The Marker

By Nancy

We’d buried Jack Roberts above the valley, on the slope under the branches of the old moss tree. It was a simple grave, like so many out here; a pile of rocks, a cross fashioned from twigs. Beside Jack, we buried the Indian who had brought the cholera to the Ponderosa.

Hoss had wedged a flat stone upright at the head of the Indian’s grave but we’d left the stone face blank in hopes that we would eventually find out the unfortunate man’s name. And though we’d thought he was a member of the Washoe tribe nearby, he wasn’t. No one knew who he was. So there was his grave, nearly a year later, with the flat, blank headstone.

Not long after Jack died, I passed his grave and noticed a bottle of beer and the tattered remnants of a playing card atop the rocks. All respect to Shelby, I found a better place for the bottle of beer – out of reach of a certain eleven-year-old son. I’m not sure how Shelby felt when she visited the grave the next time and didn’t find the bottle or any broken glass. We never spoke of it.

I had thought that Shelby might have a stone placed at Jack’s grave. But his final resting place, like Marie’s, remained with a simple cross fashioned from twigs.

Knowing how a person appreciates time alone when they visit a grave, I always swung wide of the area near the old moss tree when I saw Shelby’s horse, Daisy, tied nearby. There were a few times when Shelby and I passed on the trail leading to the road to town. We always stopped a moment, leaned an arm on our saddle horns, and talked. I didn’t ask where she was going or where she’d been. It was understood that Shelby would never be a trespasser on the Ponderosa. We never spoke of it.

One day I went by the Indian’s grave and Jack’s grave, to be sure no animals had disturbed the rocks, no limbs had fallen from the tree. I stood with the sun beating warmth into my tired back and noted that my shadow fell across the graves. The shadow was long, narrow, and it made a crazy zig-zag over the rocks. It seemed to me that the shadow was much the way the death of a loved one leaves you feeling – stretched to your limit while your thoughts swing one way and then another.

The twigs that made up the cross on Jack’s grave had dried and as a consequence the rope with which Adam had tied them last year was slack, the cross member tilted. I sat on my boot heels and did my best to tighten the rope, to set the twig horizontal again, but to no avail. I decided I would bring some twine next time and tighten the cross.

The same thing was happening at Marie’s grave. The twig cross had been there more than a year and we’d lashed it together until there was almost more twine than twigs. None of us could bring himself to pull up the old cross and place a new one. We never spoke of it.

As I sat on my heels by Jack’s grave, the breeze sighed its way through the nearby pines and skipped through the leaves on the old moss tree before dropping into the valley to ripple through the high grass. I stood and set my hat, making sure the tie-down string was behind my head. I’ve never understood how Adam can wear that thing under his chin. I’ve had to do it a time or two – it was that or lose the hat. More than once the boys have begged me to let my hat fly away. They’ve even offered to buy me a new one. But it takes a long time to break in a hat, to get it where it fits just right. It takes a long time to adapt to a lot of things.

I looked down at the twig cross on Jack’s grave, over to the flat stone slab that marked the Indian’s, and then back to Jack’s grave. That’s when I realized what Jack’s and Marie’s twig crosses were about, why Shelby and I hadn’t put stones at the heads of the graves. Something about a twig cross was transitory; something about a stone was final.

It was time for the boys and me to put a stone at Marie’s grave.

We did just that a few weeks later. The stonemason in Eagle Station had carved Marie’s name, the years she lived, and then a simple flower that Adam had designed. I’d been concerned that setting the stone would upset the boys. Instead they stood back, hands at their waists, and nodded at each other that what they had done was good.

A few days after that I was riding back from the lake, following the valley trail, when I saw Daisy hitched to a wild plum bush not far from the old moss tree. I moved the reins, intending to lay them against Buck’s neck to direct him wide of the area, when Shelby’s voice reached me.

"Ben? Hey, Ben!"

I slowed Buck. When I spotted Shelby walking down in that jolting way that a slope makes you walk when you’re wearing boots, I pulled Buck to a stop and stepped from the saddle. I waited there, smiling even if I was a little puzzled.

Shelby propped her cigar in her mouth when she was a few strides away and then she stuffed her hands in her front pockets. "You the one that fixed up that cross?"

I nodded.

She took the cigar from her mouth. "That was real kind of ya." Her voice went husky and then she took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. "I was over there by the lake the other day. Real pretty spot where Marie’s buried."

"She said it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen."

"Jack always liked the high spots." Shelby’s eyes brightened. "I ever tell ya that we went up one of them passes one summer? A body can see forever from some of them mountains." She grinned. "Course there’s other places where all a body sees is more mountains."

I laughed at the truth in her words, then looked up in surprise when she said, "That’s a right pretty marker you’ve got at Marie’s grave." She turned so she stood alongside me and we both looked up the hill. "I was thinkin’ about havin’ one made up for Jack’s grave." She shook her head. "Only thing is I don’t rightly know when he was born. I always had me a suspicion he was younger than me and didn’t want me to know."

I chuckled. "A man’s pride is a fragile thing, Shelby."

She leaned her head back and laughed. "I don’t reckon it matters much when a body’s born anyhow. What counts is what they do after that."

Shelby didn’t expect a response so I didn’t make one. She squinted up at me. "I’m gonna need a favor if I do this."

I slapped the rein ends across the palm of my glove. "What’s that?"

"Would you help me set the stone when it’s ready?"

I smiled. "Of course I will."

That’s how we came to be standing at the foot of Jack’s grave one late afternoon. Placing the stone, digging deep enough for a good footing, had been hot work. We stood, each holding a canteen, and admired our work.

"There’s not anythang," Shelby observed, "worse than losin’ someone you love."

I didn’t think she even realized what she’d said - how she’d admitted that Jack had been the love of her life. But then she reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a gold ring. A ring very like the one I had given Marie on our wedding day; the ring that had been on Marie’s left hand when we’d buried her. Shelby reached down, kicking out her right foot as she did so, and laid the ring on top of the tallest stone on Jack’s grave. She sniffed. Then she nodded toward the horses. "We’d better git if I’m gonna be back before business picks up at the saloon."

We walked side by side to the horses, swung into our saddles, and headed toward the trail. Shelby didn’t look back as we started down slope but I did. The low sun sent a searing flash off the ring, reminding me of the lighthouse beacons that used to guide my ships into safe harbor. I turned in the saddle and studied Shelby’s back as I followed her down the hill. I was honored that she had asked me to help her set Jack’s gravestone.

We never spoke of it.

++++++