Richard slammed the shovel into the ground next to the dog’s grave, and there was the sound of dirt being parted, then something being cut.
“What was that?” I asked.
Richard pulled the shovel up, went to work digging. After a moment he lifted out something on the shovel. At first it looked like a mound of dirt, but when he dropped it onto the ground, most of the sticky wet dirt shook off of it, and we both knew what it was.
A human skull.
———
WE LOOKED CLOSELY at the skull. The shovel had split the top of it and gone deep. On the side of the skull was a hole, and the far side was shattered, bone poked out as if the brain had turned rabid and kicked its way free.
“That looks way a shotgun blast looks,” Richard said.
Richard dug more, soon uncovered a rib cage from which clung red clay. Then some other bones. And two skulls. He dug around and came up with a bone that he pulled free of some roots, said, “This here bone goes in the neck, the spine. See the way that bone is? That’s from a cut went into it.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I’ve seen plenty of animals butchered. I don’t think people are all that different.”
“We’ve found an old graveyard,” I said.
Richard dug down again, came up with another skull. When he dropped it on the ground the dirt shook loose and I could see the teeth. One of the front teeth was silver.
I had a sinking feeling.
“My God,” I said.
“What?”
I told him about Rosy Mae telling me that Margret Wood had a silver tooth.
“We’ve found her head, Stanley. The one the ghost has been looking for.”
Richard poked around with the shovel some more, unearthed an arm. Meat was still on the bones.
“Jesus,” he said. “This’n is recent.”
Richard poked around some more, uncovered the rest of the body, and finally the head, which was cut free of it, tucked under the corpse’s right arm as if it were a joke. Though much of the flesh was gone, there was enough on the face and enough long black hair there to make out it had been a woman.
“That there is the Mexican woman Daddy hired to do some house- and fieldwork. I think her name was Normaleen. She didn’t speak much English. Daddy told me she run off. It was maybe a month before we seen him buryin’ Butch out here.”
Richard sat down as if someone had kicked his legs out from under him. “I think these here are all people worked for my daddy. I think . . .”
“I think so too,” I said.
“He said they quit or run off or he fired ’em. God, Stanley, he was murderin’ them people.”
“I wasn’t murderin’.”
Richard jumped to his feet and I spun. Mr. Chapman was standing at the mouth of the trail, where the woods cleared, and he was holding the scythe I had seen on the rack. He had his overalls on with no shirt. He had his shoes on without socks. His hair was like an explosion of dark sprouts. The wind moved it like it was alive. His face was sallow and wrinkled; I couldn’t imagine the handsome man that had once been there, the one Rosy talked about.
I realized that Richard’s remarks about his father being able to hear a dog run across the yard had not been exaggerated. Mr. Chapman had heard us, gone out to the barn to get the scythe, and followed us.
“You ought not to have dug Butch up,” Chapman said. “I put him to rest.”
“Did you murder him too?” Richard said. “Did he bark when he shouldn’t have?”
“Butch never let me down. As for the others, God lets a righteous man make decisions about such things. Did you know God come to me and told me to do you like Abraham was told to do Isaac? I had to take you out and kill you. ’Cept God didn’t come to me and tell me to turn my hand. I just didn’t do it. Your mother didn’t think it was the thing to do. She thought people would come to us, and want to know where you was, and that you’d be a strong worker. You remember any of that, boy?”
Richard, trembling, said, “No, sir.”
“Naw, you wouldn’t. I took you on a little squirrel huntin’ trip when you was five. And I was gonna shoot you in the back of the head ’cause God told me to, have a little hunting accident, but I didn’t do it. I was supposed to. It would have made life easier. Raisin’ you, that didn’t do me and your mama no good. The world would have just thought it was a little huntin’ accident. God was testin’ me, seein’ what I was made of. He never told me to stay my hand. I just did. And I shouldn’t have. Only time I ever let God down. I didn’t let him down with these others. When he come to me and told me what I had to do, I did it. But you were my son, so I didn’t do it. Now it comes back on me. You’re gonna turn me over to the infidels, ain’t you?”
“For what?” Richard said.
Chapman laughed. “That was quick, boy. You’re quick like your mother. You know, from the time I took you out and didn’t kill you, ’cause I had your mama’s thinkin’ on the matter in the back of my mind, things have gone bad. Crops ain’t good. World is changin’. Niggers is wantin’ rights. All manner of evil. Can’t abide it. No, sir. I won’t. Your mama, I make her pay for it every day. Not because I want to, son, but because God expects it, and in spite of her mistake, she’s a righteous woman, she is, and she takes it. She know she ought to. I ain’t killed none of these people ’cause I wanted to, but because it was right. It was the will of God. You’re my only mistake.
“And you, son,” he said looking at me, “I reckon you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you are from a sinful family. I can see that. Your sister actin’ like she’s got the rights of a man. That daddy of yours whippin’ on me when I was seekin’ out my own son. Givin’ him refuge. Runnin’ that movie house. That’s wrong.”
“You killed these people to save money,” Richard said. “I think that’s why you killed them. Because you’re cheap.”
Chapman snorted. “You think that? Well, you would. Some of them people were drinkers, and fornicators . . . That silver-toothed one there. She was a whore, and ran with that Stilwind girl in a manner a girl ain’t supposed to go. I tried to witness to her. She wouldn’t have any of it.”
“You witnessed to her by the railroad tracks?” I said.
“You witness where you find the need.”
“I think you wanted her,” I said. “You didn’t want anyone else to have her. So one night you followed her . . . with that scythe, and killed her. Brought the head back here.”
“You ain’t no man of God,” Richard said. “You ain’t better than me. You ain’t as good as me.”
Chapman’s face turned sad. He looked at Richard like the last morsel on a plate.
“You killed Margret, and you burned up the Stilwind girl, didn’t you?” I said.
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Chapman said. “And I ain’t gonna talk no more.”
That’s when Richard flicked a shovelful of dirt into Chapman’s face.
Richard bolted. “Run!”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I went after Richard. We started back in the direction of the sawmill.
We zigzagged through trees and finally broke out to where we could see the old mill and the road beyond. I glanced over my shoulder, saw that Chapman was catching up. Spit was trailing out of his mouth in a way that made it look like foam.
I realized we weren’t going to make it to the road before he caught up.
Nub chose that moment to burst out of the woods, and when he saw me running, and Mr. Chapman after me, he broke straight away for my pursuer, barking.
I shouldn’t have stopped, but I turned and yelled for Nub. It was too late. Nub hit Chapman’s ankle hard, and though he didn’t get in a good bite, Chapman’s legs got tangled and he went down, the scythe flying out in front of him.