“Okay, then.” Fat Ernst lit a cigar. “Took you long enough.”

CHAPTER 20

I figured it out as soon as we pulled into the little parking lot covered in a thin layer of pea gravel and surrounded by a sagging wrought-iron fence. During the long ride back down the highway out of the hills, the Sawyers following us the whole way, I kept wondering why Fat Ernst had told Junior and Bert to bring their shovels. I was a little worried we might be heading back to the pit, but that didn’t make sense. Fat Ernst had enough meat now, but after watching him kick Heck’s corpse and drop him in the Dumpster like that, I knew he was capable of anything. Grandma had been right about him.

We were here to dig up Earl’s coffin. And steal that buckle.

The sun had disappeared over an hour ago, leaving the valley shrouded in almost total darkness. Fat Ernst killed the Cadillac, sat back on the pomegranate seat, and flicked his cigar stub out onto the wet gravel. He instantly lit another.

Earl had been buried in the Lutheran, Methodist, and Baptist cemetery. The Catholic cemetery was on the other side of the creek, closer to town. And the Mormons had their own exclusive plot of land up north, near their church or temple or whatever the hell they wantedto call it. I guess people who didn’t like to associate much while they were alive sure as hell didn’t want to lie next to each other when they were dead. They might end up in the wrong heaven or something. This graveyard waited patiently at the end of Route 11, surrounded by walnut orchards, huge trees with vast expanses of branches, silently hulking out in the darkness.

Fat Ernst kept the headlights on and I realized he had been thinking ahead when he took Heck’s submersible pump. The cemetery wasn’t too far from the creek. When they had originally started burying folks out here, the creek was still a ways off, but over the years, especially since they had built the reservoir, the creek had gradually changed its course, carrying away the dark, heavy soil bit by bit, creeping closer and closer to the graveyard.

And now the whole place was under about six inches of water.

The Sawyers’ truck pulled in next to my side of the Cadillac and the engine rumbled angrily in the wet darkness. “Leave your lights on,” Fat Ernst called out as Junior killed the engine. I looked out over the acre of headstones, rising from the black water, illuminated by the headlights. It looked as though someone had started building a bridge, pouring somewhat orderly rows of various concrete supports and foundations across a swamp, then had given up after a while. I opened the door and stepped into the muddy water, feeling the liquid instantly trickle over the tops of Grandpa’s boots and soak into my socks.

Junior and Bert climbed out of the truck and joined Fat Ernst and me in front of the Cadillac, bathed in the harsh glare of the headlights. “If I would’ve known we were coming out here, I would’ve brought some flowers for Pop,” Junior said, leaning against the Cadillac’s hood.

“We’re gonna visit Pop?” Bert asked.

Fat Ernst ignored him and asked, “You got your shovels?”

“Yep.”

“Well, go get ’em and let’s get to work. We’re not here for a goddamn picnic.”

“Hold on,” Junior said, crossing his arms. “We ain’t moving until we know why we’re here.”

“Yeah,” Bert said, nodding. He tried to cross his arms as well, but with his right arm still in a cast, it didn’t work so well.

Fat Ernst smiled. “You ever seen Earl Johnson’s belt buckle? The one made of gold? With a shitload of diamonds all over it?”

“No,” Junior said. A moment of silence. Then he smiled back. “But I heard about it.”

“Well, I just happen to know that Earl had it put in his will that he should be wearing it when they put him in the ground.”

Junior looked astonished and betrayed at the same time. “You mean to tell me … that they … they buried it with Earl?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” Bert echoed. I still didn’t think he knew quite what was happening. His eyes were wandering around of their own accord again, and I wondered if he’d been taking his horse tranquilizers on a regular schedule.

“So it’s out there, just stuck in the ground with Earl?” Junior gestured at the headstones.

“You got it.”

“I’ll be damned. Wait a minute—suppose we go get it. How are we gonna split it up? Doesn’t make much sense to break it in half.”

“No, that don’t make much sense at all, does it? You gotta think ahead, like me. See, I’m gonna take it down to Sacramento first thing in the morning, take it in to a pawn shop, trade it in for some hard cash. You’ll have your share by noon tomorrow, no later.”

“Well, hell’s bells, if Earl was that goddamn dumb to wear that buckle into the grave, then let’s go get it.”

“Now you’re talking.” Fat Ernst glanced at me. “Go grab a shovel, boy. Time for you to earn those wages.”

It started to rain, softly at first. I heard raindrops hitting the leavesof the walnut trees and tiny splashes as the drops began to hit the water all around us. Then it began to come down hard, a wall of fat drops and a deluge of white noise. Within seconds, all of us were soaked to the skin. The rain put out Fat Ernst’s cigar. He tried lighting it several times, but no luck. Undaunted, he simply twisted the ashes off and chewed on the end. He spit, still smiling, and said, “Told you I had a plan.”

“One more thing,” Junior said as if he were just remembering something, and I suddenly found myself face down in the water, a heavy ringing in my ears. It took me a minute to realize that Junior had clocked me in the back of the head with his shovel. When I put it together and tried to sit up, he kicked me in the stomach. A great orange bomb exploded somewhere inside and liquid pain ricocheted through my body.

“That’s for shooting at the skull,” he said. “How’m I supposed to fix the horn if there’s nothing left to fix?” He kicked me again.

“Knock it off!” Fat Ernst hollered. “We’re gonna need his help, and he ain’t gonna shovel much if you keep kicking him like that.”

Junior bent down, whispering, “We’re just getting started, you and I.” He made a point of stepping on my hand with his cowboy boot, driving it into the soft mud as he turned back to the truck.

Bert started out into the cemetery first, carrying a Coleman lantern that Fat Ernst had also thoughtfully brought along. It gave me a beacon to follow as I stumbled along behind him carrying two shovels, the sledgehammer, and a crowbar, holding my stomach as best I could. Junior was next, carrying the sump pump, plastic tube looped around his shoulders, and trailing a long, heavy-duty extension cord plugged into the generator in the back of the truck. Fat Ernst brought up the rear, wheezing and panting as we splashed through the graveyard. Immediately, I felt the mud grab hold of Grandpa’s boots as if it were alive and had a mind of its own. With each step, I sank a little farther and farther into the soft soil, until the water was almost up to my knees.

I wondered how we would find Earl’s grave, seeing that they hadn’thad time to engrave a headstone or erect one of those giant monoliths that the rich folks seemed to like so much. Everything was completely covered with water, so we couldn’t even spot the freshly dug dirt. But as it turned out, it wasn’t hard to spot the grave at all. The canopy, used to cover the grave and the mourners during the services when it rained, was still up, waiting down in the far corner of the graveyard, in the Johnson family plot.

As the four of us struggled across the cemetery, shuffling through the mud and floodwater, I realized that Grandpa was buried in here somewhere. Mom and Dad were with Mom’s parents on the other side of the river, in the Catholic cemetery. I stopped a moment, looking around. I used to know where Grandpa’s grave was located; I used to come out here at least once or twice a month with Grandma, but now, in the darkness and rain and mud, I couldn’t find my bearings. All the headstones looked alike, just erratic rows of stone slabs rising out of a black swamp. Our shadows, cast by the headlights, danced and flitted over the stones and mud, looking as if giant ravens flew about, jumping and swirling from one headstone to the next.