“Should one of us head down the mountain to see if we can get a cell signal to call the park service about coming up here to retrieve his body?” Dave asked the others in the group.

“You know that Bob is — or should I say was — all alone in this world. No wife, no kids. And he always said he wanted to be buried someplace where there was a view,” Jerry said. “So maybe we should wrap him up in the canvas from his tent and dig a grave up here at the summit.”

“You’re right, Jerry, there’s no one down in the valley to take him, anyway,” Mitch said. So whaddya say, Dave, shall we start digging?”

“Hold on,” Dave said. “Don’t you think the authorities might find it suspicious if we tell them that he cracked open his head from a fall, so we buried him at the summit? They might want to examine the body, do an autopsy to make sure it was an accidental death and not a murder. We could all be suspects, you know.”

“Shit, Dave, you’ve been watching too many detective stories on TV,” Bob said. “We just need to bring his valuables with us, like his watch, his wallet, and his camera, hand them over to the park service, and take a picture of the grave we dug. As Mitch said, he’s got no relatives or anyone else to ask questions or demand an autopsy.”

Dave shrugged his shoulders and said fine. “You guys start digging and I’ll go find some wood we can use to make a cross.”

“Wait, wasn’t Bob Jewish?” Jerry said.

“He don’t care, Jerry. He’s dead,” Dave said. “Start digging. I’ll make the cross.”

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Written for Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge. Photo credit: eberhard ✋🏻grossgasteiger on Unsplash.