the likes of which he’d never witnessed in his long life. When none came, he turned to me and said, “Where you suppose God was when this happened, Lucius.” A single tear streamed down his leathery, stubble-covered cheek. He wiped the droplet away on the sleeve of his shirt. I’d never witnessed such an open display of emotion from my best friend before. Never. His momentary loss of control had a profound and powerful effect on me.
Couldn’t do much of anything but say, “Don’t have a single idea, Boz. Just don’t know.” I hemmed and hawed around some, then clumsily added, “Appears pretty certain he wasn’t anywheres around these parts. Must’ve had more pressing business elsewhere.”
Boz toed at the dirt again and shook his head in sad resignation.
I tried to smooth the situation over a bit in the only way I knew how. “Figure the best thing we can do for these poor folks is get them in the ground quick as possible. See to it they’re covered up where nothing can get at ’em. Don’t you think?”
Boz rubbed a reddened eye with a scruffy knuckle and tried not to look at me when he croaked, “Yeah, I know, Lucius. You’re right as rain. Hot as it is, and as hot as it’s gonna get ’fore dark finally comes, these poor people gonna be getting mighty rank,” Almost as an afterthought, he coughed, stared at Heaven again, then added, “Gonna be all swole up ’fore a body can spit. Putrefied quicker than double-geared lightning.”
Squint-eyed, I nodded. No point debating the brutal truth of the situation. I turned my back to the wagon and its contents and stared at the river.
Remember thinking, sweet Jesus give me strength in this time of unparalleled horror and uncommon butchery.
9
“SNAPPING AND BITING LIKE A RABID DOG.”
BOZ AND ME stood barefoot in the lazy, fetid trickle of Devils River. Pants legs rolled up to bone-white knees, both of us sloshed water over forearms soaked all the way to the elbows with dried gore. Burial of the five bullet- shattered bodies had proven more difficult and taken longer than either of us had anticipated.
Rather than attempting to dig individual holes in the sunbaked, near impenetrable earth, we’d been forced to scratch out a single, shallow grave barely large enough to accommodate the entire massacred clan. The excavation took two hours of backbreaking, debilitating labor. We spelled each other in that grueling effort, using the only shovel to be found amidst the blood-soaked wreckage left behind by merciless killers.
Worst part of the nightmarish enterprise was carrying, or dragging, the still-seeping corpses of the children and their parents for placement inside the crude riverbank tomb. During the grisly interment, it took the total of our concentrated, gulping effort to keep Paco Matehuala’s early morning coffee and breakfast tacos from coming back up in a rush of bitter, pukey, stomach-churning bile.
The gruesome task proved especially problematic during that period when we worked to cover the pathetic bodies of the dead kids with several blood-encrusted, rigid, scab-like blankets retrieved from the wagon. When finally satisfied with our best possible efforts, we threw dirt over the sad corpses like reluctant family members forced into a surprising and deplorable undertaking. Finished off the soul-wrenching job with a layer of all the rocks we could retrieve within fifty feet of the rude burying. Then we decorated the grave with as many blooming cactus plants as I could wrench from the clutches of a reluctant, covetous earth.
Sweat drenched and soaked in gore, Boz had squatted at the foot of the completed tomb. Crestfallen, my friend scratched in the loose dirt with a cottonwood twig and wiped leaky eyes on a filthy shirt-sleeve. He shook his shaggy head and muttered, “They murdered the children. And just a bit earlier this mornin’ we ’uz rememberin’ ole Jasper Pike and how he’d done as much for his own pitiful family.”
“I know, Boz.” What else could I say?
“Musta been some kinda omen, Lucius. Swear it’s enough to make a body wanna puke up his socks. My, oh, my. What’s this ole world a-comin’ to?”
He repeated himself over and over, as though his brain had locked on this single notion. His thoughts appeared focused like a fifty-ton Baldwin locomotive headed in a preordained direction that had no way of diverting itself from the narrow track.
