The Buried Book (33 page)

CHAPTER 64

I hope you can put this all behind you and get well. I’m sure your family misses you.

The following weekend, Uncle Leo came to check on his sister, then drove Jasper back to the farm for a visit. It was more of a home to Jasper than the new house, but none of it belonged to him anymore. It never did.

After lunch, he headed out to the back fields toward the faraway stand of trees, with his cousin Wayne trailing behind him.

“What we doin’ out here?” Wayne finally asked when they’d reached the ring of charred stones marking the edges of the old farmhouse. Ashes and burnt shingles still dotted the overgrown yard.

Jasper didn’t answer. He searched the ground between the trees until he found a large stick. He stepped over the foundation to the spot where the stairs had once led up to the attic.
Who’s there?
He didn’t bother to bat the whisper away as he began to dig.

After a minute of watching, Wayne picked up his own stick and helped his cousin pry up fieldstones and roots until they’d made a bucket-sized hole in the ground. Jasper pulled his mother’s worn leather diary from its place in his pocket.

“Is that the book?” Wayne raised his eyebrows because he knew the answer.

Jasper ran his palm over the cracked leather. He’d carried it with him every day since his uncle had given it back. It had once held the answers to everything, to her. After a moment’s hesitation, he placed it in the bottom of the hole and poured a handful of dirt and ashes over the cover. Then another.

When the hole had been firmly packed and healed to the point where no one would even know a book had been buried, Jasper put his hands back in his pockets and felt the empty space where it had been.

Wayne motioned to the tiny grave. “Should we say something?”

Jasper kept his eyes to the ground and shook his head.

“She gonna be alright, you think?”

There was no place for an honest answer, so Jasper gave his cousin a small nod. He didn’t know if she would be all right. If she’d recover all the pieces of herself that mattered. If she’d ever laugh again. But she’d given him a smile that morning before he left. She’d touched his cheek and smiled, and for a moment her eyes looked as clear and blue as the sky after a storm. It reminded him of the morning after the tornado tore apart half the state, the way the sun cast a beautiful glow over the fallen trees and flattened houses and bloodied ground as though everything was right with the world.

All he could do was smile back.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Jasper’s story was inspired by my father’s accounts of life on a dairy farm in 1950s Michigan. The voices of Leonard Williams and Wendell Leary were the voices I heard around the dinner table growing up. Thank you, Dad, for so graciously lending me pieces of your life. I hope this novel does your stories justice. It should be noted that the Tally Ho! joke will always be told better by my father.

Thank you to my husband for holding my hand through every twist and turn in this great adventure. You read each draft of this book from start to finish and never wavered in your support. I wouldn’t be a writer if it weren’t for your endless patience, advice, and love.

Thank you to my two sons for showing me the inner workings of a boy’s mind. Watching you play and fight and grow up together brought Jasper and Wayne to life. Thanks, kiddos, for not burning the house down while Mommy was writing.

Thank you to my agent, Andrea Hurst, for finding a home for this story and guiding me through this next phase of my career. Thank you to Jodi Warshaw, Kjersi Egerdahl, Faith Black Ross, and all my friends at Lake Union and Thomas & Mercer for bringing
The Buried Book
into the world.

Finally, I’d like to thank my extended family, my friends, and my readers for your generous support. A book has no life or meaning without someone wonderful to open it.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

The Buried Book
is a work of historical fiction, and as such it contains several true events and places that are used as the backdrop for a fictional story. The following is an index of factual events and places that give historical context to the novel:

Boggs Act
—A federal law enacted in 1951 to increase prison sentences for trafficking and use of illicit drugs.

Burtchville, Michigan
—A small community located north of Port Huron on the shore of Lake Huron.

Flint-Beecher Tornado
—On Monday, June 8, 1953, several tornados touched down in central Michigan, resulting in a reported 116 fatalities, 844 injuries, and millions of dollars in damage.

Major Crimes Act of 1885
—This legislation gave the United States federal government sole jurisdiction over major crimes committed on Native American lands and stripped tribes of much of their sovereignty and independence in law enforcement.

Prohibition
—In January of 1920, Congress passed the Volstead Act to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the sale and consumption of “intoxicating liquors” and beginning the Prohibition era. In December of 1933, the Twenty-First Amendment repealed the Eighteenth, ending Prohibition.

Prohibition on Indian Reservations
—Congress passed a law in 1832 prohibiting alcohol sales and consumption on Indian reservations. This federal law was not repealed until 1953 when jurisdiction over alcohol was reverted back to the Native Americans; however, many reservations do not allow alcohol to this day.

Tally Ho
—A roadside tavern on the outskirts of Burtchville.

The Buried Book
depicts life in rural Michigan in the early 1950s. My research into this time period relied heavily on first-person interviews. I also visited the Museum of Western Reserve Farms & Equipment at Stone Garden Farm & Village (
www.ohiofarmmuseum.com
) to experience the feel of an outhouse, a one-room schoolhouse, and working with livestock. Several books gave me additional perspective on farming life, most notably the following:

Hoffbeck, Steven R.
Haymakers: A Chronicle of Five Farm Families (Minnesota)
. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2000.

Peck, Robert Newton.
A Day No Pigs Would Die
. New York: Laurel-Leaf, 1972.

This novel includes characters from a fictional Native American tribe, the Manitonaaha, living on the fictional Black River Reservation. The language and customs used in the story were largely inspired by my research into Ojibwa tribes. Any errors or omissions are my own, and I sincerely apologize. This story is not intended to disparage or denigrate the vast cultural history or the traditions of any Native American. While the fictional Black River Reservation plays a role in illegal activities, including bootlegging liquor, drug smuggling, and gambling, throughout the story, it is not my intent to implicate any Native American in any wrongdoing. It is my intent to show how a fictional Native American tribe might fall victim to biased and unjust law enforcement and triumph over adversity in the end.

The difficult legal issues surrounding law enforcement on Native American lands are well documented. In my research, I read several works on this subject including the following:

Crane-Murdoch, Sierra. “On Indian Land, Criminals Can Get Away with Almost Anything.”
The Atlantic
, February 22, 2013.

Bureau of Indian Affairs Law Enforcement Services. “Indian Law Enforcement History.” Available at
www.tribalinstitute.org/download/Indian%20Law%20Enforcement%20History.pdf
. Accessed December 12, 2014.

Erdrich, Louise.
The Round House
. New York: Harper Perennial, 2012.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © Rebecca Cain

D.M. Pulley lives just outside Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband, two sons, and two dogs. She is a Professional Engineer who specializes in rehabbing historic structures as well as conducting forensic investigations of building failures. Pulley’s structural survey of an abandoned building in Cleveland formed the basis for her debut novel,
The Dead Key
.