Digging to China

Billy Jackson leaned back against the old oak tree watching fat white clouds move across the blue sky while his cousin Eric slowly twisted on the tire swing. It wasn’t even nine when Grandma Ellie hustled them out of her kitchen, saying she didn’t need a pair of young boys under her feet while she canned tomatoes. She put one hand on Eric’s back and swept him to the backdoor calling out to Billy, “Take your cousin outside and find something to do.” The screen door slammed as she added, “and stay out of trouble.”
The two boys had been on the farm for nearly three weeks now and already the charm of country living was fading away. They spent two months every summer on the grandparents’ farm in Southern Iowa. Billy’s dad, Robert, said spending time with family and doing chores built character. Eric’s dad, George, said it got the boy out of the house and out of his hair. Left to his own devices, Eric would spend the three-month break from classes sitting in front of the huge TV in his room playing with his Playstation. Billy felt a little jealous. He didn’t have a TV in his room and was only allowed to play video games one hour a day. So he had started reading. At first it was boring beyond belief, but when he found the right books, it was like a whole new world opened up.  But here in the country, as Billy’s parents called it, there were no video games for either boy and no good books either unless you counted Grampa’s old Zane Grey westerns, which were okay. So the first game of the day became trying to figure out how to fill up the rest of it.
“Go to the pool?” Billy asked without much enthusiasm.
“Nah,” Eric answered , “Gram won’t give us a ride and I don’t want to walk a hundred miles into town.”
“It’s not a hundred miles.”
“It feels like it. By the time we get there we’ll be too tired to swim.”
“There’s other stuff to do in town.”
“You mean go stare at Heather Bose. That’s why you want to go into town.”
Billy felt his face go red and the summer day suddenly felt much warmer. He began to deny it, but realized how it would sound coming out of his mouth and kept quiet. The two eleven year olds sank back into silence, listening to the sounds of small town summer, a lawnmower whirring somewhere in the distance, the hum of bees buzzing around the hive in the split of the tree’s branches, the occasional barking dog.
“Play catch?” Billy tried again. Eric only looked at him and rolled his eyes. Sports were for watching as far as he was concerned. Billy leaned back on the grass and gazed out in the grassy field behind the barn. About a dozen cows grazed in the corner by the road. The pasture sloped down to a thin creek that trickled through the middle, then sloped back up to the woods on the other side. The woods were supposed to be off limits to the boys, but that was more a suggestion as opposed to the barn being off limits which meant Grampa Charlie would tan your hide if he caught you messing around in there. Billy was letting his mind wander its way from the field across the dusty gravel road and to the old brick house looming on the next hill over when Eric spoke up.
“We could go digging.”
Billy waited for the punch line. His cousin only worked if there was something in it for him, so there must be more to the idea. When the older boy didn’t elaborate Billy decided to see where this was going to go.
“What kind of digging?”
“You know, digging, like a hole. China is on the other side of the world, right, so if we just dig down far enough we could find it. Or maybe there’s some hidden treasure.”
Billy looked at his cousin for a long moment. Eric was nearly a year older than he was, but Billy had jumped ahead of him in the brains department by leaps and bounds. Even the boy’s own father, Uncle George, would rub the kid’s hair, gaze at him the way only a dad can look at a son, and say the boy wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Eric would look back at his dad with a goofy grin, not even realizing he had just been called stupid.
“You know,” Billy began, “I think if you could just dig to China, someone would have done it already.”
“No one’s done it because everyone says you can’t do it,” the older boy explained as though he had figured this out long before” besides, who knows what else we can find.” He looked at his cousin with a hopeful smile. Billy had just celebrated his eleventh birthday a month before, but already he was well beyond this kind of childish game, but if it killed a few hours it might be worth playing along. Besides, if they could find some fat nightcrawlers they could surely convince Grampa to take them fishing tonight.
“Okay, he said, “Where do you want to dig?”
“Well,” Eric began in a rush, “we have to do it where Grandma Ellie won’t see us. She’d put a stop to it in no time flat. So, I think we should go to the other side of the trees, in the woods. There’s that clearing where the fire was.” Billy noticed it seemed awfully planned out for a spur of the moment idea and thought maybe his slower cousin had been thinking about this for some time, days maybe, or for all Billy knew, for summers.

