"Are you sure this is where you buried the bodies?" panted Robert Tuttle in the moonlight, his folksy plaid shirt drenched in sweat. He was exhausted. The many lies, which his brain had been using to con the rest of his aching body, 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 wiped his 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 insisted defiantly, moving 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. He attempted to dig faster and failed.
    "I said, it's our third hole since midnight," repeated Tuttle more loudly to his friend's annoyance.
    "I think this could be it," replied Godfrey uneasily.
    "If I'm not mistaken, you said that last week."
    "I mean it this time!"
    "Yeah, and you said that two weeks ago."
    Godfrey continued to dig undeterred.
    Once it became apparent that no response was forthcoming, Tuttle turned away and abandoned his planted shovel. Dislodging clumps of dirt along the edge, he cautiously climbed from the rough hole, emerging into the darkness. His fifty-six year old frame straightened under protest, as a sharp pain made him keenly aware of his body's displeasure with just such a move. It felt good to be out of the hole.
    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," offered Clay Godfrey, as he paused from his digging.
    "Please don't you go confusing this with a break, Clay," replied Tuttle whimsically. "This old body of mine is done for tonight."     "You can't be serious," replied Godfrey who was beside himself, figuratively speaking. There was 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," snapped Godfrey, scooping his shovel into the dirt again.
    Tuttle relaxed and watched his friend dig. "I would dial it down a notch. If you keep on sweating like that, you'll have more water outside your body than in it."
    Godfrey didn't even bother to look up as he muttered something derogatory under his breath.
    "I didn't quite catch that," retorted Tuttle with amusement.
    "Nothing," Clay grumbled. "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 sat down. He rested at the base of an orange tree, his thin frame leaning against the trunk. Surveying the peaceful night, he could see the many silhouettes of the trees that surrounded him. An ingrained sadness of faded memories and happier times that had long since gone lingered in the groves. A half-century had passed since the orchard shed its classic, straight rows. 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's shovel was the only sound.
    Tuttle spoke first. "Hindsight can be a bit annoying, but you really should have marked the grave somehow. Nothing short of trying to find a needle in a haystack, this is."
    Godfrey stopped digging with a laborious groan, glaring at his partner as if he were mentally challenged. "This isn't buried treasure, Bob. Why would I ever consider marking the spot? Damn it, when I planted those two, Nixon was president for Christ sake."
    "I'm just saying," replied Tuttle defensively.
    "Please don't," interrupted an irritated Godfrey, 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?" Clay asked finally.
    Tuttle fought a yawn and lost. "It's four-thirty. We've run out of time."
    "I'm not giving up," snapped Godfrey, whose physical appearance screamed otherwise.
    "Be as stubborn as always, Clay, I really don't care this time. And you want to know why?"
    Godfrey stared at him, keeping his retort to himself.
    Tuttle continued. "It's because I'll soon be at home asleep, while you, on the other hand, are still out here, alone, digging in the light of day, where the whole world can see you."
    Godfrey relented after a strained silence. "Don't worry, Bob, if this is the spot, we won't even bother refilling the hole. We'll just take what we came for and get the hell out of here."
    "I like the sound of that," smiled a relieved Tuttle.
    "I'm so happy," replied Godfrey sarcastically, wiping more sweat from his puffy face.
    "How many more feet you think," inquired Tuttle nervously, knowing that he really shouldn't. When secretly digging for misplaced bodies during the wee hours of the morning, this was the verbal equivalent of being on a long trip and asking: Are we there yet?
    Clay gripped the shovel's handle tightly and yanked it forcefully from the ground. He almost didn't reply. "A couple feet, maybe more…it's hard to say."
    "If you'd picked a spot closer to Scanlon's Oak, you wouldn't be worrying about it now."
    Godfrey began to dig again but more slowly than before; his stiff movements looked painful. "That's real great advice there, Bob. Where were you thirty-eight years ago when I could have used it?"
    Robert Tuttle thought about the question, to his friend's great annoyance. "I was still at the Prom, if I remember correctly."
    Godfrey slowly shook his head. "I just don't know about you sometimes."
    "What do you mean?"
    "Never mind," replied 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 asleep. The sound of the steel shovel repeatedly penetrating the soil resonated throughout the orchard.

