Cry of the Hawk

JONAH HOOK KNOCKED the damp earth from his hands, then finished brushing them off on the worn clothing Boatwright had given the two former Confederate soldiers as a homecoming gift. They had both hurried back to the valley south out of Cassville.

The work in the dark Missouri loam had been more than Jonah had thought it would be when first he decided to dig in that spot back of the cabin. After finding a small bit of lamp oil left in the cabin, Jonah and Artus burned their old clothing out at the edge of the fields now gone to weed. Jonah didn’t stand there long, watching the oily smoke rise into the cold winter afternoon air.

“We got work to do, Artus,” he had directed.

And work they had.

Four holes, a good six feet long and some two feet wide. Another six feet deep. All lined in a row behind the cabin he had built for Gritta and Hattie, and the two boys yet to come when first they settled in this narrow valley. Now something had made him return to the homestead for this final ceremony. His digging of the four graves was some dark journey into the deepest recesses of his rage, and the despair he suffered at ever finding them again.

The cousins had spelled one another at that single spade, cursing the hard ground wrought of winter, thankful for the recent cold rains that had soaked some softness into the unforgiving flintlike, and frozen soil. Now they rested, gasping over the fourth and final hole.

“You understand, don’t you, Artus?”

Moser swiped a streak of dirt across his cheek, smearing sweat off with his dirty hand. “No. I don’t.”

“You got two graves up there to your place. That’s your family buried there.”

“But, Jonah—you don’t know what’s happened to your family.”

“That’s why I’m leaving the graves open.” He dropped the spade beside the last hole and turned away toward the cabin. “Maybe it’s like old man Hosking said it—they’re good as dead. Until I find ’em. And find who dragged ’em off.”

“Jonah!”

Hook turned, finding Moser pulling his misshaped hat from his head.

“Man never walks away from a grave without saying a few words.”

“What you mean?”

Moser waved a hand helplessly, searching for the words. “This is some like a funeral to you, ain’t it?”

He thought a minute. “I suppose it is.”

“We ought to say some special church words over these holes afore we leave.”

Hook came back, then dragged the floppy slouch hat from his long hair. “You’re right.”

Jonah stood there a few moments, sorting through a lot of thoughts. Mostly struggling to swallow down the rage and despair so that he could speak some of those few church words he could remember now without making them come out like he was flinging his anger up at God and the heavens.

“I really ain’t any good at this, Artus,” he whispered as if some-one or some-thing near might overhear.

“We gotta say something.”

“All right,” Hook sighed. “This is tough, Lord. The worst it’s ever been inside of me. Feel damned near gutted—I’m sorry for swearing. Do too much of that, I know. I’m not always what you want of me, I suppose. Never been much of one to get down on my prayer bones and taffy up to you, God. Hell, you know what’s in my heart better’n anyone. No sense me telling you what you already know’s inside me. All that’s left inside me now.”

Jonah knelt and picked up some of the fresh spoil beside the last grave. “This is for little Zeke. Born and baptized as Ezekiel before you, Lord.” Jonah tossed the moist clods into the dark hole.

Moving to the next hole, he spilled some loose soil through his fingers. “This is for Jeremiah. Until my boy and me can fill this damned hole up together.”

“You ain’t supposed to swear when you’re talking to the Lord, Jonah.”

“I’m sure He’s heard me swear enough that he thinks nothing of it now, Artus.” Hook stopped by the third grave. “And dear little Hattie—until you and your daddy can plant some wildflowers here on this spot.”

He felt it welling and didn’t know how to make it stop as he stepped to the final hole. And stared down into its emptiness, much like his own center, except for the anger and the despair—nothing else there but black emptiness.

It shook him a moment, right down to those old boots Boatwright had given him.

“Sometimes I curse myself, dear woman,” he began, quietly. “Ever bringing you out here from our home at the foot of Big Cobbler. Curse myself for wanting to make a home that would be ours—not your family’s or mine. Something that could be ours alone.”

As he began to sob, some of the tears fell on the back of his dirty hands he held clasped in front of him, trembling as they crimped a hold on that slouch hat.

“This never would happen back in the Shenandoah. Out here—in this land where there’s no law to speak of, where the guilty can ride in here and murder and steal, then run and hide in the Nations—” He stopped of a sudden, feeling out of control as he let the words spill.

“Pray that I find you, Gritta. Wherever they’ve taken you and the children. For the sake of them. For the sake of what we could be again—pray that I find you.”