A Graveyard in My Front Yard
Content
A GRAVEYARD
IN
My Front Yard
G. M. Fogerty
BENNIE GOT UP TO THE cash register and his smile melted away when he saw the total. He pawed at his pockets in the faint home that he might find the stiff feeling of money he didn't know he had, but of course that wasn't going to happen. He looked at the clerk who dryly stared at him then went back and looked at the receipt that had been printing. "It's the paint that is the most expensive item." She said. ennie shook his head. He had to have the paint and it was a bit pointless without the brushes and other supplies but he was a dollar and a few cents short and getting ugly glares from the contractors that were behind him waiting. !here ws no way to get out of this graciously so he went ahead and told her to cancel the order and walked out of the store as the others muttered under their breath. ennie drove home and his wife was sitting at the front room table with her chin in her hands. She looked disgusted, but that was nothing unusual. Her hair was brown and a bit fu""y naturally, so her dad had nicknamed her #uffin, a nickname that had stuck. "I see you coming through the front door, but I dont see anything at the ends of your arms but hands, no paint or accessories." "I was off by a buck and a half and they wouldn't give me a break and no one else in the bunch was going to give me any change, they let me cancel the order."
#uffin stood up and huffed so hard ennie felt the wind. She got into her pocket and dug out some change. "$ell as much as I'd like to %ust make coffee and go on about my business, those hands at the end of your arms are useless without supplies in them so if I hope to make this cracker box livable for the first time since it was stood up in &'() let me give you this and you can go back and get the stuff they are probably putting back on the shelf." "!he place was built in &*()." "$ell," #uffin huffed, "when I look at the worn out paint, the rusted hinges, the broken doors and the cracked windows, the roof that has dips in it, the floor that is sagging in some spots,..." "I got it+ I'm not rich, I inherited the place, so sorry to disillusion you." "I'm not disillusioned, I'm making a home. ,o get me paint so I can make it all pretty." #uffin said. ennie walked out the door shaking his head. He was so tired of going through this. #uffin had planned on a bunch of other things when they had gotten together, but they had not worked out, and it seemed that inheriting this house was the icing on the cake for her, a really crappy cake. ennie got in hs car and turned the key. !he engine grumbled and then there was the bu""ing sound that said the battery had given out...%ust since the last ride. ennie leaned forward on the steering wheel and felt like bursting into sobs. He was going to get a new battery, but they had
gone off sale today so he was a day late....and a dollar short. Story of his life. ennie sat up and was startled to see #uffin standing next to the car window with a sarcastic "I knew it" grin on her face and she handed him her credit card. ennie opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off. ",et a battery while you're out." ennie took the card and got the %umper cables and drove silently down to the parts house and got a battery then he returned to the hardware store and picked up the paint supplies he had tried to get earlier. -riving back to the house, ennie sagged in the seat and shook his head in dispair. .verything had been a dissappointment and he was so tired of the downs. #uffin seemed always unhappy unless she was over at her sister Sherry's house. She always came back feeling better and it seemed when she saw ennie she went down hill. He knew what the problem was, it was because he had not really managed to accomplish anything of any real merit. !hey had been living in a top floor apartment in a decent erea of the city while he had been working making drill bits for a drilling company. ut they had shipped the business over sea to save all that money and put ennie out of a %ob. $orking fast food had slowly choked them to death and finally it had all ended. !hey had moved in with Sherry for about two weeks when the state notified ennie he was the next in line as the only living descendant for a house and land sitting on the edge of town in the country and #uffin
had been excited at first. !hey had signed the papers and taken a drive out to the place. !he winding road that led to it, broken and dirty, had been the first clue that they should not be too excited. !hen they had pulled into an erea with ran down old rotting barns, an enormous victorian shack sitting there and some scattered houses that had been built within the last fifty years. !hey had gone up to a house with a for sale sign and been happy that they could fix it up, then reread the address and found out...home was not the house but the victorian shack with the rotting barns. !hey had gone to the place and found it buried in a tangle of trees and thorn vines, with trees hanging ove the driveway like they were about to attack. In the back of the place was a well and around front an iron fence that enclosed an old garden. #uffin had %ust stared at the place and ennie had stood and looked up at the towering windows and gables and felt intimidated by how big it was and how much work it would take. /s he drove back to the house, he looked at the radio and decided no, he was not in the mood to listen to the radio. ennie pulled in the yard and went up the creaking steps of the house and lifted the door enough for it to open all the way and let him in. He sat the paint down and went in the bedroom where #uffin was on her lap top and he noticed that the computer was on a cord that led to an extension cord that led to another extension cord that led to a big
