“Parson Staffor is inside, “ said Chrissie. She was a slight girl, very pretty, about eighteen. She had large black eyes in strange contrast to her corn-silk hair. She had wrapped around herself a doeskin, really tight, and it showed her breasts and a lot of bare leg.
Her little sister, Pattie, a budding copy of the older girl, looked bright-eyed and interested. “Is there going to be a real funeral, Jonnie?"
Jonnie didn't answer. He slid off Windsplitter in a graceful single motion. He handed the lead rope to Pattie, who ecstatically uncoiled herself from Chrissie's leg and snatched at it. At seven Pattie had no parents and little enough of a home, and her sun rose and set only on Jonnie's proud orders.
“Is there going to be meat and a burying in a hole in the ground and everything?” demanded Pattie.
Jonnie started through the courthouse door, paying no heed to the hand Chrissie put out to touch his arm.
Parson Staffor lay sprawled on a mound of dirty grass, mouth open in snores, flies buzzing about. Jonnie stirred him with his foot.
Parson Staffor had seen better days. Once he had been fat and inclined to pomposity. But that was before he had begun to chew locoweed-to ease his toothaches, he said. He was gaunt now, dried up, nearly toothless, seamed with inlaid grime. Some wads of weed lay on the stones beside his mouldy bed.
As the toe prodded him again, Staffor opened his eyes and rubbed some of the scum out of them in alarm. Then he saw it was Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, and he fell back without interest.
“Get up,” said Jonnie.
“That's this generation,” muttered the parson. “No respect for their elders. Rushing off to the bushes, fornicating, grabbing the best meat pieces.”
“Get up,” said Jonnie. “You are going to give a funeral.”
“A funeral? ' moaned Staffor.
“With meat and sermons and dancing.”
“Who is dead?”
“You know quite well who's dead. You were there at the end.”
“Oh, yes. Your father. A good man. Yes, a good man. Well, maybe he was your father.”
Jonnie suddenly looked a little dangerous. He was standing there at ease, but he was wearing the skin of a puma that he himself had slain and he had his kill-club on a wrist thong. The club seemed to jump of its own volition into his palm.
Parson Staffor abruptly sat up. “Now don't take it wrong, Jonnie. It 's just that things are a little mixed up these days, you know. Your mother had three husbands one time and another, and there being no real ceremonies these days-'
“You better get up,” said Jonnie.
Staffor clawed for the corner of an ancient, scarred bench and pulled himself upright. He began to tie the deerskin he usually wore, and obviously had worn far too long, using a frayed wovengrass rope. “My memory isn't so good these days, Jonnie. One time I could remember all kinds of things. Legends, marriage ceremonies, hunt blessings, even family quarrels.” He was looking around for some fresh locoweed.
“When the sun is straight up,” said Jonnie, “you're going to call the whole village together at the old graveyard and you're-”
“Who's going to dig the hole? There has to be a hole, you know, for a proper funeral.”
"I'll dig the hole,” said Jonnie.
Staffor had found some fresh locoweed and began to gum it. He looked relieved. “Well, I’m glad the town doesn't have to dig the hole. Horns, but this stuff is green. You said meat. Who is going to kill and cook it?”
“That's all taken care of.”
Staffor nodded and then abruptly saw more work ahead. “Who's going to assemble the people?” "I’ll ask Pattie to tell them.”
Staffor looked at him reproachfully. “Then there's nothing for me to do until straight-up. Why'd you wake me up?” He threw himself back down on the dirty grass and sourly watched Jonnie walk out of the ancient room.
Chapter 4
Jonnie Goodboy sat with his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, staring into the remains of the dance fire.
Chrissie lay on her stomach beside him, idly shredding the seeds from a large sunflower between her very white teeth. She looked up at Jonnie from time to time, a little puzzled but not unduly so. She had never seen him cry before, even as a little boy. She knew he had loved his father. But Jonnie was usually so tall and grand, even cold. Could it be that under that goodlooking, almost pretty face he felt emotions for her, too? It was something to speculate about. She knew very well how she felt about Jonnie. If anything happened to Jonnie she would throw herself off the cliff where they sometimes herded wild cattle to their death, an easy way to kill them. Life without Jonnie Goodboy would not only not be worth living, it would be completely unbearable. Maybe Jonnie did care about her. The tears showed something.
Pattie had no such troubles. She had not only stuffed herself with roast meat, she had also stuffed herself with the wild strawberries that had been served by the heap. And then during the dancing she had run and run and run with two or three little boys and then come back to eat some more. She was sleeping so heavily she looked like a mound of rags.
Jonnie blamed himself. He had tried to tell his father, not just when he was seven, but many times thereafter, that something was wrong with this place. Places were not all the same. Jonnie had been– was– sure of it. Why did the pigs and horses and cattle in the plains have little pigs and horses and cattle so numerously and so continuously? Yes, and why were there more and more wolves and coyotes and pumas and birds up in the higher ranges, and fewer and fewer men?
The villagers had been quite happy with the funeral, especially since Jonnie and a couple of others had done most of the work.
Jonnie had not been happy with it at all. It wasn't good enough.
They had gathered at sun straight-up on the knoll above the village where some said the graveyard had been. The markers were all gone. Maybe it had been a graveyard. When Jonnie had toiled– naked so as not to stain his puma-skin cloak and doe britches-in the morning sun, he had dug into something that might have been an old grave. At least there was a bone in it that could have been human.
The villagers had come slouching around and there had been a wait while Pattie tore back to the courthouse and awakened Parson Staffor again. Only twenty-five of them had assembled. The others had said they were tired and asked for any food to be brought back to them.
Then there had been an argument about the shape of the grave hole. Jonnie had dug it oblong so the body could lie level, but when Staffor arrived he said it should be straight up and down, that graves were dug straight up and down because you could get more bodies into a graveyard that way. When Jonnie pointed out that there weren't any burials these days and there was plenty of room, Staffor told him off in front of everybody.
“You're too smart,” Staffor rapped at him. “When we had even half a council they used to remark on it. Every few council meetings, some prank of yours would come up. You'd ridden to the high ridge and killed a goat. You'd gone clear up Highpeak and gotten lost in a blizzard and found your way back, you said, by following the downslope of the ground. Too smart. Who else trained six horses? Everybody knows graves should be straight up and down.”
But they had buried his father lying flat anyway, because nobody else had wanted to do more digging and the sun was now past straight-up and it was getting hot.