The two passed under the kitchen window to make sure their grandmother was still inside. It was just after ten and she was listening to Trader’s Corner on the local radio station. Between gospel songs and Paul Harvey telling “the rest of the story,” the deejay listed items people wanted to sell or trade, from trailer homes to a litter of kittens. The first stop was the garage for tools. A half dozen shovels, spades and even a pickaxe leaned in the corner. The boys wiped cobwebs off the tools and each grabbed one, Billy grabbing a long handled spade, Eric the pick axe. The choice did not surprise Billy. He was sure some character on one his cousin’s games had probably killed a few thousand aliens with a weapon just like it. They cut passed the apple trees keeping a close eye on the house and the tools on the far side of their bodies. They ducked behind a rusting ’67 Chevy pickup by the barn at the edge of the pasture and hopped the fence. From here they could cut across and keep the barn between them and the house so no one would see them as they went. About a hundred yards into the high grass, Eric dropped to the ground. Billy fell beside him, his pulse picked up.
“What is it?” he whispered. His cousin looked at him with eyes wide open.
“I think we’re surrounded,” the boy hissed. Billy felt his heart begin to beat faster. He lifted his head and looked around the empty field. Then his cousin went on.
“About a hundred. Al-qaeda, I think,” he raised himself up to a squat and peered out over the grass and weeds. He lifted the pickaxe to his shoulder like a rifle and sighted down its handle. “We don’t dare take a shot, they’ll hear it and be all over us.” He looked over at his baffled cousin. “Our only hope is to make it to that tree line.” He began to duckwalk towards the fence. Billy took a deep breath and began to follow. His cousin was stupid sometimes. But sometimes he was fun. The two crept and belly-crawled across the open field and made it to safety without being spotted by any al-qaeda.
At the fence, their M-16’s became tools once again and they tossed them over into the brush. They climbed half way over and stopped, using the added height to pick a handful of mulberries before moving on. Most of the area was thick with underbrush, but after weeks of tramping about in the woods, and spending several summer doing the same thing, the boys knew a few narrow paths that would keep them from getting scratched up by brambles and branches. They wound their way through the shade and kept their eyes out for patches of poison ivy. They could have walked up the road and followed the old railroad tracks, but anyone who saw two kids carrying a spade and pickaxe around would know they were “up to no good.” And in this town, anyone seeing these two being “up to no good” would immediately call the Jackson place and let Ellie know just what her two grandchildren were up to. No good.  It took about thirty minutes to get to the clearing. About fifteen years earlier, before either boy was born, when the railroad still ran on these tracks, there had been a fire. It was an especially dry year. A freight train had roared through, kicking up a spark. That one little cinder had landed in the dried out grass and soon a huge swatch of the woods was burning. In the years since, most of the area had grown back, but a large patch hadn’t. It remained a dirt-covered scar. Uncle George once said nothing would grow here because two hobos died in the flames and now haunted the spot. Neither boy knew if anyone really died or if George was trying to scare them enough to keep them out of the woods.  If that was the case, it hadn’t worked. Not a week after hearing the story, they began searching the area for bones of the dead men.

The boys stood in the green-gold shade and looked around the bare circle. It was about thirty feet across and littered with twigs and leaves that had fallen from the young trees that surrounded it. There were no telltale signs that anyone had been here recently; none of the trash or used condoms that usually appear in secluded places frequented by teens or drunks. It did look like animals used the area. At one edge lay the rotting carcass of a raccoon and in the north end of the dirt patch the skull of a small deer or large dog lay half buried in leaves. Billy paced across the dirt, occasionally stopping to stab the ground with the spade. The ground was harder than he had thought it would be and dry. His hopes of finding some fat fishing worms dimmed. When he had crossed, he turned back and faced his cousin on the other side.
“Well, genius,” he said, “where do you want to dig your tunnel to China?”
The other boy grinned and brought the pickaxe to his shoulder. In two lightning fast steps he covered half the circle. His eyes stayed locked on Billy’s. He raised the pickaxe over his head and with a yell brought it down. Billy leapt back, sure the blow was coming down on his head. He crashed into the thorn bushes and felt a sudden sharp pain as a branch stabbed into his side. His vision exploded in a flash of white as his head thumped into a skinny ash. As the world came back into view, he could hear his cousin’s loud and braying laugh.