thick cord that led to one outlet. "-id something happen to..." "/ section of the fuse box blew when I tried to plug in the blender and make something to drink." "0kay so I guess we need to fix the electrical system here too." #uffin looked up at ennie and hissed in a sarcastic whisper. "Imagine that+" ennie sat down on the bed, which was a piece of rubber stretched out over some boxes filled with books and clothes and looked a bit like the country road outside. "1ook, I'm totally sorry that the inheritance was such a big bomb shell. I only have so much power to control things." "0h my goodness ennie." #uffin said. "I'm still here, I haven't gone anyplace have I2" ennie was about to respond when their daughter Sandy got off the school bus and came into the house. "#ommeeeeeee, dadeeeeeee+" she yelled as her little shoes banged over the floors. #uffin called her to the room. " e careful where you step so that you don't fall through the floor." She said. !he running stopped suddenly and ennie looked at #uffin. "3ot funny." He said. She got up off the bed and left the computer behind. "$ho says I was kidding2" "!he bus driver wants to see one of you." Sandy said, and ennie walked out the door swiftly and to the bus. !he driver was sitting there chewing on a piece of field grass
and as ennie walked up the steps of the bus he noticed the scared looks on the faces of the kids on the bus. / little oriental girl named !iki looked up at him as he got on the bus. "4ou really live in that place2" She said. ennie ignored the comment and the bus driver, missing most of his teeth, looked up at him. "I gotta tell ya..." the old man said through his toothless %aw, "um, limme shee, what was I shpo"d to tell ya, hang on iddl come to me, uh, oh yeah, I can't come out here after today because thish plashe ish way outshide the bus limitsh. Sho, %usht go ahead and drive yer daughter shindy tomorrow." "Sandy." "$hatsh that2" "Her name is Sandy, not 5indy." "0h, Shandy. 3o problem. 4ou have a nishe day then. I alwaysh thought thish plashe was abandoned. #ake a heck of a haunted houshe, hehe+" ennie went back into the house and he saw #uffin taste testing dinner on the 5oleman propane stove. "So what did the fossil...I mean the bus driver want2" She asked. ennie took a breath before he told her. "He can't come out here anymore to pick her up, we have to take her to school because we are outside the bus "one." "$hy, are they afraid we're witches2" "3o, it's all about money."
ennie went de%ectedly to the bedroom and sat down on the boxes. He stretched and picked up the computer and %ust for fun he decided to investigate the house. He put in the address and began to search around. Soon enough he came up with results as Sandy began babbling to her mother and they sat down in the kitchen to eat while #uffin made smart remarks about the house and the lack of working appliances. ennie was reading when Sandy walked in with a plate and sat it on the bed for him. "#om sent you dinner, she said don't worry there's nothing in it that will kill you." ennie looked up. ",ee, how encouraging." "$hat are you looking at2 6ictures of guns again2" "3o I'm reading the history of this house." #uffin piped up from the kitchen. "!his house should be history." "It says here that this land was owned once by a train robber who stole tons of gold and cash from all sorts of people from the eighteen fifties to after the civil war." "Sandy looked interested. silverware2" "-id you fight in the
"3o Sandy." -ad said. It's called the civil war and I fought in later wars that involved family members, almost the same thing." "30! 78334+" #uffin shouted.
ennie smirked. "I guess this guy named $es Sterns lived here and had a small place close by. !his house came up around &9&:." #uffin came in the room. "/nd it was not well cared for." #uffin sat down and sat her food aside and took the computer over again. ennie stood up and stretched and left the room, needing to occupy his mind for a while and not interested in food. He walked outside and looked around the front yard. He looked at the garden erea and started walking toward it. He wondered if there was any trace of the food the gardner used to grow in it. !here was an old wooden gate that had rotted into the ground and all that remained of the fence was a few posts and a little statue in a large birdbath that had its head missing. ennie walked into the erea and began to walk among the tall thorns and grass, and kick at the ground. He kicked a few pieces of rocks around and went over to a piece of flat wood that was largely buried. He grabbed the edge and began to pull it up. It came a little way, so he pulled more, and it kept coming till he could see a hollow erea under it. $ith a big pull, ennie pulled the wood up and turned it over. He looked down into the big hole he found and %ust stared. His luck was holding out. Inside the hole was a casket. ennie shook his head, and he ran to the shed and grabbed a pick and shovel which were among the very few implements he had for this overwhelming pro%ect. ennie began to dig small holes, and as the sun got low in
the sky he found that there were several graves and this one happened to have a big piece of decaying wood over it. ennie wiped the sweat from his face and began to claw around the dirt looking for any traces of gravestones. He found two flat ones, both of them with dates from the &*9:'s. ;ather than say anything to #uffin, he decided to see what he could do on his own, too late. ennie looked up and his heart sank as he saw #uffin coming toward him across the yard. "4ou %ust walked out of the room without a word and didn't even eat your dinner so I got to wondering whaaaaaaaaaat the heck is that casket doing in the front yard22" "0h boyoboyoboy+" ennie said. "0h have mercy on top of everything else, it looks like we have stiff in the front yard. 0h I'm so happeeeeeee+" She said mockingly. "0h <uit losing your mind over it. I get ahold of the city tomorrow and they come out and collect these deadies and take them to the cemetery. !here's no way they're going to allow a bunch of dead people on a piece of residential land." "0h I hope not, I can't imagine having a front yard with a bunch of graves in it+ !hat's /11 we need+" ennie scratched his chin and head in frustration. ",reat, %ust great, so very very great. 0n top of everything else."
