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Redneck is © by Robert D. Lane, 2007.Published by Island Press, Vancouver Island, Canada.

“Where had the years gone, and being gone, why did they hurt him still?” – Art and Lies by Jeanette

Winterson

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FOR KAREN WITH THANKS…

red·neck n. Offensive Slang.

1. Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.

2. A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.

- American Heritage Dictionary

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REDNECKBY BOB LANE© 2013 BY ROBERT D. LANE

These stories have been written over the last few years after I retired from teaching. Several of them have been published previously in the Platte Valley Review and are collected here with some previously unpublished material that fits in with the overall narrative. Some of what is here is true and some is fiction. In a sense, of course, all fiction is in the service of what is true.

“The Three-Day Job”

Platte Valley Review

Vol. 27, No. 1

Winter ‘99

“Lost and Found”

Platte Valley Review

Vol. 28, No. 2

Spring ‘00

“Billy” Platte Valley Review

Vol. 28, No. 3

Winter ‘00

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Bob……………………………………………………………………5

Leaving Home………………………………………………………14

Lost and Found……………………………………………………..15

Billy………………………………………………………………….25

Clyde………………………………………………………………...34

Hank………………………………………………………………...42

The Three-Day Job…………………………………………………51

Back at the VFW……………………………………………………63

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Bob

“Remember the time . . .”

“Want another round here?”

“Yeah. Please.”

As the waitress left to fill the order for the two men sitting at the table in the corner of the VFW hall, she overheard the taller one say “I’d like to take her around.” She was used to that sort of comment from the old guys who came in to drink and talk. These two had been sitting in the corner for a couple of hours, talking, drinking slowly, and not being too obnoxious. “They are telling lies about their time in the service,” she thought. “They all do it.”

“Where was I, Bob?”

“You were talking about the time we went duck hunting on your dad’s farm.”

“Oh, right. Remember the morning we went out to the lagoon to hunt ducks? It was still dark when we walked from the house to the blind that we had made the day before with cane bundles.”

“That was a great blind for shooting.”

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“And as we walked along in the dark I thought that I saw a duck.”

“And you whispered, `Bob, there’s a duck roosting in that sunflower. Shoot it.”

“God, I still have dreams about that, Bob. I actually thought for a moment that it was a duck, and I remember pulling the shotgun up to my shoulder and sighting down the long barrel for a sure shot when the “duck in the sunflower” said `Are you pointing that thing at me?’”

“What if I had fired the gun?”

“We would have had a dead duck hunter before the sun came out.”

“And when I heard the voice I pulled the gun down and kept on walking. Then the guy says, `You better wait until it’s light before you point that thing.’ And we kept walking to our blind.”

“Is that the blind we used to think we could get the girls from our class to? We fantasized about screwing them all and then shooting ducks?”

“Hey, Bob, that’s the one.”

“We never did get any girls out there, did we?”

“No, but we made love to a lot of them anyway!”

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“Didn’t we though? A couple of real self made lovers!”

“We were self made alright! God, if I had fired the twelve gauge I was using I would have blown the poor bastard’s head off. Jesus, Bob, it could have been a disaster.”

“You didn’t though, Bob, so don’t worry about it.”

Just then the waitress returned with the two bottles of Coors. “Here you go, Bob,” she said putting the bottles on the new cardboard coasters from her tray.

Both men answered her “Bob.”

“Thanks,” they said in unison.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said with a smile. “You are both Bobs, aren’t you? How can I tell you apart?”

“I’m the good looking one.”

“I’m the well hung one.”

“I’m the former Marine,” they both said.

After she left and while the taller of the Bobs filled the two glasses with beer, Bob started to remember.

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“Remember that other duck huntin’ trip? We went south of Wray to those lakes down on the Republican River with those other guys from the football team.”

“You mean Gary and Swede?”

“Yeah. That’s right. And we hated Swede. He was such an asshole. Anyway he had just bought four new decoys. Beautiful life like things they were. Inflated they looked like Mallards more than Mallards did.”

“And we helped put them out in the lake.”

“And he had a caller. We all settled down in the blind and Swede started calling those ducks to come join his Mallards in the pond. And you looked over at me and said, “Concavo” and I answered “Convexo” and then we both knew what to do.”

“And when the flock started to settle into the pond we opened fire.”

“The ducks flew off safe and sound and Swede shouts `You sons-a-bitches!’ as he looks out at the ruined decoys losing air through the double ought holes.”

“Hey, Bob, he never went hunting with us again.”

“I know, Bob.”

“Did we ever shoot any ducks?”

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“Oh, yeah. Remember the time you took that four-foot long shotgun of your dads and fired it into the sky? A damn duck fell out of the sky!”

“Well, of course. I aimed at it.”

“Sure you did. You lucky shitbird. Anyway you ran way out into the water, picked up the bird by its head, and brought it back to the blind. A little tiny Teal, with most of its ass shot off. God, you looked so proud of your kill. There must have been four ounces of meat there, Bob.”

“Ton jay vous.”

The waitress had been hovering nearby smoking a cigarette. She walked over to put out the cigarette in the ashtray on the corner table.

“What’s with this gibberish you two old Marines talk? This “ton-jay-vous,” “convexo, concavo” stuff?”

“Why it’s a secret language, my dear, a secret language constructed by the only two speakers of this secret language, Bob and Bob.”

“OK. I can keep a secret,” she said walking back to the bar.

“When did we start speaking that gibberish? Do you remember, Bob?”

“I think it was after a math class in the ninth grade. We were studying geometry and the words “concave” and 12

“convex” seemed funny to us so we added some prefixes and suffixes and began to develop our own set of words. And the words were so flexible that they could carry almost any meaning. We used to drive everyone crazy with our sincere utterances of nonsense.”

“Ninth grade. That was the year we got the new home room teacher, that tall skinny guy fresh out of college.”

“Oh, right. And we did our special home room tricks on him.”

“I remember waiting for him to call our names and then we would climb out the window and come around and in to the room again.”

“He didn’t know what was going on. We had him on the run.”

“He could never get the count and the list of names to match. And he had to call the principal in that time to talk to the boys in the class about the smell.”

“The smell?”

“Remember, we used to have the early morning farting contest in home room? He who farted loudest won the day.”

“Yeah. I do remember. Earle was the champion of all time.”

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“Right you are. And the principal gave us a tongue-lashing that would peel the hide off a cow. Shortly after that they combined the boys and the girls for home room and that put a stop to that behavior.”

“And after chewing us out and on his way out the door, the principal had to hear the loudest fart in Wray High School history! Earle had the last laugh, and that was so funny.”

“Yes, he was a legend from then on.”

“Then the girls moved in with us and you got in trouble for taking your shirt off.”

“Oh, yeah. Dotty said she was cold. So, being a gentleman of the first order I took my shirt off and offered it to her.”

“Too bad the teacher got some balls just then, and sent you, stripped to the waist, to see the principal.”

“The principal. His name was Mr. McNaughton. He was OK; really. I can remember going in that time and he made me stand there until I felt really silly. Then he said, “You must stop acting like a little boy.” And I promised that I would. And that I would apply myself to my studies. And I remember so clearly that I really meant it. I was sincere. My promise came from deep inside me with feeling. And then two days later I was expelled for three days for making that stink bomb in the chemistry lab. But I really meant it. I think that is when I learned that sincerity is a second class virtue.”

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“I gotta pee.”

Bob hobbled off to the head. He had hobbled for several years now as a result of a back injury he received on the job with the Colorado state highway department. An operation had fused the vertebrae in his lower back, but the nerve damage was severe enough that his left leg was getting smaller and smaller over time. He was retired now but still took the occasional job on the highway as an inspector. The two had known each other for over fifty years now. They had gone to high school together, joined the Marines together, and served in the Korean War together. After being discharged their paths had split and it was rare now for them to be together. The taller Bob, still sitting at the table, had gone to college on the GI Bill and had been teaching literature and philosophy in Canada for the last thirty years. As he waited he considered that their friendship was as old as the 1940 Ford sedan that he had seen in the garage at Bob’s Longmont home. In those high school years they had driven around Wray in either Bob’s Ford or his own 1940 Mercury Club Coupe. They had raced in those cars, put in miles and miles driving up and down Main Street looking for girls, and spent hours polishing and tuning them so they would run fast and make the Smitty mufflers rumble with the throaty sound of a speed boat.

As Bob sat down again he said, “Do you ever think about the football team we had in those days?”

“Sure. I remember that we went to State every year from 1949 to 1952. And we won the State championship in 1951. It was fun to play for the most part. But then did we really have a choice? I mean if you didn’t play football you were considered some kind of wimp or worse.”

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“Did you ever learn anything from the coaches?”

“I learned how not to treat students. I mean those guys were more like Marine drill instructors than teachers. What did they usually teach? Shop or maybe mechanics. But I remember them mostly as cruel and elitist. If you weren’t good football material they never had much time for you. How about you? You were the super athlete.”

“I’ve seen Coach Frank a few times at class reunions. He asks about you. He even apologized for not being a better teacher. Must be feeling guilty about stuff now. But, yeah, as long as you were first string they loved you but they were awful with the poorer players.”

“Mostly what I remember is that initiation we had into the W-club as freshmen. Remember that?”

“Couldn’t forget it, Bob; even if I wanted to. That stuff is against the law nowadays.”

“As it should be. As it should be. I remember particularly three things. One was the walnut race in the gym. We were naked and had to pick up the walnut with our butt cheeks, run down the floor and in relay fashion pass it on to the next runner.”

“Oh, God, yes, and if you dropped it on the way you were supposed to pick it up with your teeth and run it down to the next runner.”

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“And secondly, remember the oysters. They had a gallon can of slimy oysters and would put us on our backs, pop an oyster in our mouth, and then when we tried to swallow the horrible thing they push on our stomach with a paddle so it would pop back out. Then they would pick it up and try again. The coaches got a real kick out of that. `Make you a man,’ they said. I never could see how any of that hazing shit could help me mature.”

“Let me guess the third. The banana in the commode?”

“Right you are, my concavo friend!”

“They showed us a turd in the toilet bowl, blindfolded us and forced us to reach in and pick it up with our bare hand. At least they had put a banana in instead of the turd. That had to have been the worst of the evening. Reaching in there and believing that you were squishing a turd. Ahh, it took a special kind of human being to dream up that as part of an initiation rite!”

“They stopped most of that the next year.”

“Yes, I think someone had complained to the principal. Never knew who it was, but I’m glad someone did. It was so dehumanizing.”

“Memory is a strange source of information,” he thought. Sometimes it is like a movie that plays in ordered scenes, but other times it delivers just images and bits of dialogue. As the waitress delivered two more beers to the table, she seemed to say something that triggered his memories.

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It had been back in 1953 when they were both on leave.

“What are they going to do with all the dead bodies?”

“Oh, I think there is a dog food company that’s sending a truck to pick them up for processing.”

“There will be lots of dog food after this “battle” won’t there?”

“Yep. Just like in Korea.”

The two young men were walking on the outer circle of a jackrabbit drive in the fields just south of town. There were about a hundred men involved in the drive that had been advertised for weeks in the Wray Gazette. “Men needed to join in drive to rid fields of rabbits,” the story said. “Bring a club, a pitchfork or a shotgun to participate. Some will be needed to walk the outer circle of the drive to shoot those rabbits that escape from the main body of beaters.”

