The Grave Tender Read online

  The Grave

  Tender

  Eliza Maxwell

  Copyright © 2015 Eliza Maxwell

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  For my Mom,

  who taught me that

  crazy only counts

  if it shows.

  1

  It was a mother’s coldest fear. In the space where her three year old son should have been, Hadley Dixon found nothing but air.

  A quick search of his bedroom revealed only the stars and rocket ship painted on the wall and scattered toys on the floor, giving no hints. She checked his sister’s room. Sometimes he liked to play there, a dragon hoarding his treasure in a cave under the bed. Nothing but dust.

  She searched the rest of the farmhouse, her footsteps echoing across the worn, wooden floorboards. Nothing.

  “Charlie.” She called his name into quiet rooms. The silence screamed back at her.

  The hundred year old house replied to her cries with a bang of the screen door, caught by the wind. It was loud. Too loud.

  Hadley whipped around and saw the front door ajar, just a crack. But enough. Enough to let the outside in. Enough to let a little boy out.

  For the briefest moment of time, she stared.

  Then panic broke over her.

  She ran, pulling the oak front door wide and bursting past the screen door that slammed against the side of the house in protest. She flew into the brightness of the day.

  Hadley turned, her eyes flitting across the landscape, lush with spring. The gardenias’ first green buds, the nest of baby sparrows crying from the front eave. Life all around her, mocking her useless, empty arms.

  “Charlie! Charlie!”

  She turned faster, the tall pines spinning by.

  “Charlie!”

  The barn. Maybe he was there, with the horses. He liked it there, among the broken animals with their flecked paint and golden poles. But the door was shut.

  Even as she raised the wooden bar and pulled the door open with a creak of old hinges, Hadley knew she wouldn’t find him there. Light played on the dust particles floating in the air. Only the horses, with their expressions and their gaits that hadn’t changed since they’d been created.

  He was nowhere. He was gone.

  Hadley forced herself to slow, to listen, to see.

  But it made no difference. Only the silence of the horses and the hollow wind filled her ears.

  The hour and a half that followed was a walk across broken glass. Every terrible possibility cut, exposing flesh and bone.

  By the time searchers, hastily called in a breathless void of coherency, spotted the boy walking hand in hand with Mrs. Abbott, Hadley had run the bloody gauntlet of loss.

  Voices shouted for her, and she turned, her breath caught in the space between her heart and her throat, certain they were bringing her the body of her son, dead because of her. Because of her lies. Because of her sins.

  “Mama,” Charlie cried. He was surprised to see her, but pleased by the chance meeting.

  Hadley ran to him, lifting her son into her arms, overwhelmed by the damp, sweet scent of boy. Tears rolled down her face, soaking into her son’s tousled, sweaty curls.

  The people surrounding them were speaking. She didn’t hear any of it. Not the relieved sighs of “Thank God,” nor the explanations of how Mrs. Abbott had discovered an unexpected visitor laughing in delight as he fed wildflowers into her bunny hutch.

  Hadley turned her eyes upward.

  There, watching them with reflective, black eyes, was a line of crows perched, one after another, on the wire that stretched from one utility pole to the next.

  How many crows does it take to make a murder, she wondered. She squeezed her eyes closed, blocking their watchful gaze.

  It didn’t matter, Hadley thought. Crows, be damned. It was the sins of her family, and her own, that had come home to roost. Huge, hook-beaked birds that fed on carrion. They’d taken her son, then brought him back. To show they could. As a warning.

  A long time ago, there’d been another boy. One who never made it home.

  Hadley held her child close. She had a great deal to answer for.

  2

  27 years ago

  Thursday

  Hadley watched her daddy steal a boy back from death once. That was the hope she held tight while she ran, sneakers slapping the earth, her hair whipping around her face.

  Daddy could fix it. She knew he could.

  It happened last summer, a birthday party at the reservoir. Walker had come to collect Hadley. No one noticed when the boy’s head sank beneath the water without a sound. No one but Walker Dixon.

