Part 5 — The Hill Where She Sleeps
The cemetery lay just outside town, up a gravel path lined with wild aster and creeping honeysuckle. Walter remembered when it was nothing more than a fenced-in family plot. His grandfather had been buried here under a hand-carved stone in ’42. Now, the place had grown, collecting names like autumn leaves.
The gate squeaked when he opened it, same as always.
Walter parked the truck just outside and left the engine running. It was starting to drizzle, soft and hesitant. He didn’t mind. Rain had always been a comfort—especially the kind that came without thunder. The kind Margaret used to say “was meant for thinking.”
He opened the passenger door. Samson lay curled beneath the quilt, unmoving.
Walter reached down, stroked the dog’s muzzle. It was cold.
But not still.
A breath came. Then another. Thin. Faint. Barely there.
“We’re close now,” he said gently.
He lifted Samson one more time, holding him tighter than before, arms wrapping around as if the warmth of his body might lend strength. The path up the hill was muddy and steep, and Walter moved slow, boots sinking just slightly with each step.
They passed the graves of old friends—Tommy Brackett, who broke Walter’s arm in a baseball game when they were twelve. Miss Lillian, who used to sneak them peppermint sticks in church. Even old Pastor Wheeler, whose voice could make thunder feel small.
And then he saw her name.
Margaret Jean McKinley
Beloved wife, teacher, friend
1937 – 2009
“Love is the only thing you can take with you.”
The stone was simple, just like she’d wanted. No angels. No marble scrolls. Just her name and the words they had chosen together on a slow evening in ’06, drinking tea and watching Samson chase fireflies.
Walter knelt beside it, lowering Samson into the grass at the base of the marker.
“We made it,” he said softly. “You’re home, girl.”
He closed his eyes, forehead resting on Margaret’s stone. The rain had picked up, drizzling through the trees in quiet rhythm. He didn’t move, not for a long time.
When he opened his eyes, Samson was looking at him.
Just looking.
That one good eye was wide open, glassy, yet aware. Walter reached out, pressed a hand to the dog’s chest.
Still breathing.
But it wouldn’t be long now.
“You held on,” he said, his voice cracking. “You held on just to see her.”
He laughed through a sob.
“I swear, you’ve always known more than you let on.”
The rain pooled in the grooves of Margaret’s name, darkening the stone. Walter leaned closer.
“I brought him back to you,” he whispered. “You told me not to let him go alone.”
He pulled the flannel blanket over Samson’s back, tucked it in like a child being put to sleep.
“I think… I think I’ll sit a while,” Walter murmured, lowering himself onto the ground beside them both. “Maybe just rest my eyes.”
The wind picked up slightly. A leaf danced down from the cedar tree above and landed on the dog’s back.
Walter looked up at the sky, his breath visible now in the chill. He could almost see her — Margaret, standing just beyond the fog, smiling softly with her arms open. And beside her, a younger Samson, bounding through fields of clover.
The man, the dog, and the stone. They sat together as the sky wept gently over Bellewood.
And the last ride began to slow.