Burning Ground Page 2

  While Leroy used the table saw, joiner, and planer in the shop to craft pieces of furniture, Frank spent hours either reaching into the Plymouth’s engine compartment with a wrench or lying on a dolly slid under the chassis. Only the wall of the workshop separated father and son. But it may as well have been the Berlin Wall, which had been built in East Germany four years earlier. There were no guards or barbed wire preventing these family members from interacting. It was a mutually self-imposed exile. The patriarch of the Davidson family and his eldest son had isolated themselves from the world—and each other.

  Graham found his own escape. Three years earlier, he was invited to attend a local Boy Scout troop meeting by a neighbor. Initially he wasn’t sure if Scouting was something he would enjoy. However, within a few months, he found himself looking forward to the meetings and participating in the troop’s many outdoor activities. It was just what he needed. With his father retreating into his own world and Frank becoming interested in other things, Graham was thirsty for companionship.

  The boys in the Scout troop weren’t older teenagers like Frank. They were his age; most were eleven to thirteen years old. The troop’s adult leader was highly respected, and he offered fatherly advice to the young boys in his care as they struggled with their awkward preteen years. Graham poured himself into Scouting and flourished in this environment. Scouting gave him a meaningful purpose. It also provided experiences and skills that would shape his future, although he did not realize it at the time.

  Graham set his sights on the ultimate achievement offered by the youth organization—attaining the rank of Eagle Scout. He collected merit badges as if each was a rare coin. With each successive badge, Graham felt his self-worth grow. The payoff for his diligence was the Eagle Award, presented in a formal ceremony attended by his parents. In that moment, his guilt was temporarily put away like the blankets his mother stored in a cedar chest at the foot of his bed.

  * * *

  The Ford Country Squire station wagon Leroy bought in the spring of ’65 was big and beautiful. Graham remembered how excited his father was the day he drove it home from the dealership. It was the most animated he had seen his father in a long time. As Leroy climbed out of the chocolate-brown, wood-paneled vehicle, his family gathered around. Susan skipped up to the car holding one of her many dolls. She held the doll’s face up to the rear window and pressed her nose against the tinted glass.

  “Wow, Daddy!” she exclaimed. “It sure is pretty!”

  “Go ahead, everybody get in!” Leroy implored.

  Four car doors immediately flew open. Helen sat in the front passenger seat while Leroy slid back behind the wheel. Frank invited Susan to sit in the middle of the back seat. He and Graham squeezed in each side beside their sister. As the kids leaned forward from the back seat, their father pointed out some of the features of this modern marvel.

  “So let me tell you, this car drives a whole lot easier than our old one. Mainly because it has power steering. Helen, you can turn the wheels in this car with just a couple of fingers.”

  Leroy demonstrated this feat by twirling the wheel with one hand until both front tires were pointed to the right. The power-steering motor whined in protest when the turning limit was reached. “I wish my truck had power steering,” he said regretfully.

  “I paid extra for this,” Leroy said as he winked at Helen. He turned a dial on the middle of the dashboard. The fan kicked into high speed, and air blasted from the vents. “We no longer have to use four-sixty for air conditioning. This car has the real thing!” he announced proudly to everyone.

  “What’s four-sixty air conditioning?” Graham asked Frank over the noise of the rushing air. His brother was the auto expert, after all. Surely, he could explain this feature.

  Frank chuckled and leaned close to Graham so he could be heard. “Dad made a joke,” he said. “Four-sixty means if you want to cool down, you wind down all four windows and go sixty miles per hour.”

  Graham thought about this for a second. If his father made a joke, this new car had somehow changed his mood—at least temporarily.

  Leroy turned off the fan and apologized for getting the standard AM radio. “I couldn’t afford all the options,” he explained. “Besides, we can always install a better radio later. But let me show you something you’re gonna love, Susan. Let’s go around to the back.”