ennie followed #uffin into the house as the night came on and he tried to salvage any part of a decent mood by soothing her feelings. "I'm telling you man, within a day or two the city will take these guys out of here." "I hope so, the only thing that needs to sleep on this property is the living." !hey went into the house and while ennie ate his dinner #uffin sat on the computer and did some more research, which she was better at than he was. "It say here that a bunch of robbers used the old town that started here as a hangout and they bought plots in the little graveyard here. 3o wonder no one cared to keep it up and maintain it and %ust built on the property. 7unnything is that this $esley Sterns guy is said to be buried here and also in another graveyard,. #aybe he blew up." "6robly another $es Sterns." "3o problem." ennie said. ennie said. "=ust get them out of here tomorrow." #uffin said.
"That's a big problem." !he man said on the phone the following day when ennie called the city to remove the dead bodies. "$ell I guess it depends on how you look at it. See you can get them exumed and reburied, but you have to have someone come and tractor them up then remove them to a cemetery and rebury them in new plots." "0kay, so after you spend fifty thousand dollars on that,
who pays for it2" "8h, private property...you do. /lso not only do you have to pay to have the stiffs stuck someplace else but you have to contact next of kin and have a geneologist and an archaologist present at the time. 7or the number of graves you estimated you would be looking at about two hundred grand for all that. =ust for snorts and giggles, how much ya got2" ".ight hundred dollars, all of which belongs to my wife #uffin and I have twenty bucks. $hat will that get us2" "I'll give you two things for free. !he first is advice." "$hat's the second2" ennie asked. "/ big laugh. 3ow for the advice, I say you rebury them, add enough dirt to make a flower garden and mow the grass over them so they can turn into a nice proper yard and keep your mouth shut about it." "Sounds cheap." "It is, and I'll wait till you get off the phone for the laugh." "4ou're all heart." ennie said. ennie put the phone down and drummed his fingers as #uffin walked into the room. She sat down next to him and after a moment of thought she said " I'm gonna guess that getting those caskets out of the front yard is a bit of a bigger deal than you thought." ennie sighed. "Sorta."
#uffin muttered angrily. "How much sorta2" "!wo hundred thousand dollars or we make them into a..." ennie %ust sat there as #uffin %umped up and began yelling. 7ortunately it was morning and Sandy was gone, so the cursing of the house she would never hear. #uffin was totally incensed and angry. "0h wowwwwwww+ $e inherit a run down old cracker box in the middle of nowhere with a million dollars in repairs that is too trashed to sell and now we have a graveyard in the front with exposed caskets we can't do anything about. !his %ust keeps getting better+" "I put some dirt over it, hit it with the roto tiller and we have a yard. 3o big deal." #uffin laughed angrily. "0ur front yard is filled with a bunch of dead people and some of them were outlaws. I'd say that's a big deal." "$ell what do you want me to do, #uffin2 I've been looking for work since they laid me off at the bit place, and I can't help the fact that this place is not a nice plantation mansion worth a fortune. I can't do anything about it." "I know you can't, but I am really sick of more problems added to the ones we had yesterday, this %ust gets old and now we have dead people in the front yard+" "It's not a big deal." ennie said as he sat a pan of left overs on the camp stove to heat up.
