He walked slowly to their cabin, not anxious to step back inside. Reluctantly he re-entered, ducking to clear the doorway. He looked to their bed and saw her there, the dog lying on the floor beside her. Her dog had stayed with her, refusing all food and water, since that day so many days ago that his wife had staggered in her fever to the floor. Grudgingly the man admired the loyalty of the animal, but somehow this act of devotion seemed only to heighten the sense of desperation and despair that filled his cabin. When the dog died he wouldn’t be digging so deep a hole.
Until this moment he hadn’t thought of how he would carry her to the place on the hillside that he had prepared. Perhaps he had imagined that he would carry her in his arms as he would have once been able to do. But in his fatigue he had to accept the fact that he would not be able to carry her. He stepped back outside and walked to the mule. He took the lead in one hand and knelt to free her hobble, then led the beast to the cabin door. He gathered his wife in his arms and tried to carry her to the mule but could not bring her off the ground. Her feet dragged as they crossed the room. He swore at the situation, at the indignities he was causing for her due to his weakness, and he hated having to sling her across the back of the animal like a sack of turnips. But it was all he could do. He lashed her hands and knees with a strap slung under the belly of the mule and led the pair of them to the hill, the dog trailing behind.
With her body on the ground he re-hobbled the mule. He pulled his wife to the edge of the grave and, holding her by the hands, lowered her to its floor. She was slumped awkwardly in a sitting position, her back and side leaning on the dirt wall, her head pitched forward. The man dropped into the hole and laid her out properly, folding her hands on her chest. He climbed out and looked around. It was the same valley, the same blue sky. He saw the familiar forms of clouds hanging overhead. But now somehow he saw all this as if from another place. He seemed to be viewing this familiar world from outside instead of living in it. He crouched by the grave and looked down at his wife. He wished that she might have taken on a countenance of peacefulness in her death but she had not. Her mouth was slightly open and her face showed the strain of her dying with no evident release. He picked up a shovelful of earth and dropped it on her legs.
The moment the dirt had left his shovel yet was still in the air, he felt that it was all wrong. He should not be throwing dirt on this dear woman’s body. It landed with a hollow thump, scattering on her legs and skirt. He could not do this. Not in this way. The man walked back to the cabin and looked for cloth to cover his wife. In the windows were hanging the simple curtains she had made. They hadn’t really been able to afford those pieces of cloth, but he had long known that she wanted proper curtains in her home. And so when she told him two years ago that she had heard that a peddler was in the area, they had walked and found him. They bought those bright pieces of cloth and she had worked in the dim light to make the curtains that gave her the little color she had in her life. And so now it seemed fitting, as he took the curtains from their rods, that they would lie with her, keeping the dirt from her face. He had read of shrouds in the Bible without giving them any thought, but now their purpose and necessity seemed obvious. As he left the cabin, he gathered also her hair brush and her books.
He set those few items with the curtains at the side of the grave as he prepared again to enter the hole. He slipped and thought for a moment that he would fall on her, but caught himself at the last moment in a shower of cascading dirt. He lowered himself to the bottom of the grave and was glad of the extra width he had prepared, as it gave him a place to position his feet and one knee as he covered her with the shroud. Finally only her face was uncovered. In her days of delirium she had not cared for herself and he tried to use the hair brush to pull the tangles from her hair. She had always loved for him to brush her hair. In the cramped space he could not really do the job very well and he felt a little bit foolish at his attempt. He placed the brush and her books under the curtain at her side. He covered her face last. The sight of her hooded tore at his heart.
The man worked for two and a half hours to cover her body. When the grave was full except for the last eighteen inches or so, he dragged rocks to the site and placed them on the loose dirt. No dogs would reach her. He then mounded more dirt on top. He sat then under a nearby tree and watched the grave, sometimes gazing at their cabin, fences, and fields. When nighttime came he went to the cabin and slept fitfully on the floor. The dog stayed on the hill.
Before sunrise he rose and gathered the things he wanted. He was surprised how few things had any value to him. He collected his axe and tools, second pair of boots, coats, and blankets and set them outside. Before he set fire to the cabin he found in a drawer three smooth pebbles she had collected from the stream nearby when they had picnicked one Sunday. He put the pebbles in his pocket. He wasn’t sure why it was that he fired the cabin. It wasn’t in anger nor was it to deny its use to others. It just seemed like the thing to do. He hoped the fire would not spread to the surrounding woods. He found where the mule had wandered and loaded his things. He left by the narrow dirt road that had first brought them there those many years ago.
The dog lifted its head from the stream where it had now resumed drinking as the man walked by with the mule in tow. The dog looked up the hill to the mounded dirt, watched the swaying rump of the mule as the man grew distant, and then looked again at the gravesite. The dog finally made its decision just as man and mule disappeared at the first turn in the road. The dog climbed the bank and followed silently in their path.