Land Run. Mark Graham

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      Elijah remained on the porch after the men left and drifted back to that day. He hadn’t thought of it for years until this mess about the land popped up. In his mind’s eye, he could almost feel that night before he left for boot camp. His grandfather had taken ill and was talking even more than Elijah had ever been used to. He loved to talk, but his grandfather didn’t. After his last bout with the cough that night, his grandfather was delirious and went on about something, saying, “Down by the pee-can tree, sixteen from the ditch.” Elijah didn’t understand anything but the location. But whatever it was, he thought, might explain what his granddaddy never would explain about himself. His father wasn’t mean, not really. But he was hard and maybe never happy. Elijah had to go for it. Either he or his grandfather would be gone, maybe dead before the year was out anyhow—Elijah by war, his grandfather by age.

      Elijah drove even more deeply into the memory.

      It had been past midnight and drizzling outside when Elijah grabbed the shovel from the barn and headed out. He moved quickly through the dark and the light rain, that annoying, constant wet that made you blink involuntarily as if walking through spider webs. Elijah marked the spot and started in. Within minutes, he had set his mind only to the spade in his hands and to speed. Even the hard, red clay dissipated from his awareness. He moved the spade down, pulled it up, down, up. Then his fluid movement was jarred. Something was finally there. His soul had filled with possibilities as he tossed the shovel aside and dropped heavily to the soggy pit in the ground. The rain had then come on harder when he remembered his grandfather often drawled, “Boy, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” And he learned from him that the truth was always near to the story. But truth was just to be hidden away, never expunged. He had heard him once saying, “Folks bury the truth and live lies. But the truth is the secret hidden treasure.” In the wet, cold, and dark gray of dawn, Elijah had been moments away from discovering the whole of his granddaddy’s story. He felt it. He was shaking. The secret waited for him in that deep, dark hole. The truth is patient, he thought, and probably terrible. But nothing was there, and he couldn’t take the cold rain any longer and had to catch a train in just hours.