  Everyone exited the car and gathered around the tailgate. Leroy folded the gate down, reached into the back deck, and flipped up two panels. “Ta-da!” he proclaimed to the spectators. Two small jump seats protruded from the floor. Both were facing toward the center of the cargo area.

  Susan giggled. “For me?” she asked. She climbed in and sat on one of the vinyl seats, carefully placing her companion on the facing seat. “This is great!” she reported. “Now me and all my dollies can take a car ride together without getting squished between the boys.”

  Graham had to admit the seat arrangement was clever. But he quickly assessed the compartment and concluded it was designed for smaller children, not a fifteen-year-old boy who was only a few inches shorter than his father. He winced at the thought of wedging himself into one of the facing seats, sitting sideways and folding his legs. That wouldn’t be comfortable on a longer trip. Yes, this was Susan’s space. Now the boys would have more room in the back seat with Susan seated in the cargo area. Of course, if Billy were still alive, he would be nine and likely would have shared the jump seats with Susan . . .

  As he watched Susan sitting in a jump seat pretending with her doll, Graham had to admit his sister was cute. Very annoying, but definitely cute. She was wearing a blue sundress, white socks, and black shoes. Her long pigtails bounced up and down when she turned her head. His sister resembled a younger version of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

  Graham had grown closer to his sister after Billy’s death. She was the youngest Davidson, and he felt responsible for her well-being. When some older kids started teasing her on the school bus, Graham sat with Susan. None of the other students wanted to sit with their siblings on the bus. That wasn’t the cool thing to do. By sharing a seat, he sent a clear message to potential bullies. If you mess with my sister, you mess with me. For every time Susan irritated Graham, he remembered another instance when she was sweet and innocent. On balance, there was no doubt Graham loved his sister.

  When Susan started singing to her doll, Leroy invited Frank to inspect the power train. They disappeared under either side of the raised hood as they leaned over the front fenders for a closer look. Soon they were talking about the three-hundred-fifty-two horsepower engine, the two-barrel carburetor, and the latest automatic-transmission design. Graham was glad to see his father and Frank had found something they could discuss. But he wasn’t interested in these details. And he didn’t want to interrupt a conversation that had the potential for Frank and his father to find some common ground. He walked over to his mother, who was standing near the front of the car admiring the handsome wood panels and stacked headlights.

  “Are you happy with it, Mom?” Graham asked.

  “Of course! I could learn to like any car your father chose to buy for us. This will certainly make some of our longer trips more comfortable. I’m happy because your father is happy.”

  “Yeah, well he doesn’t seem happy most of the time,” Graham said, sharing what he had observed.

  “Give your dad some credit. He works hard so we can have a nice home. This new car isn’t just for him. It’s his way of showing how much he cares for our family.”

  Graham nodded in agreement. He didn’t tell his mother what he was really thinking. New cars were fine. But he wished his father would express his love by coming to a Scouting event now and then. Or by spending an afternoon with him fishing for bluegills in the pond instead of avoiding the water below their house as if it were poisoned. Or maybe even by forgiving him for Billy’s death. Graham became resigned his father would do none of those.

  * * *

  The new sta
tion wagon got plenty of use over the next few months. Leroy was especially fond of taking the family on long Sunday drives after church. His father would choose a route with almost exclusively secondary roads, meandering at a slow pace past orchards and farms while entertaining himself and his passengers with country-and-western music blaring from the AM radio.

  There was an unspoken rule about the seating assignments. Leroy almost always drove. Frank was permitted to drive the Ford wagon on occasion, since his Fury was sitting on concrete blocks in the carport. Helen rode “shotgun,” as the boys referred to the front right passenger seat. The boys sat in the back seat. Susan had the jump seats to herself and her dolls.

  On Friday night before the Memorial Day weekend, Leroy announced they would be taking a family trip Sunday. “We’re going to drive through Amish country in Lancaster County,” he explained to his children. “The farms are beautiful, and your mother wants to do some shopping at a craft store.”

