Wrapped in Rain(48)

We walked out and Miss Ella held our hands across the parking lot and told us to slide across the seat, and we drove home huddled close together. She never said a word about the birds or the wrappers, and the next morning, they all got a proper burial. Prayer and all. We even put out some birdseed for those that might come back.



It was this memory, and more important the picture in my mind of finding Mutt alone and shaking on that table, that occupied my mind as I carried my duffel bag to the truck. I didn't want to find that picture when I got to Jacksonville.

I opened the back door of the truck and found Katie sitting in the backseat with Jase.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Going with you."

"Katie, I don't have time to argue with you, and you don't know half of what is going on here. I think it's best for all of us if you two just rest here a few days. You're welcome to stay, and Mose will check in on you, but this" I pointed to the truck-"is something you don't want any part of."



She pointed to the front seat and said, "Drive!"

I didn't have time to argue. I had five or six good hours on the road staring me in the face, and I still needed to make one stop in Abbeville. If I hurried, I could do what I had to do, get back in the car, on the road, and to Jacksonville before sunup, which would give me the whole day to look. And I might need it. If Mutt was good at one thing, it was hiding. He had had a lot of practice. We both did, but that was why I, more than anyone, needed to go looking. If he didn't want to be found, nobody but me would ever find him.

I looked at Katie and shook my head. I wanted her to come. I just didn't know how to ask.





Chapter 17


A BRICK WALL AROUND THE CEMETERY OF ST. JOSEPH'S prohibited horses, or tractors, from entering, so all graves were dug by hand. And although unusual, some of the older crowd still wanted to be buried next to their kin. Wives, husbands, kids, or parents. Such was the case last week when ninety-seven-year-old Franklin Harbor passed after a lifetime of good health. With no way to get a tractor in, short of destroying the wall, there was only one way to get a hole dug-pick and shovel. For the last decade, Mose had dug every single one, averaging about one a month. With the funeral tomorrow, I knew that's where he'd be.

I drove around the back of St. Joseph's and found Mose digging in the graveyard.

"Mose?" I said, standing over the hole.

Mose looked up with the sweat pouring down his face. At eighty-one, he was skinny, but he could still work a pick and shovel. With precision. Getting the hole dug took him about three and a half hours of constant and steady work. He had hung a spotlight above his head, so it looked like he intended to be there awhile. "Mutt's gone." I kicked at the dirt in front of me, loosening a clod of clay. "Well, escaped is more like it. I'm going to see if I can find him. Will you look after things?"

"You know better than to ask me that," he said, digging again, not looking up.

"I know, but. . ." Mose nodded, rested both hands on the pick, and said, "Glue's working tomorrow and all this week. Some fellow in Albany bringing in a few mares."



I pointed to the bottom of the hole. "Don't get too comfortable; I don't want to come back here in a few days and find your cold fingers still wrapped around that shovel."

"Tucker, when I go, I'm making you dig the hole." He waved his hand across the cemetery. "I've dug enough. It's about time you learned how."

"I'll wait my turn."



The Rolling Hills Assisted Living Facility was the bottom of the dregs in Alabama. From front door to back, the smell of urine permeated every square inch. Rolling Hills was an old folks' home that held mostly Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients. Truth be known, it was basically a hospital run by hospice, and like a roach motel, all doors led in. I parked the truck, left the engine running, and whispered to Katie, "Ten minutes. Got to check on the Judge." I didn't take time to go into the truth.

The judge was scanning the door when I walked in. "Hey, boy! Where you been? I've been having withdrawals and even the shakes for five weeks."

I stood next to the hospital bed and nodded. "I left you a couple in this drawer."

"You know the nurses aren't going to let me have that. And your father, God bless the stodgy old mute, couldn't light the match if his life depended on it. So here I am, three feet from satisfaction and unable to get any."

Rex made no verbal or visual response when I looked at him. He never did. He sat in the corner, looking out the window just as he had been six weeks ago when I last passed through. Rex's shoes were loosely velcroed, his shirt unbuttoned, his fly unzipped, his face unshaven, and his hair uncombed.



"Sounds like a personal problem," I said with a smile.

"Don't you get smart with me, you little squirt. I may be stuck in this bed, but"-the judge nodded his head toward the mouth diaphragm just inches from his lips"this phone isn't."

The judge couldn't move a thing from the neck down. His body was a gnarled mess. His fingers and toes were curled up, his body lay flat and sagging into the sheets, his colostomy bag was a regular mess, and his catheter was constantly infected and therefore his bed a puddle. But the judge just wouldn't die. So for the last six years, Rex and the judge had been roommates. And in that time, Rex had never been able to carry on a conversation. He couldn't remember how to tie his shoes, where to pee, or how to defecate in a toilet. As a result, he spent his days in running shoes with wide Velcro straps and an adult diaper that made a shuffling noise every time he moved.