  One moment he was listening with half a smile while she tried to talk him into just five more minutes. In the next, he was sprinting past her to the water, kicking off his shoes. Hadley could only watch, open-mouthed. It wasn’t until she heard the other adults begin to count heads and shout for their children that she realized someone had gone under.

  The kids were pulled out of the water by anxious parents. They stood dripping in soggy suits that clung to them while more adults waded in to help Walker. He was diving, searching for any sign of the child.

  Hadley let out a pent up breath each time he surfaced, then held it again when he dived back into the muddy water. Her lungs burned and her chest cried for air, but she knew if she gave in, if she couldn’t hold that breath, then neither could he, and his head would never break the surface.

  And then he came up one last time, the boy in his arms. Hadley’s legs went out from beneath her and she sucked in air, pushing out the terror.

  The parents and kids lined up along the bank gave a quick cheer, but it soon gave way to silence again.

  Walker had found the boy, but he wasn’t breathing, his head rolling on his shoulders. Mothers pulled their children to them, holding them close and hiding their eyes while her daddy came out of the water with a dead child in his arms.

  There was no one to cover Hadley’s eyes.

  She watched as her father laid the boy on the sandy riverbank, then took a finger and cleared the dirt and river water out of the boy’s mouth, turning his head to the side.

  It was Teddy Benoit. He was in Hadley’s class.

  Walker positioned his hands on the boy’s skinny chest.

  Teddy sat three desks behind her.

  Walker pushed.

  Teddy played baseball at the park with the other boys after school. Third base.

  Walker pushed again.

  Teddy was learning the guitar. His granddad was teaching him. He’d brought the guitar to school once for show and tell. He wasn’t very good, and he knew it, but his granddad said he would be one day. So he was going to practice.

  Walker pinched the boy’s nostrils closed and leaned down, breathing air into the boy’s lungs.

  Teddy said he’d bring the guitar back, after he practiced. After he was good, and they’d all see how much better he’d gotten.

  Walker breathed into the boy’s lungs a second time.

  Teddy would never get any better. He was dead, with mud smeared across his shins, under the brutal east Texas sun with his friends standing silently over him.

  Everyone knew it, except for Walker, who moved to push at the boy’s chest again.

  It was too late for Teddy to get any better. Not at the guitar, not at anything.

  Teddy coughed. Then he turned and vomited water and mucus onto the ground. Everyone let out the breath locked in their chests.

  Within days, Teddy Benoit was back to playing ball and cutting up in class.

  And now Hadley needed her daddy again.

  Slamming the front door open, she skidded to a halt just inside.

  “Daddy!” she cri
ed.

  Chairs scraped in the kitchen, where Walker was having a cup of coffee with his mother, her Grandma Alva, before work. He was a general contractor, and his company was working a big job in Cordelia. He’d been leaving early and coming home late all month. She was lucky to catch him home.

  “Hadley, baby, what’s the matter? Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She shook her head, out of breath.

  “No,” she managed, then sucked in enough air to say, “Daddy, you gotta come quick. The bus stop.”

  Walker wasted no time, racing after her as she took off running back the way she’d come, launching herself off the front steps and down the quarter-mile driveway to where the big yellow bus picked up her and a handful of other kids for school.

  When they got there, the others were huddled in a circle.

  “No, don’t touch her,” she heard Jo Jo say.

  “I’m just gonna hold her head, so she isn’t afraid,” Jude said, using her big sister tone.

  “Back up now, kids,” Walker said, gently moving them out of the way.

  “Oh, thank Christ,” Hadley heard him whisper when he caught a glimpse of the figure on the ground.

  “But Daddy—” she started. He held up a hand in her direction, cutting her off.

  He knelt and looked at each of the children gathered there. Jude Monroe, and two of her younger brothers, Jo Jo and Mikey, and Cooper Abbott from across the road.