"$ell it is to me." ennie shook his head. "I can't manage to run into a bank ticket for millions of dollars left behind by a train robber, oh no, instead I inherit a ran down dump where that robbers stinking dirty skeleton is buried. #an my luck is rotten and it never ever ever gets any better+" ennie kicked his fold up chair and it flew apart. #uffin laughed angrily at him. ennie stomped outside, sick of not only having this kind of luck but also sick of #uffin making it smack him in the face. $alking outside, ennie took stock of the situation. !here were about forty graves or so, probably more, none of them marked. !he ones in the front were not well protected at all and it would take some time, but he could bury them all with his shovel. He was so very regretful that #uffin had found out about those graves+ 0f course she had to come out at the very moment he had pulled up that piece of wood and exposed the old casket. ennie went over to the grave and looked at the casket as it lay inside the brick crypt in his yard. It was metal and rusted but still in good shape. He was surprised. He looked at the wood. It was thick plank, but because it had been there so long it had rotted till he could remove it. 3ow he wished he had left it there. $esley Sterns was probably the very skeleton laying in it, rotting, a pile of bones and shrunken skin that reeked of a century of death. /s he stood there, a city car pulled up and two men got
out. !hey came pleasantly into the yard and looked at the grave. 0ne of the men was a big fellow with hair that stuck out every direction like ,rampa from the #unsters. He shook ennie's hand and laughed. "$ow, what a find, an old old casket sitting right smack in front of your house." !he big man said. ennie stared as if da"ed. "Somehow it doesn't sound any better when you say it than it does when #uffin says it." !he other man looked at ennie. "$ho's #uffin2" ennie looked at him. "#uffin is what they call my wife." ennie could tell that the man had some good smart remarks but he decided not to use them, instead he tipped up and down on his boots and nodded with a big smart alec smile. ",otcha." He replied. !he big man sighed. "$ell I wish I had some good news for you, ennie but the plain fact is that you're stuck with dead men on your property. !he city re<uires we come out and assess the situation, but in the end we can't do anything. !his is your baby. !hey're dead weight...oh sorry." He smirked, as did his friend, then patted ennie on the arm and walked away as #uffin came out of the house. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I think me and Sandy are going to go hang out with Sherry tonight, I need a break, a decent stove and to use plugs, not cords attatched to one outlet in a dusty, webby box." ennie sighed. ".n%oy." He said, glad to have a break from being in conflict all the time. #uffin got a few things together for a stay overnight and
she got into her car and drove out of the driveway as ennie grabbed the shovel and watched her go. She drove away and ennie felt tears come to his eyes. $hen they had met they had been so happy. /lways having fun and acting like kids. Sandy had came along and they had had even more fun with a little person that they slept with between them, then went and did things with. Sandy was like a cartoon character with her tiny voice and little hands. Her hair tended to curl on it's own and they wanted to see how long it would get so they did not cut it. She had moved to her own bed in the same room and they would sit and watch her sleep, a little piece of both of them. ennie then thought of the lay off and the long long period of time when he had been searching for work as their fortunes had slowly sunk lower and the laughter had ceased. He drug the shovel over by the grave and sat on the edge with his shoes touching the top of the old casket. Sherry had told #uffin that she needed to find a better man, that things would never get any better and she deserved better in life. He wondered if she believed it. ennie felt tears roll down his cheeks and he looked up at the ran down old house, so destoryed by time. He kicked at the lid of the casket and then a thought hit him. !here was no one around, why not2 ennie was overwhelmed with curiosity, so he hopped down onto the
lid of the casket and then got into the crypt next to the lid and looked for the latches. !hey were stuck so he took his shovel and hit them a few times till they came loose. ennie %ammed the shovel blade into the crack between the lid and the casket body and he pried. !o his surprise it came right loose, and he pulled the lid up. He shoved it open and braced himself to deal with the stench of a rotting man. /fter a few seconds ennie felt himslf burst into laughter. 6rivate property huh, he was responsible and the city wanted no part of it huh2 So be it, couldn't argue with that. !he casket didn't have a body, instead it was loaded with gold coins and currency from the victorian era, worth a ma%or fortune by modern standards. ennie sat and laughed for several minutes as he looked at it. Somehow he could care so much less who was buried in the other graves. 3o wonder this grave had wood over it, the person who owned it had made many return trips to line his pockets and build his life savings which he died a little too soon to spend+ He couldn't use a bank, so what safer way to hid his fortune than in the last place anyone would rob or think to look for it, an empty grave. .xcellent+ >ery creative. !hey wouldn't shut down or move a cemetery any time soon obviously. ennie called #uffin and told her he needed her to stay gone for a few days while did some work to get the appliances fixed in the house, and she agreed readily, not anxious to deal with the old house anymore.
#uffin finally grudgingly drove back down the road to the house down the winding road after nearly two weeks of hanging out with Sherry and finally wearing her welcome thin. /fter all, she could not run from her life forever. /s she came upon the house she saw a van sitting in the yard and a small truck. She pulled up behind them and was walking toward the house. Sandy bounded across the yard and yelled "-addeee+" /s she hugged ennie. #uffin looked at the cars and ennie smiled. "I've been a busy busy boy." #uffin looked pu""led. ennie smiled and reached into his pocket. "4ou know, a few pieces of gold coins are worth a bunch these days when you know the right people to help you cash them in." He smiled and pulled out a set of keys and handed them to #uffin who looked lost. "$hat are these for2" ennie laughed. "4our new car. !he truck is mine. In the next few days the guys will be here to fix the house up and haul out the other caskets, except for the one I'm keeping to look at in the garage." #uffin looked at the keys, then back at ennie. "$hy would you want to keep a rusty old casket to look at2" ennie smiled. " ecause it's the most beautiful old casket in the world that never had a human body in it."
