But Juna is the one who says it. Juna, with her black eyes who tilts her head in such an odd fashion. Juna says it, and I know she’s the reason Dale is dead. I don’t know why or what she did, but she is a woman who would see her own brother die and an innocent man hang, and I begin to fear for Ellis Baine and John Holleran and even my own daddy.
“Do you suppose,” Juna says, smiling as she cups Joseph Carl’s chin with her hands, “they might hang another?”
JOSEPH CARL’S MAMA wanted him buried alongside his daddy, but folks wouldn’t have it. They gave her two days to mourn her son, and today he’ll be buried at the crossroad into town so the comings and goings of all the many travelers will keep his spirit from rising up. Maybe folks want this, for Joseph Carl to be buried where the dirt piled on top of him will be trampled and trodden each and every day, because they believe he’s evil for what he did, or maybe, like me, they know he didn’t do any of those things. Like me, they know someone else hurt Dale and that someone is likely here among us, and so now they’re the evil ones for wanting Joseph Carl dead, for thinking his dying would make their lives good again. They want the comings and goings to keep Joseph Carl’s spirit at rest so they don’t have to fear they’ll one day get their own comeuppance.
As he did the day Joseph Carl was hanged, Daddy pushes us to the front of the crowd. Already he’s been drinking, though the chill of early morning still hangs in the air. He bumps up against people as he forces his way through, the smell of whiskey poured from a jar parting folks as much as Daddy’s hands and arms. Sheriff Irlene, wearing a long beige overcoat, her husband’s black boots peeking out from under her skirt as she moves among the onlookers, motions to two of her men and points in our direction. The men navigate the crowd, saying excuse me and pardon me as they go. They stand nearby, one on each side of Daddy, Juna, and me, maybe to protect Daddy from himself or maybe to protect the other folks.
Overhead, the sky has opened up, lifted high. And the sun is bright like only it can be on an autumn day. The chill in the air should awaken folks. It usually makes a man walk a bit livelier, stand a bit taller. Instead folks huddle against the cold, pull blankets around their shoulders, hug themselves but not others. There isn’t a single Baine among the crowd, not even Joseph Carl’s mama. There are men again holding shotguns at the ready to keep the family away.
“Bury him upside down,” someone shouts as four men appear, a slender pine box hoisted onto their shoulders.
“You all mind yourselves,” Sheriff Irlene calls out, waving a finger across the crowd. The men carrying the pine box keep coming. “We’ll have a Christian burial,” she says.
All the folks who came from across Kentucky and across the country have gone on home. They left behind trampled grass, piles of charred wood from their fires, empty longneck bottles. A few of the newspapermen have stayed and stand together at a safe distance from the crowd. One of the fellows taps his tablet with the blunt end of a pencil. He flips it around and starts to scribble on his lined paper when another fellow and yet another hollers out for Joseph Carl to be buried upside down.
When we settle at the front of the crowd, Sheriff Irlene’s men matching us step for step, Juna and I stand together, our shoulders touching, our heads bowed. I wrap my arm around her, want her to be happy, feel she is loved, because I’m afraid now of what she’ll do next. She liked the sight of Joseph Carl lying there on that table, the life gone from him. It made her smile and use her hands in the most tender of ways. I’m afraid she’ll want to do it again.
Like the gallows pounded together with threepenny nails, the box the men carry smells of freshly cut, sweet pine. Daddy staggers around the narrow, deep hole cut into the ground, sometimes swaying so close that one of Sheriff Irlene’s men must grab onto Daddy’s coat sleeve and yank him back to right. The men surely used picks along with their shovels to dig a hole so deep as this one. They’ll have hit limestone and broken through to be sure Joseph Carl is buried good and deep.
“Flip him,” another voice shouts and then another.
They want Joseph Carl buried upside down so if his spirit does awaken and try to claw its way out, it’ll find itself upside down and, as such, claw deeper into the ground.
“Turn him. Flip him.”
Sheriff Irlene continues calling out that there is no need for such things. She smiles each time she must say it and looks from the crowd to the newspapermen still standing together near the trees. They are all scribbling now and talking among themselves, likely wondering what is to be gained by burying a man upside down.
As people step aside to let the men carrying Joseph Carl pass, I see John Holleran. On the other side of the hole, he stands with his mama. They’ve placed themselves behind all the others who want to get a good look-see. John’s head is tipped as if he’s speaking to his mama, probably asking is she sure she wants to stay. He’ll take her on home, he’ll be saying. No need for all this.
Because John’s head is bowed, his hat hides all but a corner of his mouth and his chin. He wears the blue wool jacket that once hung so often from the back of one of my kitchen chairs, usually the one nearest the stove. The jacket is nearly worn through at the elbows. I told him once I’d stitch a few patches for him, but I never did. I lean left, pressing against Juna to get a better look at him. He lifts his head, and his eyes settle on mine. I would guess he lets out a long, slow breath. The crowd shifts, and he is gone from sight.
“Won’t do you no good,” Mary Holleran shouts. I know her voice even though I can’t see her. “Flipping that boy won’t change what’s been done.”
I still can’t see John, though I imagine he’ll have tugged his hat low over his eyes. He’s never believed much in the know-how, but others in town will think about what Mary’s said for a good long time. Maybe for the rest of their lives. They’ll think of Joseph Carl buried here at the crossroad, his body flipped upside down, and know that sometimes a thing done can never be undone.
The people nearest John and his mother drift away. When it seems certain Mary has nothing more to say, two more men join the four, and then two more, and the eight of them flip the casket. Another two cradle the box with thick leather straps that will take the weight without snapping. Two more join in, each grabbing hold of an end, and the four of them spread themselves evenly between the two straps. Half on one side of the hole, half on the other. The rest of the men walk away, and the four who remain brace themselves, holding the straps with two hands, digging the heels of their laced-up boots into the ground, leaning back to use their weight. They could be children playing tug-of-war. The ladies shield their eyes with kerchiefs. Children crouch at the hole’s edge, press two hands into the dirt, each of them leaning over it a little farther than the last, one getting hauled away by a hand that grabs hold of him by his collar.
As the men inch their way forward, the box tips and wobbles, first left and then right.
“Careful now,” Sheriff Irlene says. Her own children, the younger ones, stand with their grandmother under the same tree as the men from the newspapers. Sheriff Irlene waves at her mother to take the children on home. “Lower him with care,” she says.
One half of the men lean and pull while the other half give slack. The box levels, and they continue inching forward. When it hits ground, the men drop the straps of leather as if they were hot in their hands, and three of the four walk away. They straighten their jackets with a tug at their collars and shake their heads because that was a thing they damn sure never thought they’d be doing. The fourth fellow tugs at a strap. When one hand isn’t enough to yank the strap clean of the box, he grabs hold with two and again uses his weight. When it still doesn’t come free, he tosses the end into the hole. One by one, fellows step forward, grab an end, and toss it into the hole.