Kings of the Earth: A Novel by Jon Clinch Page A

under the box and gave us a little trouble and I’d have just left it down there if it’d been up to me, but those boys were always great believers in waste not want not. Audie went down for it and came up grinning like a boy who’d caught a snake. He looked young.

    We had a little reception on the screen porch out back. You could about see the grave from there for one thing. And anyhow you didn’t necessarily want to spend much time in a closed room with those boys no matter what the occasion was. Margaret set out baloney sandwiches cut up small and macaroni salad and baked beans and a white cake. She put that last under a little screen tent she had that folded up like a parasol when you didn’t need it, even though the porch already had screens. She set out some lemonade too. I’d told her earlier in the day that I was afraid the cake might make things a little too festive but the boys didn’t seem to get that impression. They went at it like a pack of wolves. DeAlton’s cousin ate a little piece of a sandwich and headed on home but the reverend stayed. He didn’t have a wedding ring on his hand so he was probably figuring this would do him for supper. That’s what Margaret said later. She guessed he lived from one potluck dinner to another, and this one was as good as the next. He didn’t push the church on us any.
    After a while we wrapped up the leavings in tinfoil and the boys took them home. If it’d been anybody else I guess we’d just let them take the plates and bring them back when they were done. Margaret said they ought to get at the baloney and the macaroni salad and the baked beans right off because they wouldn’t keep in this heat. The cake would last but there wasn’t much of it. They thanked her kindly and went off satisfied. Say what you want, those boys were brought up to be gracious. You can’t take that away from them.
    DeAlton went back to work and Donna went home and the reverend left too. It seemed to me there was a good deal more awkwardness over all those good-byes than there had been up at the grave, I guess because the parties involved were all still among the living. Plus up there the reverend was in charge of things and he knew exactly how it was supposed to be done, step by step, even if he did get it out of a book. Afterward it’s every man for himself.
    They went down to the house and I sat with Margaret on the porch. The trash needed emptying but I didn’t get at it right away. We hadn’t done all that much, but we were about worn out. A funeral will do that to you no matter how old you are and we weren’t old then. Not yet. We sat side by side and watched them go down the hill and across the little bit of pasture toward the house. Vernon gave his tinfoil to Creed and went around back where the old school bus was that they kept full of turkeys, and Creed and Audie went into the barn. I didn’t know if they would keep going into the house but I figured they wouldn’t because they’d have work to do in the barn the same as always.
    It wasn’t until I heard Audie carrying on that I knew they’d kept going into the house. Why Creed couldn’t have waited to get the hasp mounted on her bedroom door I can’t say. There’s such a thing as a decent interval. Why he had to have Audie work on it I don’t know either.

Creed
    H E’S A GOOD WORKER but he wouldn’t do that job. Preston come and give him some white cake and that calmed him down and then I done it myself.

Del
    I HATED LIKE ANYTHING to see them go put up that yellow tape. I knew it had to be done, but I hated to see it happen and I hated that I couldn’t do anything to prevent it. You reach a point, though, beyond which it’s all procedure. Some men take comfort in that but I don’t. Maybe I will one day, but I don’t now.
    What were they going to find? Those three men lived there cheek by jowl all their lives and the place hadn’t been cleaned in forever. There were fingerprints on that headboard older