Inside the Mission County Plat Book
705 Casper Road; Harden Township; Section 3, 11N, 4E:
Torn screens flap like bat wings on the porch.
“Tony! You in there?”
A cattle truck rumbles past.
Chad grabs his radio. “Deputy Reece to Base: I’m on scene.”
A Mary statue lies face down in the dirt.
“Copy. Sheriff’s en route.”
Chad lunges toward a kicked-in door. Inside, a dry-rot floor cushions the weight of his steps. Down the hall, in a bathroom, his brother’s head lies slumped against a cracked commode.
Outside, red lights flash. A car door slams.
Chad kneels and stares at the drooped hands, the ones he pried from their mother’s grip the first time he cuffed them.
11 Briscoe Avenue; Silverton, Dobbs Township; Section 4, 9 N, 10 E:
Cora’s pretend mom leans against the kitchen island scrolling through her phone. Cora climbs onto a stool next to her. “Where’s Muffin?”
“Oh, baby.” The woman turns and gives Cora a tight hug. “Cora, darling.” She pulls back, her eyes red and wet. “Your daddy died last night.”
Her pretend mom starts to sob. Muffin appears, curving her back around the corner of the island.
“Your daddy loved you so much.”
“Dead? Like Tippy?”
Cora slides off the stool and picks up the cat. Tippy was her Christmas puppy. She stares at the counter top, remembering how her dad made her stand on it.
“Jump!” He smiled. “I’ll catch you!”
She put her fingers in her mouth.
“Come on, jump!”
He stepped closer, his arms straight out, like Tippy’s legs the day he got run over.
Mission County Courthouse, 100 E. Main Street, Silverton, Dobbs Township, Section 1, 7S, 5W:
Sunlight reflects off the courthouse windows. Sid Henke drums his fingers on the steering wheel, then turns the ignition. The motor knocks. Fellow parolees file pass. They nod. He nods back.
Sid is angry. He did not appreciate the way Judge Corbin drilled him at the hearing.
“What would the two of you talk about on the bus?”
The judge was referring to the 4 AM shuttle to the meat packing plant.
Sid shrugged.
“Did the now-deceased Tony Reece ever seem depressed?”
He shrugged again.
“Did Mr. Reece ever talk about his daughter?” The judge paused. “Or his future?”
Sid looked down and rubbed his neck. “No.”
He and Tony worked the line, hacking meat. Most of the time they joked or complained. Tony’s teeth flashed yellow, his breath foul as a feedlot.
Sid takes a deep breath, puts the truck in gear and pulls out of the parking lot. He passes the high school where he and Tony once wrestled for the Borger Bulldogs. Back before the meth. Back when they would hunt wild hogs, straddling the sows and stabbing the necks, warm blood flowing through their fingers.
Sid smiles. True religion.
932 County Road 33; MacKenzie Township; Section 8, 13N, 10E:
Anthony Reece wakes with a start, cell phone buzzing against his chest. He shakes his head and reaches for the phone. Chad’s voice.
“Want me to stay with you tonight?”
Anthony squints at the glare of afternoon light. Outside, a horse whinnies.
“You okay, Dad?’
“I’m fine.”
“Call if you need me.”
Anthony nods and hangs up. He rubs his face then pulls himself out of the recliner. He lifts a hat off a hook at the door and heads toward the barn.
Inside the tack room, he scoops oats into a bucket while holding onto the pommel of a saddle. He recalls Tony—six, maybe seven-years-old—struggling to tie off the cinch. Chad, already a roper, makes a snide remark but attempts to help. Tony pushes his brother away and a fight ensues.
Anthony steps in, grabs Tony’s arm. “Get to the house if you’re gonna act that way!”
“I hate you!” The boy throws his hat on the floor. “I hate horses!”
Sunlight slants through the siding. Anthony realizes that his hand is resting on the same saddle that Tony once struggled to cinch.
He rubs his fingers across the floral pattern stamped into the leather, its swirl as smooth and flowing as two boys tussling.
Memorial Park Cemetery; 302 Highway 36; Quanah Township; Section 9, 19S, 2W:
Tabitha Morales scans a diagram of burial plots on the clipboard.
“Any questions?”
The father is weeping. His son steadies him against a gust of wind.
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
She hands the son a pen. He signs the deed.
Tabitha places her hand on the father’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” says the son.
The two men turn and shuffle toward their car. In the distance, transmission lines cut across a broad expanse of open land.
Tabitha’s current partner, Jared, had surveyed the right-of-way for the new lines and giant towers. On their first date—three months ago?—she and Jared discovered an unusual commonality: monuments. She dealt with headstones while he searched for section markers.
“Some days, I spend hours looking for a pile of rocks.” He grinned and shook his head. “That’s how they marked township corners back in the 1800’s. Sometimes they just carved an X on the trunk of a mesquite.”
He sipped his Coors. “They called them witness trees.”
“Sounds religious.”
He chuckled.
She stirred her daiquiri. “Any witness trees still standing?”
“Not in this country.”
Tabitha steps toward her car and places the clipboard on the seat. She spent the afternoon creating a video of family photographs: birthday parties, high school prom, wrestling meets. It would be the main focus of the service.
A pine tree sways in the distance, its scant branches worn, yet beckoning.
Tabitha remembers when funerals took place beneath crosses on church walls.
Witness trees? She bats away a fly. Not in this country.
Mike Bonifas’ short stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Dappled Things and Pilgrim: A Journal of Catholic Experience.
He received honorable mention in the JF Powers Short Fiction Contest, was a finalist in Ruminate’s Van Dyke Spiritual Essay Contest
and was long-listed in Craft’s Flash Fiction Contest. He lives in West Texas where he tends horses on a small ranch.