Jeb dug. The ground was rocky. It took almost an hour. Jeb took off his tee shirt
and wiped the sweat from his body.
“Deep enough?” he said.
Luke looked into the hole. Three feet deep at least. “I think so.”
Jeb scrambled from the hole, mopped his face, and put his shirt on. He picked
up Limpy and climbed into the hole. “You want to leave her in the bag?”
“No.”
Jeb laid the body on the ground at the bottom of the pit and offered Luke his
hand. Luke clenched his teeth against the pain in his legs and struggled into the hole. Together they tugged Limpy from the bag and arranged her on her side so that she
looked comfortable. Luke tried to close her eyes. He couldn’t.
They covered Limpy and filled the hole. Luke lumbered back and forth over the
shoveled dirt to level it. When he was through, it still formed a mound.
“We can sort of mulch it so it won’t show so much,” Jeb said.
Together they gathered fallen leaves from the woods and spread them across
the mound. Luke found dead limbs and twigs and scattered them over the grave.
“That’s good enough,” Jeb said. “No one will notice.”
Luke leaned on Jeb on the walk back through the woods. He yearned for
ibuprofen.
“You want to rest for a minute?” Jeb asked when they came to the meadow and
picnic tables at the edge of the woods.
They sat side by side in the shade. Luke rested his elbows on the table and
massaged his cheekbones.
“You okay?” Jeb asked.
“Thanks for today,” Luke said. “We’ll schedule a make-up session to work on
Kindertotenlieder.”
“Glad I could help.” Jeb stirred the grass with his toe. “Have any plans for
dinner?”
Luke shrugged. “Limpy and I were going to have left–over pot roast.”
“The Peking Palace has a daily special.”
TOM'S TALES