“Oh, you should’ve seen your face,” he howled. “What’d you think? I was gonna brain you?” He fell to his knees and bent over laughing until his forehead nearly touched the dusty ground. Billy rolled over and slowly got to his feet. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes, but fought them back. The last thing he needed on top of this was to start crying like a baby. He blinked away the tears and when he was sure his voice wouldn’t crack spoke up.
“I tripped.”
His cousin was crying. From laughter.
“Tripped! You jumped back like someone shot you with a pistol,” he said as his laughter petered out. “Tripped, he says,” the boy gestured to the forest. He got to his feet and barked out one last laugh at his little cousin. Billy shot him a dirty look and reached under his shirt to examine the spot where the branch had gouged him. It stung to the touch, but, despite Billy’s belief that he had been skewered, his fingers came back with only a trace of blood.  He was prodding the sore spot again to make sure he hadn’t missed some life-threatening wound when Eric spoke.
“Well, X marks the spot.”
The pickaxe had speared the skull and buried one tine all the way to the handle. Eric smiled at Billy as he levered the handle up. A huge chunk of dirt pulled out of the ground. The top three inches were a brown and dry crust, but just under the surface the dirt was wet and black. Billy picked up his spade and tried to spear the ground. The hardpack refused the shovel, vibrating the handle in the boys hands, but not breaking the surface.
“You wuss,” Eric laughed as he took another swing with the pickaxe. Once again, the pick buried itself deep in the ground. When Eric pushed the handle up, Billy heard the ground crack followed by a sucking sound as the wet dirt pulled free of the muck underneath. Eric took another quick swing and broke another hole in the surface. With a quick shove the pick opened the hole wider, now a gaping black spot in the middle of the fire’s scar.
“Well, I got it started,” Eric stepped back, giving Billy room, “Get to diggin’”

The boys worked in silence through the afternoon. Eric laid into the ground swinging the big pick down again and again, breaking up the dirt enough for Billy to come in and clean up with his spade. Even with the soft ground dirt and Eric’s determination to keep going, progress was slow. By the time the sun passed overhead they had a pit about three feet deep. Billy stopped and wiped sweat from his forehead. The woods were growing dark as the sun fell from the sky.
“Okay,” he said, “that’s enough. We’re nowhere near China and the closest thing I’ve seen to treasure was a rusty coffee can.”
Eric let the heavy head of the pick drop to the ground.
“We can’t quit yet,” he whined, “We’re almost there.”
Billy had had enough of the game.
“Almost where? You don’t really think we’re digging to China? I mean, come on, I know you’re dumb, but are you really that stupid?”
Eric looked at the ground without saying a word. He lifted the pick up off the ground and let one tine fall down to the side of the hole.
“No,” he mumbled, “I just mean, I don’t know.” He kept his eyes to the ground. Billy felt a knot tighten in his stomach. He hadn’t meant to hurt his cousin’s feelings. The boy wasn’t bright, the whole family knew that, but even idiots have feelings.
“Tell you what,” Billy said, “let’s go home. We can come back tomorrow and see what we can find. It’s almost dark anyway. That’s no good for looking for gold.”
Billy thought he could see tears in Eric’s eyes as the older boy lifted his chin off his chest and looked at him.
“Really,” Billy went on, “in the sunlight you can see the gold flakes sparkle.”
“There’s no gold,” Eric said quietly.
“Probably not,” Billy replied, “but why take a chance on missing it if there is.”
Eric shuffled over to the hole, dragging he pickaxe behind him.
“No,” he said, not looking at Billy, “it was fun for a day. We don’t need to come back out tomorrow.”
He lifted the pick to his shoulder once more and swung it down with all his might. Billy heard the thick splat and turned his head. The pick was stuck into the earth at the bottom if the little pit. Billy stepped closer. He was sure the long shadows were playing tricks on his eyes. In the darkening woods, it looked as though the pick had gone into the wet muck past the handle. He looked up at Eric and saw the boy’s gaping expression. Eric’s jaw was hanging open and his eyes were wide.
“I just knew it,” he said, “I knew there was something here.”
He jumped down into the hole and pried on the pick handle. A large chunk of dirt broke free, pulling a tangle of tiny vines and skinny roots with it. A small black hole gaped back at the boys. Eric sat down on the edge and looked at his cousin standing above him, his mouth hanging open.