IN
My Front Yard
G. M. Fogerty
BENNIE GOT UP TO THE cash register and his smile melted away when he saw the total. He pawed at his pockets in the faint home that he might find the stiff feeling of money he didn't know he had, but of course that wasn't going to happen. He looked at the clerk who dryly stared at him then went back and looked at the receipt that had been printing. "It's the paint that is the most expensive item." She said. ennie shook his head. He had to have the paint and it was a bit pointless without the brushes and other supplies but he was a dollar and a few cents short and getting ugly glares from the contractors that were behind him waiting. !here ws no way to get out of this graciously so he went ahead and told her to cancel the order and walked out of the store as the others muttered under their breath. ennie drove home and his wife was sitting at the front room table with her chin in her hands. She looked disgusted, but that was nothing unusual. Her hair was brown and a bit fu""y naturally, so her dad had nicknamed her #uffin, a nickname that had stuck. "I see you coming through the front door, but I dont see anything at the ends of your arms but hands, no paint or accessories." "I was off by a buck and a half and they wouldn't give me a break and no one else in the bunch was going to give me any change, they let me cancel the order."
#uffin stood up and huffed so hard ennie felt the wind. She got into her pocket and dug out some change. "$ell as much as I'd like to %ust make coffee and go on about my business, those hands at the end of your arms are useless without supplies in them so if I hope to make this cracker box livable for the first time since it was stood up in &'() let me give you this and you can go back and get the stuff they are probably putting back on the shelf." "!he place was built in &*()." "$ell," #uffin huffed, "when I look at the worn out paint, the rusted hinges, the broken doors and the cracked windows, the roof that has dips in it, the floor that is sagging in some spots,..." "I got it+ I'm not rich, I inherited the place, so sorry to disillusion you." "I'm not disillusioned, I'm making a home. ,o get me paint so I can make it all pretty." #uffin said. ennie walked out the door shaking his head. He was so tired of going through this. #uffin had planned on a bunch of other things when they had gotten together, but they had not worked out, and it seemed that inheriting this house was the icing on the cake for her, a really crappy cake. ennie got in hs car and turned the key. !he engine grumbled and then there was the bu""ing sound that said the battery had given out...%ust since the last ride. ennie leaned forward on the steering wheel and felt like bursting into sobs. He was going to get a new battery, but they had
gone off sale today so he was a day late....and a dollar short. Story of his life. ennie sat up and was startled to see #uffin standing next to the car window with a sarcastic "I knew it" grin on her face and she handed him her credit card. ennie opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off. ",et a battery while you're out." ennie took the card and got the %umper cables and drove silently down to the parts house and got a battery then he returned to the hardware store and picked up the paint supplies he had tried to get earlier. -riving back to the house, ennie sagged in the seat and shook his head in dispair. .verything had been a dissappointment and he was so tired of the downs. #uffin seemed always unhappy unless she was over at her sister Sherry's house. She always came back feeling better and it seemed when she saw ennie she went down hill. He knew what the problem was, it was because he had not really managed to accomplish anything of any real merit. !hey had been living in a top floor apartment in a decent erea of the city while he had been working making drill bits for a drilling company. ut they had shipped the business over sea to save all that money and put ennie out of a %ob. $orking fast food had slowly choked them to death and finally it had all ended. !hey had moved in with Sherry for about two weeks when the state notified ennie he was the next in line as the only living descendant for a house and land sitting on the edge of town in the country and #uffin
had been excited at first. !hey had signed the papers and taken a drive out to the place. !he winding road that led to it, broken and dirty, had been the first clue that they should not be too excited. !hen they had pulled into an erea with ran down old rotting barns, an enormous victorian shack sitting there and some scattered houses that had been built within the last fifty years. !hey had gone up to a house with a for sale sign and been happy that they could fix it up, then reread the address and found out...home was not the house but the victorian shack with the rotting barns. !hey had gone to the place and found it buried in a tangle of trees and thorn vines, with trees hanging ove the driveway like they were about to attack. In the back of the place was a well and around front an iron fence that enclosed an old garden. #uffin had %ust stared at the place and ennie had stood and looked up at the towering windows and gables and felt intimidated by how big it was and how much work it would take. /s he drove back to the house, he looked at the radio and decided no, he was not in the mood to listen to the radio. ennie pulled in the yard and went up the creaking steps of the house and lifted the door enough for it to open all the way and let him in. He sat the paint down and went in the bedroom where #uffin was on her lap top and he noticed that the computer was on a cord that led to an extension cord that led to another extension cord that led to a big
