__"Are you sure this is where you buried the bodies?" asked Robert Tuttle, gasping for air in the moonlight, his folksy plaid shirt drenched in sweat. He was exhausted, and mentally drained. The many boldfaced lies, which his mind had been using to con the rest of his aching body to move, were at an end. His weary arms could no longer dig.
__The hot and humid summer night was unbearable, even for Florida in the middle of July. A pungent orange blossom fragrance saturated the wild orchard. The full moon possessed a curious clarity, usually reserved for cold, winter nights. Tuttle, standing within a shallow hole he had helped dig, planted his shovel with a single, solid thrust. He slowly wiped his sweaty forehead with his soiled sleeve.
__Clay Godfrey, who weighed a robust three hundred and fifty pounds, wore a determined look on his face as he dug. "They just have to be," he said defiantly, shaking his head as if fending off a mosquito without the use of his hands.
__"This is the third hole we've dug since midnight. How long are we going to keep this up?"
__Clay Godfrey ignored the question and attempted to dig faster. He failed.
__"I said…it's our third hole since midnight," repeated Tuttle loudly to his friend's annoyance.
__"But I think this could be it," said Godfrey uneasily.
__"If I'm not mistaken, didn't you say that last week?"
__"I mean it this time!"
__"Yeah, and you said that two weeks ago."
__Clay Godfrey continued to dig undeterred.
__Once it became abundantly apparent that no response was forthcoming, Robert Tuttle turned away and abandoned his planted shovel. Dislodging clumps of dirt along the edge, he cautiously climbed from the rough, shallow hole and emerged into the darkness of the night. His fifty-six year old frame slowly straightened under protest, as a sharp pain made him keenly aware of his body's displeasure with such a move. At his age, it felt good to be out of any hole that could have just as well been a grave. There was no point of egging on the inevitable.
__Robert Tuttle could see the ghostly glow from the high school in the distance. They were the only lights for miles. In the other direction, and almost as far, a gigantic oak tree encompassed the dark horizon, blocking out most of the stars in the southern sky. Brushing dirt from his clothing, he hobbled to a nearby orange tree, his body already starting to stiffen.
__"This is no time for breaks," said Clay Godfrey, as he paused from his digging.
__"Please don't you go confusing this with a break, Clay," said Robert Tuttle whimsically. "I've got nothing more to give. This old body of mine is done for tonight."
__"You can't be serious," said Godfrey who was beside himself, figuratively speaking. No way two of him would have ever fit into that hole.
__"Don't I look serious to you?" asked Tuttle from the shadows.
__"I can't even see you," said Godfrey aggravated, scooping his shovel into the dirt again.
__Robert Tuttle relaxed and watched his friend dig. After a few minutes he spoke. "You know…I would dial it down there a notch, Clay. If you keep on sweating like that, you'll have more water outside your body than in it. I don't think that can be good thing. "
__Godfrey did not bother to look up as he muttered something derogatory under his breath.
__"I didn't quite catch that," said Tuttle with amusement. "You say something?"
__"Nothing," said Clay grumbling. "I was talking to myself."
__"I thought as much," replied Tuttle to the obvious lie.
__The strained conversation abruptly ended and the darkness grew peaceful.
__Robert Tuttle gradually inched away from the hole and carefully sat himself down. He rested at the base of an orange tree, his thin frame leaning against the trunk. Surveying the peaceful night, Tuttle could see the many silhouettes of the trees that surrounded him for miles. An ingrained sadness of faded memories and of happier times that had long since gone lingered within the groves. A half-century had passed and the orchard had shed its classic, straight rows of trees. A hoard of pines had since invaded the abandoned groves. The easily discernable, unobstructed dirt avenues that once existed between the fruit laden trees were no more.
__The rhythmic noise of Clay Godfrey's shovel was the only sound.
__Robert Tuttle spoke the silence first. "You really should have marked the grave somehow, Clay. Nothing short of trying to find a needle in a haystack, this is."
__Godfrey stopped digging with a laborious groan. He turned to glare at his partner with a look that suggested he believed him to be more than a little mentally challenged. "Damn it, this isn't buried treasure, Bob. Why would I ever mark the spot? Can you give me one conceivable reason? When I planted those two out here, Richard Nixon was president for Christ sake."