The two friends walking the outer circle were armed with shotguns. Bob Davis had an over/under 4/10 and 22 combination while the other Bob was carrying his stepfather’s 12 gauge shotgun, an old pump model that was aver 4 feet long and kicked like a horse. The first time he had fired it, it knocked him on his ass. The second time he was prepared and it only bruised his shoulder where the stock was driven into it like a hard crisp punch. Finally he had learned how to fire it without serious damage to his body.

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Both of the young men were in civilian clothes, blue jeans and white t-shirts, and light jackets to keep off the early morning northeastern autumn Colorado chill. Both were still in the USMC and were on leave after returning from Korea. Both had enlisted straight from high school and when in town they wore their uniforms. They had been buddies from the fifth grade. All the way through high school they were always together.

They shared a couple of shotgun stories as they walked along about fifty yards behind the main collapsing circle of men who were driving the jackrabbits toward the wire pen that had been set up as a holding pen. Occasionally jackrabbits bolted out of the circle and they would take turns shooting them. They were easy targets.

“Remember the time we went duck hunting with Swede?” asked Davis.

“Oh, yeah. That was great hunt! We got our limit that day.”

“Yeah, we got all of his decoys.”

Indeed they had. Swede had just bought six inflatable decoys to bring the mallards in to the pond. He had a duck caller too. The Bobs thought that pretty pretentious so after Swede had set up his decoys and called the birds in a small flock of ducks responded. When they lifted to fly shotguns roared. Swede got one duck, but Bob and Bob each got three decoys.

“Boy was he pissed.”

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“Yeah, but he never wanted to go huntin’ with us again!”

Bob lifted the 12 gauge to his shoulder to shoot at a rabbit trying to make it to freedom in the short grass. “Boom.” It sounded a bit like a mortar firing.

“Remember the time we went hunting early in the morning by the lagoon at home?” asked Bob.

“Oh, shit. You almost shot some guy.”

“What a dumb shit. I thought it was a duck and was ready to fire. I would have blown the guy’s head off.”

“You thought it was a duck roosting in a sunflower. Just think, roosting in a sunflower. `It’s a duck roosting in a sunflower, ‘ you said, before you aimed that monster 12 gauge.”

“I have often wondered what would have happened if I HAD pulled the trigger. And what stopped me.”

“Well, the guy said, `Hey, are you aiming that thing at me?’”

“It’s a good thing he did.”

They walked on in silence, watching the field for any escaping rabbits. The main circle of men and boys were within sight of each other now as the circle closed on the jackrabbits. The drivers were almost shoulder-to-shoulder now and the escape routes for the jackrabbits 20

were being eliminated. Not much shooting now. All the rabbits were being driven into the center of the section of land selected for the drive.

It was a beautiful morning in Colorado with the sun beginning to warm the fields as it climbed out of the eastern horizon into the blue sky. Rabbits were used to grazing in the fields in early mornings here, and were not used to finding hundreds of people in their feeding grounds. Since the coyotes had been killed off by the farmers the rabbits had few predators and had responded with a huge population growth. They were everywhere, eating the first several feet around every wheat field from the safety of the fence line and its tumbleweeds. They could lay ruin to acres of cash crops as well as to pasture land used to graze cattle. The farmers were fed up, and had lobbied the local agricultural authorities to sponsor a “harvest” of rabbits.

“Look at that, Bob.”

As the circle tightened you could see the hundreds upon hundreds of rabbits running side to side, heads turning this way and that, looking for an escape route. They were surrounded and out gunned, but they didn’t know that yet.

“God, they look just like the gooks we surrounded outside of Sokkagae just before Pork Chop Hill. “

“And they are headed for the same fate, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, dog food.”

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Corporal Davis had manned the BAR in that firefight and Bob had been his assistant, packing extra ammo as well as his own M-1. They had sucked the communist troops into a trap and the two Bobs were part of the ambush. Hiding in the bushed under the cover of earth and bush they had waited until the communist platoon was pursuing their decoys into the crater at the foot of the hills. When they got the order to fire the enemy was close enough so that the two could see the looks of surprise when the Marines opened up with BARs, M-1s, and 50 caliber machine guns. It was over in minutes. The cries and screams of agony from the dying enemy penetrated the sudden silence as the firing ceased. Bodies were strewn all over the killing field. It had been one of the few times that the Marines were not attacking a fortified position where they were the dog food.

Several of the men with clubs rushed into the enclosure and started beating rabbits to death. Blood splashed all over the ground.

“My God, look at those rednecks go at it.”

“Redneck.” The word brought a rush of memories.

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Leaving Home

“Hey, Redneck, go back to the farm and learn how to drive!”

The unknown man riding in the Ford coupe leaned out the window and shouted as his friend swung out to pass the 1938 Ford sedan towing a trailer which had pulled out from the curb into the path of the coupe.

“Yeah, get back to your pigs, Redneck”“What’s a “redneck,” Mom?” asked the boy from

the back seat of the Ford. There were four of them in the Ford and they

were leaving Denver for the farm. In the front the redneck and his new wife. In the back Bobby the questioner and his little sister, Beth. The two kids had a new father now and soon a new address on a farm in northeastern Colorado that they had never seen before. A farm. It sounded like it would be a great place to go. He had seen pictures of farms in books and they always had big red barns and lots of animals in the barnyard: big white geese, and chickens, and pink pigs, cows with calves, and horses. And there was always dog; a dog who herded the cows and sheep and protected the children, a noble, friendly, smart, happy dog. A dog like Kayo, who was not with them now.

“Don’t worry about that, Bobby, just sit back and be quiet until we get out of the city. Read one of your books. We’ll talk about it later.”

We’ll talk about it later. That became a mantra recited at all times when a difficult or controversial topic came up. Someday you’ll understand. Later. When you grow up. When is later?

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Lost and Found

“Where is she? Where is Beth? She’s gone. Oh, no, she is gone”

Beth was his little sister. She had been tired out when they arrived at the motel in Derby in the dark, and had been sound asleep when they carried her into the small motel room and put her on the single bed.

His mom’s screams had wakened Bobby and he looked around at the room with sleepy eyes. At first he could not tell where he was. He knew he was not in his own room in the little house in Denver. He saw the linoleum with its diamond shapes and his mom’s suitcase. He was with his family on the way to the farm. He had a new stepfather and they were moving.

When they left Denver yesterday afternoon they were in the old Ford, and the trailer with all their belongings was hooked to the back of the car. He could see the beds in the motel room and his mom who was frantically looking all around for his little sister. He got out of bed and pulled on his pants and put on his socks and shoes. He saw his stepfather was already dressed.

“She must have sleep-walked,” said his mom. “She’s probably outside somewhere. Look in the car, will you, Ott? She must have gone back to the car.”

“She’s not in the car. But that damn dog is out there – must have followed us from Denver.”

“I’m going with you; let’s look around the motel yard. She can’t have gone far. You stay here, Bobby. Oh, God, save my girl.”

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“What if she’s gone for ever,” he thought. “No more crying baby stuff.” He walked around the room. His sister always cried. She was good at getting whatever she wanted. He walked over to her bed and kicked at the blanket that was draped over the mattress and hanging down to the floor. His foot hit something. He pulled at the blanket. There she was. She had fallen out of bed and slid under the bed where the blanket was hiding her.

“I won’t say anything,” he thought.

“Mom, Mom, here she is, she’s right here under her bed.”

His mom ran into the room, picked Beth up and held her tight. “Oh, baby, you gave me such a scare. Thanks, God, thanks.”

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Once before he had been wakened by his mom’s cries. Loud talking and angry words had pulled him from a deep sleep. He got out of his bed, rubbing his eyes, and walked toward the kitchen. Looking around the corner he saw his mom pull the pipe off the front of the combination stove. She swung it like a bat. Blood gathered at the spot on his dad’s head where the large rounded end of the pipe hit. His eyes were like saucers, and then he turned and walked out the back door. Bobby wouldn’t see him again for twelve years.

“It’s all right; it’s all right.” She leaned the pipe against the stove and held him in her arms.

His mom and dad argued often. But just words. And then they would hug each other and kiss. But this time was different. The crunching sound was like the sound in a movie cartoon when a large rock would fall

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on the coyote’s head. His older brother had told him a story about his father:

It was right before the big war. In Denver. The old man was a kind of contractor. He worked for himself. Built a lot of outdoor fireplace-barbecue pits for people who owned their own homes. Built them out of brick. Good ones too. He’d kept going all summer just building fireplaces. One guy would tell his friend while showing off his fireplace at a Sunday barbecue, “Yeah, got a good deal on this. Built by a private contractor. A real magician with bricks. Just tell him what you want and he builds it. Got to keep him supplied with Coors, but by God he does a good job for a reasonable price.” Kept the old man going all summer.

But the union didn’t like this scab activity. The old man had never bothered to join the union. In fact, he was damned well against the union. Didn’t like FDR either, for some reason. He was sure that Wilkie would beat him, but he was never in tune with times. He bought an Edsel in 1954 right before he shot himself.

Anyway, the union started bugging the old man. Asked him to join. Pointed out that he was ruining the American economy. Helping to destroy the carefully worked out balance between jobs and wages. Several times the business agent found the old man at work and decided he was going to get his initiation money and dues or put him out of action.

Bud was helping the old man on the two days that make up the story. They would leave early in the morning in the old Ford pickup piled high with used bricks, sacks of cement, sand, gravel, shovels, trowels, picks, levels, bologna sandwiches, and quart bottles of Coors. The old truck would jerk out of the yard after being frightened by the old man’s language into making at least one more foray out into the world of construction. They were building a fireplace in

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Englewood for some rich people who had a double garage and a patio. It was to be the old man’s biggest job. A main barbecue area, a warming oven, a place for small fires in case the kids wanted to roast some wieners and a tall chimney to keep the smoke out of the house on windy Colorado days. It was about half finished when the business agent drove up.

“Did you ever pay your fees, Les?”“No, not yet.”“Well, we can’t have this goddamned scabbing

going on anymore.”“Just building a fireplace. Gotta eat.”“You could eat better, damn it, if you’d pay your

dues like the rest of the guys.”“See a lot of them out of work. Don’t make much

sense to pay dues and then not work.”“It’s bastards like you that keep the rest of the

men out of work.”“Free country isn’t it?”“Tell you what. I’m coming back tomorrow with a

couple of friends. You better have the fifty bucks.”“I’ll be here. Working on this job. Should finish

tomorrow.Bud and the old man cleaned up the bricks and

sand. The owner wanted the place cleaned up every day so that it looked like no work was going on at all. Didn’t want his yard cluttered he had said when they started. While they cleaned up the old man usually drank a quart of Coors to wash down the dust of bricklaying. Bud did most of this work as the old man leaned on the running board watching him and drinking his beer.

“What’s the guy mean, dad, ‘he’ll be back tomorrow with a couple of friends’?”

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“Just bullshitting. Trying to scare fifty out of us, I guess.”

“Us.” The word sounded good. Bud said it made him feel equal. And proud. And he raked down the area around the fireplace with new strength.

Sure enough. The business agent and a couple of friends were back the next day. And they meant business.