thick cord that led to one outlet. "-id something happen to..." "/ section of the fuse box blew when I tried to plug in the blender and make something to drink." "0kay so I guess we need to fix the electrical system here too." #uffin looked up at ennie and hissed in a sarcastic whisper. "Imagine that+" ennie sat down on the bed, which was a piece of rubber stretched out over some boxes filled with books and clothes and looked a bit like the country road outside. "1ook, I'm totally sorry that the inheritance was such a big bomb shell. I only have so much power to control things." "0h my goodness ennie." #uffin said. "I'm still here, I haven't gone anyplace have I2" ennie was about to respond when their daughter Sandy got off the school bus and came into the house. "#ommeeeeeee, dadeeeeeee+" she yelled as her little shoes banged over the floors. #uffin called her to the room. " e careful where you step so that you don't fall through the floor." She said. !he running stopped suddenly and ennie looked at #uffin. "3ot funny." He said. She got up off the bed and left the computer behind. "$ho says I was kidding2" "!he bus driver wants to see one of you." Sandy said, and ennie walked out the door swiftly and to the bus. !he driver was sitting there chewing on a piece of field grass
and as ennie walked up the steps of the bus he noticed the scared looks on the faces of the kids on the bus. / little oriental girl named !iki looked up at him as he got on the bus. "4ou really live in that place2" She said. ennie ignored the comment and the bus driver, missing most of his teeth, looked up at him. "I gotta tell ya..." the old man said through his toothless %aw, "um, limme shee, what was I shpo"d to tell ya, hang on iddl come to me, uh, oh yeah, I can't come out here after today because thish plashe ish way outshide the bus limitsh. Sho, %usht go ahead and drive yer daughter shindy tomorrow." "Sandy." "$hatsh that2" "Her name is Sandy, not 5indy." "0h, Shandy. 3o problem. 4ou have a nishe day then. I alwaysh thought thish plashe was abandoned. #ake a heck of a haunted houshe, hehe+" ennie went back into the house and he saw #uffin taste testing dinner on the 5oleman propane stove. "So what did the fossil...I mean the bus driver want2" She asked. ennie took a breath before he told her. "He can't come out here anymore to pick her up, we have to take her to school because we are outside the bus "one." "$hy, are they afraid we're witches2" "3o, it's all about money."
ennie went de%ectedly to the bedroom and sat down on the boxes. He stretched and picked up the computer and %ust for fun he decided to investigate the house. He put in the address and began to search around. Soon enough he came up with results as Sandy began babbling to her mother and they sat down in the kitchen to eat while #uffin made smart remarks about the house and the lack of working appliances. ennie was reading when Sandy walked in with a plate and sat it on the bed for him. "#om sent you dinner, she said don't worry there's nothing in it that will kill you." ennie looked up. ",ee, how encouraging." "$hat are you looking at2 6ictures of guns again2" "3o I'm reading the history of this house." #uffin piped up from the kitchen. "!his house should be history." "It says here that this land was owned once by a train robber who stole tons of gold and cash from all sorts of people from the eighteen fifties to after the civil war." "Sandy looked interested. silverware2" "-id you fight in the
"3o Sandy." -ad said. It's called the civil war and I fought in later wars that involved family members, almost the same thing." "30! 78334+" #uffin shouted.
ennie smirked. "I guess this guy named $es Sterns lived here and had a small place close by. !his house came up around &9&:." #uffin came in the room. "/nd it was not well cared for." #uffin sat down and sat her food aside and took the computer over again. ennie stood up and stretched and left the room, needing to occupy his mind for a while and not interested in food. He walked outside and looked around the front yard. He looked at the garden erea and started walking toward it. He wondered if there was any trace of the food the gardner used to grow in it. !here was an old wooden gate that had rotted into the ground and all that remained of the fence was a few posts and a little statue in a large birdbath that had its head missing. ennie walked into the erea and began to walk among the tall thorns and grass, and kick at the ground. He kicked a few pieces of rocks around and went over to a piece of flat wood that was largely buried. He grabbed the edge and began to pull it up. It came a little way, so he pulled more, and it kept coming till he could see a hollow erea under it. $ith a big pull, ennie pulled the wood up and turned it over. He looked down into the big hole he found and %ust stared. His luck was holding out. Inside the hole was a casket. ennie shook his head, and he ran to the shed and grabbed a pick and shovel which were among the very few implements he had for this overwhelming pro%ect. ennie began to dig small holes, and as the sun got low in
the sky he found that there were several graves and this one happened to have a big piece of decaying wood over it. ennie wiped the sweat from his face and began to claw around the dirt looking for any traces of gravestones. He found two flat ones, both of them with dates from the &*9:'s. ;ather than say anything to #uffin, he decided to see what he could do on his own, too late. ennie looked up and his heart sank as he saw #uffin coming toward him across the yard. "4ou %ust walked out of the room without a word and didn't even eat your dinner so I got to wondering whaaaaaaaaaat the heck is that casket doing in the front yard22" "0h boyoboyoboy+" ennie said. "0h have mercy on top of everything else, it looks like we have stiff in the front yard. 0h I'm so happeeeeeee+" She said mockingly. "0h <uit losing your mind over it. I get ahold of the city tomorrow and they come out and collect these deadies and take them to the cemetery. !here's no way they're going to allow a bunch of dead people on a piece of residential land." "0h I hope not, I can't imagine having a front yard with a bunch of graves in it+ !hat's /11 we need+" ennie scratched his chin and head in frustration. ",reat, %ust great, so very very great. 0n top of everything else."
