Because down in that hole sat an army footlocker, olive drab, wrapped all around in heavy plastic and tar paper like somebody meant for it to outlast him.
Gary came out of the garage when he heard me stop the saw. We got the footlocker up onto the tailgate of my truck. The latch was rusted but it gave. Inside, laid flat on a folded wool blanket, was a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, a stack of letters with Army postmarks from 1968, and a photograph of two young men standing in front of that same garage, arms around each other, grinning like fools.
On top of it all was a folded sheet of notebook paper. Gary opened it and read it out loud.
Wayne. You told me to throw these in the river. I could not do it. I will not tell you where they are unless you ask. They are yours. They are home. Your brother, Earl.
Gary had bought the house from an estate. He knew the last owner was Earl Dotson, who passed in 2009. He did not know anything about a brother.
The VFW in Parkersburg knew. Gary called and asked, and the fella on the phone said he did not need to look anybody up. Wayne Dotson was sitting at the bar right then, same stool as every Thursday.
Wayne came out that afternoon. He was seventy-eight, walked with a cane, and did not say a word until he saw the footlocker. Then he told us. He came home from Vietnam in 1969 hurt and angry at the whole world. He threw those medals at his brother across the kitchen table and told him to get rid of them. He never asked about them again, and Earl never brought them up.
Five years later, Earl poured that driveway. Wayne helped him do it. He had parked on top of his own medals for forty years.
He picked up the letters. They were ones he had written to Earl from over there. Earl had kept every single one, and had written a line on each envelope about the day it came. Got this one on my birthday. Mom read this one twice.
Wayne sat down on my tailgate and put his face in his hands, and Gary and I walked off a ways to give him the time.
I finished the driveway that week. Before the pour, Gary asked if I could set something in the concrete where the old patch had been. I set a small bronze plate, flush, right where the footlocker was. It says Earl and Wayne Dotson. Brothers. 1974.
That November, Wayne marched in the Veterans Day parade downtown. First time in his life. He wore both medals.
Twenty-one years pouring concrete. That is the first driveway I ever tore out that had been carrying something heavier than cars.