__"I'm just saying," said Tuttle defensively.
__"Please don't," said Godfrey irritated, his hefty, rarely exercised, calorie-laden body fatigued. He tried to steady his breath from the exertion as he planted his shovel.
__A warm summer breeze rustled the leaves, trees, and brush. From the darkness, several hard thuds came from a handful of oranges as they thumped the ground, cracking some dead branches. Godfrey gazed up at the clear, starry sky as he leaned against his shovel and rested. His eyes became lost in the magnificent stars. "What time you got?" asked Clay finally.
__Robert Tuttle fought a yawn and quickly lost. "It's almost four. We're running out of time."
__"I'm not giving up," said Godfrey, whose physical appearance screamed otherwise.
__"OK, have it your way. Be as stubborn as always, Clay."
__"Thank you. I will."
__"But don't you want to know why?"
__Clay Godfrey stared at him, keeping his angry retort to himself. He looked less than happy.
__"It's simple really," said Tuttle casually. "Because I'll soon be at home sound asleep, while you, on the other hand, are still out here, alone I might add, digging in the full light of day, where the whole world can see you."
__Clay Godfrey relented after a strained silence. "Ok, you're right. I've said it."
__"It is truly a miracle."
__"But don't you worry about it, Bob..."
__Robert Tuttle held his breath. He didn't like responses that started with the word "but."
__Godfrey continued. "If this ends up being the spot, and it might very well be, we just won't refill the hole. We'll take what we came for and get the hell out of here."
__"I like the sound of that," said Tuttle relieved.
__"I'm so happy," said Clay Godfrey sarcastically, wiping more sweat from his puffy face.
__"If it's not the spot, we'll need the time to refill it."
__"You don't need to remind me of that."
__"How many more feet you think," asked Tuttle, knowing that he really shouldn't. After all, when you're out secretly digging for misplaced bodies during the wee hours of the morning, this was the verbal equivalent of being on a long road trip and asking: Are we there yet?
__Clay Godfrey gripped the shovel's handle and yanked it forcefully from the ground. "A couple feet, maybe more, it's hard to say. I can't exactly remember how deep."
__"If you'd picked a spot closer to Scanlon's Oak, you wouldn't be worrying about it now."
__Clay Godfrey began to dig again but slower than before; his stiff movements looked painful. "You know…that's real great advice there, Bob. It surely is. Where the hell were you thirty-eight years ago when I could have used some advice like that?"
__Robert Tuttle, to his friend's great annoyance, thought about an answer to his rhetorical question. "I was still at the Prom, if I remember correctly."
__Godfrey slowly shook his head. "I just don't know about you sometimes…I just don't know."
__"What do you mean?"
__"Never mind," said Godfrey in futility as he continued to dig with a purpose.
__The intermittent breeze returned, nudging a forest of tree limbs into motion. Tuttle silently watched from his tree before falling into a deep sleep. The sound of the steel shovel repeatedly penetrating the soil resonated throughout the orchard. It would be the only sound from the cloak of darkness.

***

__An hour had passed and it was still dark. Robert Tuttle awoke suddenly to clumps of dirt chunks peppering his body. A shovel was propelling the earthy projectiles into flight.
__"What are you doing?" said Tuttle, protesting to the night. Disoriented from his slumber, his hands instinctively flew up into the air to block the next incoming salvo of dirt. When another batch of earth didn't arrive as expected, he cautiously lowered his arms and looked around.
__A skull with an arm for a neck stared back at him from the edge of a much deeper hole.
__Robert Tuttle, who was still propped up against the tree, instinctively scrambled from the skull as fast as he could. Adrenaline surged through his body; his heart was pounding.
__Subtle laughter rose up from the hole.
__"Damn you, Clay Godfrey!" shouted Tuttle, turning warily back toward the hole.
__"It may very well come to that."
__"What in God's name do you think you're doing?"
__"Never mind that now. Get over here and bring a flashlight with you."
__Robert Tuttle reluctantly got up off the moist ground as quickly as his sore, stiff body would permit. Hobbling over to their backpacks, he rifled through the contents for a flashlight -though, with the majestic glow from the full moon that night, they hadn't needed them. With flashlight in hand, he scurried to the edge of the hole that was several feet deeper than an hour ago. Godfrey held the skull in his hand like a basketball; what appeared to be bones unearthed at his feet.