ennie followed #uffin into the house as the night came on and he tried to salvage any part of a decent mood by soothing her feelings. "I'm telling you man, within a day or two the city will take these guys out of here." "I hope so, the only thing that needs to sleep on this property is the living." !hey went into the house and while ennie ate his dinner #uffin sat on the computer and did some more research, which she was better at than he was. "It say here that a bunch of robbers used the old town that started here as a hangout and they bought plots in the little graveyard here. 3o wonder no one cared to keep it up and maintain it and %ust built on the property. 7unnything is that this $esley Sterns guy is said to be buried here and also in another graveyard,. #aybe he blew up." "6robly another $es Sterns." "3o problem." ennie said. ennie said. "=ust get them out of here tomorrow." #uffin said.
"That's a big problem." !he man said on the phone the following day when ennie called the city to remove the dead bodies. "$ell I guess it depends on how you look at it. See you can get them exumed and reburied, but you have to have someone come and tractor them up then remove them to a cemetery and rebury them in new plots." "0kay, so after you spend fifty thousand dollars on that,
who pays for it2" "8h, private property...you do. /lso not only do you have to pay to have the stiffs stuck someplace else but you have to contact next of kin and have a geneologist and an archaologist present at the time. 7or the number of graves you estimated you would be looking at about two hundred grand for all that. =ust for snorts and giggles, how much ya got2" ".ight hundred dollars, all of which belongs to my wife #uffin and I have twenty bucks. $hat will that get us2" "I'll give you two things for free. !he first is advice." "$hat's the second2" ennie asked. "/ big laugh. 3ow for the advice, I say you rebury them, add enough dirt to make a flower garden and mow the grass over them so they can turn into a nice proper yard and keep your mouth shut about it." "Sounds cheap." "It is, and I'll wait till you get off the phone for the laugh." "4ou're all heart." ennie said. ennie put the phone down and drummed his fingers as #uffin walked into the room. She sat down next to him and after a moment of thought she said " I'm gonna guess that getting those caskets out of the front yard is a bit of a bigger deal than you thought." ennie sighed. "Sorta."
#uffin muttered angrily. "How much sorta2" "!wo hundred thousand dollars or we make them into a..." ennie %ust sat there as #uffin %umped up and began yelling. 7ortunately it was morning and Sandy was gone, so the cursing of the house she would never hear. #uffin was totally incensed and angry. "0h wowwwwwww+ $e inherit a run down old cracker box in the middle of nowhere with a million dollars in repairs that is too trashed to sell and now we have a graveyard in the front with exposed caskets we can't do anything about. !his %ust keeps getting better+" "I put some dirt over it, hit it with the roto tiller and we have a yard. 3o big deal." #uffin laughed angrily. "0ur front yard is filled with a bunch of dead people and some of them were outlaws. I'd say that's a big deal." "$ell what do you want me to do, #uffin2 I've been looking for work since they laid me off at the bit place, and I can't help the fact that this place is not a nice plantation mansion worth a fortune. I can't do anything about it." "I know you can't, but I am really sick of more problems added to the ones we had yesterday, this %ust gets old and now we have dead people in the front yard+" "It's not a big deal." ennie said as he sat a pan of left overs on the camp stove to heat up.