“Mornin’ - see you made it.”“Les, the fifty? Do you have it?”“Told you yesterday; don’t intend to pay it. Can’t

see any reason.”Let’s be reasonable. I’ve told you why; it’s in your

own interest. Now if you are still determined to be a scab we’re here to talk some sense into your head. Just pay up and sign the forms and we’ll be on our way.”

The two discussion leaders moved from the side of the car toward the old man. The B.A. stood his ground by the side of his car holding the forms in his left hand. It was going to take some discussion to change the old man’s mind.

Suddenly one struck out with an overhand right. Les ducked the blow and caught the guy in the gut with a short hard right which doubled him over. Grabbing him with both hands behind the head he pulled him down hard into his knee.

Just as the first guy went down the second landed a hard jab on the old man’s nose. He went down. The B.A. dropped the forms which fluttered away in the Colorado breeze. He ran to join in. Bud had to do something. His dad was on the ground. He grabbed the B.A. around the neck from behind and pulled him down on top of him holding on with all his young strength.

“That’s my dad,” he shouted in the B.A.’s ear as he held him in a choke hold and felt the fury of anger mixed with fear.

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No one in the neighborhood heard the sounds of the fight except two small boys who peeked out of the next door window with wide eyes as if they were watching a Saturday matinee fight between Gene Autrey and some outlaws.

Just as the old man finished off the second guy he saw the B.A. break free from Bud’s hold by hitting him in the stomach with his elbow.

He should not have done that.Les was in a rage. He grabbed the B.A. and

knocked him against the garage. Picked him up and knocked him against the garage again and again.

Finally, Bud stopped him. “Dad, it’s over. Dad, please, it’s over.”

“Yeah, I guess it is at that. Better finish the job.”He took the three guys and put them in the

fireplace. Then he put In the last row of bricks and with concrete placed the grill on top.

It was the old man’s biggest job.

Now he had a new dad and they were on the way to their new home. “I hope we have lots of animals on the farm,” he thought. “And a horse. I’ll be a cowboy. And I can have a gun and shoot wolves and coyotes. Where is my real dad?”

“We can’t take the dog with us,” Ott said. “I told you that.”

“What are we going to do with him?“I should shoot the son of a bitch dog.”“You can’t do that. Kayo followed us because he

loves the boy. You can’t shoot him for loving someone.”

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“Call Hank and have him come out here and pick the dog up and take him back to Denver. He can’t come to the farm.”

Kayo was a big German shepherd. But they called him a police dog. Nothing was German anymore. Even the German measles were renamed. They were the Liberty measles. In New Mexico, an angry mob accused an immigrant miner of supporting Germany and forced him to kneel before them, kiss the flag, and shout "To hell with Hitler." In Illinois, a group of zealous patriots accused Robert Prager, a German coal miner, of hoarding explosives. Though Prager asserted his loyalty to the very end, he was lynched by the mob. Explosives were never found. 

Bobby knew that Germans and Japs were evil. He didn’t know what they might look like.

***********************************************************

Bobby thought about his dad. He could still hear the sound of the pennies falling into his piggy bank that time when his dad had told him from the pickup in the morning to stack the bricks in the side yard. After supper his dad had put him on his lap and said, “Did you finish the stacking?”

“Yes.” “Well, go get your bank.”He did and the coins rattled into the bank.But he hadn’t remembered to do the job because

he had been playing all day in the vacant lot next door. He ran outside past the pickup and stacked bricks.

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Kayo had followed them from Denver to Derby. How did he know where they were? Bobby had seen Kayo when they left the yard, but when he looked back he could see that his brother-in-law was holding the dog. Somehow Kayo had convinced them he was going to stay put and then when they were not looking he had run after the car. What a dog. Why couldn’t he come? I thought farms needed dogs. His new dad had said, “Kayo’s a city dog; he would be useless on the farm.” Maybe so, but he had followed them for thirty miles and found them at the motel.

Hank arrived, took Kayo roughly by the collar and stuck him in the back seat of his car for the return to Denver. “I’ll see to it that he doesn’t follow anymore.” The four of them climbed into the Ford and started again for the farm outside of Wray. Beth was sitting in front on Mom’s lap. They drove through Fort Morgan and Brush and headed on toward the Kansas border. The ground was still frozen in the March chill but the sun was shining and beginning to warm the earth as the dry land farmers waited to open their summer fallow and plant corn and milo. The winter wheat was green but dormant and soon would burst into a sun-inspired growth that would send it reaching toward that sun and ready to harvest in July. There was very little traffic, just the occasional farm family heading towards town to sell eggs and to buy supplies.

Bobby sat in the back seat and thought about his friends. He would miss them. Mom had said he would make new friends. But still, he had played with Joe and Lynn every day for quite awhile and would miss them. He had played soldier and doctor and Lynn had tried to pee just like the boys when they stood inside the new house that was being built on York Street. Joe and Bobby had competed to see who could spray the furthest and the longest. Joe wrote his name on the new wall one time and he could only finish the first three letters of his name. Lynn just made a puddle a little bit in front of her. Suddenly Beth started crying, 32

“I have to wee-wee; I have to wee-wee.” There were no towns in sight so they pulled off the road and she squatted in the ditch on the side of the road while Mom stood guard over her. “I guess you can just pee anywhere out here in the country,” he thought.

They got back in the car and headed toward their new home. Bobby fell asleep in the back seat. He dreamed that he could fly. He flew over a field of the smallest, most delicate white flowers. Each flower had five white petals radiating out from a bright orange center. While looking closely at one of the flowers he noticed that its center started to move. It was not a flower at all, but a bright orange butterfly. Suddenly he saw Kayo running toward him, barking and excited. He flew down and landed by the dog. The dog ran up to him and with tail wagging exuberance tried to join with him. Then the two of them flew off toward some trees in the distance. They stayed close to the ground and flew slowly.

There were no flowers when he woke. All he could see were fields with brown straw standing straight up for miles and miles alternating with fields of low seemingly frozen grass. He would learn about the alternating fields soon - learn new words like “summer fallow,” “winter wheat,” “rye,” “barley,” and learn the names of a dozen weeds that competed for the carefully preserved water in the soil. He knew he would not understand this new place until he learned the words. Once in awhile he could see buildings. There would be a house, a barn, a garage and some other rectangular wooden buildings. He saw cows standing around by the barns, and once he saw a horse. He didn’t see any people but he knew that they were there. The barbed wire fence stretched along the highway wherever they went. It had three wires hanging on wooden fence posts and followed the highway on both sides.

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Sometimes there would be tumbleweeds caught in the wires.

“I reckon we’ll be there soon,” said Ott. “`Reckon,’” he thought, “that’s a word I only hear

on the Saturday radio shows. What does it mean? `Guess,’ `judge,’ `figure’? Roy Rogers says it in the movies and so does Hopalong Cassidy. “I reckon you won’t be rustling any more cows,” or “I reckon you won’t be shooting with that hand anymore.”

“There.” “I wonder where `there’ is,” he thought. “Everything looks the same. How will we know when we are there?” he asked.

“Daddy will know; he knows this country because he was raised here,” said Mom from the front seat still holding Beth on her lap. “It’ll be nice to live in a big farm house and to have chickens; we will have chickens, won’t we, honey?”

“Oh, yes. What is today? March 3rd? We’ll have to get some chicks in town at the Farmers Union. They should be ready to go soon. We got a chicken house but I don’t think there is a brooder stove around the place. May have to get one, or else keep the chicks in the house,” he laughed.

“Chicken says “moo”” said Beth, listening to the conversation about chickens.

They all laughed.“You don’t know anything,” he said.“Now, Bobby, talk nice to your sister,” his mom

said giving her a hug.Suddenly they turned to the right off the highway

and started down a gravel road. Two hundred yards further the car and trailer bounced across a wooden bridge that was just wide enough for one vehicle. Bobby saw a sign near the bridge.

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“It’s the Republican River, Mom,” he said, proud that he could read.

In the three miles to their new place they passed only one house. He could see it a mile away because of the trees. Every place had trees standing in rows on one side of the house and could be seen leafless from miles away. As you got closer the other buildings came into sight. As they passed the house he could see a man in the yard between the barn and the house. Ott honked the horn. The man waved at them and they all waved back. They climbed a small hill and as they crested it Ott said, “Look, there she is.”

Ahead of them on the right side of the gravel road was a group of trees. They were almost white in the March sun. He could make out the house, which sat back from the road. It looked pretty big. And he could see several other unpainted wooden buildings around the house. The car pulled into the dirt driveway and stopped. “Oh, honey, it’s beautiful,” said his mother in the front seat. She reached over and squeezed her new husband’s leg.

It was good to get out of the car. Bobby ran down toward the barn to see the horses. He couldn’t find them. He opened the barn door, which was hooked with a hook that dropped into a loop of metal fixed to the doorframe. He could smell manure and old straw, but he couldn’t see any animals. “Maybe they are outside running around,” he thought and came out the way he came in.

“Bobby, go back and hook that door,” his new stepfather yelled, “you might as well get used to closing the barn door right away.”

“But there’s nothing in there.”“Of course not, we have to buy some cattle. No

one has been living here for several months.”“And a horse. Where’s the horse?”

35

“No horse either. Nothin’ here but us people.”“What kind of farm is this? No animals . . .”It’s a deserted farm; that’s what it is. But no

longer. We’ll fix ‘er up. And get some animals. Don’t you worry.”

He ran back to close the barn door. As he reached up he noticed a bright orange butterfly on the door just barely quivering. It looked like the butterfly in his dream. “Does the butterfly remember that it was a caterpillar?” he wondered.

Standing in the yard between the house and the barn Bobby could see only two other farms. Off in the distance he saw one, marked by the bare trees, and just a ways away he saw a second. He looked at the road they had just come down but couldn’t see the farmhouse of the man who waved at them because of the hill that they had come down. Drifts of snow lay in the fields and the fields seemed to go on forever. There were three small buildings he could see and one really small one tucked in between the trees and one of the buildings with a fence around it. The small building looked like a play house. It had a shingled roof and a door with piece cut out near the top and no windows. It was only about six feet by four feet in diameter. “That could be a club house,” he thought, “but who will be club members; there is nobody around here.”

He ran back toward the house where his Mom was starting to unpack the trailer and bring its contents into the house. “Here, Bobby, help me carry this,” she said, and together they carried Beth’s high chair into the house. They climbed four wooden steps went in through the back porch and then into the kitchen. “Let’s put it here for now,” his mom said, and they put the chair down by the window in the kitchen. He walked into the living room where his new dad was

36

lighting the oil stove. It was cold in Colorado in March and they would need some heat for some time yet.

“Where’s my room, daddy?” What was he thinking! He wasn’t his daddy. He didn’t know what to call him, but he had thought he would never call him “daddy” and now he had.

“Well, there are two bedrooms. Your mom will decide which one is for you kids.”

“Oh, no, that means I have to be in the same room as my sister.”

“For the time being anyway.”

The house was warm by the time they finished unloading the trailer. His mom made some cocoa and the three of them sat down at the kitchen table with Beth in her high chair and drank the hot chocolate drink. “I don’t know what I’ll fix for supper,” said his mom. While they were finishing the cocoa a pickup pulled into the yard and a man and woman got out. “It’s my brother, Ferd,” said his new dad.