  Graham wasn’t pleased with this plan. It was one thing to sit for an hour or two in the car with his brother and sister. It was a whole different matter following his mother as she nudged her way through crowds at retail outlets that sold worthless craft items and trinkets. But his father had spoken. Graham thought about a line he remembered from The Ten Commandments their family watched every year around Easter. In the movie, the pharaoh was giving orders about what to do with Moses after it was revealed he was a Hebrew and not an Egyptian. The pharaoh declared, “So let it be written. So let it be done.” Graham’s father was pharaoh of the Davidsons. When Leroy spoke, he considered the matter settled.

  After church services Sunday, Helen packed a Styrofoam cooler with sandwiches, macaroni salad, deviled eggs, and cans of Coca-Cola. Leroy honked the horn of the Ford to let everyone know he was ready for the road.

  “Take the cooler to the car,” Helen told Graham, who was waiting until the last minute to climb in the back seat. “I’ll bring the tote bag with the potato chips, plates, forks, and napkins.”

  “Do I have to go?” Graham whined. He could picture shuffling along in a line with a bunch of women whose goal was to browse everything within reach of the aisles, walking at a pace that assured they could accomplish this feat.

  “Is Frank going?”

  “Of course he is,” his mother said sharply, “and I haven’t heard him complain about this trip.”

  “That’s because Dad will let him drive on the way home,” Graham muttered in a low voice.

  “Let’s go. Your father is waiting,” she said, ignoring him.

  When Graham opened the rear car door, he saw Susan was in his designated seat opposite Frank. “Susan, what are you doing up here? You need to ride in the jump seats where you usually do. That’s my seat,” he said, cradling the cooler of food.

  “Not today,” his sister replied. “My dolls told me they want to have a different view on this trip.” Graham could see she had already skillfully placed three dolls in the middle of the back seat between her and Frank.

  “C’mon, Susan. You have all the room you need back there.” This was not the time for his sister to be the annoying version of herself.

  His father turned and ordered, “Just get in. I want to arrive at the rest area before it gets too crowded and there aren’t any picnic tables left.”

  Graham looked over at Frank, who seemed amused at the argument between his siblings. But his older brother offered no help. He simply shrugged as if to say, “Not my problem.”

  “Look, what if you sit in the jump seats on the way there, and we can talk about our seats on the way back?” He was hopeful he could persuade Susan to be reasonable for the return trip. Even now he could imagine sitting in the cargo area, his shins pressed against the opposite seat and his knees folded at an awkward angle toward his chest.

  “Okay,” Susan agreed reluctantly. She gathered her dolls and went to the back of the car, where Graham opened the tailgate and loaded his sister, three dolls, and the cooler. Relieved, Graham settled into the seat behind his father, who put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

  Traffic was heavier than usual on the back roads of Lancaster County. As their car rolled through the fertile landscape, Graham had to admit many of the farms were picturesque with high white barns erected beside two-story frame houses. The fields were immaculately groomed, with endless rows of corn stalks emerging from the soil like miniature green foot soldiers.

  Leroy slowed the Ford to ten miles per hour as he approached an Amish buggy from behind, matching the speed of the horse’s trot. Several cars passed the buggy going the opposite direction. He looked in the rearview mirror and said to his rear-seat passengers, “We’re stuck behind this buggy, but I’ll go around him as soon as there’s an opening.”

  Graham saw his father’s eyes in the mirror suddenly widen. Leroy shouted, “Hold on!” as he instinctively threw his right arm across Helen’s chest.

  The car’s interior seemed to explode. Graham felt his neck snap back against the top of the seat. An instant later he slid off the seat and onto the floor, his forehead hitting the back of the driver’s seat in front of him. Glass shards and small pieces of metal and plastic from the shattered back window became projectiles. In the span of a few seconds, the violent movement ceased. The wood-paneled station wagon skidded to a stop inches from the rear of the buggy, which was rapidly pulled away from the scene by the frightened horse.

