Chapter 60 - BURIAL

Dunk carried his father up the ledge and into the dense old-growth spruce above the little cove. Marianne wasn't sure if she should come with him, but when he saw the uncertainty in her eyes, he whispered, "please help me." They walked silently single file up the rising ground.

As they climbed they began to hear the wind shaking the tops of the trees, and the scent of rotted woods and fresh balsam mingled in the air. It was hot and still in the woods, and the ground was spongy with moisture. A few mosquitoes whined. They jumped a young buck which bounded off to a thud of hooves. When they reached the top of a knoll they were surrounded by a cluster of tall bare-bolled trees, dancing together with their heads in the wind. An arhythmic creaking and clacking came from the woods.

"This is good," Dunk said, laying the blanket-wrapped burden down.

Marianne had wondered if they could find enough soil to dig a grave in, the ground was so bony, but Dunk had an eye for terrain, and he spotted a crevasse in the granite ledge which had filled with debris over the ages, and was deep in fragrant earth. A big spruce growing there had fallen recently, ripping off the top layer, the flattened root mass upended just downhill. They dug side-by-side like dogs in the loose ground where the tree had been, prying up a rotted root here and there, until they were down about four feet.

Neither had said a word, but Dunk's face was running with tears. They both got up out of the hole, beating the dirt off their hands and knees. Dunk gently carried Buster over and placed him in the cavity. He stepped back.

"Bustah want a churchgoer," Dunk said. "But my Mom would want some words said. Maybe the Lord's Prayer will do.." and he began to recite. Marianne joined him.

"...forever and ever. Amen."

They covered the body with the dirt they'd excavated, and Dunk rolled some large chunks of granite onto the spot, to keep animals from digging. Then he spread leaves and branches around, disguising the place from casual discovery. The whole ceremonial business had taken about two hours.

Walking back downhill Marianne reached forward and took Dunk's hand. He stopped, turned, and took her in his arms. Kissed her like something rare and precious.

"It don't seem fair," he said as they resumed walking, his eyes dry now, his grieving less intense. "I think I remembah when I was little him bein gentle and kind and fun to be with. But all I remember aftah he come back was his rages, and his craziness, and gettin beaten. And him beatin Mom and Annie."

Marianne's heart ached. Her memories of her father were confused and angry, too, but the thought of losing him before she could get it right, before she could do whatever it was to make him see her, was like a hole in her gut. She knew how Dunk was torn between his hatred of what Buster had become, and his hopes of what might have been. But she stayed silent, letting Dunk come to words when he needed to.

When they got down to the cove again they washed their hands in the salt water. Marianne began to build a fire to make tea. Dunk sat on the outer rocks, staring over the water. The clearing gale was blowing itself out as the sun angled down, but there were still downdrafting eddies stirring the surface.

When the water was hot, Marianne made two cups of tea and carried them out to Dunk. She sat beside him.

"Sometimes I think the wind and the water are dancin togethah," Dunk said, breaking the silence. Marianne waited for him to go on. "I don't just mean where the wind makes waves. I mean the currents in the water run with the currents in the air above," he went on thoughtfully. "Like ovah theyah at the mouth of the thoroughfare. There's a spot where the tiderun takes a hahd turn for no reason I can figgah. And the wind does the same thing right ovah it."

Marianne was deeply moved Dunk would turn to nature to frame his thinking now. She'd found her truest understanding of unanswerable questions in patterns in the soil, or the shapes of landscapes. Somehow natural maps explained things rational language never could. And her intuitive reasoning informed her scientific thinking.. and vice versa. That Dunk could speak in his local language about such abstract patterns was a special poetry to her. She only knew how to put it in academic rhetoric. She reached out and took his hand.

Dunk drew her to him, rising to his knees, and they embraced thigh to thigh, their knees on the hard rocks. They kissed tenderly at first, but then with rising passion. Then Dunk suddenly stopped.

"Is this right, Mary?" he asked, uncertainly.

"It's very right," she whispered. And getting to her feet she led him by the hand toward their camp.

When they reached her tent, Marianne unzipped it and kneeled down to get in. Dunk hesitated.

"I don't want to hurt you, Mary, or do anythin wrong," he said.

Marianne turned around in the entrance and took both his hands, pulling his face down to hers. She kissed him gently.

"You can't do anything wrong with me, Dunk. I'm your current in the sea."