Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2

‘Yah!’ cried everyone, atilt on the air, fists at their sides, grinding and ungrinding invisible rocks.

‘What year is this wine?’ Ignoring them, Clement calmly eyed the label in his hands. ‘Le Corton. Nineteen-seventy. The best wine in the finest year. Excellent.’ He stepped free of the priest and let the wine spill.

‘Do something!’ shouted Doone. ‘Have you no curse handy?’

‘Priests do not curse,’ said Father Kelly. ‘But, Finn, Doone, Hannahan, Burke. Jump! Knock heads.’

The priest marched off and the men rushed after to knock their heads in a bent-down ring and a great whisper with the father. In the midst of the conference the priest stood up to see what Clement was doing. The lawyer was on his third bottle.

‘Quick!’ cried Doone. ‘He’ll waste the lot!’

A fourth cork popped, to another outcry from Finn’s team, the Thirsty Warriors, as they would later dub themselves.

‘Finn!’ the priest was heard to say, deep in the heads-together, ‘you’re a genius!’

‘I am!’ agreed Finn, and the huddle broke and the priest hustled back to the grave.

‘Would you mind, sir,’ he said, grabbing the bottle out of the lawyer’s grip, ‘reading one last time, that damned codicil?’

‘Pleasure.’ And it was. The lawyer’s smile flashed as he fluttered the ribbons and snapped the will.

‘“—that contrary to the old adage, a man can indeed take it with him—”’

He finished and folded the paper, and tried another smile, which worked to his own satisfaction, at least. He reached for the bottle confiscated by the priest.

‘Hold on.’ Father Kelly stepped back. He gave a look to the crowd who waited on each fine word. ‘Let me ask you a question, Mr Lawyer, sir. Does it anywhere say there just how the wine is to get into the grave?’

‘Into the grave is into the grave,’ said the lawyer.

‘As long as it finally gets there, that’s the important thing, do we agree?’ asked the priest, with a strange smile.

‘I can pour it over my shoulder, or toss it in the air,’ said the lawyer, ‘as long as it lights to either side or atop the coffin, when it comes down, all’s well.’

‘Good!’ exclaimed the priest. ‘Men! One squad here. One battalion over there. Line up! Doone!’

‘Sir?’

‘Spread the rations. Jump!’

‘Sir!’ Doone jumped.

To a great uproar of men bustling and lining up.

‘I,’ said the lawyer, ‘am going to find the police!’

‘Which is me,’ said a man at the far side of the mob, ‘Officer Bannion. Your complaint?’

Stunned, lawyer Clement could only blink and at last in a squashed voice, bleat: ‘I’m leaving.’

‘You’ll not make it past the gate alive,’ said Doone, cheerily.

‘I,’ said the lawyer, ‘am staying. But—’

‘But?’ inquired Father Kelly, as the corks were pulled and the corkscrew flashed brightly along the line.

‘You go against the letter of the law!’

‘No,’ explained the priest, calmly, ‘we but shift the punctuation, cross new t’s, dot new i’s.’

‘Tenshun!’ cried Finn, for all was in readiness.

On both sides of the grave, the men waited, each with a full bottle of vintage Château Lafite Rothschild or Le Corton or Chianti.

‘Do we drink it all?’ asked Doone.

‘Shut your gab,’ observed the priest. He eyed the sky. ‘Oh, Lord.’ The men bowed their heads and grabbed off their caps. ‘Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful. And thank you, Lord, for the genius of Heeber Finn, who thought of this—’

‘Aye,’ said all, gently.

‘Twas nothin’,’ said Finn, blushing.

‘And bless this wine, which may circumnavigate along the way, but finally wind up where it should be going. And if today and tonight won’t do, and all the stuff not drunk, bless us as we return each night until the deed is done and the soul of the wine’s at rest.’

‘Ah, you do speak dear,’ murmured Doone.

‘Sh!’ hissed all.

‘And in the spirit of this time, Lord, should we not ask our good lawyer friend Clement, in the fullness of his heart, to join with us?’

Someone slipped a bottle of the best in the lawyer’s hands. He seized it, lest it should break.

‘And finally, Lord, bless the old Lord Kilgotten, whose years of saving-up now help us in this hour of putting-away. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ said all.

‘Tenshun!’ cried Finn.

The men stiffened and lifted their bottles.

‘One for his lordship,’ said the priest.

‘And,’ added Finn, ‘one for the road!’

There was a dear sound of drinking and, years later, Doone remembered, a glad sound of laughter from the box in the grave.

‘It’s all right,’ said the priest, in amaze.

‘Yes.’ The lawyer nodded, having heard. ‘It’s all right.’