  “Are any of you kids hurt?” he asked.

  They all shook their heads.

  “We found her like this, Mr. Dixon. Can you help her?” Jude asked. She held the head of a small black and white spotted dog in her lap.

  The big yellow bus came chugging around the corner, coughing fumes and leaving dust in its wake.

  Walker nodded at the kids, then began to unbutton his shirt, revealing the white t-shirt he wore beneath. As the bus came to a stop with a screech of brakes, he gathered up the little dog with her broken body into his shirt.

  None of the kids made a move.

  “Ya’ll go on now, and get to school,” Walker said, and they reluctantly began moving toward the waiting door of the bus. All but Hadley.

  “Daddy, can’t I just stay with you?” Hadley asked.

  “No, ma’am. You get your butt on that bus,” Walker said.

  Hadley’s forehead wrinkled and she opened her mouth, but he shook his head before she could get started.

  “Hadley, I promise you, I’ll do what I can to help this dog, but your place is at school,” he said softly. “Now go on. Ms. Hatcher isn’t gonna wait all day.”

  Hadley glanced over her shoulder at the bus driver, whose usual surly disposition was only slightly tempered by Walker’s presence.

  “Sorry for the hold up, Betty. She’s coming,” he called.

  Ms. Hatcher’s lacquered, rust colored curls moved with her head when she nodded in his direction. Her chins had more freedom, and jiggled at the movement.

  “Get a move on, then, girl,” she said.

  Hadley gave up, knowing when she was beat. Taking the three large steps onto the bus in leaps, she moved to her seat next to Jude. They watched Walker wave to Ms. Hatcher, then head back toward home, moving carefully with the bundle cradled in his arms.

  The lumbering bus choked out some more fumes, and carried them away.

  All day the girls worried about the dog. Had she lived? Would her legs have to be cut off the way Mr. Sayers’ had been when he was hurt in Vietnam? Mr. Sayers had a wheelchair that he always parked in front of the Rainbow Cafe, drinking free coffee and spitting tobacco juice into a Coke can. They discussed it at length, but eventually agreed a wheelchair for dogs was unlikely.

  After school they bolted from the steps of the school bus and ran all the way back to Hadley’s house. The screen door slammed, announcing their arrival.

  “Daddy, Daddy, where’s the dog?” Hadley asked, out of breath. She found her father in the little room just off of the living room that he used for an office.

  Jude was right behind her. “Is she okay Mr. Dixon? Did she die? If she died, we should have a funeral for her. We can wear all black and sing some sad hymns and invite everyone. My grandpa’s funeral was packed with people, and he didn’t even get hit by a car. Actually, Mama says he wasn’t a very nice man, but she doesn’t say that in front of Daddy, because it was his daddy and he doesn’t like to talk about him much, even though he’s dead now, and can’t be mean to anybody anymore anyway.”

  Jude paused for a breath. Hadley took over in a slightly calmer tone.

  “Daddy, Jude and I can take care of her together. She can go back and forth between our houses. That way neither of us is taking on too much responsibility.”

  It was a good argument. Daddy and Gran were always going on about responsibility.

  Jude stepped up to the plate. “Hadley wants to name her Elizabeth after the Queen of England, but that seems too stuffy to me. What does a beat up old dog in Whitewood, Texas, know about England? I think we should call her Lucky, but Hadley says she wasn’t very lucky when that car hit her, unless bad luck counts. But Bad Lucky isn’t a very good name for a dog either.”

  “Whoa, girls,” Walker said. “Slow down there.”

  The girls froze, eyes wide. Bending down on one knee, he took one of each of their hands in his.

  “The dog is still alive,” he told them, “but she’s in pretty bad shape. She may need to be put down.”

  Jude opened her mouth to say something about doggie wheelchairs, but Walker shushed her with a look.

  “It’s very compassionate of you girls to want to help a stray like that. I’d say her luck took a turn for the better when you two found her just as she needed a helping hand… But,” he said.