“Welcome to the farm,” said Ferd and Louise together. “It’s good to see you all! We brought some supplies for you.” And they had. They brought flour and shortening, milk, bread, sugar and canned goods, and some meat. “This should get you started.”

“Louise is not much taller than I am,” Bobby thought, as she shook his hand in greetings.

“Hello, big boy,” she said, “what’s your name?”“Bob.”

After the welcoming party left it was time for supper. They had a favorite meal. Spagetti and cheese. Mom made it using lots of Velveeta and it was good cold or hot. For dessert they opened a can of peaches.

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Bobby never got enough of the peaches. His Mom always dished them out and they each got two halves. “When I grow up I am going to eat a whole can of them all by myself,” he promised. After supper they all cleaned up the kitchen and then in the last light of day they walked around the new farm and learned the names of the buildings.

“You kids have to get to bed now. Bobby, you have to go to school tomorrow.”

“School? Where is the school?”“It’s a mile west and a mile south,” said Ott.“How will I get there?”“Walk?”“That’s too far!”“No, we have arranged for the teacher, who

drives to school from her place, to pick you up at the corner.”

It had been a busy day and as he lay down in bed for this first night on the farm Bobby thought about the butterfly in his dream and the butterfly on the barn door. He had read in a National Geographic about the Monarch butterflies and how they fly hundreds of miles. Waves of color through the air. Silently, floatingly. The next thing he remembered was his Mom shaking him. “Time to get up.”

After breakfast they said goodbye to him and sent hiim off to school.

He walked out the back door, down the steps and into the early morning sunshine. A meadowlark was announcing morning. He could hear it but not see it. It was somewhere in the field of grass on one side of the house. His new dad had said, “Just walk north a few hundred yards to the corner and wait for Mrs. 38

McFarlane. She’ll be driving a Chev. He stood looking around. “Which way is north? Everything looks the same. Where are the street signs?” He pushed on carrying his sack lunch. He walked to the gravel road and then had to decide which way to go. “Is north to the right or the left?” he wondered. He chose right.

A few minutes later he returned to the house and walked in. His Mom was cleaning up the dishes and daddy was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table.

“What are you doing here?”He started to cry. “I missed her; I missed my

ride.”“How could you miss her? All the hell you had to

do was walk north to the corner and wait. She went by a few minutes ago. I heard her stop. Thought she stopped for you.”

“I guess I went south.”“Oh, for God’s sake. Well, come on, I’ll take you

this time, but if this happens again, you’ll walk. Stop blubbering. Let’s go.”

Bob got in the car and was quiet. They backed up out of the long rutted drive close to the house and his stepfather turned the nose of the car toward the gravel road in front of the house. There was a barbed wire fence on the edge of the yard running around a six-acre patch of pasture. The whole country looked like that with grass and sagebrush before the homesteaders came to eastern Colorado. At the road they turned left or north, drove four hundred yards to the intersection and turned left again. Bob would remember how to get to the right corner. One mile later they turned to the left again and in a couple of minutes they were approaching the one room school house that sat on a corner of a section of land that had their new farm on the corner diagonally across from the school.

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Three buildings made up the school. One, the school room itself, was about thirty feet square and would be Bob’s school for the next four years. There was also a small building with the crescent cut in the door. He recognized that now as the outhouse. He did not know yet why they had the toilets outdoors here on the farm. The third building was a barn for the horses that kids might ride to school. He wished he had a horse to ride to school. Then he would not have to walk around the perimeter of the land but could ride the diagonal straight to school. “I could ride my horse on the hypotenuse,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”“Oh, nothing, I was thinking the road makes a

square and if you cut the field in two you would have two right triangles.”

The teacher, Mrs. McFarlane, was building a fire in the pot-bellied stove when they walked in.

“Good morning, Mr. Foltmer. I waited for a couple of minutes at the corner but did not see the boy.”

“He got lost.”“Well, he is here now. Good morning, uh, Bobby,

is it?“No, ma’am, it’s `Bob’,” he answered.“Well, good morning, Bob, and how old are you? “A bit over seven.”“So, you were in the first grade in Denver?”“Yes, ma’am.”“We don’t have any first graders here. Maybe you

can work with Joan in the second grade reader. Can you read?”

40

“Oh, he can read. He is good at arithmetic too. And he was talking about a hypotenuse on the way here this morning.”

“That’s great, Bob. I am sure you will do fine.”

The other kids were arriving now. Virginia walked down the road from her farmhouse a quarter of a mile further south. Joan came from the farm they had passed when they turned left the second time. Four other kids arrived on bikes.

“Well, thanks for bringing my new student, Mr. Foltmer, and I will drop him off at the other end of the hypotenuse on my way home. I have to get started with lessons now. Goodbye.”

Bob was assigned a desk next to Joan near the back of the room. The bigger kids sat in front and the seven kids were in five different grades.

“Good morning, children.”“Good morning, Mrs. McFarlane.”“This is our new student. He has just moved here

form Denver. His name is Bob Foltmer.”“That’s not my name,” he started to blurt out, but

held back.“Good morning, Bob Foltmer,” they said in

unison.“Good morning,” said Bob Foltmer.

The desks were all in rows as straight as arrows. In fact everything was geometric. The school was a square building placed in the center of a several acre corner of a section of land bound by gravel roads on all

41

four sides. The outhouse was square; the barn was square. Sections of land were six hundred and forty acres or one mile square. From Bob’s new house to the school was a diagonal line from one corner of the section to its opposite or two miles on the road as they had come today. You could almost see the mapmakers in the state offices leaning over their maps to draw the straight lines that made up Northeastern Colorado. You could stand in an intersection of gravel roads, face north and raise your arms so that your right arm would point to the east and your left to the west. The crops in the fields were planted in straight rows. The fences that kept the cattle in or out of those fields were straight. The trees that provided wind breaks for the houses were planted in rows, and the peas that would be planted in the vegetable garden by the house soon would be in straight rows.

While the older children were reciting their lessons the younger ones could either work quietly at their desks or listen to the material being recited, or, again quietly, they could investigate the resource books at the back of the room. These included a thick Webster’s dictionary, a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, large binders filled with maps of various continents, and a few readers filled with stories about wonderful people and places. Bob went to the back of the room and looked at the maps that were there. There was one of Yuma County and he could see how the townships were laid out and how the sections were numbered in sequence from two through thirty-six. The numbering started in the upper right hand corner of every square and went to the left in increments of two: 2, 4, 6, and then down to the next small square with the numbers 8, 10, 12 reading from left to right. Then 14, 16, 18 going right to left and so on until 36 ended the series in the lower right hand corner of the large square. He noticed that each small square or section was divided into fourths. Ferdinand had spoken of a quarter section of 42

land by Vernon. The smallest square must be the quarter section. There was a crooked line running across the map from left to right. And another crooked line running from Wray down to the south like a snake. “Rivers don’t have to stay in the lines,” he thought. The first was a railroad track and the second was the Republican River that they had crossed that first day when they turned off the highway. On the right hand border of the map the large squares were not really square but were crunched in. He had heard his uncles talk about “short-quarters” and he could see on the map how the geometric shapes were smaller on the right hand side of the map. He could see the arrow pointing to the north and could almost figure out where the school was and where his new home was on the map. There were numbers and lines but no street names.

He had lived at 2419 South York Street in Denver, Colorado; he wondered where he lived now.

According to the map the closest town to them was Wray with a population of about two thousand. “The City of Wray,” it said, “was laid out in July, 1886 by William Campbell and Amos Steck, who were president and secretary of the C - C Land and Cattle Company. The town was incorporated in 1906 and named for John Wray, a cattle foreman for the Print-Olive spread, a ranch which operated on free range before the coming of the homesteaders. Wray is the county seat of Yuma County and is served by two U. S. Highways, 34 and 385. Some call it the `Oasis of Eastern Colorado’ because of its many trees and well kept lawns.”

“I don’t have an address, but I live near an Oasis,” he thought.

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He put his finger on “Wray” and went three squares to the left, to the west, and then dropped down three squares to the south. That place where the solid thin lines met must be their house. And then if he cut across from corner to corner he would be at the schoolhouse. “But I’m at the school house already,” he grinned; “I mean my finger will be at the place on the map where the schoolhouse is.”

He looked out the window toward the northeast. At the end of the hypotenuse he could see his windmill.

“Hey, Bob, your farm was just a mile away from the Renke’s farm, wasn’t it? Remember they had that little kid who was really screwed up?” “I do remember, Bob. In fact, let me tell you a story about Billy. Order us a Coors.”

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Billy

The pastor gave two readings that Sunday morning at the Lutheran church. First he read from one of the psalms:

Even the sparrow finds a home,and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts,my King and my God.

He explained how the meaning of the psalm was clear. “If the Lord can find a nest for a mere sparrow, which is, after all, a nuisance bird,” he said from the pulpit waving his arms above his head, “ then how much more he must love his special creation, man.” He continued:

For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD.And again he explained what it meant. “If the

Lord God looks after the birds of the fields, then don’t you think He will take care of those made in His image? The Lord thy God is a merciful God, He is always waiting with open arms for you sinners to embrace him through the Holy Ghost.” He is the healing God. As the Bible says, “I have heard thy prayer, I will heal thee.”

As they left the church and started the drive home to the farm, Bob could hear his Mom in the front seat.

“That was a nice sermon.”

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”Yeah, I guess so,” said his step-dad. “But it’s hard to believe all that stuff about healing when you think about it.”

“It was nice.”“Everything is nice for you.”“You know what I mean, for heaven’s sake.”“Umm. Are we goin’ home now?”“No, we are going to stop at the Renkes’ house.

Remember?”“Oh, yeah. Do the kids know?”The kids. Bob and Beth were in the back seat of

the Ford, sitting quietly for the time. They didn’t often sit quietly. At three Beth was just beginning to awaken to the world of language. New words and new constructions of words were fun for her. And she practiced all the time.

“Can’t you be quiet?” he said more often than any other sentence.

But she really could not be quiet. She was excited about the words themselves, excited by the sounds that tumbled from her mouth, excited by the way people listened and reacted. She was learning to talk, and she needed to practice.

“Do the kids know what?” said Bob, the seven year old, from the back. He was always listening to the talk from the front seat. What his sister said didn’t matter much, but he listened carefully to his Mom and step Dad. They said interesting things some times.

“Oh,” said his Mom, turning slightly in the front to look back at the kids, “we are stopping at the neighbors, the Renkes, for coffee and a treat before we go home.”

“But, Mom; Daddy said, `do the kids know;’ he didn’t say `do the kids know?’”

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“Yes, Bobby, that’s right; that’s what he said. What you need to know is that the Renkes have a boy about your age.”

“That’s good.”“Well, yes, it should be.”“Should be?”“Listen, honey, and you, too, sweetheart,” she

said turning further in the seat. “Little Billy, that’s his name, Billy, is not like you kids. He is not a healthy boy like you, Bobby. He was born with a bad problem. He has been sick since he was born.”

“Billy have chicken-pox,” said Beth. “No, sweetheart, he doesn’t have chicken-pox.”“At least she didn’t say chicky-pox, like she used

to,” said Bob.“It is much worse than that. Now you must both

be good when we are there. Don’t stare at Billy and don’t ask questions. We can talk about it later at home.”

“What do you mean, don’t stare at Billy? Why would we stare?”

