Washing his hands of the affair entirely, Eb sold him the plot.
Having bought his plot, Mose went to the undertaking establishment run by Albert Jones.
'Al, he said, 'there's been a death out at the house. A stranger I found out in the woods. He doesn't seem to have anyone and I aim to take care of it.
'You got a death certificate? asked Al, who subscribed to none of the niceties affected by most funeral parlor operators.
'Well, no, I haven't.
'Was there a doctor in attendance?
'Doc Benson came out last night.
'He should have made you out one. I'll give him a ring.
He phoned Doctor Benson and talked with him a while and got red around the gills. He finally slammed down the phone and turned on Mose.
'I don't know what you're trying to pull off, he fumed, but Doc tells me this thing of yours isn't even human. I don't take care of dogs or cats or-
'This ain't no dog or cat.
'I don't care what it is. It's got to be human for me to handle it. And don't go trying to bury it in the cemetery, because it's against the law.
Considerably discouraged, Mose left the undertaking parlor and trudged slowly up the hill toward the town's one and only church.
He found the minister in his study working on a sermon. Mose sat down in a chair and fumbled his battered hat around and around in his work-scarred hands.
'Parson, he said, 'I'll tell you the story from first to last, and he did. He added, 'I don't know what it is. I guess no one else does, either. But it's dead and in need of decent burial and that's the least that I can do. I can't bury it m the cemetery, so I suppose I'll have to find a place for it on the farm. I wonder if you could bring yourself to come out and say a word or two.
The minister gave the matter some deep consideration.
'I'm sorry, Mose, he said at last. 'I don't believe I can. I am not sure at all the church would approve of it.
'This thing may not be human, said Old Mose, 'but it is one of God's critters.
The minister thought some more, and did some wondering out loud, but made up his mind finally that he couldn't do it.
So Mose went down the Street to where his car was waiting and drove home, thinking about what heels some humans are.
Back at the farm again, he got a pick and shovel and went into the garden, and there, in one corner of it, he dug a grave. He went out to the machine shed to hunt up some boards to make the thing a casket, but it turned out that he had used the last of the lumber to patch up the hog pen.
Mose went to the house and dug around in a chest in one of the back rooms which had not been used for years, hunting for a sheet to use as a winding shroud, since there would be no casket. He couldn't find a sheet, but he did unearth an old white linen table cloth. He figured that would do, so he took it to the kitchen.
He pulled back the blanket and looked at the critter lying there in death and a sort of lump came into his throat at the thought of it — how it had died so lonely and so far from home without a creature of its own to spend its final hours with. And naked, too, without a stitch of clothing and with no possession, with not a thing to leave behind as a remembrance of itself.
He spread the table cloth out on the floor beside the bed and lifted the thing and laid it on the table cloth. As he laid it down, he saw the pocket in it — if it was a pocket — a sort of slitted flap in the center of what could be its chest. He ran his hand across the pocket area. There was a lump inside it. He crouched for a long moment beside the body, wondering what to do.
Finally he reached his fingers into the flap and took out the thing that bulged. It was a ball, a little bigger than a tennis ball, made of cloudy glass — or, at least, it looked like glass. He squatted there, staring at it, then took it to the window for a better look.
There was nothing strange at all about the ball. It was just a cloudy ball of glass and it had a rough, dead feel about it, just as the body had.
He shook his head and took it back and put it where he'd found it and wrapped the body securely in the cloth. He carried it to the garden and put it in the grave. Standing solemnly at the head of the grave, he said a few short words and then shoveled in the dirt.
He had meant to make a mound above the grave and he had intended to put up a cross, but at last he didn't do either one of these. There would be snoopers. The word would get around and they'd be coming out and hunting for the spot where he had buried this thing he had found out in the woods. So there must be no mound to mark the place and no cross as well. Perhaps it was for the best, he told himself, for what could he have carved or written on the cross?
By this time it was well past noon and he was getting hungry, but he didn't stop to eat, because there were other things to do. He went out into the pasture and caught up Bess and hitched her to the stoneboat and went down into the woods.
He hitched her to the birdcage that was wrapped around the tree and she pulled it loose as pretty as you please. Then he loaded it on the stoneboat and hauled it up the hill and stowed it in the back of the machine shed, in the far corner by the forge.
After that, he hitched Bess to the garden plow and gave the garden a cultivating that it didn't need so it would be fresh dirt all over and no one could locate where he'd dug the grave.
He was just finishing the plowing when Sheriff Doyle drove up and got out of the car. The sheriff was a soft-spoken man, but he was no dawdler. He got right to the point.
'I hear, he said, 'you found something in the woods.
'That I did, said Mose.
'I hear it died on you.
'Sheriff, you heard right.
'I'd like to see it, Mose.
'Can't. I buried it. And I ain't telling where.
'Mose, the sheriff said, 'I don't want to make you trouble, but you did an illegal thing. You can't go finding people in the woods and just bury them when they up and die on you.
'You talk to Doc Benson?
The sheriff nodded. 'He said it wasn't any kind of thing he'd ever seen before. He said it wasn't human.
'Well, then, said Mose, 'I guess that lets you out. If it wasn't human, there could be no crime against a person. And if it wasn't owned, there ain't any crime against property. There's been no one around to claim they owned the thing, is there?
The sheriff rubbed his chin. 'No, there hasn't. Maybe you're right. Where did you study law?
'I never studied law. I never studied anything. I just use common sense.
'Doc said something about the folks up at the university might want a look at it.
'I tell you, Sheriff, said Mose. 'This thing came here from somewhere and it died. I don't know where it came from and I don't know what it was and I don't hanker none to know. To me it was just a living thing that needed help real bad. It was alive and it had its dignity and in death it commanded some respect. When the rest of you refused it decent burial, I did the best I could. And that is all there is to it.
'All right, Mose, the sheriff said, 'if that's how you want it.
He turned around and stalked back to the car. Mose stood beside old Bess hitched to her plow and watched him drive away. He drove fast and reckless as if he might be angry.
Mose put the plow away and turned the horse back to the pasture and by now it was time to do chores again.
He got the chores all finished and made himself some supper and after supper sat beside the stove, listening to the ticking of the clock, loud in the silent house, and the crackle of the fire.
All night long the house was lonely.
The next afternoon, as he was plowing corn, a reporter came and walked up the row with him and talked with him when he came to the end of the row. Mose didn't like this reporter much. He was too flip and he asked some funny questions, so Mose clammed up and didn't tell him much.