textfiles/stories/hils

THE HILLS OF COMMERCE
  by Marilyn Hutchings
  
  The sun floated just above the trees -- a beautiful ball of red-
orange flame. I worried for a brief moment about the trees catching 
fire, but a cool breeze brushed against my cheek, assuring me that 
the trees were in no danger.

  I grinned thinking of all the superstitions that must have grown 
up around the sun when it turned that particular shade. But the only
thing I could think of was "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
Red sky at night sailor's delight."

  My mother had taught me that ditty -- along with the "Thirty days 
hath September . . . mnemonic device for the months. The two were 
linked in my memory.

  Memory. Memory is a funny thing -- contrary might be a better word 
for it. It will remember every slight ever done you, but won't let 
you think of the word, name, place, or number that you want right now 
-- you know what I mean.

  Maybe it's some kind of deeply hidden genetic memory that keeps
driving me to these hills. These hills where my mother grew up; and
her mother; and her mother.

  I really didn't know why I was trudging up this deeply rutted 
graveled path to see this old cemetery. None of my kin were buried 
here -- just a bunch of people named Anderson whose only connection 
to my family was the coincidence of living and dying in the same town.

  The cemetery was a jumble of different shaped and sized headstones.
Some had been installed fairly recently. These stood taller than me
and were still readable. Time, weather, and moss had not worn the
chiseled words down to the illegible ridges that remained on the short
round-topped tilting stone markers of the past century. Weeds had grown 
up between the markers, obscuring the shortest stones -- testimony to 
the inattention this little graveyard had suffered.

  "_The Anderson family must have had some money_," I thought, looking 
at all the markers, old and new. "All the Sanders' could manage were
large rocks at the head of the graves."  I envisioned the little 
graveyard on my cousin's farm that held the first two generations of
the Sander's clan in Missouri: big Maple and Pecan trees shading the
15 by 15 foot plot, two or three actual markers, and nine or ten large
rocks. No weeds grew up around these graves, for all that no one still 
living knew exactly who was buried here or where. My cousins made sure 
our relatives were well cared for.

  All the succeeding generations of Sanders were buried in Oakdale
Cemetery where someone came by on a regular basis to mow the grass and
pull the weeds. The majority of the graves had headstones, an American 
flag flew on a pole at the center of the cemetery, and the local VFW 
put little flags on the graves of veterans every Veteran's Day.

  This was an "active" cemetery. I remembered all the times through my
life that I had attended grave side services at Oakdale: my mother's
parents, my dad's father, several aunts and uncles, and, the latest,
my dad.

  Months had passed, after my dad's death, before I could visit his
grave. Now, I visited more often, but the grave I visited most was
that of a woman I had never met. She died seventeen years before I
was born, but I felt drawn to her --  To Emma -- my grandmother.

  I felt pulled to visit Emma. She had died young, of influenza, and
had been buried on one side of the cemetery while all the rest of her
family -- and mine had been buried on the opposite side. Not only had
she been separated too early from her family, but she was separated
from them for all eternity.

  This little cemetery, that I felt drawn to today, sat on top of a
hill, enshrouded in trees with a two-foot-tall iron fence protecting
it. The fence formed a circle around the graves and marker, like the
circle of life, but this circle only measured about twenty feet across.

  I think this place reminded me of the old grave stones that my Uncle
Dick showed me and my dad one Sunday when I was a kid.

  My uncle led us into the woods in back of his house and we all 
tromped after him. All civilization had disappeared when we stepped 
into the woods. The trees and other vegetation were so thick that just 
a few steps past the edge you couldn't see my aunt and uncle's big two-
story white wood-frame house. I felt like we had stepped back to pre-
Civil War days when my great-great-grandparents had moved from the hills 
of Tennessee to the hills of Missouri to homestead 90 acres and raise a
family.

  We wound through trees and up and down hills until my uncle 
stopped and pointed. I looked in the direction he indicated at the side 
of a hill -- deep in gloom from the thick tree cover even at midday -- 
and saw the first rounded tombstone that looked like it had started 
tumbling down the hill, but had been frozen in mid tumble.

