Part 5: The Box Beneath the Floorboards
They buried Huck beneath a spruce tree by the riverbank.
Walter carved the name into the bark with his pocketknife: HUCK—nothing more, nothing less. Ruby gathered a few stones and made a ring around the fresh earth, her hands red from the cold but steady. They didn’t say a prayer, but the wind whispered something ancient through the branches, and the sun gave them one last golden glance before ducking behind the clouds.
They stood there for a long time, not speaking. Then Ruby touched Walter’s arm.
“He waited for this,” she said.
Walter nodded. “So did I.”
They returned to the cabin in silence, walking slower now. The burden had shifted. Not gone—but changed. Grief has a strange way of making the heart feel both heavier and lighter, as if a door had closed behind them while another, older one creaked open.
Arthur was waiting by the stove, his face lined like the ridges of a map long folded.
“Come in,” he said, voice low. “There’s something your father left here for you.”
Walter stepped inside, boots still damp with snow, and followed Arthur to the back of the cabin. The floor creaked in protest as Arthur knelt by the far wall and pried up two warped boards with a crowbar.
Beneath them, wrapped in oilcloth and bound with twine, was a small wooden box.
He placed it gently on the table.
Walter stared at it. He didn’t move.
Ruby stepped beside him, her hand slipping into his.
Arthur didn’t speak. He simply nodded.
Walter untied the twine and unwrapped the cloth. The box was plain—cedar, worn at the edges, a tiny brass latch nearly rusted shut. Inside lay three things:
- A leather-bound notebook.
- A photo of Robert McKinley and Arthur, younger than Walter had ever seen them, seated on the cabin porch with a dog between them.
- And a folded sheet of music—handwritten, stained by time, titled: “Flight Over the Yukon.”
Walter picked up the notebook first.
Inside were entries from 1943 to 1945. Field notes, poems, letters never sent. Pages of confessions. Of longing. Of guilt and hope. Robert’s handwriting flowed in loops and dips, restless and raw.
March 12, 1944
Walt turned four today. I wasn’t there. I watched the geese come in low over the ridge, and for a moment I thought I saw him in the snow, running with his arms out like wings. I ache for him like I ache for the sky.
May 2, 1944
Arthur says I should send the music to Ruby. She deserves more than silence. But silence is what I’ve become. I miss her. I miss home. But I don’t know if I belong anywhere anymore.
Walter closed the notebook, his throat tight.
“Why didn’t he ever tell me?” he asked.
Arthur looked at the fire. “Because he didn’t think he deserved to. He thought by staying away, he was sparing you.”
Walter looked again at the photo. His father and Arthur sat close, not quite touching, but with the quiet closeness of men who had lived something no one else could understand. The dog at their feet—a mutt with long ears and curious eyes—looked like Huck’s great-grandfather.
“You think he was ever happy?” Walter asked.
Arthur’s lips pressed into a thin line. “For a time. Out here. Before the guilt caught up with him.”
Walter ran his fingers over the folded sheet of music.
“I didn’t know he played.”
Arthur almost smiled. “Only here. Only when no one else could hear.”
Walter folded the sheet carefully, tucked it back into the box.
Ruby brushed a hand down his back. “Maybe now he’ll be heard.”
That night, they sat by the fire again.
Walter didn’t speak much, but he held the notebook close, fingers tracing the cover like he might find his father’s heartbeat hidden inside.
Arthur made tea. Ruby added a splash of bourbon from a bottle wrapped in a rag at the back of the pantry. Snow tapped gently at the windows, and the trees outside stood still.
“I never said goodbye to him,” Walter said softly.
“He knew,” Arthur replied. “Sometimes goodbye isn’t a word. It’s a journey.”
Walter nodded slowly.
“Then I guess we’re almost there.”