“Let’s start right now. Don’t ask questions. We’ll talk about it all later.”

“But, Mom, what does it mean?”“Billy is a very sick little boy. He cannot walk or

talk. He is always in his crib.”“But what is wrong with him, Mom? What does

he do?”“Not now, Bobby, not now. Just wait. I’ll explain

everything later.”“I want to hear that,” said his stepfather under

his breath as he turned the car into the Renkes’ driveway.

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The Renkes had a farm just one mile north of the home place. It was, like theirs, a half-section of land with a house and all the out buildings: barn, chicken house, granaries, and a shop with a shed for storing machinery. Bill and Verleen were about the same age as Ott and Margaret, but they had been married since after high school and had lived on the farm for all those years. Bill and Verleen had three children. The oldest, a boy, was born nineteen years ago, and he was away at college. Their daughter, a teenager, was still at home. And then, some ten years after the birth of their second child, they had Billy.

“Come in, come in,” said Verleen. “Did you just come from church?”

“Yes, we did. Isn’t it a gorgeous day? It’s so nice of you to invite us. We are just getting to know our neighbors. Have you been to church today already?”

Bill and Ott stayed outside smoking cigarettes and talking.

“I went to early mass,” said Verleen, “and Bill stayed home. Bill doesn’t go to mass anymore, and someone must stay with Billy. We cannot leave him alone. Here, come and meet Billy. Come along all of you; he’s in his crib in the living room.”

Bob was curious. What could a boy of six be doing in a crib? Beth was looking around for toys. His Mom reached down and took them each by a hand, and they walked into the living room. They had come in through the back door of the farmhouse, walked through the porch, where the boots and coats were, and then in through the kitchen. There were smells of bacon and coffee still in the kitchen, and as they walked into the living room, Bob could smell baby powder and the smell of church. It was not a bad smell, but different. The smell of cut flowers, sweat, perfume, barnyards, and wood all mixed together. On the wall as they entered the room was a picture of Jesus with a wood cross underneath it. He was always keeping an eye on 48

visitors. He had long hair and a beard. Both were light brown, and his blue eyes followed you wherever you went. They were sad eyes, though, and Bob wondered why they would be sad.

“This is Billy.” They were standing by the side of the crib now.

Jesus was looking at them all. Billy was lying on his back. He was squirming and

waving his arms around. His head was as big as Bob’s head, but the rest of him was like a baby. Billy’s eyes didn’t see anything; they were like marbles pushed into his forehead. His eyes had no life to them; they did not follow you around at all. Billy’s mouth was open and his tongue was hanging out. It waved like a little red flag when he shook his head back and forth, back and forth. Bob could see his little legs squirming under the blanket. Billy’s head rolled back and forth in a constant and perpetual swing like a pendulum.

“Oh, praise God,” said Margaret. ”You poor child.” She squeezed Bob’s hand hard.

“Billy funny,” said Beth, “Billy waving to Jesus.”“No, sweetheart, Billy is sick.”“Billy have chicken-pox?”They looked at Billy for a minute or two. Verleen

leaned over the crib and straightened the blanket, tucking in the bottom.

“He always kicks the blanket loose,” she said as she wiped his face with a tissue.

“How old is Billy, Mrs. Renke?” Bob asked.“Why Billy is going to be six next week. Yes, April

7 is his birthday, and he will be six years old,” she said looking at him with sad Jesus eyes.

“Let’s have some coffee and cake. Does that sound good?”

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As they made their way to the dining room table, a big round oak table with six chairs around it, Bob overheard Verleen telling his Mom about Billy.

“He has a congenital defect,” she was saying. “He was born with a condition they call Hydrocephaly. It affects the brain. He will never be any better. The doctor is surprised that Billy has lived so long.”

“Oh, you poor woman.”“Well, God works in strange ways, and we must

suffer. Suffering builds a strong soul,” said Verleen, “so I thank God for sending Billy.”

Bob looked back and saw that Jesus was still looking at them, and at Billy lying in his crib. He wondered what Billy’s soul was being strengthened for.

The men came in from outside and the talk of Billy stopped. They had some chocolate cake, with milk for the kids, and coffee for the adults. Ott and Bill talked about the early spring and how the wheat was starting to grow quickly now after having spent the winter in hibernation. They talked about the progress of the war.

“I see that Roosevelt has ordered the rationing of canned foods, meat, fat, and cheese,” said Bill.

“Yes, that’s in effect now, isn’t it? Good thing we are on a farm. We will still have all the meat and eggs we need,” Ott replied. “I saw in the paper that the US bombers had done some serious damage to the Japanese in the Battle of Bismark Sea. When do you suppose this war will be over?”

“God willing, it will be over very soon,” Verleen said.

“Oh, yes, God must be willing. We have sons there in danger,” said Margaret.

Bob remembered how his Mom had broken down at the supper table last night after Daddy had said grace. She said right out loud: “Oh God, save Bud, you 50

must save Bud.” And then after a silence, she added, “And Virgil, too.”

Bud was his older brother, who was in the South Pacific with the US Coast Guard. And Virgil was his stepbrother, Ott’s son, who was in Europe fighting the Germans. “Our family is fighting Japs and Nazis,” he thought, “but I guess Mom really loves Bud best, because he is her real son.”

After a short while they said their goodbyes and climbed back in the Ford for the one-mile trip home.

“I have to get home to see my pig,” said Bob. “He’s always hungry.”

“Bill gave me some squab,” said Ott. “We could have them for supper. Do you know how to cook squab, Mom?”

Bob and Beth had both noticed that grown men on the farm often called their wives “Mom.”

“She’s not your Mom!” said Beth, scolding her stepfather.

“You are a bad girl; don’t talk to daddy that way.”“Billy is funny,” said Beth.“What is Hydrocephaly?” asked Bob. “No, he is not funny, you shouldn’t say that. He is

sad,” said Mom. “That’s the name of the problem he has, Bobby.”

“Billy’s lucky,” said Beth.“Why do you say that?”“Billy can’t be bad.”Bob looked out over the field of wheat that was

dark green with the plants spreading over the brown rows of earth and making a carpet of green. He noticed that the Renke’s cows were grazing on the wheat and asked, “Won’t it hurt the wheat to have cows eating it?”

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“Not so long as the wheat hasn’t started to joint,” answered Ott. “As soon as the plants start to send up the central stalk then you have to get them cows out of there. But as long as it’s just young lookin’ grass, it’s good for grazing.”

“What would happen if you left them in too long?”“Well, then the wheat would not grow any bigger,

and there would be no crop to harvest.”“How do you know when to take them out?”“Keep an eye on the plants. They tell you when to

get the critters out of the fields. As soon as the center part of the plant starts to grow, it’s time to let it alone.”

“I wish the cows didn’t ever eat wheat.”“Why’s that?”“It makes the milk taste awful. I wish we could

have real milk.”“We do have real milk, silly. What could be more

real than milk right from the cow?”“I mean milk in a bottle with the little paper cap

on the top and the cream at the top.”“Well, we can’t, and that’s that,” said his Mom.

“We’re on the farm now, and we don’t have to buy our milk at the Safeway anymore.

Hey, kids, look there. Look!” Ott pointed out toward the field of wheat to the west of the road. “See the coyote?”

He pulled over onto the shoulder of the gravel road, stopped, and pointed out the window. There was a lone coyote loping across the field.

“What’s he got in his mouth?” asked Bob. “Probably a rabbit. Or somebody’s chicken; hard

to tell from here.”“And look; there are two hawks circling above the

coyote.”52

The two hawks had noticed the kill and they wanted it.

“Watch this,” said Ott.The four of them were staring out the windows of

the car watching the sky above the coyote as the hawks circled. One of the hawks made a dive at the coyote’s head, pulling up short of contact. The coyote’s head came up for a moment, and then he loped on, heading for his den. The other hawk made a swoop at the coyote’s head even closer. The coyote stopped. The first hawk swooped down very close. The coyote dropped its prey and jumped at the hawk. Just then the other hawk swooped down, picked up the kill, and the two climbed quickly and silently into the sky, leaving behind a puzzled and outsmarted coyote. “They sure took care of him!”

They drove on home. Out of a dust cloud in front of them emerged a blue Olds. It was Uncle Dick on his way to town. The two men exchanged the two-finger salute as the cars met. Farmers always drove with their right hand at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel and simply lifted their first two fingers to offer a greeting to the cars and trucks they met on the road. As they drove into the yard on this warm and sunny spring morning, the one thing that was different was this: the dog Trixie did not come out to greet them barking as she usually did. As they piled out of the car, Bob ran to the doghouse, which was between the washhouse and the back porch, to see if she was there. She was, and she had whelped while they were away at church and at the Renke’s place.

Mom, Mom, look, Trixie has a bunch of pups here. I don’t know how many, but lots of wiggling going on here next to her,” shouted the boy.

All four of them kneeled down at the front of the doghouse to look at the new life. Wriggling around on

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the straw were five pups all trying to find a teat to suck for the first breakfast.

“Oh, look, one of the pups is really tiny, and he doesn’t have all of his legs,” Bob said as he reached into the doghouse and lifted the little monster out into the sunlight. “Poor little pup.”

Ott took the creature in one big hand and walked toward the barn.

“You stay here, kids,” said Mom.When he came back he did not have the pup with

him. “What did you do to him?” asked Bob.“I put him down. He could never had made it.

He’s better off now. Don’t look so sad. Sometimes it is the only thing to do. The only right thing to do. He never would have growed up, would have been in pain, couldn’t do none of the things dogs do. Better this way. Let’s look at these other four. Why lookee here. Trixie’s got them all cleaned up, and they are ready to find a teat to suck on! Good dog, Trixie.”

“How did you do it?”Ott looked at the boy. “What difference does it

make?”“I just wondered.”“Well, it was quick, and it was painless. I just hit

him in the head with a piece of pipe. He didn’t feel a thing, and now he’s gone. Now, now, don’t get upset. Sometimes killing a critter is the best thing you can do for it.”

They put the pups squirming back into the doghouse with Trixie. It was her second litter, and she seemed to know what to do to make them warm. She lay on her side on the straw as the pups snuggled up to suck some milk.

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“After awhile, Bob, you can get some clean straw, take the bloody straw out of the doghouse, and give her some new. Throw the old straw down on the manure pile outside the barn.”

“Why bloody straw?” asked Beth.“Comes with the pups,” answered Mom. “It’s just

a part of giving birth. Trixie had to clean them all up after she delivered them. It’s as natural as the sunshine, honey.”

Bob ran down to the barn for some straw and to see how his new pig was doing. The pig was to be his 4-H project. It was a fine purebred pig that they had bought at the livestock sale in town. He got the straw, looked in at the pig, which was curled up in the shade sleeping, and ran back to the doghouse to replenish the straw.

That night Ott took Bob to the 4-H meeting. It was the first one he had attended, and he was excited to learn more about farming. The boys met once a month at someone’s home and after a short program about livestock or food crops, they had a club meeting, some refreshments, and a discussion of plans for the county fair. Bob was the youngest of the 4-H’ers and was just learning the ways of the farm boys.

“What are you takin’ to the fair, Bob?” asked the club president.

“I have a pig.”“What kind of pig?”“It’s a New Hampshire.”The laughter was immediate and cruel.Bob didn’t know what was funny or what he had

done. He squirmed in the sofa, looked at the faces around him for someone to help him understand.