__"So what did you find?" asked Tuttle, pressing. Please, Lord, let this be it.
__"I think I found…"
__"Yes…you think you found what?"
__"Jimmy Hoffa."
__"Come on now, be serious. Is it them or not? Did you find the grave?"
__"Give me your flashlight," said Godfrey, his voice a mixture of futility and dejection.
__Robert Tuttle switched on the flashlight and gently tossed it into the hole to his friend. With the light, Godfrey examined the bones he unearthed at his feet. Tuttle knelt anxiously at the edge, as if he were waiting for the next lottery ball to drop. Leaves rolled as the wind returned.
__"This isn't it," said Clay Godfrey in a despondent voice. He knelt with a look of regret, gently placing the skull he held near what was left of its body. He stood back up.
__"How can you be sure?" asked Tuttle, not entirely awake, or willing to admit defeat just yet.
__Godfrey turned off the flashlight, "Because there is only one skeleton here."
__Tuttle gazed down into the dark hole at where he knew the bones to be. He stared in disbelief.
__Godfrey continued before any other argument to the contrary was voiced. "I buried them together, Bob. It makes reasonable sense they would still be together thirty-eight years later, don't you think? Baring that ugly fact, at the very least, my father's revolver should be here, and I don't see it anywhere." He shook his head slowly. "We've dug in the wrong place, again."
__Robert Tuttle, with a perplexed look, pointed to the skull. "Then who is that?"
__"I haven't the foggiest idea. It could be anybody."
__"Anybody," repeated Tuttle, not liking the sound of that either.
__Godfrey smiled with arrogance. "You've absolutely have got to be kidding me, Bob. Your family goes way back, you of all people know the rumors and whispered stories about Scanlon's Oak. If you were a black in the 50s and found driving south of Broad Street after dark, those good old boys back then would have yanked you from your car without hesitation. Those poor souls were beaten, or disappeared outright. More Lakeview High alumni went missing than in Vietnam. It's a good thing they changed that school's name a few decades back, or we'd have had to build a memorial in the middle of town for the missing. Hell, there were more Klan members than registered voters back then in Harrison County."
__Robert Tuttle didn't like to acknowledge the communities shared past, so he often didn't.
__Godfrey continued. "I'm just surprised these are the only remains we've dug up."
__"I guess those others were insightful enough to bury their bodies closer to Scanlon's Oak."
__Clay Godfrey let the remark go unanswered as he collected and passed up both shovels.
__Offering an outstretched hand, Tuttle struggled to help pull the large man out of the grave. After a few attempts, he succeeded.
Together, they hastily refilled the deep hole with dirt. The rediscovered skeleton soon disappeared under a pile of soil. Any evidence there had ever been a hole vanished.
__After getting their stuff together, they turned and headed away from both the high school and Scanlon's Oak in the distance. They walked at a swift pace, traveling in silence through the wild grove. It was yet another failure. What was there left to say?
Near the end of their journey through the wild grove, Godfrey began to turn pale. He stopped to lean against a dead tree that creaked grudgingly from his weight. He was exhausted.
__Tuttle put down the shovels and waited patiently. After a longer break than he expected, he retrieved a wrapped Twinkie from his pack and held it aloft. "Come on Clay, not much further."
__Godfrey eyed the two golden sponge cakes with creamy fillings. He pulled himself together, ignoring both Tuttle and his Twinkies. A loud creak came from the tree when he removed his weight; the tree probably would have been greatly relieved, had it not already been dead.
__Daylight finally broke. Clay Godfrey had taken the lead through the groves as his friend diligently followed, eating his Twinkies. They emerged from the wild orchard like Ponce de Leon finding the Fountain of Youth. The obscure, overgrown dirt road where they had parked their cars lay ahead; one was a late model Chrysler and the other a spotless, silver Lexus.
