faces of the mourners nearest the grave. Through the crowd I pick out an old-school campaign hat resting on Buck’s coffin lid. A fitting tribute to his lifelong avocation. A loud hum rises from the crowd, as people who haven’t seen each other for years greet friends and reminisce. But as a bank of clouds obscures the sun, they slowly fall silent. Soon not a sound can be heard from the mourners. Each is reliving moments he shared with Buck Ferris. It’s strange to hear no words spoken over the grave, no hymn or even pop tune sung with heartbreaking sincerity. As I wonder how this unusual gathering will end, a strange sound rolls over the ground, reverberating off the gravestones.
“What’s that?” Mom asks, looking around in confusion.
“A drum, I think.”
Half a minute later, a column of Indians wearing ceremonial shirts adorned with colorful ribbons marches over the hill behind the gravesite, a solemn file of men and women. It’s been three decades since I attended one of the powwows Buck managed at the Indian Village, but I still recognize members of at least half a dozen tribes. Some wear their black hair long, others short. And while many have the pure blood of the first Americans to walk this ground beside the river, others have intermarried with whites and look like working-class people from any Southern town.
“I bet this is the first time this cemetery’s seen a sendoff like this one,” I say softly.
“It’s not bagpipes playing ‘Amazing Grace,’” Mom observes. “But it sure inspires respect and reflection.”
As we watch in fascination, the Indians form a circle near the grave, the hide drum at the center, and eight of them begin striking it together. Then their voices rise in song.
Mom looks back at Nadine and me. “When Duncan and I first married, he came to the Episcopal church with me. We went to the adult Sunday school. The topic of discussion that day was whether or not Buddhists and Hindus could get into heaven. Can you imagine? That was the last time Duncan darkened the door of that church. I stopped going myself. Being with your father made me see the silliness of all that. The arrogance of it. Oh, Duncan would have loved this.”
I remember Dad sitting with me in the car yesterday, beside Adam’s statue, asking me to cast his ashes into the river. “I think you’re right.”
After the drum falls silent and the singing fades, a group of men lowers Buck’s simple wooden coffin into the grave, and the Indians begin covering it with earth. As the shovels work steadily, I notice Jet making her way through the crowd. She’s wearing a black dress and onyx earrings, and her height and dark skin make her easy to follow. I hadn’t realized she was here. Once I’m sure she’s moving toward me, I excuse myself and signal her to meet me at a tree that will give us some cover from the crowd, so as not to appear disrespectful.
“Are you by yourself?” I ask as she reaches the tree.
“Kevin’s home with Paul. Sally’s service is tomorrow. I think one funeral is enough for Kevin right now.”
“Sure.”
She hesitates, then gives me an unguarded look. “A lot happened last night. Some things need explaining. Could you meet me at the barn today? Four thirty?”
“The Weldon barn?”
She nods. “Too soon?”
“No, I can make that.”
Jet smiles with gratitude, but then her face darkens. “How’s Nadine doing?”
I’m not sure how honest to be about this. “She’s all right.”
She nods but says nothing further. “Four thirty, then.”
“Four thirty.”
We part without touching.
Despite the Flex’s low ground clearance and the path being thickly overgrown by weeds, I make it all the way to the clearing around the Weldon barn. Jet is already there, waiting in front of her Volvo. She’s wearing the black dress from the funeral, and staring at the remains of the old cypress structure. The barn where she and I discovered each other has mostly collapsed. It’s being slowly consumed by kudzu and poison ivy. The second story sits only four feet off the ground and looks like rattlesnake heaven. I wouldn’t climb up into it unless I was running for my life.
While the barn itself has fallen in, the clearing looks exactly the same. The sun filters down through the canopy in thick yellow shafts, the only straight lines and angles the first people in this region would have seen. Lone wildflowers blossom in the shadows of the woods. I don’t know their names, but they’re more beautiful than any you’d find in the florist’s shop on Rembert Street. I see fewer and fewer butterflies in the world, but they still thrive here, fluttering among the vines at the edge of the clearing.
I park beside Jet’s Volvo, then walk over and hug her. After the cemetery, I worried that this might feel awkward, but here it seems natural. We hold each other for a full minute without speaking. We do not kiss. I feel myself responding to her body, and she must feel it, too, but we draw apart without going further. Then she leads me to the edge of the sunlight and sits in a patch of clover, tucking her legs demurely beneath her. I sit facing her with my arms around my knees.
“Do you remember the old black man who saved us from the druggies that day?” she asks.
“Hell, yes. It was night, really.”
“What was his name?”
“Willis.”
She laughs. “That’s right! He said my twelve dollars would feed him for a week. I hope it did. If I could find him now, I’d give him twelve hundred.”
She picks a white flower from the clover, then another. With delicate, assured fingers she ties one green stem around another with a tiny knot, beginning a necklace.
“What did you guys tell Kevin about Max?” I ask, stepping right into the unspoken issues between us.
Jet doesn’t look up. “We told him Beau Holland got his grandfather tangled up in some serious financial crimes. We said that Max thought Beau had been murdered by some crooked partners, and he felt his only choice was to flee the country. I tried to give him the impression that Max is living on a beach somewhere, drinking tequila under another name. Costa Rica, maybe. I did tell him that I doubted we’d ever see his grandfather again.”
“Did Kevin ever believe that Max hurt Sally?”
“I don’t think so. Once news of her illness got out, he latched on to that as a legitimate motive for suicide.”
I nod, thinking that’s probably best.
“Last night was pretty crazy,” she says, picking another flower and going to work on its stem with deft finger movements.
“That barely begins to describe it. I’d say the credit for saving us goes to you. You were ferocious. You scared those old guys to death.”
She shrugs. “We all did our part.”
“You made it sound like you and Paul are staying together.”