“And, Evan, what are you taking?” the same boy asked through his laughter.

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“A New Yorker porker!”A new round of laughter.The boy next to Bob whispered, “The name of the

breed is “Hampshire.“ “Oh, no,” he thought, “I made a fool of myself, a

city fool.”The adult leader of the club, Mr. Fix, told the

boys that it was most important for their club to make a good showing at the Fair this year, and he wanted everyone who was showing an animal to be sure that he was ready.

“You must be sure to read the requirements for showing your animals and be sure to train them for the show ring. Pigs, for example, whether they are “new” or not, must be trained to walk around the show ring and to stop by the judges. You will have a staff and the pig should be under your control at all times. When you stop by the judges, you want your animal to stand still and let the judge approach. We don’t want no judge bein’ bit by a mean New Hampshire pig!”

On the way out to the car, Bob took one of the booklets on how to train your pig. When they got in the car, Ott said, “You look sad; what’s wrong?”

Bob told him about the mistake.“Oh, don’t worry about that none. Hell, most of

those boys don’t even know where New Hampshire is.”That night Bob dreamed of his brother, Bud, who

was somewhere in the South Pacific fighting Japs. In the dream Bud was on a jungle island carrying a flamethrower up a hill to a bunker filled with Japs and machine guns. As he approached the top of the hill, crawling through the underbrush, it suddenly started to rain. The soldiers in the bunker stood up to let the rain fall on their faces, and as they did, their yellow skin washed away, and they all looked like his brother. Bud saw this, too, and it must have been like looking in a

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mirror, for he put the flamethrower down in the bush, turned around, and started back the way he had come. Bob woke.

“Come boss, come boss,” Bob called to the milk cows.

The cows hurried from the field into the barn. After hooking them up to the manger and putting kickers on them, the milker sat on the one-legged stool and milked into the galvanized buckets. Milking cows was always a challenge. The cows, even after being sprayed, were bothered by flies, and the tail of a cow when swung with gusto could leave a real welt on the head of the milker. And sometimes the tail was covered with manure as well. And on occasion when your luck wasn’t too good, the cow would swing that tail and try to kick out of the metal leg chain that went just above the knee bone. Or the cow would step on your foot. Kept you awake, all right.

After milking they put grease on the teats, unhooked the cows, and sent them back into the field until evening when they would do it all over again. They poured some of the fresh milk into a pan for the barn cats. Then they took the milk to the milk house, poured it into the separator, and turned the crank to separate the cream from the milk. The cream went into a metal cream can while the skim milk was used for pigs and chickens. Bob took some of the skim milk, mixed it into some ground barley and corn, and stirred it to make a mash for his pig that was awake and waiting for breakfast.

“Here you go, New Hampshire,“ he said slopping the mash into the feeder. “I’m going to start training you today.” And he worked for maybe an hour with the pig that afternoon before evening chores. He tried to get the pig used to being in a pen with a human. He even tried to direct the pig around the pen on command. The pig, now known as “New,” was

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completely uninterested in being trained to do anything.

“New,” said Bob, “stand still.” The pig would run toward the feeder.“Here, let’s go around the pen.”The pig would stand perfectly still.For the next month it went like that. Bob would

try to teach the pig to do what it was required to do to be shown at the county fair. He would go to a training session and quickly end up just watching the pig. It was a big hog by now, growing every day. It had deep set intelligent eyes that looked out from a forehead trench at the boy, waiting to see what the boy would try and then ignoring him totally. The pig ate. It wallowed. It slept. It grew. But it never did cooperate.

“How’s the pig training comin’ along?” asked Ott.“Oh, it’s coming.”“Ready for the fair in July?”“Yeah. He’ll be ready.”But Bob knew he would never get the pig to do

anything other than eat, sleep, and wallow. Never get him ready for showing. He took an old shovel handle and used it to try to whack some sense into New. But New didn’t respond well to whacking. He either ignored it or got angry and charged the boy, chasing him out of the pen.

“What am I going to do? The other boys will really get on me when they see my “New” Hampshire pig in the fair chasing the judge around the judging pen. And I’ll be laughed at forever. Why did we ever move to this farm? Why couldn’t I have stayed in Denver where there were no pigs, no 4-H, and no county fairs for me to have to show my pig at? Oh, God, please help me make this pig behave.”

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He prayed a lot that summer. The prayers were never very complicated. “Oh, God, please make it that I closed the gate to the pasture,” he would say to himself, or sometimes out loud if he were alone. But the gate was still open and the cows all got out into the farmyard and had to be rounded up.

“Who left the goddamned gate open?”“Oh, God, please make my step-dad love me.”“Please, oh, God, make Billy well.”“Please, God, make the war end.”He found that his prayers were not being

answered. He thought that maybe something was wrong in his approach. He tried kneeling down. He tried stretching his arms out toward the heavens. He tried thinking his prayers. Whispering his prayers. Shouting his prayers. But always the same silence. Billy never improved. If he left the gate open, it stayed open. The war went on in the Pacific. He wondered what was wrong in the heavens.

At Sunday school he learned about Jesus, who, the teacher said, was the Son of God. He was told about how Jesus died for our sins and how he was a mediator between God and humans.

“I have been praying to God and I should have been praying to Jesus,” Bob thought.

He changed his prayers.“Jesus, please make Billy well.”And sometime later Billy died.“Billy is now in heaven,” his mother said. “Billy is

with Jesus now.”“It works,” he thought, “it actually works!”“Thank you, Jesus, for taking Billy.”He prayed, “Jesus make the war stop, please

make it that we win.”

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And, on May 8, 1945, they all gathered around the battery-powered Atwater Kent in the living room to listen to President Truman.

This is a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe. For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to the Providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity.The radio crackled and the president’s voice faded for a

moment. Bob looked at his parents. They were both straining to hear his words. The war was over for Virgil but not yet over for Bud. “I’ll pray tonight for an end to the war in the East,” he thought.

And now, I want to read to you my formal proclamation of this occasion: A proclamation--The Allied armies, through sacrifice and devotion and with God's help have wrung from Germany a final and unconditional surrender. The western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of free-born men. … Give thanks to Almighty God, who has strengthened us and given us the victory. Now, therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, do hereby appoint Sunday, May 13, 1945, to be a day of prayer.“I knew it! I knew it would work,” he thought.“I can’t wait until the war is really over

everywhere.” said his Mom, “Keep my boy safe, oh, Lord.”

After a bit they all went to bed. Bob climbed into his bed on the front porch and prayed. “Jesus, bring my brother home safe” and “Jesus, please do something to 60

help me with my pig. As you know I am supposed to show him at the Yuma County Fair at the end of July, but he is not ready, and I’ll be the joke of the whole county. Please help me.”

That summer the polio epidemic became so bad that state officials closed all public swimming pools. Pictures of people in iron lungs were showing up in the Rocky Mountain News. Bob studied the pictures. Only the head of the polio victim could be seen. Parents were warned not to let their children drink from public water fountains.

It was a bad summer. And finally the word came. The state ordered all county fairs to be cancelled

because of the polio epidemic. Bob heard about the cancellation on the radio on KOA Denver at breakfast one morning. He ran outside and went to the pig shed. He looked at New.

“Thank you, Jesus, for sending polio,” he prayed.

“Thank you, Jesus! I’ll bet no one ever prayed like that before or since.”

“Probably not, Bob, but you know, if prayer is a conversation with God then why wouldn’t it be self centered? People pray for all sorts of things and they always seem to think that someone’s actually listening to their pleas. And their please. It’s so arrogant. The idea that there is a personal God who is just counting sparrows and deciding which cancers to cure and which to metastasize is just so weird.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. I know that one Sunday the pastor at our church had us all pray to God to fix that crazy Hootman guy who walked all over the county day after day looking for something. Something he lost, I guess. We used to drive by him and sing out “What ya looking for, Clyde?””

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“You’re in luck, Buddy! I have a Clyde story.”“I know; order another Coors.”

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Clyde

As the four of them drove back to the farm from the Lutheran Church service that Sunday, “three miles west and three miles south of Wray, Colorado,” they passed a tall man dressed in dark clothing walking briskly on the side of the highway. He had on a cap with the earflaps down and a heavy coat to keep out the cold.

“Who is that?” his Mom asked.“Looks like Clyde,” said his stepfather, driving

the ’38 Ford at 60 miles per hour, going “lickety-split” the farmers said.

“Who’s Clyde, and why is he walking.”“Don’t have a car.”“Should we give him a ride?”“No, he likes to walk,” he said, making a circular

motion with his finger just above his right ear.“Oh, I see.”After they got to the farm and parked the car in

the garage next to the washhouse, they went inside and had some lunch.

“I think I’ll go out to the shop,” his stepfather said when he had finished his coffee.

Bob went into the living room and picked up the family Bible. “Mom, what’s a womb?”

“A what?”“A womb.”“Where on earth did you hear that word?”

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“It’s right here in the Bible. See, it says, `And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.’ “What is a womb?”

“Oh; well it means, it means, uhh, that Rachel will be able to have children. Here, put the Bible back and go out and play until it’s time for supper. I’ll call you.”

Bob put the book back on the cabinet in the living room. He put it on top of Moby Dick because you were never supposed to put any book on top of the Bible. He walked into the kitchen and reached for fried chicken in the black iron frying pan wrapped in a towel. He was dressed as usual in his Oshkosh overalls and denim long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just above the elbows. In his pockets were a jack knife, two 8-penney nails, a bandana, a small stone, a quarter, and two empty 22-caliber cartridges. His mother was dressed as usual in a flour-sack print dress that she had made. The dress had a pattern of small blue flowers on a white background. He called it a flower flour dress. She had no pockets.

Bob had asked about “womb” to see what his mother’s response would be. He already had a pretty good idea what was going on. He had seen farm animals doing “it” for the three years that they had lived on the farm. He had watched as his stepfather had stuck his arm well up into a young heifer in an attempt to turn the calf around in the womb so that she could deliver normally. He had stood in the barn and watched and listened as finally Daddy had put a rope around the leg of the calf and with the cow tied to a stanchion had pulled and pulled to get the calf out. He would always remember the young cow’s eyes rolling back in her head and the bawl she made as she birthed. He had never seen Rachel give birth to Joseph. He thought it must be similar, but without the rope.

As soon as the war was over they had been able to buy a new tractor. They had gone to McCook,

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Nebraska to load it on a trailer and bring it back to their farm. Bob had gone along in the old Ford pickup pulling the trailer. They loaded the new tractor on the trailer at the farm equipment place and tied it down with chains. All during the war they had been unable to buy any new equipment because all production had been devoted to planes and tanks and jeeps. They had made do with a 1929 steel wheeled Farmall that had long levers instead of a steering wheel. Its drive wheels were metal with great iron claws for traction. It had to be cranked to start it. His daddy said it had no doubt broken many a man’s arm in its goddamned life. It was noisy and hard to turn. Bob had tried to drive it once but couldn’t handle it.

