Fiji put her hand over her mouth. Creek, who had just read the same passage, turned to Fiji. For once, the two women were in accord. They silently grimaced at each other to manifest their disgust. But at that moment the music swelled, and the mourners followed a silent hand gesture from the man standing at the front of the church and rose to their feet. The coffin came in on its gurney, guided by two funeral home attendants, with Aubrey’s family walking in behind it.
The couple at the head of the mourners must be the parents. To Fiji’s faint surprise, they were only in their forties. Under ordinary circumstances, she realized they’d be vital and attractive people. Aubrey had definitely inherited her looks and charm from her father, who had his arm around a small, frail woman dressed in navy blue.
The other family members she could only guess about: the brother, Macon, was probably the big guy whose eyes were red with weeping. There was a man who (going on looks) must be Mr. Hamilton’s brother, accompanied by his sturdy wife and their kids, who were in their early twenties. Cousins. There was one grandmother, tiny like Aubrey’s mom. Once they were all seated, the funeral began.
To the fidgety Fiji, the service seemed to take forever. There were prayers and Bible readings and anecdotes. To Fiji’s dismay, several people read poems or essays that described a very different woman from the one Fiji had known. Fiji noticed that even Creek looked uncomfortable as they listened to stories about how gentle Aubrey had been, how loving and thoughtful. And yet, if you listened with unkind ears (or as Fiji preferred to call it, “an open mind”), you could hear that all had not been well in Aubrey land. A careful listener like Fiji could hear that Aubrey had not communicated much with her parents or with her in-laws in the past couple of years, that she’d liked to party hard, that she’d been overly influenced by those around her.
There were more prayers, and the minister’s well-constructed homily that was so touching even Fiji grew more solemn. She glanced at her companion to see that Creek was crying. Fiji fumbled in her bag for a tissue to pass to the girl. Creek gave Fiji a grateful look and used it to blot her cheeks and her nose.
By the time Fiji thought she was growing roots in the pew, after yet another prayer, the service was over.
When Aubrey had left her parents’ church for the last time, Fiji said, “Do you want to go out to the cemetery?”
Creek, who had recovered her composure, nodded. “I guess so,” she said. “It just seems polite.”
Fiji joined the funeral procession, feeling like a fraud as the oncoming cars pulled off to the side of the road, and people standing on the sidewalks of Buffalo Plain took off their hats or stood at attention as the hearse drove by. About three miles out of town, the land began to rise again. They turned off the state highway to take a narrow road that jinked its way up a rolling hill. At the very top they entered the cemetery, the culmination of the road. The grounds were not fenced. There was a metal sign to the right of the entrance that read PIONEER REST. The graveyard was an old one; Fiji saw headstones that dated back to the early eighteen hundreds.
There were live oaks shading some of the older graves, and little brown leaves fluttered in the wind that scoured the hilltop. It was quiet and peaceful, or at least it would be after all the mourners left.
“It’s like we’re an interruption,” Fiji said to Creek, who gave her a surprised look. Fiji wondered if she could come back on some other occasion, just to read the headstones.
She parked behind the other cars, all huddled to one side of the narrow paved path that made a lazy loop through the graves. In summer, attending an interment here would be a very hot, sweaty experience. In October, it was pleasant. The minute she got out of the car, Fiji’s hair began its escape from the barrette she’d used to trap it.
Creek looked at the open grave as they drew near to the prepared site. It was hardly visible under all the funeral home paraphernalia, but it was there and it was waiting. In an attempt to comfort the girl, Fiji said, “She’ll be here with frontiersmen and gunfighters and pioneer women.”
Creek looked at her blankly, but after a moment she said, “All part of history. I see that.”
Fiji had a moment’s impulse to sing “The Circle of Life,” but she suppressed it sternly. Her resentment of the dead woman was getting the better of her sense of appropriate behavior. If I came as Bobo’s representative, I’m sure not acting like it, she scolded herself. She forced her face into strictly expressionless lines as they joined the small crowd around the tent erected over the open grave.
The earnest minister began to pray. Again.
Aubrey’s mother, Lucyfay, who looked as though a strong breeze would blow her away, did not make a single sound during the long prayer. Destin Hamilton sat with one arm around his wife, one fist clenched on his thigh. He was visibly tense, about to explode with some strong emotion. Fiji couldn’t pick what the emotion would be: grief, rage, impatience? It was painful to witness.
As the prayer went on and on, Fiji—and all the mourners—shifted and began to look around, because a sound was getting louder and closer. At first it reminded Fiji of a fleet of distant lawn tractors. Gradually, it became apparent that there was a procession drawing nearer: Motorcycles, all with the same flag attached, rumbled into the cemetery in single file. The minister gave up his attempt to be heard, and the mourners turned as one to watch the machines reach the place on the road closest to Aubrey’s grave and then, one by one, park in a neat line facing in. Fiji counted thirty of them.
The riders dismounted and came to the grave site. Though it was impossible to read their faces, since all of them were wearing dark glasses and kerchiefs or helmets, Fiji thought their body language read self-conscious as they assembled in a group. After the noise of the motors, the appalled silence weighed heavily on the newcomers.
Two of them were carrying a folded flag. They handed it off to the leader in a clumsy bit of ceremony. The leader walked over to stand in front of the Hamiltons. He extended the flag to them. He was a tall man—broad, too—and wearing a black motorcycle jacket and jeans. He’d removed his helmet.
Fiji could see, from the ripple running through the mourners, that they knew him.
“Who is that?” she asked of the woman closest to her.
The woman, who was wearing a cross around her neck and a modest wedding band, said in an equally low voice, “That’s Price Eggleston.”
Fiji was not terribly surprised. Eggleston did not look stupid, but by interrupting a funeral he had to know he would offend an awful lot of people. She wondered what he hoped to achieve. She found out when most of the young people pulled cell phones from purses and pockets and began to record what was happening. They were taking photos or movies. Eggleston adopted a terribly solemn face. He held out the flag to the Hamiltons, who stared at it, appalled. They made no move to accept the triangular bundle.