Jonathan snored. His whole face was going an unnatural brown, as if he had spent his life under a sunlamp. Beads of sweat were trickling down him, as if he were melting. Bill felt guilty. I should have taken you to the hospital, he thought. I know better. He promised his profession: Jonathan, I get you back into care by four this afternoon.
Under the blue sky, amid the brown grass and the passing shadows, Bill felt alone. He looked back at the mask that was Jonathan's face and spoke to it.
'I don't believe in God anymore, Jonathan,' said Bill. 'My faith has gone. I think… I think I need some kind of sign. You have visions, Jonathan. Do you have visions of God?'
Jonathan didn't, couldn't, answer.
Pleasant Valley had a chain-link fence around it and a big metal gate with upright bars and letters cut clean through large metal plaques on either side of stone gateposts. PLEASANT, said one side. VALLEY, said the other. A dirt driveway led between two conifers and circled through the tough little oaks of the cemetery.
It was on a hill far from anywhere. Jonathan and Bill left the car parked in the lane near the gates. The sound of crickets was high, strong, sweet. The air was surprisingly cool, and there was a strong wind, as if the Spirit were moving. Jonathan's eyes were yellow and feverish, and he looked distracted. He blinked and stumbled up onto a concrete platform, with a gravestone at its head like a pillow. At its foot, planted in the concrete, was a rusty old hand pump.
Jonathan played with the pump's long wooden handle. 'Can you imagine what a water pump must have meant to them? No more buckets hauled up from the well. I bet this was some old guy who finally bought a water pump. And he was so proud of it, they used it for his gravestone.'
They wandered between the stones. The names carved into them were already familiar. There were Pillsburys scattered everywhere.
FAREWELL, said a scroll over a carving of a man's and a woman's clasping hands:
ANNIE J. PILLSBURY
WIFE OF B. MARSHALL
DIED
FEB 26 1857
AGED
27 Ys, 7 Ms, 27 Ds
Down the row from that there was an obelisk:
MARY ANN
REED
PILLSBURY
BORN
JULY 21 1826
DIED
JAN I 1892
There were more humble stones, small, laid level with the ground. Bill leaned over to read them.
MOTHER
HELEN EVA
MAR 14 1869 FEB 12 1937
LIVED ON PILLSBURY HOMESTEAD 58 YRS
Side by side.
FATHER
ELLERY CHANNING
APR 5 1850 JAN 6 1933
KANSAS PIONEER OF 1862
Jonathan began to sing, amid the sound of crickets. His throat was raw, his voice cracked, harsh, tuneless:
Bill looked up to see Jonathan staggering up the hill. His singing grew louder. He looked like something that had climbed out of the graves, long legs, skeletal arms flapping wildly.
Oblivious of the gravestones, Jonathan marched up the hill, out of the cemetery.
'Jonathan!' called Bill. 'Where are you going?'
The voice went wild, loud, screeching like a hawk.
Jonathan was marching out toward the prairie, into the high, crackling grasses. There was a barbed-wire fence on top of the hill. Jonathan stumbled into it, entangled, holding out his arms. like a scarecrow.
Bill ran after him, puffing up the slope. Fifty years. The grass streaked with blue and purple slashed his ankles.
On the hill someone had lashed together a crucifix of branches, barkless and polished by the weather. Jonathan howled, arms waving as if blown in the wind:
Like a rag wrung dry, the voice gave way. Panting, Bill stopped running and pushed his way up the hill, hands against his knees.
Jonathan was standing, staring, mouth hanging open. His teeth showed, and his gums, and his staring eyes watered. Bill turned and saw the valley, with its one straight road, its large fields, some of them harvested and plowed under, some left browning. There were woods in bands every mile or so, across the valley, to the hills, piebald in blue and gray.
