“Patrick! Where have you been?” my cousin Jillian shouted, bursting out of the house as we were heading for the barn. Her blonde pony tail bobbing behind her, she ran at me and nearly knocked me off my feet, jumping up to grab me. Her arms around my neck, her face in mine, scolding, “We missed you. We looked all over the place. You didn’t even answer your phone.”
“Yeah, I know.” Setting her down on the ground, I hurried toward the barn with her tagging right along with us.
“We looked for you in there,” she said when we reached the barn door.
“Is anyone out here, Jillian?” I asked before opening the door. I wanted to be sure James and I weren’t ambushed before we had a chance to check our rooms for our phones.
“No. Grandmother and your mom and my mom are in the kitchen, cooking. Again.” She followed us inside.
I looked around to be sure there was no one there and James and I took the stairs two at a time and opened the bedroom door.
“There they are!” James rushed across the room and grabbed his phone off the bedside table. He unplugged mine and held it out to me. “Let’s go get that picture.”
Jillian was running into the yard shouting by the time we made it down the stairs. “I found them, Aunt Jennifer.” She yelled at the top of her lungs, before she was even in yelling distance of the house.
“Let’s hurry,” I told James. We bolted from the barn and ran to the front of the house before anyone had a chance to stop us.
We could see the mound clearly from the middle of the road. We each took some shots, and decided James would text Jeremy, with a couple photos, and I’d send some to Brendan.
“Who’s going to text Max? Me or you?” James asked.
Max would freak out. There’d be a ton of questions that neither of us could answer. Not until we got some answers ourselves.
We decided I’d send Max a picture and a short text. Being sure to say we’d send more information later.
While we were deciding on who was going to do what, my dad walked up. “Where have you boys been?”
He didn’t look upset or anything. Me and my friends had done some pretty crazy stuff in the past, but he was used to it, and was usually pretty cool.
“Um, well, we took a walk.”
“You were gone for quite a while.”
“It was a long walk.”
“Oh, yeah?” He was grinning at me and I knew everything was okay. “And where did this long walk take you?”
We told him about taking off down through the field over to the farm house and meeting the old man shelling peas.
“I don’t know who he was, he didn’t tell us his name, but he didn’t act bothered that we came through his field and yard. Oh, and he seemed to know Mom.”
“Probably so. They all used to come here when she was a kid. They were all over the place, from what I understand.”
“Jillian said you all were looking for us.”
“Jillian was looking for you. You know how she always wants you to play with her, and Taylor and Kate were busy doing something together.”
Right on cue, Jillian came running from the house, making a beeline toward us. I hadn’t noticed that Uncle Clint was sitting in one of the rockers on the front porch. He and my dad must have been taking it easy together. Before Jillian could make it down the steps, he called her back and sat her on his lap, talking to her and keeping her out of our hair for a little while.
“So you walked all the way around,” Dad said, pointing out back of the barn. “From that house over there and up the ditch to here?”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing out here now? In the middle of the road?”
“Well, we hadn’t noticed that mound over there until we were coming back this way . . .” I stopped, realizing he didn’t know anything about our discovery about the woods at home actually being a mound. Or any of the mystery we’d uncovered.
“It looked interesting and we were just taking some pictures.”
“Oh, yeah.” He looked at the mounds. “Story is those are Indian burial mounds.”
Chills ran down my spine and I looked at James, trying to stay calm.
“I’m sure Grandmother or Uncle Jack . . . for sure Uncle Jack can tell you all about them.”
This was getting better all the time.
“But for now, better come inside and get washed up for dinner.” He turned and walked back to the house.
“Okay. Be right there,” I said. “Just let me get a couple more pictures, okay?”
Dad waved over his head and went up on the porch and took a seat in the rocker next to Clint and Jillian.
I turned around, looking at the mounds. “Oh, my gosh, James!”
“I know! Can you believe it?”
We kept our voices low and our backs to the house. If anyone had seen our faces right then, they’d have known something was up. We’d have to play this really cool.
***
It turned out that Aunt Liz and Uncle Nathan’s flight had been delayed and they wouldn’t be there for dinner after all. They were renting a car from the airport and driving from Memphis rather than have someone pick them up. Maybe they’d be in Daly before bedtime.
Grandmother, Mom and Aunt Judith had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, made gravy and fixed biscuits. There was other stuff on the table, but I couldn’t tell you what any of it was. With all her family around, my grandmother went all out. She even baked a pie. But I remembered a whole stash of ice cream sandwiches in the fridge in the barn; my grandmother’s standard dessert.
When dinner was over, the table was cleared and the dominoes came out. It was a tradition when all the family was together. We played in pairs, making it simpler with so many people. Taylor offered to be Jillian’s partner. Kate teamed up with her mother, but she didn’t really need any help. James had never played Mexican Train with our family. It was a real eye-opener for him. His family is very quiet compared to mine.
No one actually won because we never keep score, we just play for the fun of it.
After several rounds, it was time for Jillian to go to bed. Kate got to stay up. She acted so much older than she had at Christmas, like she’d grown up a lot in the past months. And much quieter than she had been, almost shy now. Taylor asked her if she wanted to watch a movie.
“There’s a huge flat screen in the barn,” I said, inviting them to come out there before I realized what I was doing. Oh, well. “There’s lots of DVDs, want to watch something out there?”
Taylor looked at Kate and asked. “You want to?”
Kate nodded, smiling, pleased to be one of the ‘big kids.’
We found a movie we all agreed on much quicker than I expected. We made popcorn and I got the box of ice cream sandwiches from the refrigerator. It really did seem like Grandmother’s house now.
After the movie was over, Taylor and Kate went back into the house. James and I grabbed our phones. It was ten, but not too late to text the guys the pictures of the mounds.
And, just as I expected, there were texts flying back and forth in no time. We used up so much data on our phones taking the pictures of the mounds we’d have to plug them in before we went to bed so they could charge overnight.
“We’ll find out everything we can tomorrow and let you know,” I told them. “Goodnight.”
We turned out the lights, but I couldn’t go to sleep. Neither did James.
“Patrick? Do you think we can go over there tomorrow?”
“To the mounds? Did you think we wouldn’t?”
I knew James was smiling in the dark just like I was.