The Indian burial ground is both a small-town cemetery and a place shaped by the violent death of Penny Ann Drinkwater. Its graves and the path from the cemetery toward The Falls connect ordinary work in Three Rivers to a loss that Ralph Drinkwater cannot set aside.

Setting and Memorials

The Indian burial ground is described as the smallest of Three Rivers’ town cemeteries. Penny Ann and her cousin Lonnie are buried there. Lonnie’s grave bears a prominent memorial to his status as a modern warrior, while Penny Ann’s marker is notably small, about the size of a dictionary, and records only her initials and the dates 1948–1958. The contrast makes the two memorials distinct in scale and presentation without diminishing the importance of either grave.

Ralph Drinkwater and the Cemetery

Dominick Birdsey initially recognizes that Ralph becomes sulky when the grounds crew mows the cemetery each week, but does not understand the depth of his reaction. The cemetery is not merely where Ralph’s sister and cousin are buried: it is also where Monk took Penny Ann during a snowstorm and where her body was later found. That knowledge changes how Dominick reads Ralph’s mood. The recurring work of mowing brings Ralph back to the site of a family loss and a murder, while the others’ routine presence there makes his grief visible to them only gradually.

The Path to The Falls

The cemetery also lies near the route to The Falls and the river. Dell Weeks usually schedules its mowing for Friday afternoons, when the crew often finishes early. On one hot afternoon, Leo proposes that the group walk up the path, climb down, and swim. Dominick expects Ralph to avoid the place, and admits to feeling uneasy about going himself, but Ralph follows the others.

The town had posted no-trespassing signs and installed chain-link fencing along both cliff edges at the waterspill years earlier in response to Penny Ann’s murder. By the summer of 1969, the signs were rusted and chipped, and young people had bent an opening in the fence and worn a path down to the water. The damaged barriers show how a civic response to the murder has become worn and bypassed, even as the site remains accessible to local teenagers.

At the water, Leo and Dominick remove their clothes and enter the river. Ralph takes off his boots and socks, sets down his wallet, and wades in wearing his tank top and jeans. Dominick notices Ralph’s modesty but does not question or tease him. Though he does not fully understand Ralph’s reasons, he recognizes the limits Ralph sets. In this way, the excursion brings Ralph into a place associated with painful history while also showing Dominick beginning to respect his boundaries.