Roby read the names on the other tombstones that dotted the stretch of grass. Diane Kelly Ridgehorn, Julia Anne Ridgehorn, Thomas Ridgehorn, Wilbur Derek Ridgehorn, Maude Davis Ridgehorn, others with letters too worn to make out. A dozen dead folks, at least three generations.
Roby wondered who’d baked their pies.
He had no doubt that Johnny Divine had been around for all of them, and that the garage at the end of the world worked just as well by being a train station or a stagecoach stop or a ferry pier. Crossing places, that’s what they were. The mode of transportation didn’t matter, only the route.
And what about the conductors who guided the dead along the way? The people like Roby and Beverly Parsons and Barnaby Clawson? What happened to them? Did they get to take that same road to Judgment that they’d help others find?
Or did they walk a different path?
Roby shook the dread from his thoughts and focused on Barnaby’s prayer. Barnaby had said 'Amen,' and the family echoed the hollow word, each in a different rhythm and tone.
'Amen,' Roby said.
'Bye, Jacob,' the widow said. She tensed, and for a moment Roby thought she was going to throw herself onto the casket, the way they did in movies. Then she smiled, rubbed her lips, and turned away. The hearse, oversize and out of place with its polished chrome and tinted windows, blocked her way to the other vehicles. She stumbled over a stone and nearly fell.
Alfred moved over to the widow and put his arm around her, leading her to Marlene’s sedan. Marlene got behind the wheel, and Sarah and Cindy Parsons got in the back seat. Buck and Harold climbed into Buck’s pick-up. Alfred walked back to the grave site as the two vehicles drove off. Barnaby had loaded the flowers into the hearse and was shutting the rear door.
'I’ll put the flowers back when the dirt’s smoothed and the headstone’s placed,' Barnaby told Alfred.
'Funny, ain’t it? Daddy always said he’d rather die than plant flowers where vegetables ought to grow.'
'Your daddy had a way with words.'
'Yeah,' Roby said. 'Like those words he said in the barn on your birthday.'
Alfred’s fists clenched. 'You promised.'
'What about you? Did you keep your end of the promise?'
'Excuse me, gents, I got to get back to the home,' Barnaby said.
'Hey, why don’t you come on back to the house for a bite first?' Roby said. 'There’s plenty enough for everybody.'
Barnaby waved to the backhoe operator, then got in the hearse without a word. He drove away, the vehicle bouncing over the rutted dirt road that led away from the cemetery. The backhoe’s engine roared to life with a giant cough of black smoke and the long metal arm grabbed at the air.
Roby raised his voice over the noise. 'Did she eat it?'
Alfred looked down into the hole that would soon be swallowing his daddy. 'Yeah.'
'Did you have to trick her?'
'No, I just told her straight up. About you keeping your mouth shut if she did what you wanted.'
'Tell me, and this is important… she didn’t get sick or throw up or anything, did she?'
'No. Said it tasted like stale boot leather, though.'
Roby nodded, and they both moved away from the grave as the backhoe approached.
'Come on,' Roby said. 'You don’t want to watch.'
'No, I reckon not. Damn, I sure could use a drink.'
'Got a bottle under the truck seat. Keep it on hand for emergencies. Want a ride back to the house?'
Alfred glanced at the casket, then at the distant barn, then in the direction of the Ridgehorn house. 'Let’s get the hell out of here.'
As they climbed into Roby’s Ford, Alfred said, 'So, are you going to tell me what it was I made Marlene eat?'
Roby shifted the Ford into first. 'Can’t. It’s a family secret.'
XII
The kitchen was cleaner now than it had been during the sitting. The counter was almost bare, except for a few slices of store-bought bread in a plastic bag and some shriveled apples piled in glass bowl. The only thing in the sink was Jacob’s denture glass.
'So, are you going to sell the place?' Roby asked the widow.
She had tucked a pinch of cinnamon-brown snuff behind her lower lip and worked it into place before answering. 'I reckon not. When you stick your loved ones in the ground, you owe them. We talked it over. The kids will probably sell it off after I’m gone, but that’s their worry. Me, I’m going to leave this world and join Jacob with a peaceful heart.'
'Amen to that,' Roby said.
Marlene came into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She stooped from the waist, rummaging on the bottom rack. Roby glanced at the curves of her rear. A door to sin, that’s what it was.
She closed the refrigerator and turned, holding a jar of bread-and-butter pickles. 'Say, you know what would go good with this?'
'What?' Roby asked.
'Some of that meat you brought over the other night.'
The widow squinted at him. 'What meat? We done took that ham down to the bone.'
'Oh, Roby knows what I’m talking about.'
'You carry your bones with you,' Roby said. 'When you cross over. You carry your soured eggs and stale bread crumbs and molded cheese.'
The widow took a step back, her eyes widening. 'What in the world’s wrong with you?'
'Peggy Clemens knows. Whole hog. Waste no part of the animal.'
'Alfred!' the widow yelled, her voice brittle off the kitchen enamel.
'And Beverly Parsons. She’s in on it. Barnaby, too.'
Marlene held out the pickle jar as if it were a charm to ward off evil spirits. 'You done gone crazy.'
Alfred ran into the kitchen, with Buck and Harold right behind him.
Roby felt the sweat oozing out of the pores of his face like maggots from the holes of an electrified corpse. 'Who’s going to make your pies?' he said. 'When you die, who’s going to eat you?'
'Lord have mercy, better call the sheriff,' Harold said. Alfred and Buck closed in on Roby from opposite sides of the counter.
This happened every single time. Roby was wracked by a wave of nausea and nearly collapsed. He grabbed for the edge of the counter and held himself up with effort. The room spun in the corners of his vision, the edges of the world dissolving like sugar in warm water. He felt hands gripping his arms, and he thought of Johnny Divine and the suitcase. Who would carry the suitcase after Roby was gone?
If Roby ever got to go, that was.
He pushed the hands away and straightened, trembling. 'Sorry, folks. I just got a little carried away, is all. Been a mighty stressful time for all of us.'
The widow studied him as if he were a bug on glass. 'Anna Beth?'
The youngest daughter was standing behind her. 'Yeah, Momma? Still want Sarah to call the law?'
The widow peered at Roby. 'You been drinking?'
Roby fought off the small lightning bolts that streaked across the gray inside his skull. 'Yeah. I apologize. First Jacob died, and then Glenn Isenhour. You know him, don’t you?'
'Distant cousin,' the widow said.
'Well, he was my second cousin. All this dying going on at the same time, I guess I just let it get to me. But I’m fine now.'
'You sure?' Buck said. 'You look like you swallowed a live lizard.'
