Jonnie hadn't dared suggest what he really wanted to do. There would have been a riot.
He had wanted to put his father in the cave of the ancient gods, far up at the top of the dark canyon, a savage cleft in the side of the tallest peak. When he was twelve he had strayed up there, more trying out a pony than going someplace. But the way up the canyon had been very flat and inviting. He had gone for miles and miles and miles and then he had been abruptly halted by giant, vertical doors. They were of some kind of metal, heavily corroded. One couldn't see them from above or even from the canyon rims. They were absolutely huge. They went up and up.
He had gotten off his pony and climbed over the rubble in front of them and simply stared. He had walked all around in circles and then come back and stared some more.
After a while he had gotten brave and had walked up to them. But push as he might, he couldn't open them. Then he had found a latch-like bar and he had pried it off and it fell, just missing his foot. Rusted but very heavy.
He had braced his shoulder against one door, sure that it was a door, and pushed and pushed. But his twelve-year-old shoulder and weight hadn't had much effect on it.
Then he had taken the fallen bar and begun to pry it into the slight crack, and after a few minutes he had gotten a purchase with it.
There had been a horrible groaning sound that almost stood his hair up straight, and he dropped the bar and ran for the pony.
Once he was mounted, his fright ebbed a bit. Maybe it was just a sound caused by the rusted hinges. Maybe it wasn't a monster.
He had gone back and worked some more with the bar, and sure enough it was just the door groaning on the pins that held it.
An awful smell had come out of the cracked opening. The smell itself had made him afraid. A little light had been let in and he peeked inside.
A long flight of steps led down, remarkably even steps. And they would have been very neat, except...
The steps were covered by skeletons tumbled every which way. Skeletons in strips of clothing– clothing like he had never seen.
Bits of metal, some bright, had fallen among the bones.
He ran away again, but this time not as far as the pony. He had suddenly realized he would need proof.
Bracing his nerve to a pitch he had seldom before achieved, he went back and gingerly stepped inside and picked up one of the bits of metal. It had a pretty design, a bird with flying wings holding arrows in its claws, quite bright.
His heart almost stopped when the skull he had removed it from tipped sideways and went to powder before his very gaze, as though it reproached him with its gaping eyes for his robbery and then expired.
The pony had been in a white-coat lather when he pulled up in the village.
For two whole days he said nothing, wondering how best to ask his questions. Previous experience in asking questions had made him cautious.
Mayor Duncan was still alive at that time. Jonnie had sat quietly beside him until the big man was properly stuffed with venison and was quiet except for a few belches.
“That big tomb,” Jonnie had said abruptly.
“What big what?” Mayor Duncan had snorted.
“The place up the dark canyon where they used to put the dead people.” “What place?”
Jonnie had taken out the bright bird badge and shown it to Mayor Duncan.
Duncan had looked at it, twisting his head this way and that, twisting the badge this way and that.
Parson Staffor, brighter in those days, had reached across the fire in a sudden swoop and grabbed the badge.
The ensuing interrogation had not been pleasant: about young boys who went to places that were forbidden and got everybody in trouble and didn't listen at conferences where they had to learn legends and were too smart anyway.
Mayor Duncan, however, had himself been curious and finally pinned Parson Staffor into recounting an applicable legend.
“A tomb of the old gods,” the parson had finally said. “Nobody has been there in living memory– small boys do not count. But it was said to exist by my great-grandfather when he was still alive– and he lived a long time. The gods used to come into these mountains and they buried the great men in huge caverns. When the lightning flashed on Highpeak, it was because the gods had come to bury a great man from over the water.
“Once there were thousands and thousands living in big villages a hundred times the size of this one. These villages were to the east, and it is said there is the remains of one straight east where thousands lived. And the place was flat except for some hills. And when a great man died there the gods brought him to the tomb of the gods.”
Parson Staffor had shaken the badge. “This was placed on the foreheads of the great when they were laid to rest in the great tomb of the gods. And that's what it is, and ancient law says that nobody is supposed to go there and everybody had better stay away from there forever– especially little boys.” And he had put the badge in his pouch, and that was the last Jonnie ever saw of it. After all, Staffor was a holy man and in charge of holy things.
Nevertheless, Jonnie thought his father should have been buried in the tomb of the gods. Jonnie had never been back there again and thought of it only when he saw lightning hit Highpeak.
But he wished he had buried his father there.
“Are you worried?” asked Chrissie. Jonnie looked down at her, his reverie broken. The dying fire wove a reddish sheen into her hair and sparked in her dark eyes.
“It’s my fault,” said Jonnie.
Chrissie smiled and shook her head. Nothing could be Jonnie's fault.
“Yes, it is,” said Jonnie. “There's something wrong with this place. My father's bones...in the last year they just crumbled like that skeleton's in the tomb of the gods.”
“The tomb of the what?” said Chrissie idly. If Jonnie wanted to talk nonsense it was all right with her. At least he was talking to her.
“I should have buried him there. He was a great man. He taught me a lot of things– how to braid grass-rope, how to wait for a puma to crouch before you stepped aside and hit him as he sprang: they can't turn in mid-air, you know. How to cut hide into strips...”
"Jonnie, you aren't guilty of anything.”
"It was a bad funeral.”
“Jonnie, it's the only funeral I remember.”
“No, it was not a good funeral. Staffor didn't preach a funeral sermon.”
“He talked. I didn't listen because I was helping gather strawberries, but I know he talked. Did he say something bad?”
“No, only it didn't apply.”
“Well, what did he say, Jonnie?"
“Oh, you know, all that stuff about god being angry with the people. Everybody knows that legend. I can quote it myself.”
“Quote it.”
Jonnie sniffed a little impatiently. But she was interested and it made him feel a little better.
"And then there came a day when god was wroth. And wearied he was of the fornicating and pleasure dallying of the people. And he did cause a wondrous cloud to come and everywhere it struck; the anger of god snuffed out the breath and breathing of ninety-nine out of a hundred men. And disaster lay upon the land and plagues and epidemics rolled and smote the unholy, and when it was done the wicked were gone and only the holy and righteous, the true children of the lord, remained upon the stark and bloodied field. But god even then was not sure and so he tested them. He sent monsters upon them to drive them to the hills and secret places, and lo the monsters hunted them and made them less and less until at last all men remaining were the only holy, the only blessed, the only sure righteous upon Earth. Hey man!'