Once finished with our fractional Devils River wash, I pulled dust-covered boots onto still-wet feet. Stamped into them, then set to toweling off with my shirt. Slid the damp garment over a sopping, drippy head and turned to find Boz staring at me with all the baggy-eyed gravity and tremulous intensity of an abandoned, starving bloodhound.
“You are gonna read over these folks, ain’t you, Lucius? Maybe say some good words for ’em?”
I tucked a sodden shirttail inside the waist of my pants, then pulled up my blue-and-yellow-striped suspenders. Slipped into my vest before I said, “Didn’t think to bring a Bible along, Boz. Must admit, had not the slightest inkling we’d find one dead body when we set out this morning, much less five of them. And the kids, sweet merciful Jesus, the kids. Just wrings a body’s heart so hard makes you want to commence blubbering and never stop. Can’t imagine the kind of men as could commit such an act. Just can’t imagine.”
Tatum kicked in the dirt with the heel of his boot and jerked a disconsolate thumb toward the mounded, rock-strewn, blossom-littered burial site. “Well, puttin’ them cactus flowers on their final restin’ place was a fine, thoughtful gesture. Must admit, rough as it is, the gravesite does look right nice. Glad you thought to add the flowers.”
I nodded.
“Still and all, feel as how these pitiful folks deserve to have their pathways to Heaven greased, just the least bit, with some high-soundin’ words, Lucius. Even if we don’t happen to have a Bible along with us. ’Specially them three buttons, you know. Hell, I trust your memory. Willin’ to bet these folks would appreciate whatever you can do for ’em by way of talkin’ with God. Figure anything you’d care to offer up’s better’n nothing at all.”
I cast a corner-of-the-eye glance at the graves. Let my chin rest on the damp upper part of my shirt for some seconds, then swept my hat up from the sandy riverbank. I nodded and, followed by the closest friend I had in the world, we ambled back to a spot near the foot of the mass grave.
With broad-brimmed hats lodged in a spot of honor over our hearts, I cleared an emotion-parched throat. After a bit of pinch-browed hesitation and thought, I began—slowly, reverently. As reverently as I knew how.
“Our most gracious heavenly Father,” I said, “neither Boz nor I knew these traveling unfortunates. Pretty good chance we may not ever know who they were. Sure enough didn’t find much in the wagon to identify any of them. But that don’t matter. Can’t begin to imagine what they did to deserve such an unspeakable departure from this earthly life. Especially the children. Whole dance is sad beyond our meager ability to understand. But, as a poet of some note once wrote many years ago, ‘To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late.’ Sad but true, what that feller said applies to innocent kids as well.”
I hesitated for a second, gulped, then scratched at an unwilling throat. Kind of lost my train of thought there for a right uncomfortable stretch. Twirled my sweat-stained Stetson around in both hands, by the brim, while I searched for the right words.
I coughed a time or two then added, “That stealthy ole Thief of Souls has most certainly passed our way today. Sent this poor man and his innocent family beyond any earthly aid we might have rendered. Genuinely regret as how our arrival on the scene didn’t occur early enough to prevent such a terrible outcome, Lord. Sincerely pray the entire family was delivered into the safety and comfort of Your divine care and affection. Now, my friend and I come to You in humble supplication and ask that You gather their sad spirits to Your righteous bosom and see to their heavenly comfort for the rest of eternity. We appeal for that eventuality in the name of the only Son You sent to cleanse us all of our earthly sins and pave our way into Your presence. Amen.”
Still felt right uncomfortable. I shifted, back and forth, then stuffed my hat on a soggy head. Turned Tatum’s direction, seeking something of a complimentary reaction from my longtime compadre by way of acknowledgment for my prayerful efforts. The expected nod and grin of approval he usually provided proved nowhere in evidence.
Openmouthed, unspeaking, and flush-faced, Boz pointed a shaky finger toward the knife-edged ridge of sloped, lifeless dirt some sixty or so yards away. The shallow bowl’s steep rim almost completely encircled that riverbank hollow of lush greenery, violent death, and freshly departed souls where we stood and gazed up slack- jawed.