  Graham struggled to return to his seat, anxiously looking around to see what had happened. He glanced to his right and saw Frank rubbing his neck and looking dazed. In the front seat, his father let out a loud moan and was holding his left hand, while reaching across to check out Helen, who spoke first. “Leroy, are you all right?”

  Leroy responded by pointing to the steering wheel, which had bent under the pressure of the impact. “I think my wrist is broken. Is everyone okay back there?” he asked hopefully.

  “I’m okay, Dad,” Graham answered in a shaky voice.

  “Me, too,” Frank replied.

  “What about Susan?” Leroy asked no one in particular, grunting as he tried to lift his door handle. He realized he couldn’t open the door, so he cranked down the window to exit the vehicle.

  Frank suddenly let out a scream. “No! Susan!” he yelled in anguish.

  Graham spun around and looked in the cargo area. The rear end of the car had collapsed behind the weight of whatever vehicle had smashed into them. Susan was lying face down and motionless under a contorted mass of twisted metal. Graham could see blood oozing from the back of her head, dripping from the end of a braided pigtail.

  “I’m getting help,” Frank stammered as he scrambled from the back seat of the car. You stay here.”

  Graham’s senses faded as he drifted into shock. He was faintly aware of being lifted onto a gurney.

  * * *

  When Graham regained consciousness, he was staring at the ceiling lights of an emergency room. Turning his head, he saw his brother sitting at his bedside.

  Frank had miraculously escaped with just a few minor cuts. He shared the awful truth about their sister, as Leroy was in surgery to repair his fractured wrist and Helen had suffered bruises to her cervical vertebrae.

  “Susan was killed instantly,” he said with a numbed expression. “They said she never experienced any pain because of the sudden and severe blunt-force trauma from the collision.”

  Tears welled in Graham’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks, wetting both sides of the pillow. He recalled their argument and how he had persuaded his sister to sit back there. It could have been him. It should have been him. A wave of nausea washed over Graham. He leaned over the side of the bed and vomited, wishing the pain in his heart could be expelled with the putrid contents of his stomach.

  Chapter 2

  June, 1970

  The engine of the Massey Ferguson hesitated and sputtered as it started to pull the large farm wagon up a steep hill. Graham shifted the tractor into a lower gear to provide
more power, and the faded red vehicle responded with the throaty sound of four cylinders operating at peak efficiency. When he reached the top of the hill, Graham turned off the engine. As he walked between the rows of evenly spaced trees, he marveled at the orderliness of the peach orchard. It’s going to be a hot early-June day, he thought, as he looked up and shaded his eyes from the midmorning sun.

  “Did you set the parking brake?” Floyd asked as Graham approached the group at the bottom of the hill.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Ain’t nothin’ worse than a runaway tractor that stops only when it hits a tree,” Floyd laughed.

  “When are we going to unload the bins from the wagon?” Graham inquired.

  “Redfield will take care of that later. He knows where I want ’em placed.” The four-man crew of Floyd, Graham, Redfield, and Miguel was removing some of the golf-ball-sized green fruit from the tree branches so the remaining peaches would have room to grow. This process was called thinning, and it had to be done manually. Workers spent days in the large orchard removing any small green orbs too close to adjacent fruit, allowing the immature peaches to drop to the ground. The higher branches were thinned by using a long wooden pole and striking the crowded bunches of fruit until some of them released and fell. Thinning produced a cacophony of rustling leaves, clacking wooden poles, and intermittent thuds of hard green peaches hitting the ground.

  Graham felt fortunate he landed this summer job at the Big Hill Fruit Farm working for Floyd. He had finally found something aligned with his love of nature. He had worked many jobs since he left Scouting at age fourteen, and he was grateful for every experience. In the years before he could drive a car, Graham had picked fruit, delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, raked leaves, cleaned houses, and shoveled snow. He used much of his savings from these part-time jobs to buy his uncle’s old Studebaker.