Moving Serafina

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295 “Stop here, Gus,” Clay said. They sat in Gus’s pickup at the top of the small hill that dropped down to Clay’s old place. Clay got out and stood in the darkness for a moment looking at the wash of headlights from his truck. Gus had insisted they bring his rig instead of Clay’s because it was faster and could carry all the tools they would need tonight. The beams opened up a slice of night down the rise and on into the yard where shards of broken glass sent back tiny spikes of light. Clay leaned inside the door and said, “I’m gonna walk on down from here.” Gus looked at him around Perfidia, seated in the center.“Nobody’sdownthere,Clay,”Gussaid.“Wedon’t need to worry about anybody being here tonight.” “I ain’t worried about that,” Clay said. He looked again toward the gravesite where a huge tumbleweed had been blown in and now lay trapped inside the little picket fence, almost covering the grave. “I just wanna talk to Serafina a minute, let her know what’s going on.” He leaned again into the open door. “Okay?” “Sure, Clay,” Gus said. “You just wave when you want us to come on down.” Clay walked away in one rut of the two-track C H A P T E R 31 Bob Cherry 296 road and on past the old adobe to Serafina’s grave. He reached over and took hold of the thick stalk of the tumbleweed and pulled it free. He tossed it next to the corral where a puzzled Palo stood, his eyes also reflecting Gus’s headlights. “Sorry, baby,” he began. “I should have come out more often last week but . . .” Clay caught himself apologizing again for something he had not done. He had come out just two days ago on Saturday and tossed a bale of hay in to Palo and the tumbleweed was not there, nor were any of the little purple flowers he had been seeking. “Don’t need to do that anymore, do I Sera,” he said. “Just need to get this done. Ain’t nothing me or you either one can do about wind blowing weeds around.” He put his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. “Fact is, that’s what I’m doing out here in the dark. Me and Gus and a friend,” he continued. “Get this thing done. And they’re gonna help me. It’s what I been promising you I’d do and I gotta do it in the dark so don’t you to worry none, hear?” He straightened and looked around into the darkness and he remembered how those many years ago Serafina had sometimes come into their bedroom in the night, frightened by some animal sound from the darkness outside. Adelita always lifted the child and placed her snug between herself and Clay and soon she was asleep again and after a while Clay would lift her very gently and take her back to her own bed and put the rag doll next to her cheek and tuck the covers around her. And often during the full moon, he would then stand for a long while and watch Serafina sleep. MOVING SERAFINA 297 But there was no moon at all tonight. The task he and Gus and Perfidia had to do would have to be done in the bright glare from Gus’s pickup beams and there could be no lingering or reminiscing or fond talk from any of them. “Time to get busy,” he said and then repeated, “But don’t you worry none, Sera.” He turned into the headlights and waved to Gus, who brought the truck forward and parked it just so the light would flood Serafina’s gravesite. Then Gus leaned out his window and said, “That gonna be okay?” “It’s fine,” Clay said. He went to the bed of the truck and brought back wire cutters and cut the wire at the corner of the picket fence where he had twisted it shut just ten days ago. Gus shut off the engine and came out one side of the truck and Perfidia out the other but neither offered to assist with this. “You need to be the boss on this,” Gus said. He held out workgloves first to Perfidia and then to Clay. “You gotta let...