They stowed the gear and headed back to town. Driving south on County Six, a cloud of dust rising behind the Pope-mobile on the gravel road, Mike caught a glimpse of Duane McBride's home off to the right, then Dale's Uncle Henry's place on the left just before they descended the first steep hill and climbed again to pass Calvary Cemetery. Mike saw the graveyard empty and golden in the evening light, noticed the lack of any cars in the grassy area along the road, and suddenly remembered that he was supposed to have checked out Van Syke today. He asked Father C. to stop and the priest steered the Popemobile onto the grass parking strip between the road and the black wrought-iron fence.
"What is it?" asked Father C.
Mike thought fast. "I ... uh ... I promised Memo I'd check Grandpa's grave today. You know, see if the grass's been cut, if the flowers we left last week are still there. You know, stuff like that." Another lie for Confession.
"I'll wait for you," said the priest.
Mike blushed and turned to look out at the cemetery so Father C. wouldn't see the blush. He hoped the priest wouldn't hear the lie in his voice. "Uh ... I'd rather be done for a while. I want to say some prayers." Good Mike, hat made a lot of sense. You want to say prayers so you tell a priest to get lost. Is it a mortal sin to lie about praying? "Besides, I may have to pull some flowers in the woods and it'll be a while."
Father Cavanaugh looked west across the road, toward the sun that hung like a red balloon low above the cornfields. "It's almost dark, Michael."
"I'll get home before dark. Honest."
"But it's at least a mile to town." The priest sounded dubious, as if he suspected some mischief but couldn't figure out what it might be.
"It's no problem, Father. Us guys hike and bike it all the time. We play in the woods out here a lot."
"You're not going into the woods after dark?"
"Naw," said Mike. "Just do what I promised Memo and walk home. I like walking." He was thinking, Could Father C. be afraid of the dark? He rejected the idea. For a second he considered not lying, telling the priest about their hunch that something was wrong with Old Central--something involving Tubby Cooke's disappearance-and all about how he was planning to check on the toolshed behind the cemetery where Van Syke was rumored to sleep sometimes. Then he rejected that idea, too-he didn't want Father Cavanaugh thinking he was a nut.
"You're sure?" said Father C. "Your folks will think you're with me."
"They know I promised Memo," said Mike, finding the lie easier now. "I'll be home before dark."
Father Cavanaugh nodded and leaned over to open the door for Mike. "All right, Michael. Thanks for the fishing companionship and conversation. Tomorrow, early Mass?"
It was a rhetorical question. Mike served every early Mass. "Sure, tomorrow," he said, closing the heavy door and leaning forward to speak through the open window. "Thanks for . . ." He paused, not knowing what he was thanking the priest for. Being a grown-up who talks to me? "Thanks for loaning me the fishing pole."
"Any time," said Father C. "Next time we'll go down to Spoon River where there are real fish." He saluted with two fingers, backed the Popemobile out, and disappeared down the next hill to the south. Mike stood there a minute, blinking away dust and feeling the grasshoppers leap away from his legs in the low grass. Then he turned and looked at the cemetery. His shadow merged with the black and barbed lattice of the shadow of the iron fence. Great. Jeez, what if Van Syke's here?
He didn't think the part-time custodian, part-time cemetery handyman was there. The air was still, rich with the corn and dust smell of a humid June evening. And the place looked, sounded, and felt empty. He pulled back the knobbed bar on the pedestrian gate and walked inside, conscious of his shadow leaping ahead, conscious of the tall headstones throwing their own shadows, and especially conscious of the hushed silence after the hours of conversation.
He did stop by Grandpa's grave. It was about halfway back in the four-acre cemetery, three headstones left of the gravel-and-grass lane that bisected the rows of graves. The O'Rourkes were clustered in this area-his mother's people nearer the fence on the other side-and Grandpa's grave was the closest to the road. There was a wide grassy space here that Mike knew was reserved for his parents. And his sisters. And him.
The flowers were still there-wilted and dead but still there-from the previous Monday, Memorial Day, and so was the tiny American flag the American Legion had set there. They replaced the flags each Memorial Day, and part of Mike's sense of what season it was depended on how faded the flag was on Grandpa's grave: he had enlisted during World War I but had never gone overseas, merely spent fourteen months in a camp in Georgia. When Mike was very young, he had listened to Memo's stories of Grandpa's friends' adventures overseas in the Great War and received the definite impression from Memo that Grandpa's failure to see action was one of the few things the old man wished had turned out different in his life.
The colors of the flag were bright: blood red and crisp white above the green grass. The low, horizontal light made everything brighter and richer. Somewhere on Dale's Uncle j Henry's farm one hill and a quarter of a mile away, a cow lowed and the sound was quite clear in the still air.
Mike bowed his head and said a prayer. Perhaps he wouldn't have to confess the little lies after all. Then he crossed himself and walked down the lane toward the rear of the cemetery and Van Syke's shed.
It wasn't really Van Syke's shed, merely the old toolshed that had been in the cemetery for years and years. It was set back near the rear fence, across a mowed strip of stubble far from the last row of graves-although, Mike thought, someday the cemetery would grow around it-and the thick sunlight lay across its west wall like butter spread on stone.
Mike noticed that the padlock was on the door and he strolled past as if he was headed for the woods and strip-mined hills far behind the cemetery-the kids' usual destination when they cut through here-and then turned back, stepping into the deep shadow on the west side of the little building. Grasshoppers leaped blindly from the stubble under his sneakers and brittle weeds cracked underfoot.
There was a window on this side-the only window the shed had-and it was tiny and neck-high on Mike. He went closer, shielded his eyes, and peered in.
Nothing. The window was too grimed and the interior too dark.
Whistling, hands in his pockets, Mike strolled around the building. He glanced over his shoulder several times to make sure that no one was coming down the lane. The road had been empty since Father C. had driven off. The cemetery was quiet. Beyond the road, the sun had gone down with the crimson, slow-motion elegance reserved for Illinois sunsets. But the empty sky was still burnished with June evening light, fading now toward true twilight and summer dark.
Mike inspected the lock. It was a solid Yale padlock, but the metal plate where the hook was attached to the doorframe was set into splinters and rot. Still whistling softly, Mike wiggled the plate back and forth until one-then two-of the three rusty screws were free of the frame. The last screw took some urging from Mike's pocketknife, but finally it came free. Mike glanced around, made sure there was a stone nearby to pound the screws back in when it was time to leave, and then he stepped into the shed.
It was dark. The air smelled of fresh soil and something more sour than that. Mike closed the door behind him-leaving a crack for light and so that he could hear if a car drove up to the front gate-and he stood there blinking a moment, letting his eyes adapt.