***

    An hour had passed but it was still dark. Tuttle awoke suddenly to clumps of dirt chunks peppering his body. A shovel was propelling the earthy projectiles into flight.
    "What are you doing?" Tuttle protested into the night. Still 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 trunk, instinctively scrambled from the skull as fast as he could. Adrenaline surged through his body; his heart was pounding. He warily turned to get another look.
    Subtle laughter rose up from the hole.
    "Damn you, Clay Godfrey!" cursed Tuttle.
    "It may very well come to that."
    "What in God's name do you think you're doing?"
    "Get over here and bring a flashlight."
    Robert Tuttle got up off the moist ground as quickly as his sore, stiff body would permit. Hobbling 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.
    "What did you find?" pressed Tuttle. Please, Lord, let this be it.
    "Jimmy Hoffa."
    "Come on now. Is it them? Did you find the grave?"
    "No."
    "But it has to be!"
    "Give me your flashlight," instructed Godfrey, his voice betraying a mixture of futility and dejection.
    Tuttle turned on the flashlight and gently dropped 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. Waves of tree leaves rolled as the wind returned.
    "This isn't it," concluded Godfrey in a despondent voice. He knelt with a look of regret, gently placing the skull near what was left of its body.
    "How can you be so sure?" questioned Tuttle, not entirely awake.
    Godfrey turned off the flashlight, "Because there is only one skeleton here."
    Tuttle gazed down at the bones in disbelief. "Are you sure?"
    "I buried them together. It makes reasonable sense they would still be together thirty-eight years later, don't you think? At the very least my father's revolver should be here …and it's not." He shook his head slowly. "We've dug in the wrong place, again."
    Robert Tuttle, with a sudden perplexed look, pointed to the skull. "Then who is that?"
    "I haven't the foggiest. It could be anybody."
    "Anybody," repeated Tuttle, not liking the sound of that either.
    Godfrey smiled with arrogance. "You've got to be kidding me, Bob. Your family goes way back, you of all people know local history and the stories about Scanlon's Oak. If you were a black in the 1950s and found driving south of Broad Street after dark, those good old boys back then would have pulled you from your car without hesitation. All those poor black souls were either beaten or disappeared altogether. Hell, more Lakeview High alumni went missing in Harrison County than in Vietnam. I'm surprised these are the only remains we've dug up."
    Tuttle didn't much appreciate Clay's belligerence toward his generational home. "I guess those others you mentioned were smart enough to bury their bodies closer to Scanlon's Oak."
    Godfrey let the remark go unanswered as he passed up both shovels. Tuttle struggled to help pull the large man out of the grave. Together, they hastily refilled the hole with dirt. The skeleton disappeared under a pile of soil. Any evidence there had ever been a hole soon vanished.
    After getting their stuff together, they turned and headed away from both the high school and Scanlon's Oak. 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 long break, he retrieved a wrapped Twinkie from his pack and held it aloft. "Come on Clay, not much further now."
    Godfrey was pissed as he eyed the two golden sponge cakes with creamy fillings. He quickly pulled himself together, ignoring both Tuttle and his Twinkies. A loud distinctive 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.
    Tuttle knew his friend was disappointed, more then he had ever been, but it didn't excuse his lashing out, especially at him.     "Forgiveness is always an option. You just have to ask for it."
    Godfrey 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 actually say them aloud. They finally came…
    "I killed them without hesitation," Godfrey whispered as if he were in a room with many ears.
    "It was always assumed those two ran off together, never to return."
    "You don't really believe that. I still get the looks from the old timers from time to time. That much hasn't changed." He turned to his friend and smiled as if he found something strangely amusing. "Everyone was partially right. They certainly won't be dropping by anytime soon."
    The morbid words hung in the air.
    "Did they really think they could injure me, humiliate me, and get away with it?" asked Clay.
    Robert Tuttle stared at his friend but did not say a word.
    "You want to know the funny thing," offered Godfrey lethargically, "In a strange way, this all makes sense now. Even after all these years there had to be a reckoning." He paused. "There is no forgiveness in this life, only the unknown, and layers and layers of secrets."
    Tuttle sought the unspoken truth he had avoided for years. "Why did you do it, Clay?"
    Godfrey turned from his friend and gazed back toward the wild groves. "You surprise me, Bob. You never asked that question before. I admired you for it."
    "I'm sorry to disappoint."
    Godfrey halfheartedly smiled as his voice trembled. "I couldn't live with the jealous rage that burned within. I never felt such unrestrained anger or betrayal before. It was an overwhelming hatred -a need to inflict my pain on others. 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."
    Robert Tuttle had waited three decades to hear the truth. He didn't say a word.
    Godfrey continued as he fought with his emotions. "I can still see their faces… such rage I had inside me that night… enough for both of them."
    Tuttle turned to his friend with a look of sympathy. He didn't know what to say.
    "I was only seventeen," Clay whispered. Regret saturated his 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 special woman there."
    "So she has repeatedly told me," replied Godfrey. "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," replied Godfrey a few feet from his car.
    "Same time next week," suggested Tuttle, as if it were a weekly card game, trying his best to lift the spirits of his oldest friend     Godfrey unlocked his car with an electronic beep that echoed. "Good night, Reverend."

 

 

 

Chapter 2

"Home of the Orangemen"