"$ell it is to me." ennie shook his head. "I can't manage to run into a bank ticket for millions of dollars left behind by a train robber, oh no, instead I inherit a ran down dump where that robbers stinking dirty skeleton is buried. #an my luck is rotten and it never ever ever gets any better+" ennie kicked his fold up chair and it flew apart. #uffin laughed angrily at him. ennie stomped outside, sick of not only having this kind of luck but also sick of #uffin making it smack him in the face. $alking outside, ennie took stock of the situation. !here were about forty graves or so, probably more, none of them marked. !he ones in the front were not well protected at all and it would take some time, but he could bury them all with his shovel. He was so very regretful that #uffin had found out about those graves+ 0f course she had to come out at the very moment he had pulled up that piece of wood and exposed the old casket. ennie went over to the grave and looked at the casket as it lay inside the brick crypt in his yard. It was metal and rusted but still in good shape. He was surprised. He looked at the wood. It was thick plank, but because it had been there so long it had rotted till he could remove it. 3ow he wished he had left it there. $esley Sterns was probably the very skeleton laying in it, rotting, a pile of bones and shrunken skin that reeked of a century of death. /s he stood there, a city car pulled up and two men got
out. !hey came pleasantly into the yard and looked at the grave. 0ne of the men was a big fellow with hair that stuck out every direction like ,rampa from the #unsters. He shook ennie's hand and laughed. "$ow, what a find, an old old casket sitting right smack in front of your house." !he big man said. ennie stared as if da"ed. "Somehow it doesn't sound any better when you say it than it does when #uffin says it." !he other man looked at ennie. "$ho's #uffin2" ennie looked at him. "#uffin is what they call my wife." ennie could tell that the man had some good smart remarks but he decided not to use them, instead he tipped up and down on his boots and nodded with a big smart alec smile. ",otcha." He replied. !he big man sighed. "$ell I wish I had some good news for you, ennie but the plain fact is that you're stuck with dead men on your property. !he city re<uires we come out and assess the situation, but in the end we can't do anything. !his is your baby. !hey're dead weight...oh sorry." He smirked, as did his friend, then patted ennie on the arm and walked away as #uffin came out of the house. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I think me and Sandy are going to go hang out with Sherry tonight, I need a break, a decent stove and to use plugs, not cords attatched to one outlet in a dusty, webby box." ennie sighed. ".n%oy." He said, glad to have a break from being in conflict all the time. #uffin got a few things together for a stay overnight and
she got into her car and drove out of the driveway as ennie grabbed the shovel and watched her go. She drove away and ennie felt tears come to his eyes. $hen they had met they had been so happy. /lways having fun and acting like kids. Sandy had came along and they had had even more fun with a little person that they slept with between them, then went and did things with. Sandy was like a cartoon character with her tiny voice and little hands. Her hair tended to curl on it's own and they wanted to see how long it would get so they did not cut it. She had moved to her own bed in the same room and they would sit and watch her sleep, a little piece of both of them. ennie then thought of the lay off and the long long period of time when he had been searching for work as their fortunes had slowly sunk lower and the laughter had ceased. He drug the shovel over by the grave and sat on the edge with his shoes touching the top of the old casket. Sherry had told #uffin that she needed to find a better man, that things would never get any better and she deserved better in life. He wondered if she believed it. ennie felt tears roll down his cheeks and he looked up at the ran down old house, so destoryed by time. He kicked at the lid of the casket and then a thought hit him. !here was no one around, why not2 ennie was overwhelmed with curiosity, so he hopped down onto the
lid of the casket and then got into the crypt next to the lid and looked for the latches. !hey were stuck so he took his shovel and hit them a few times till they came loose. ennie %ammed the shovel blade into the crack between the lid and the casket body and he pried. !o his surprise it came right loose, and he pulled the lid up. He shoved it open and braced himself to deal with the stench of a rotting man. /fter a few seconds ennie felt himslf burst into laughter. 6rivate property huh, he was responsible and the city wanted no part of it huh2 So be it, couldn't argue with that. !he casket didn't have a body, instead it was loaded with gold coins and currency from the victorian era, worth a ma%or fortune by modern standards. ennie sat and laughed for several minutes as he looked at it. Somehow he could care so much less who was buried in the other graves. 3o wonder this grave had wood over it, the person who owned it had made many return trips to line his pockets and build his life savings which he died a little too soon to spend+ He couldn't use a bank, so what safer way to hid his fortune than in the last place anyone would rob or think to look for it, an empty grave. .xcellent+ >ery creative. !hey wouldn't shut down or move a cemetery any time soon obviously. ennie called #uffin and told her he needed her to stay gone for a few days while did some work to get the appliances fixed in the house, and she agreed readily, not anxious to deal with the old house anymore.
#uffin finally grudgingly drove back down the road to the house down the winding road after nearly two weeks of hanging out with Sherry and finally wearing her welcome thin. /fter all, she could not run from her life forever. /s she came upon the house she saw a van sitting in the yard and a small truck. She pulled up behind them and was walking toward the house. Sandy bounded across the yard and yelled "-addeee+" /s she hugged ennie. #uffin looked at the cars and ennie smiled. "I've been a busy busy boy." #uffin looked pu""led. ennie smiled and reached into his pocket. "4ou know, a few pieces of gold coins are worth a bunch these days when you know the right people to help you cash them in." He smiled and pulled out a set of keys and handed them to #uffin who looked lost. "$hat are these for2" ennie laughed. "4our new car. !he truck is mine. In the next few days the guys will be here to fix the house up and haul out the other caskets, except for the one I'm keeping to look at in the garage." #uffin looked at the keys, then back at ennie. "$hy would you want to keep a rusty old casket to look at2" ennie smiled. " ecause it's the most beautiful old casket in the world that never had a human body in it."