Their new tractor was a beautiful orange Case with rubber tires. It had the wide front tires instead of the row crop set up. It had a power take off and a belt drive wheel, and it had lights. “We can work at night,” his stepfather said. The neighbors came to see them unload the new tractor. They helped fill the back tires with water for additional traction and when you drove it in the farmyard you could hear the water sloshing around in the large tires. Bob had driven it to the field and around the yard. It was easy to turn because it had a steering wheel. It had an electric starter so even a child could get it going. The clutch was a metal handle to the left of the seat and the turning brakes were easily in reach. The throttle was ratcheted and mounted on the right, push the throttle forward and then quickly and smoothly push forward on the clutch and away you go. It had a road gear that took it along at about 15 miles per hour and that plus its rubber tires meant you could drive it to the fields on the county roads and didn’t always have to trailer it in.

All that afternoon Bob played in his summer fallow fields. His fields were in a large area in among the trees that formed a windbreak on the north side of the house, and he played there every day. He had fields outlined there and was working on some buildings and

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fences. He liked to play there alone for hours and hours, working in the fields with his tractor, a nice bright green John Deere with rubber tires and a hitch. He wanted to make a new implement to work his fields so he went to the shop.

“This shop is the greatest place on earth,” he thought. It was packed full of stuff. There were buckets filled with nails from the barn they had taken down in the early spring. They had saved the lumber and every nail from the old barn. There were pieces of metal, angle iron, tin roofing, strap iron, and various hinges, hooks and containers. On the outside of the building neatly stacked on wooden arms were several two-by-fours, two-by-sixes, and clapboards. The workbench held a large vise bolted to the heavy planks. The foot-operated forge was kept inside the building when it wasn’t being used.

He found a piece of one by four about eighteen inches long and put it in the vise. He grabbed a crosscut that was hanging from a nail and cut the board to about eight inches in length. Then he took a Popsicle stick and nailed it perpendicular to the board to serve as a hitch. He drove six-penny nails through the board to make two rows. He ran to his fields in the trees and hooked the new chisel to his John Deere. He started to push the tractor and the new implement around one of his fields. It worked fine. He saw that he needed a marker to tell him where to drive so that he didn’t either overlap the last cultivated area or leave any ground untilled. He took a small piece of Popsicle stick and nailed it to the outer edge of the wooden deck. He then took a small segment of light chain and wired it on the end of the arm with a small piece of bailing wire. Now when he drove along his chisel not only ripped up the soil, it also left a scratch for him to follow with the tractor on the next round. On his hands and knees he pushed the John Deere toy around and around until he had finished chiseling the entire field.

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“The great thing about this work is you can see exactly where you have been and how much more there is to do,” he thought. When he made the last round he drove to the first of the four corners and worked out the area left untilled by the turning tractor so that the entire field was cultivated.

“Bobby, come in now,” his Mom called. “We have to go to the Other Place with some dinner for Daddy.”

He turned off his tractor and ran to the house to help load the food.

“Beth, honey,” his Mom said, “put those pieces of bread in some waxed paper after you butter them. Daddy wants to eat in the field to save time, but he’ll get a real dinner, not some little lunch.”

She had fried chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fresh bread to take to her husband. She also had some apple pie and had put some coffee in a thermos to take along too. She knew how important it was to get the fields ready for fall planting, and she understood why Ott wanted to keep working as long as he could with no interruptions.

“Your daddy would probably not eat at all if we didn’t take the food to him,” she said to her two youngest kids. “He can’t get enough of his new tractor.”

When they drove into the quarter section of summer fallow they could see the Case coming toward them pulling a one-way plow. The kids waved and they could just make out the wave from their stepfather through the dust cloud that rose around the tractor. The constant roar of the tractor’s engine grew louder and then after making a sharp turn Ott pulled the clutch and throttled down. He left the engine running in idle to cool off as he dismounted and asked Bob to

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drive the pickup truck over closer to the tractor. Bob ran off to get the truck, parked at the beginning of the morning’s work. He ran across the ridges and the triangular islands of stubble where the tractor and the one-way had turned. These would be worked out as the last part of the plowing of the field. He arrived at the old Ford truck, got in, adjusted the spark and the throttle and pushed on the starter with his foot. She started right up and he put it in compound low and drove slowly across the corner ridges, bouncing across the deep ruts left by the one-way.

When the tractor had cooled a bit Ott turned it off and they refueled it with cans of gas from the back of the truck. “Check the oil, Bob, will you?”

Bob went around the side of the tractor and found the small plug for checking the oil. He removed it with a crescent wrench and saw the oil level was OK and reported that to his stepfather who was back at the one-way greasing the bearings with a grease gun. “As soon as we get finished here I’ll start the tractor and get you going.”

“You mean I can drive it?”“Don’t see why not. You’re a pretty smart ten

year old! While I’m eating all this food your Mom brought we might as well be gettin’ some work done around here.”

The Case started up with a roar. Bob pushed the throttle forward with his right hand and then quickly engaged the clutch by pushing it forward until it locked in place. Down the row they went. “I’m driving all by myself.”

All he had to do was keep the front wheel in the furrow dug by the one-way on the last round and get ready to make the sharp turn required at each corner of the shrinking field of wheat stubble that was being plowed under to prepare for the planting in the fall. As he approached the first turn he was sitting on the metal

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seat with his left foot ready to use the turning brake. He entered the turn, spun the steering wheel and hit the turning brake. The tractor and one-way came smartly around and he spun the wheel quickly to straighten out and get the wheel back in the furrow. Then suddenly he went over the furrow, but he made a correction and was quickly back in the groove. He looked back and could not see any difference between the corner he had just made and the earlier ones made by his dad.

All in all he was on the tractor for just under an hour and had made four complete rounds of the field. That was sixteen corners he had turned and they had gotten easier toward the end. He had no idea that he would make thousands of such corners over the next few years. The Case had a powerful and steady roar. The blades of the one-way slipped easily through the brown soil, turning it over and covering the straw. As he came toward his parents on the last trip around the field he could see them standing in the corner triangle looking toward him. He sat straight on the seat looking at the right wheel to keep it in the furrow.

His dad waved at him and he stopped after turning the corner.

“Thanks for the dinner, honey; I want to finish this field today so I may work late. Good job, Bob. I’ll take her now.”

Bob climbed off the tractor and stood by his Mom and waved as his stepfather throttled up and left in a cloud of dust. He saw his dad’s back, his straw hat, and looked down at the earth being turned over by the one-way plow. The plow sliced through the stubble and rolled it over, covering it with brown soil. He knew they would work the summer fallow at least three more times before planting wheat. It all depended upon the weather. Everything on the farm depended on the weather.

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“I’m so proud of you, Bobby,” his Mom said and took his hand.

“For what?” he said and took his hand away.“For handling the tractor just like a man,” she

said.“Oh, Mom. It was nothing; and I’m not `Bobby’.”Back in his fields later, Bob wished he had a one-

way for his John Deere to pull. He had seen one at Shea’s Hardware in Wray and he was saving his allowance to buy it. It had curved blades that turned and a frame to put weights on to push those blades deeper into the soil. He played for some time and then went to do the afternoon chores.

First there were eggs to gather and then he had to feed and water the chickens. His sister Beth used to gather the eggs, but ever since the day she reached into a nest and felt, not the shell of an egg, but the skin of a bull snake that had squirmed into the nest to feast, she had refused to gather eggs “ever, ever again.” He smiled as he thought of her running out of the chicken house screaming. He carried some pellets in a bucket and filled the feeders. He filled the metal water containers and then sprinkled some wheat on the ground in front of the chicken house. “Chick, chick, chick,” he called.

He had to get the milk cows in from the pasture, feed them some grain, and then milk them. Then he carried the milk to the milk-house where he ran it through the separator. He poured the raw milk into the large stainless steel container on top of the machine. He took the clean cones from the shelf beside the sink, placed them together, screwed them down onto the shaft, and turned the crank of the separating machine until it reached speed. When the bell rang he opened the valve to let the milk run into the cones. The cream went into a steel can to be sold in town on Saturday.

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Skim milk went into a large bucket to go to the pigs, the dogs, and the cats.

It took him about two hours to do the afternoon chores. As he slopped the hogs he thought of New, his 4-H pig from the previous year. New had never been taken to the Yuma County Fair because the fair had been cancelled that year. New had been a humiliation for him and it seemed only right that they were eating New as bacon, ham and pork roasts. “New bacon is good bacon,” he thought.

It had been the first time he had seen a pig butchered. His Dad had shot New between the eyes once with a twenty-two. Then they dragged him to the center of the granary and hung him upside down using a block and tackle that was connected to the rafters.

“Bob, hold that basin right here,” his stepfather had said, indicating a place right above the hog’s head as it hung there upside down. His Dad had cut New’s throat and as the dark red blood flowed out of the cut and into the basin it also splashed onto Bob’s hands. It was still warm and it was sticky. They saved the blood for Grandma who used it for blood pudding. Bob watched his Dad gut the animal. He put the liver in a clean pan to cook for their supper that night.

“I won’t be able to eat it, Daddy.” “Oh, sure you will. Just remember to say thanks

for the hog’s life. He died so we can enjoy ham and eggs!”

His Dad then took a sharp knife and a scraper and scraped the bristly hair off the pig. They cut the layer of fat off to cook down for lard and soap. After it was all over they loaded the carcass in the back of the pickup and Ott took it to town to a butcher who cut the hog up and fast-froze the packages of meat to be put in their freezer box. The butcher would cure the hams and bacon for several months.

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It had been when they were rendering the tallow in the washhouse that he had first seen Clyde. Large chunks of hog fat were simmering atop the coal stove in a metal container capped with a heavy screw-on lid. The fire underneath had to be kept at a low but constant heat. They tended the fire carefully to be sure that it never got too hot and never went out. On the first evening of cooking while Ott was still in town dealing with the butcher his Mom had gone out to the coal shed to get a bucket of coal for the fire. He had heard her shout.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”He and his sister had run outside. They saw their

Mom in the coal shed holding a bucket in one hand and the coal shovel in the other. She was staring at the back of the shed. There in the dark they could just make out the figure of a tall man dressed in overalls and wearing a cap. He just stood there looking at their Mom.

“`Who are you?’ I asked, and what are you doing in my coal shed?”

The dark man was silent. Finally, as his Mom had backed away toward the doorway so that she was standing still holding the shovel, he said, “Name is Clyde.”

“Well, Clyde, you better skedaddle out of here before I call my husband out here with his shotgun!”

Clyde had waited until Mom was out of the doorway and then he slunk out of the coal shed and with the long stride of one who walked a lot he moved toward the gravel road in front of the house.

“But, Mom,” Beth said, “Daddy’s not here!”“Be quiet, for once, will you?” Bob said, grabbing

his sister by the arm.

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Once Clyde was gone his Mom had put the shovel down and picked Beth up and held her in her arms. “It’s OK, baby, sometimes you have to tell a fib.”

She had put Beth down, picked up the coal bucket and went to the washhouse to stoke the fire.

“Were you scared, Mom?” Bob had asked.“Yes, I certainly was. I wonder who that man is.

He didn’t say much, did he? I was just getting the coal and there he was. I’m glad you two came out here so I wasn’t alone.”

“Were you going to hit him, Mom? With the shovel?”

“I was just so startled. I don’t know. I’m glad I didn’t have to hit anyone.”

When Ott had returned an hour or so later Beth ran out to the pickup shouting, “Daddy, Daddy, a bad man was in our coal shed and Mommy had to chase him away, and I was scared and I thought he would kill me.” She had started to cry and Ott picked her up and carried her into the house.

