All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-four)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Book Two

1890 – 1891

 

 

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Chapter Eight

Things Relative

 

(part one hundred eighty-four)

 

 

 

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i.

Tombstone rubbings

 

 

The chapel house was clapboard on blocks, logs unimproved on the inside, window-cuts empty of glass and framing.

“Pried out. Good for use.”

Mud chunks that had blocked drafts littered the floor. Weem was in first, stomping up and down the boards. “No ratholes. Not finding termite.”

The benches sat longways to the door. “Built right here. You couldn’t get one out.”

The lectern was carved in a cross of elegant wedges, circled by dovelike fleurs-de-lis; a work of real carpentry, a parishioner’s devotion. Records were stored where a minister kept his notes and Bible, in a niche beneath the table.

If the pages weren’t gnaw-edged together…

“Well, where mice can get in, so can snakes. Should we just steal these?”

“Yes and no,” Weem decided.

“In good light, I’d like to try a razor.”

“I’ll do that job for you. Let me think if I can bluff my way…”

“County Archivist? Is there such a title?”

“I like leaving crimes out of things. Professor’s just courtesy, stick with that. Course, odds are we could cart off the headstones in broad daylight.”

Outside, corn surrounding its iron fence, was a cemetery of about ten occupants.

“Wouldn’t thought this old place be on any county map.”

Farmer Heshinger spoke, entering. “I couldn’t tell you when it got built, don’t even know what kind of folks worshipped here, but way back, pioneer times. Tell you the names on the stones. Just the one family.”

“That is so often the case. With these settlements that date to…”

“Professor Thacker’s area of study is the post-territorial period of assimilation.”

Heshinger stepped in fully, wrinkling his brow.

“We will give you a receipt for the books,” Weem said.

“Not mine. Those people were all named Junot. Maybe you don’t want em.”

But Élucide did. It was the confounding aspect of genealogy. Junot was that close to Gremot, whereas…the French settlers had not so often known how their names were spelled. Whereas, not to be known…pursued by his family…had been Alain’s purpose. Honoré, a frail sack of bones and tetch as he approached his fortieth year, felt he had told all he could, and wished she would leave it alone.

She respected this. She respected her father’s bereavement and dislike of her detecting habit, but Lisette was her mission. It stood within possibility Lisette was a born Junot, carried here to rest with her ancestors. Or it could be Heshinger had not truly scrutinized the stones.

 

 

197

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-five)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)