__With the conclusion of their latest weekend excursion at hand, Tuttle tried to be optimistic. "They don't start clearing for another month. We still have time. A lot can happen between now and then, especially politically. We can try again next week. I should recover by then."
__Godfrey glanced at him with a look of melancholy. Anything he uttered would be born from his frustration and fear, but he ignored his own insight anyway. "Should I pray on it, Bob?" he retorted sarcastically. "Will God take care of this one for me?"
__Robert Tuttle knew his friend was disappointed, but it didn't excuse his lashing out, especially at him. "Forgiveness is always an option, Clay. You just have to ask for it."
__Godfrey was about to lash out again but refrained. His anger quickly faded. He turned and gazed back into the groves as if he could see through the acres of trees and intervening years. A collection of intense memories and feelings returned. He fought to get the words out. To, after all these years, say them aloud. They finally came…
__"I killed them without hesitation," said Godfrey whispering, as if in a room with many ears.
__"It was always assumed those two just ran off together, never to return."
__"You don't really believe that or you wouldn't be out here with me now. You've seen it firsthand. I still get the looks from the old timers and those with roots in Harrison. That much hasn't changed nor will it ever. I've come to grips with that reality." He paused and smiled as if he suddenly found something strangely amusing. "Everyone was partially right. Those two certainly won't be returning anytime soon."
__The morbid words hung in the air.
__Clay became angry. "Did they really think they could injure me, humiliate me…and get away with it?"
__Robert Tuttle watched his friend but didn't say a word. The night was fading fast.
__"You want to know the funny thing," said Godfrey lethargically, "In a strange way this all makes perfect sense now. Even after all these years you just knew there had to be a reckoning." He paused. "There is no forgiveness in this life, only the unknown, complicated by layers and layers of secrets."
__Tuttle sought the unspoken truth he had avoided for years. "Why did you do it, Clay?"
__Clay Godfrey turned away from his friend as if suddenly embarrassed, and gazed back toward the wild groves. "You've never asked that question before. I admired you for it, Bob."
__"I'm sorry to disappoint."
__Clay Godfrey halfheartedly smiled even as his strained voice trembled. "I couldn't live with the jealous rage that burned within back then. I'd never felt such unrestrained anger or feelings of betrayal before. It was an overwhelming hatred. An unshakable need I had to share my pain with those very same individuals that had inflicted it. It's hard to explain." He paused to steady his voice. "It's true what they say: you never care about a woman the same, not like your first. She was so beautiful and intelligent, that girl."
__Tuttle had waited three decades for the truth, and it finally arrived. He didn't say a word.
__Godfrey continued as he fought his surfacing emotions. "I can still see their faces… such rage I had inside me that night… enough for both of them."
__Robert Tuttle turned to his friend with a look of sympathy. He didn't know what to say.
__"I was only seventeen," said Clay, whispering. Regret saturated his faint voice.
__Tuttle nodded his understanding as they held each other's gaze; both were soaked in sweat and covered with a mix of sugar sand and black dirt. Twenty-four hours had passed since either of them slept. Clay Godfrey looked like a man who was at the end of his rope, but had tied a huge knot and was hanging on for dear life.
__The sunrise blazed through the treetops as if they were on fire. Tuttle walked to his Lexus and opened the trunk. He wiped off the shovels and neatly laid them inside. The morning air was overflowing with a freshness that only the dawn brings.
__Clay admired his friend's car for a split second. I'm definitely in the wrong business.
__Tuttle slammed his trunk closed. "Will I see you in church tomorrow?" he asked.
__Godfrey turned away and trudged toward his Chrysler. "Ellen and I will be there."
__"That's good to hear, Clay. You've got yourself a real special woman there."
__"So she has repeatedly told me," said Godfrey in mock agreement. "Anyway, you got something special planned for tomorrow or are you going to just wing it again?"
__"You might find a few words of comfort and strength."
__"I have little doubt," said Godfrey a few feet from his car.
__"Same time next week?" asked Robert Tuttle, as if it were nothing more than a weekly card game, trying his best to lift the spirits of his oldest friend.
__Clay Godfrey unlocked his car with an electronic beep that echoed. "Good night, Reverend."

 

And the story continues in...

Chapter 2

"Home of the Orangemen"