Well, as the Tuesday noon gathering broke up — the funeral was scheduled for the following day — one of the fellows summed up things this way:
“Maybe poor old Bill had a justifiable reason for hating Ainsley; lots of us do. But it’s all over, Sneaky Meany has won again, just like he always does. Now he can concentrate on cheating the rest of us.”
Next morning, spring, which had appeared the week before in a rhapsody of birdsong, budding blossoms, and warm sunshine, cringed under a blanket of fog and freezing rain, a typical mid-March day in southern West Virginia. The turnout for Bill’s funeral would have been slim at best; with the dismal weather only eleven mourners showed up, including, of course, the six pallbearers.
Reverend Amos Stokes of the poverty-stricken Hard Rock Church of the Old Testament, a gaunt fellow with a prominent nose and an even more prominent Adam’s apple, tried his best to say something kind about a poor unfortunate human being who had spent a good part of his life “festering in hate and vindictiveness.” Several of the pallbearers reported later that Banker Means was seen to snicker briefly at that remark of the Reverend Stokes, but when the parson went on from there to Deuteronomy 32:35 — suggested to the Reverend by the whimsical undertaker Gravely — “To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their feet shall slide in due time; for their day of calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste,” it was obvious by the sudden blotches of fiery purple that smote Banker Means’ fat pink cheeks that the passage from Scripture had hit the mark.
The brief, pathetic service concluded, it was time to brave the horrible weather. The rain had frozen to the ground, and as the pallbearers cowered under the pelting sleet while they loaded the casket into the hearse (a 1952 Packard, in perfect shape), it certainly looked as if old Deuteronomy 32:35 had soothsaid right on the button, for Banker Means suddenly slipped on the icy ground, fell head over heels, and hit his head a resounding bang on the back of the casket.
“I’ll be damned,” Emmett Pollard whispered to Elias Scattergood, both of them shivering half to death and determined to beat it to warmer quarters as soon as the casket was loaded. “Looks like old Bill’s still trying to get even.”
By then Banker Means, cursing a blue streak, had righted himself. Someone handed him his derby, the burgeoning bump on his right temple turning a nasty purplish-blue.
“No, I don’t need a doctor, Willard,” he snarled when Undertaker Gravely suggested such a possibility. “Let’s get going. I’m a busy man. Why I ever agreed to participate in this... this... miserable mess is beyond me. Let’s go, God damn it.”
They got going. Everybody found his place and the little cortege — the hearse carrying the wispy remains, the black limousine (a 1950 Packard) — departed for Potter’s Field, the old cemetery high on a windswept hill four miles out of town, up a long, winding road with a dozen hairpin turns.
Joe Simmons, the regular hearse driver, had come down with a bug and was unable to drive the hearse that morning, and Pearly Poggs, an unemployed coal truck driver, unversed in the do’s and don’ts of funeral procedure but a veteran driver in all kinds of weather, had been pressed into service. As usual, Digger Downs, a jack of all trades (his main occupation was well-drilling) handled the big limousine.
Traffic was practically nonexistent on the highway. Fog swirled, sleet pounded down, it was an appropriate day for a funeral; cold, grey, dismal. The hearse turned off the highway onto the narrow road leading to the cemetery. The limousine followed. The road proved to be “slicker’n a frog on a fryin’ pan” as one of the pallbearers put it. Banker Means agreed, not in those words.
“This road’s not safe,” he shouted as the limousine, imitating the hearse, began to slide back and forth on the icy road, almost hitting the cliffside on the left, nearly banging against the wire cables of the guard rail on the right.
“Who’s responsible for not having ashed this road?” Banker Means yelled. “Turn around. I’m not risking my neck for a maundering old fool who was a thorn in my side for over forty years. Damn it, Downs,” he screamed, mad as hell now, starting to pound poor old Digger on the back (Means was sitting directly behind him), “turn around this minute... do you hear me?”
“I hear ya, Ainsley,” said Digger, bending over the steering wheel to get out of range and also to peer a bit better through the fog and sleet. “We got snow tires on and besides there ain’t no turnabout till we git halfway up the hill... an’ quit your hittin’ me, ’less you want me to git us wrecked.”
That stopped the pummelling but not the tirade.
“You’ll hear from me, every damn one of you,” raved Ainsley. “Particularly Willard Gravely Risking people’s lives on a day like this just to... oh my God, Downs, watch out... you’re gettin too close to the right... Wait’ll I get back down... I’ll sue the lot of you.”
It should be mentioned that Ainsley was not the only one in the limousine with his heart in his mouth. Just as frightened were the five other pallbearers. And so was Digger himself (“Jesus, even if we git up to the top, how the hell are we gonna git down?” he was thinking as he very tenderly kept one foot on the accelerator, the other barely touching the brake). But Digger and the five other pallbearers, having experienced many more of life’s vicissitudes than the rich Banker Means, had learned to take it easy, don’t make a big fuss, do the best you can, trust in God.
Upward toiled the diminutive funeral procession, slipping and sliding, the limousine staying about twenty yards behind the hearse. And the higher they got, the more the fog dissipated, a mixed blessing because though they could see the hearse more clearly they also had a better view of the rocky cliff to the left, the deep ravine to the right.
“For God’s sake, Digger,” implored Ainsley, his pink face including all his chins and jowls a ghostly hue, “please, for the love of God, be careful.”
“I’m doin’ my best, Ainsley,” replied Digger, making a note to tell the fellows at the next informal meeting of the Sons of the Mountaineers that it wasn’t exactly true that Ainsley Means was agnostic.
Digger had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when the hearse suddenly lurched across the road, hit the left side, bounced back against the wire rope attached to the guard posts. The cables screeched, the guard posts started to bend, the wheels spun, the tires smoked, it looked bad. But the hearse careened back to the center of the narrow road, spun, squealed, and smoked some more, got traction, and leaped ahead, and the back door swung open. The casket — apparently not secured properly by the substitute driver, Pearly Poggs, and not checked due to the terrible weather by the usually reliable Undertaker Gravely — slid out. It mattered not who was at fault, the casket was loose on the icy road, coming at the limousine.
“Holy smoke,” yelled Digger Downs, slamming on the brakes, “God A’mighty.” The limousine started to drift backward, toward the wire cables, the ravine. It was too much for Banker Means. He jerked the door open and jumped out onto the icy road, a big mistake as events would immediately prove.
Banker Means, arms waving madly, his sizable body teetering and swaying, a falling windmill in a hurricane, gave a spontaneous performance for a second and a half. Then his feet slid out from under him. Screaming to high heaven (which was of no avail, the dismal weather precluding two-way transmission), one hand pressing down on his derby, Banker Means slid down the steep hill.