  We walked over to the area and suddenly the firm ground became soft, 
sinking with our weight about four inches, as we walked over ground 
turned up decades ago for the last resting places of these unknown 
people. I expected to see bones sticking out of the side of the hill, 
but I guess the local dogs and the other woodland animals had scattered 
those long ago. I felt sad that no one had cared for these graves -- 
that no one except my uncle, knew these markers were here.

  We didn't stay long.

  I looked out through the trees and noticed that the sky was turning 
the rose-pink of approaching dusk. I checked my watch just to be sure 
-- I had about an hour before dark. I looked toward where I thought my 
uncle's house had been and knew that I had to find out if those grave-
stones were still there after all these years.

  It took about five minutes to drive through town to the bottom of the
hill where that white two-story house had once stood . . . before it
burned down. I took off into the woods, walking up the hill to take a
perpendicular course away from the house. I moved as fast as the dense 
underbrush would allow, glad that I had worn my jeans and my black short 
boots.

  After just a few hurried steps, I had to slow my pace. Fallen trees
leaned against living trees; I could climb over a few, and the rest I
had to skirt. Forced to slow my pace, I took the time to look around.
The hills around here supported a wonderful variety of trees: Maple,
Oak, Mulberry, Persimmon, and Sassafras. I wondered if either of my
grandmothers had ever made sassafras tea. 

  I know that Granny Wise used to take my mother along when she went 
out scouring the hills for Polk and Dandelion greens. A person could 
still probably live off the land around here. Oops! My foot had slipped 
on something round. I looked for what I had stepped on and saw the tough, 
round, green pod that protected ripening pecans. It's no wonder that my 
great-great grandfather had liked this area enough to move here from 
Tennessee.

  I looked up into the treetops as a squirrel jumped from one tree 
to another. The limbs of some of the trees were so close together that
they looked like a wooden suspension bridge. The local critters would
have a feast before too long, if the profusion of green pecans and
green persimmons that I could see decorating the upper-level bridge
was any indication -- unless some of the local human denizens still
ventured up this way.

  I stopped at that point and leaned against one of the larger trees 
-- looking at every hillside for evidence of a fallen headstone, a 
broken piece of stone, anything that would tell me I was in the right 
place. How I thought that after all this time I would be able to just 
walk right to the spot that I had only visited once was really stupid. 
I hung my head, ready to turn around and admit defeat. There probably
wasn't anything left to find anyway.

  I lifted my head slowly and took one long, last look around me. I
turned almost a complete circle, gazing at the woods, looking past the
trees, seeing wild ferns, Queen Anne's Lace, and other things that were 
probably poisonous, and just staring at one spot on the hillside, not 
really seeing it.

  Then my eyes focused. There was something irregular about the 
hillside. I took a couple steps toward it for a better look and sank
about four inches into the soil. I gasped and stopped. I had found it.

  I looked up the side of the hill and saw a couple other stones
sticking out. They were covered with moss and algae, but they were
unmistakably tombstones.

  I knelt down to see it any inscription was left on the stone. I had
pencil and paper in my pocket (I never went anywhere without it), but
time had taken its toll and erased this soul's record completely.

  I sat on my heels just contemplating the stones and the woods for a
moment. Dusk was settling in and all the leaves and all the tree trunks 
were turning to grey. I needed to start back so I wouldn't get stuck in 
the woods in the dark.

  As I rose to my feet, a movement just at the edge of my vision 
caught my attention. I turned to look, but there was nothing there. 
Another movement made me look back toward the hill. Mist was forming.
"_Great_," I thought. "_I really hate driving in the fog_."  The mist
spread out -- twining around the trees, climbing the hillside. And the
temperature had dropped -- I shivered with the cold.

  A piece of the mist broke away from the whole and drifted toward 
me. I took a step back -- away from the mist -- and sank again into the
soft soil. My heart beat faster -- I wanted to run, but my feet seemed 
to have put down roots. "Ah, come on, what am I afraid of -- a little 
water vapor?"

  The mist coalesced into a form. It was a little taller than I -- 
*she* was a little taller than I. Any composure that I had managed to
regain left me. I wanted to scream, but all of the moisture had been 
sucked from my throat and tongue -- my heart just beat even faster -- 
and louder. People in the next county could probably hear it.

