The body lay on the ledge in the summit's long shadow.
Vernon stood over it with the sticks on his shoulder.
He nudged the quilt edge with the toe of his boot.
A corner folded over and revealed
an ear and dark hair salted white
and a cheek as smooth as ivory.
That skin flustered Vernon.
He lifted more quilt with this boot.
A green eye showed itself, staring into nothing.
Then Vernon had to see the rest of Mr. Augusto.
He pulled a stick from his bundle
and threw the quilt open.
The man was thin and wore gray trousers
pressed with a hard crease.
He wore a matching vest with brass buttons,
and a shirt the color of a salmon fillet.
He looked like a politician.
Like a preacher.
The left side of his face was unscathed.
The right eye socket was a blood-crusted pit,
the cheekbone collapsed.
And Vernon turned over the boulder to be sick,
but there was nothing left inside him.
He ran into the cool of the tunnel.
Slumped against the wall, he steadied his breathing.
Then Vernon descended to strata of pallid light
and tried to imagine this man wielding a knife.
He entered the cavern to find his father asleep and shivering
on the sun-washed granite slab.
Sunlight streaked a harsh tide into the cathedral,
and water trickling down the walls threw tiny prisms.
Vernon set his load of wood in the center of the benches.
He shook his father's arm.
His father's eyes opened enough to show white
through the lashes.
"I need your lighter, Pop."
His father's eyes batted and closed again.
And Vernon dug into his father's pants pockets
and found the silver lighter.
The damp air made the fire difficult to start.
And soon the wood crackled and let off a vapid roil of smoke.
His father now sat in a slouch, trying
to comb his hair with a quivering hand.
And Vernon took the comb from him
and ran it carefully through his father's oiled hair.
"He was shivering," Vernon said, and gave his father
back the comb.
"There's lots of fires around.
I don't think ours will draw much notice."
His father nodded.
"Thank you, Vernon."
he said.
"Now, bring Mr. Augusto in here, please.
And plenty more wood.
Several big logs.
Use the rope to get them up here if need be."
Then Vernon found he could no longer look at his father,
and just did as told.
He exited the cave and to keep his mind
off unpleasantness tried to focus on each singular
movement--
putting his foot in a pock of sandstone,
breaking down sticks, piling them on his shoulders,
stepping through fern, dragging thick sections of birch
he found not far from the rock and up the cliff, back down,
feet moving, hands on hot rocks, stacking logs high,
high on the burgeoning fire.
He dragged the quilt down the calcite corridor,
Mr. Augusto's head knocking against the damp floor.
Vernon pulled tenderly, as if dragging a man asleep
and trying not to wake him.
Soon he felt the heat from the fire on his neck,
and he tugged the body, as if entering a furnace,
through the cavern's mouth.
The fire lashed flames the size of small trees
and the oval of blue sky was overcome by the smoke
and the cathedral walls now reflected
firelight instead of sunshine.
His father approached and they stood with the body
and the quilt between them.
"Help get it on the fire, son," his father
said and straddled the quilt and struggled lifting Mr. Augusto's
feet with his one hand, and Vernon grabbed the quilt up
under the shoulders.
They awkwardly dropped the body and the fire
was momentarily smothered and the break in the smoke
brought a flash of bright light.
And then the sun was gone again and the flames grew livid
as his father stirred the logs.
Vernon sat on a granite bench covering his nose to the smoke
and facing his shadow flickering on the wall.
"Vernon," his father said, standing at his shoulder.
"I want you to take your mama out tonight,"
and he handed Vernon a folded wad of dollars.
"Get her a nice steak.
Take her to the picture show."
He sat down beside Vernon, cradling
his black-fingered hand tight to his ribs.
"When you come back home tonight,
Mama will go and meet me at the old McAlester Road.
From there we're gone."
Vernon wondered if the money his father
had given him was from Mr Augusto's wallet,
and allowed himself to peek behind at the fire.
His eyes blinked against the heat,
the quilt fabric burned away in spots to expose the body.
And waves of smoke scorched Vernon's eyes.
He turned back to the wall.
His father had slumped forward, as if poised to be sick.