  Hadley hated it when he said but that way.

  “There’s a good chance she’s not gonna make it. Even if she does, dressing wounds and caring for injured animals is no job for ten year olds, as responsible as you two may be.”

  He shook his head when they opened their mouths to protest.

  “Uh huh. I’ve taken her over to my brother Eli’s place. He’ll be able to do whatever needs to be done. Now you girls run along to the kitchen. My nose is telling me your grandmother did some baking today, so why don’t you go see what you can wheedle out of her?”

  Walker herded them out of his office, not noticing their faces, mirror images of horror.

  “To your Uncle Eli’s place?! But, but… he’s so scary and weird! And scary. I mean, I know he’s your uncle and all, but still…” Jude trailed off.

  Hadley didn’t say anything. Daddy and Gran said Eli was harmless, but she’d heard the whispers around town. He frightened people with his scarred face and strange, quiet ways. He frightened her.

  Eli was always lurking in the shadows, always at the edges of her life. There were only a few dark places in her safe, secure world, and the blackest of those was her Uncle Eli. Even Mama’s crazy didn’t compare. That was ordinary crazy. Eli, though. That was different.

  What was Daddy thinking, sending a wounded animal to Eli in that little shack by the river? There was no electricity, no running water. Worse still, were the trees. Eli’s carved trees that peppered the woods. Living things with eyes that never closed.

  Walker told her Eli lived out there by choice. It was a choice she couldn’t wrap her head around.

  Others said Eli Dixon was damaged by a bad childhood, and now he was broken beyond what you can fix. But her father shared a childhood with Eli, and he was okay.

  She didn’t know much about her grandfather, Silas. He’d run off before she was born, back when Dixon farm included the surrounding land, before it was sold off or leased to other farmers. They didn’t harvest rice anymore. The only farming they did was Gran’s little garden that put tomatoes, squash and jalapenos on their table every year.

  Her favorite, though, were the dewberries that grew wild on the riverbank. Those her grandmother didn’t bother to cultivate. They grew li
ke weeds every spring, their low bushes full of stickers and thorns.

  Picking dewberries left you with scratched, stinging arms, but it was worth it for Gran’s berry pie. But Hadley flat refused to pick berries by the river alone. The one time she had was something she wouldn’t soon forget.

  It was a dark, tangled corner of the woods. A place she’d normally not venture into. But the berries were fat and ripe, dripping from the bushes.

  She could feel the trees watching her. The carvings were thick here. She knew they weren’t real. Knew the owl with the fierce, dead eyes wasn’t going to fly out with his wooden wings beating and attack her. Knew that the face of the man caught in a scream couldn’t grab her and pull her in.

  So she told herself.

  Still, she moved quickly, keeping her eyes on her nervous, purple-stained fingers.

  “Not those. Not for you, girl.”

  Hadley had stood up and whipped around so quickly from the berry patch that her feet got tangled. She fell backward into the brambles, crying out at the sudden, sharp pain.

  It was Eli.

  He was running awkwardly toward her, bumbling with his big clumsy body. He looked angry, his face painted with scars and a wildness in his eyes that made her think one of his carvings had come to life. Hadley panicked, her bucket of berries forgotten along with the bloody scratches on her hands and legs. Fear took over, and she stumbled to her feet, earning more scratches along the way.

  Then she ran.

  She ran back home, escaping her uncle and those faces in the woods. Her heart hammered in her chest. Even after she slammed herself into her room, it took a painfully long time for her skin to stop prickling.

  Hadley never told a soul, not even Jude. It was hard to find the words to describe the sense of wrongness she felt from her uncle. If Hadley couldn’t explain it to herself, she knew she’d never make another person understand. She didn’t even try.

  But the thought of that poor dog trapped by her own injuries with her uncle knotted Hadley’s stomach up. Maybe Bad Lucky wasn’t such a bad idea.