  I stood transfixed as this mist-woman's features took shape. She had
a nice face -- heartshaped -- and short hair. She wore a simple dress
that reached almost to her ankles. She would have been right in fashion 
with some of the 30's dress designs I had seen. But she wasn't really 
taller than me -- she just happened to be floating about a foot off the 
ground.

  I looked back at her face. She had sad eyes. I wanted to ask her 
why she was so sad. Geez!  When had I changed from terrified to
compassionate -- I was looking at a ghost!

  But she had my grandmother's face. A face I had only seen in very 
few photographs. But here stood my father's mother -- who had died when 
he was just a teenager. I wanted to touch her; I wanted to talk to her;
I wanted to get to know her.

  Movement behind her drew my attention away for a moment. Behind her
were men -- in uniforms -- Civil War uniforms -- walking around. Lots 
of misty figures were walking all around me. They were all shapes and
sizes. None of the others seemed to have features that I could see.
They were moving in closer and closer to me. This wasn't interesting
anymore. I turned to run. 

  But the ghost of my grandmother was there in front of me holding up 
her hand -- not to me but to the others. All the other shapes stopped 
moving for a brief moment then began moving away from me. The shapes who 
appeared to be in uniform began to file past us, and as they did, each 
one would salute us. Why they were doing that, I don't know -- it didn't 
matter. In her pictures, my grandmother had always looked shy -- perhaps 
she had found courage in the next life.

  She motioned for me to follow her and I did. We climbed the hill 
where the tombstones were and then followed the hill down 'till I was
looking out through the trees at houses that were in town.

  I took a moment to realize that the house directly across from me 
-- across a small field and on the other side of a road -- was where my
great-aunt Sally had lived. That meant I was behind the lot where Emma's 
home had been.

  I looked over at her image and wished we had some other means to
communicate.

  She led me back through the woods, pausing and pointing at plants and
at the Pecan and Sassafras trees. She must have roamed these hills, too, 
as my other grandmother had done, looking for plants and nuts and berries 
to supplement her family's meager larder.

  I suddenly realized that it was completely dark except for the faint
lightness of the misty creatures that were still slowly moving around.

  "I'll never find my way back to my car," I whispered to myself.

  My grandmother moved and I jerked my head back toward her. She
reached her hand out, brushing her fingertips against my cheek. It
felt like a cool, damp spiderweb. Then she motioned for me to follow
her.

  I didn't know where we were going, but I didn't want to lose the
contact I had established with her. When she stopped, I looked to
where she pointed and saw that we were at the edge of the woods where
I had entered, and I could see my car in the moonlight.

  I turned back to thank her, but she was already moving away -- 
dissipating as she went. Right before she completely disappeared, a 
tall man's figure joined her that looked like my grandfather . . . and 
then they were gone.

  I turned toward my car -- tears streaming down my face.

  I'm not sure how I got back home -- I don't remember the drive back 
from the country. And now that I was back in town, the whole thing had a 
certain unreal air about it. It had really happened . . . I kept telling
myself that . . . over and over.

  I went into my apartment, greeted my cat and sat down on the couch
with a book. I flipped through and came across the letter Chief Seattle 
wrote to the governor to whom the chief's people had just sold their 
land. His words jumped off the page at me, and instead of being a threat, 
they were strangely comforting:

      "Your dead  cease  to love  you and  the  land of their 
       nativity  as soon  as  they pass  the  portals  of the 
       tomb and  wander way  beyond the stars.  They are soon 
       forgotten and never return.  Our dead never forget the 
       beautiful world that gave them being . . . these shores 
       will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when 
       your children's  children think  themselves alone in the 
       field, the store,  the shop, upon the highway, or in the 
       silence of the pathless wood, they will not be alone...."
                              
                              #  #  #

Copyright 1994  Marilyn Hutchings, All Rights Reserved
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Marilyn Hutchings lives in southeast Missouri,  not far from the hills
where  her  family  grew  up.  She teaches  freshman  composition  at
Southeast  Missouri  State  university and loves trying to  get  young
minds to stretch their boundaries through writing. She has a daughter
and a cat and,  like her favorite author, Anne McCaffrey, "the rest is
subject to change."
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