“Uh-huh.I’ve been waiting for you ever since the certified letter came. Relieved to finally start the beginning of the end. “Glad to not see you holding that iron over there,” Higgins says, nodding toward the 30-30, “I expect you know why I’m here.” Carrying a clipboard of papers, he approaches Joe and smiles when he sees the 30-30 over against the gate post. Also, it doesn’t hurt that he tries to take an easy manner with the well-to-do, who are well represented throughout the valley. Just your average kind of sheriff, he keeps getting re-elected because he knows most people, including Joe. Sheriff Higgins, overweight but not particularly quarrelsome, has been the sheriff around here for a long time. While the deputy remains in his car, the sheriff kicks open the SUV door and hauls himself out. Having gone as far as it can, the black SUV, a large gold colored star on its door, comes to a halt. He will let it play out the American way with a heaviness that has its own gravity. There will be no more killing like that-ever. Joe leans his 30-30 Winchester against the gate post. In one of those unexpected reminisces, Joe recalls the highlands of Pleiku, Vietnam, and the stunned look on the young Viet Cong’s face when he shot him. Now, in his senior years, he is watching those he can no longer put off come to take the only things that have kept him alive. By hunting, a little gardening, and odd jobs working for the valley elite, he had eked out an existence blessed by a strong back and good health. Turning his back on both directions, he used this rocky and sparsely timbered land to wall off what he considered a failed society full of broken promises. Ahead, to where he was supposed to go, he liked even less. The same country that he almost died serving is going to take the only real home he ever knew.Ĭoming out of that unnecessary war and inheriting this place from his grandfather had given him time to look at where he had been. At least nothing that he is willing to do. And he knows that there is nothing he can do to stop it. He knows they are coming to deliver the papers that will confiscate his rough cut home for unpaid taxes. The American was one of them and they loved him.įrom a hard scrabble patch of land in the foothills of the Virginia Appalachians Joe Benedict watches the sheriff’s small motorcade make its way across the valley. Many, over time, and one in particular, will return to this grave, burn a candle or two in the still of the night, and say a prayer for Joe’s soul. Spreading their nipa mats on the same ground that much of their food comes from, they eat and sing until the sun drops close to the rising mountains of Negros. This ritual done, the thumping cadence of spaded earth dropping ever more silently on a wooden box ushers the crowd out over the hilltop. Several others who can get close enough add their own handfuls of dirt. Stepping forward, the woman drops a handful of earth onto the casket and follows the priest outside the fence. The bearers lower the casket, letting the hemp ropes follow it down. Swinging an incense burner to and fro, and throwing sprinkles of holy water over the casket, the priest consecrates the site and blesses it with a short prayer. On his right side and a step behind, a salt and pepper haired woman in black nods for him to begin. A few metal chairs to one side of the fence serve to rescue the carriers and their tired feet.Īs the procession arrives and gathers, and the sun drops a bit to the west, a young priest emerges from the crowd and stands at the head of the grave. Alone and unadorned, except for a little iron grill fence, and a small flat stone, its high polish brightly reflecting the overhead sun, Joe commands the view in all directions. It is cooler up here where the winds from two seas mix and swirl. And one he took pains with to title and protect.ĭressed in leather sandals, dark trousers, and white shirts, grey with sweat, the six casket bearers rest the coffin at the lip of the open grave. It was the only final resting place that ever occurred to him. Atop the mountainous backbone of Cebu, Joe Benedict will be buried. To the west, the jungle tree tops dip down to the Visayan Sea and the Tanon Strait. The Philippine Sea and the Island of Bohol fill the horizon to the east. On an adjoining hill, a couple of low humped bulls lift their heads from the grass and stare. They are gathered by the children in the long following procession of mourners. Tossed by the many people lining the path up the last rise of Mantalongon, a few coins miss their mark and fall to the earth. Like glittering raindrops falling on a burnished palm frond, the peso coins dance and spin atop the dark wooden casket before dropping into the small net attached to its edges.
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