Billy grabbed his spade and stepped down into the hole. As he poked the dirt around the small black opening and watched it fall into the darkness. He knelt down and looked into the emptiness. The sun had passed below the tree line now and the wood had turned blue in the twilight. The impending darkness made it impossible for the young boy to see inside the new hole. Billy extended his spade and watched the metal face disappear into the dark. He gripped the end of the handle and stretched it out as far as he could reach. He waggled the tool around and couldn’t feel the bottom. Eric jumped out of the hole and stood on the edge above the new opening. He began to whack at the edges, knocking more dirt away and widening the opening.
“Eric, I don’t think you should do that. You don’t know what’s under there.”
The older boy laughed.
“I told you we should dig here. I told you we’d find something.”
“Really, Eric, knock it off. It might be an old well or something.”
“What’s the matter, you wuss? Afraid?”
Billy put his hands on his knees and leaned forward peering into the hole. The woods had just about gone dark.
“No,” he snapped at his cousin, “I just know better than to go messing around and getting hurt. You should know better, too.”
Billy squinted into the darkness. Far below, he saw to pins of light. Eric stopped swinging the pick. The boy stepped around to see inside the hole.
“Hello, down there,” he yelled, laughing.
Billy felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Suddenly, his t-shirt felt too light for the night air. He reached his hand out and felt a cold breeze billowing from the blackness. 
“Eric, we ought to go,” he said turning around. His cousin’s hands gripped his shoulders. The spade fell to the ground.
“Oh, we’re going all right,” he said grinning at Billy. The boy called out again.
“Hello!”
Billy began to struggle against his cousin. The boy was lazy and stupid, but strong. He pulled Billy to him and in a lightning fast move, spun him around and grabbed him from behind in a bear hug. Billy dug in his heels and pushed back as he watched the pin pricks of light swell up at the opening. Two eyes peered from the darkness. Two huge hands grabbed the dirt edges and pulled away chunks of earth. Billy couldn’t count the number of long fingers on each hand, each with five or six segments leading up to long yellow nails. The creature smiled as it crept out of the earth. Its skin was the color of dried blood, leathery and wrinkled. Billy couldn’t look away from its two orange eyes, flickering as though flames burned behind them. It stretched up out of the hole and towered over the two boys.
“Whatchoo doing?” it asked in a voice that froze Billy’s blood.
“Digging to China,” Eric laughed.
The thing laughed along with him. It sounded to Billy like an old man trying to cough up a lungful of cancer. The red beast looked down into the pit.
“It’s a long way to China,” it said reaching out and grabbing Billy’s wrist. The boy began to scream as the fingers wrapped around his arm like snakes. The other hand shot out and wrapped around the bottom half of his face, cutting off the noise in an instant. It pulled his close and leaned its face next to his. For a moment Billy thought it was going to kiss him and he was sure if it did he would die right there. Then, another thought ran through his mind, he just might be better off if he did. As the thing began pulling him down into the depth he could smell the bottom of the darkness. A smell that brought to mind thoughts of white worms and dead fish. He looked up into the world one last time and saw his cousin standing over the hole smiling. He could hear Eric’s voice following him down into the darkness. Echoing off the walls he couldn’t see.
“Whose the stupid one now, Billy?” Eric asked again and again from the blackness, “Whose the stupid one now?
The older boy began to talk to himself as he shoveled dirt back down over the pit entrance.
“I know a thing or two. Yes, I do. I’ve learned a lot since last summer. I’ve learned a lot.”
He could hear his grandmother calling from the house. She would be mad, when he came home late. She would probably have the belt out ready to put it to work until she noticed Billy gone. Until she saw the crocodile tears in Eric’s eyes as he told her about the stranger who grabbed up Billy as they walked home. Snatched her precious, know-it-all Billy.
“Why would someone do that,” he would ask, “Why would some dirty old man want to take a little boy? A little boy like Billy?”
He would plant that seed in her mind and let it take root and run wild. He would see her imagination working with thoughts of what had happened to the family favorite.  He would watch, as eyes dart back and forth between brothers and spouses, husbands and wives, all sneaking quick peeks at the old man. All of them knowing that every family had skeletons in the closet, even one as perfect as this.
In the distance, he heard his grandmother call again. For now, he thought, she could keep on hollering. Get warmed up, because she would have a lot of hollering to do soon. He scooped up more of the fill and watched as the hole disappeared a little more with each shovelful of dirt. It had taken a year to find the door and all day to open it. Now it would take all night to close it. Let the old bitch holler, he had work to do.