“What’s this I hear about bad guys?”“Would you really have shot him?” asked Bob.“Shot who? What are you two talking about?”His Mom had told the whole story, and his

stepfather explained that Clyde was a local, a son of the Hootmans who lived west of their place.

“No need to shoot ol’ Clyde, Clyde’s slow-witted, that’s all. He’s like a boy in a man’s body.”

“It’s that man’s body that I was afraid of,” stated his Mom.

“He is not dangerous. About thirty years old, he is, and never hurt anyone that I know of. He walks everywhere, ‘cause he ain’t smart enough to drive. Probably just resting in the coal shed before he went on home. Can’t drive even a tractor. He can do some work,

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like help with building fences, or clean out barns and chicken houses and such, but he ain’t worth much.”

“I could sure use Clyde now,” Bob thought as he looked at the growing pile of manure in the corral. Each afternoon he mucked out the cow barn for the next day’s milking. The manure pile was about the size of one of the smaller Rocky Mountains. After he finished slopping the pigs he went up to the house to wash up and see what was for supper.

“Did you finish the chores, honey?”“Yeah, Mom; what’s for supper?”“Sandwiches, salad, and cold chicken.”“Sounds good; when do we eat?”“In a few minutes. I have to wash Beth’s hair and

braid it and then we’ll sit down. I don’t expect Ott until late. He’s going to finish the field.”

“It’s great to have a tractor with lights. Did you see that light that shines back on the equipment?”

“I did. And I saw you drive the tractor in the field today,” she said while toweling Beth’s long thick hair.

“It’s funny, isn’t it, Mom? We used to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now we have breakfast, dinner, and supper.”

“Yes, and it does make sense to have the big meal at midday.”

“Do you think Clyde was going to hurt you?”“I don’t know. I know he was looking at me with a

greedy look. But, Daddy’s probably right, he’s no real danger. Still I’m glad you and Beth came running out to the shed.”

“It is kind of lonely here sometimes, don’t you think?”

“I know. But we are so busy that we hardly can think of it. Do you miss your friends from Denver?”

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“I do, you know. But the farm is kind of neat. There’s so much stuff to do all the time. And school is fun. We have only eight kids now. I guess Clyde never went to school, did he?”

“No, I would think not. Too bad. Everyone should go to school.”

“I like school, Mommy, and I’m smart too,” said Beth while sitting on a kitchen chair.

“Yeah, you sure learn some good stuff. I was reading about Indians the other day and they said that some of the tribes had medicine men that could heal people and see into the future. And they were sorta slow like Clyde. They were special in some way. It’s like they weren’t smart in this world but were listening to some other things that most of us can’t see. Do you think that Clyde can see into the future?”

“Oh, I doubt it, son. It’s really hard to know what another person can see or what he thinks about.”

“I wonder what God thinks about.”“Only God knows.”“Ouch!” screamed Beth. “Mom, you’re pulling my

hair right out of my head.”“Sorry, honey, I’m almost finished braiding.”“Are we going to church tomorrow?” asked Bob.“Of course. Sunday is the only time Ott gets off of

that tractor of his. Church is a place to rest the body and nourish the soul.”

“Do you like the minister, Mom?”“Sure, he is a good man.”“But he is so, I don’t know; it’s like he talks in

capital letters all the time. Do you think he really knows God?”

“Of course he does. He must have been called to the ministry.”

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“Called? By God?”“Well, yes, I suppose so.”“I wonder if God will ever call me.”“So many questions! Let’s go ahead and eat our

supper now.”“At least I’ve been called to supper. No, at last

I’ve been called to supper.”The next morning after chores they took the

weekly bath in the washhouse. They bathed in a large galvanized tub filled from the water tank and heated with kettles of hot water from the coal stove.

“When will we ever get a real bathroom?” asked Bob. “It’s so weird having to go to the outhouse and the washhouse instead of the bathroom.”

“As soon as we get electricity. Then we can get a hot water heater and a pump and have a modern bathroom,” said his Mom.

“I hope they hurry. It’s so embarrassing to have any friends here.”

Clean and dressed they drove the six miles to town to the Lutheran Church. In Sunday School they were shown pictures of the Holy Land and told about the way the Jews killed Christ on Good Friday.

Bob didn’t pay attention to the lesson. He was thinking about Clyde. Could Clyde be special? Maybe he was like some of the prophets. Maybe he was a prophet. They seemed odd too. Always just sort of showing up and telling the future, warning the Israelites to stop doing bad things or they would be punished. He couldn’t think of a good reason why there couldn’t be prophets walking around now just as they did two thousand years ago. Why were all the prophets who had talked to God from some other country and some other time? It didn’t make sense. And why do they call it “good” Friday if it’s the day Jesus was crucified? Dying that way, nailed to a cross, doesn’t 76

sound good to me, he thought. Samuel was a prophet and he was pretty crazy. The way he chopped up Agag. Why would God have him do that? It didn’t make a lot of sense, but every Sunday they came here and heard more about PROPHETS and SINS and SOULS.

After church they drove home and had dinner. Mom had left a pork roast, surrounded by potatoes, cooking in the oven while they were in town. It only needed some gravy and some peas and it was ready to eat.

“That was quite a sermon,” said Ott. “The minister got all wound up about how bad things don’t happen to good people.”

“It was nice,” said Mom.“Nice? I thought it was crazy.”“Why crazy?”“Well, wouldn’t you say the Renkes were good

people?”“Yes.”“Well, then why did they end up with Billy? The

poor little kid was not even a human, just a vegetable, for chrissakes!”

“God works in mysterious ways, dear. It is not for us to question His doings.”

“Oh, Jesus, you sound just like the pastor. It just don’t make sense to me. Last year almost everybody in Yuma County lost their wheat crop. Everyone was hailed out except for John Marlin. Everybody knows he is a drunken, lazy, wife-beating no-good who never goes to church.”

“Eat your dinner, dear, before it gets cold.”“This pork is really good, Mom,” said Bob.After dinner Bob asked permission to take his

horse, Babe, for a ride to the pasture at the Other 77

Place. Babe was a ten-year-old mare, given to him for his ninth birthday. He had learned to ride on her. She was gentle and because of a spavin on her right front knee she could no longer gallop. She was perfect for kids. He threw the saddle blanket over her back the way he had seen Hopalong Cassidy do it. Then he got the saddle on her and tied the cinch tight. He then waited a minute or two and tightened it. Babe often would hold her stomach out until after the cinch was tightened and then release the air and the cinch would be loose. She was actually pretty smart. Once she got out of the barn and opened the feed bin latch and ate her fill of grain. He mounted and rode off out of the yard and down the gravel road the mile and a half to the Other Place and the canyons where he often played cowboys and Indians. On the way he thought about what his dad had said at the table.

He rode along the edge of the canyon that stretched along the end of the half-section they called the Other Place. About one third of the land here was too rocky and steep to be farmed so they used it as pasture for the cattle in the summer. It was home to coyotes, owls, hawks and other predators. He had shot his first rabbit here with a single shot from his twenty-two rifle. Currant berries grew wild on the hillsides and his Mom made jelly from the berries. “Remember,” his Dad had said the first time the went picking currants, “when they’re red they’re green!”

Suddenly something spooked Babe and for the first time since he had gotten her she bucked. He was not ready and was thrown off violently. He tumbled part way down the side of the canyon.

“Here, I have your horse. Get on. Get yourself home.”

It was Clyde. He had come from nowhere. When he arrived home his Mom cleaned up his

scrapes and scratches and painted them with Mercurochrome. 78

“What happened to you?” she asked.“I’m not sure, Mom.

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Hank

Bob watched his stepfather’s face as the hail pounded down on the fields west of them. The face of a dry land farmer: leathery, lined, stoic. That face usually revealed no emotion, but for a moment Bob thought his Dad would cry. Then anger clouded his face like one of the lightening flashes announcing that the hail was coming east toward their half-section. He had only seen that look once before in the six years they had been on the farm. They were all coming back from town on Halloween and had spotted a strange pickup in their farmyard. Three young men were about to load their outhouse onto their pickup to take to town for some Halloween mischief. His stepfather had confronted them, carrying his 12-gauge shotgun.

“Better put her back now, boys,” he had said quietly.

“Oh, shit! Yessir, yessir, we will. Sorry about that; don’t know what got into us. We were just funning around. We’ll get ‘er back right away.”

The outhouse was put back and the three partygoers left. But with the hailstorm there wasn’t anyone to threaten. Mother Nature didn’t give a damn if you had a 12-gauge shotgun or not. You could just watch and do nothing.

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In ten minutes it was over. The damage to the neighbors to the west had been total. Their own wheat was bent over but not completely destroyed. After the clouds passed by they walked out into the field.

“Well, it looks like we can harvest some of it, but goddamn it, it will mean a lot more work.” His stepfather leaned over to hold up the plants to see how much of the grain had been knocked from the golden heads. “We’ll have to put pick-up teeth on the bar of the combine to lift all this straw up to the cutting sickle. We better go up to the house and call Hank.”

They had been hoping for a great crop this year. Last year they had lost about forty acres of wheat to a rain storm. When it rained hard, the land north of the house flooded because it was the lowest point in several miles. Much of the top soil from around their place had, over the years, washed into the area they called “the lagoon.” The soil was great, but if it rained too hard you could never harvest the crop. People at the Co-Op always said that Ott should plant half wheat and half rice in the lagoon.

One year they had cut wheat in the lagoon and it yielded eighty bushel to the acre. If only they could control the rain. You had to have rain, but not too much rain. Two summers ago they had tried to empty the lagoon. Ott and Hank had this idea that if they drilled a deep hole in the lowest part of the lagoon and stuffed some dynamite into the hole they could open up the land so it could drain.

Bob remembered the day of the big explosion. A well digging rig had been brought in and they punched a hole in the ground about one-hundred and twenty

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feet deep. Then they had wrapped several sticks of dynamite and crammed them down into the hole. People from all around had come to watch.

“We’re gonna pull the plug on this lagoon,” Hank said as he pushed the plunger to set off the explosion.

There was a deep rumbling sound and a two foot high splash of water just above the hole. Everyone waited for the water to drain out.

Nothing happened.

Call Hank. The idea of it was exciting to Bob. Not just because it meant he would see his brother-in-law and sister sooner this year, but also it meant he could watch his stepfather use the telephone. When Ott made a call it was an attack. He would accost the phone box mounted on the wall like a cat working a mouse. First he would move from side to side and then he would pounce on the crank with one hand while grabbing the earpiece with the other. He would spin the crank around a full turn and look at the wall-mounted box as if it were in his way to completing the call. When the operator came on to say, “Number please,” he would shout into the mouthpiece, “I need to call Denver.”

“What number in Denver, please?”

“I’m calling Hank. It’s 742-3388. Hank’s number.”

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“Thank you, sir, I’ll put you through. . . . The lines to Denver are busy right now. I’ll ring you as soon as I can get through.”

“OK. Thanks.”

Ott’s part of the conversation was so loud that Bob always thought he probably didn’t need a phone line. And when it was long distance his voice rose to another level of volume.

Within a few minutes the phone rang one long and one short. That was their number, 019R11, where the one-one meant one long and one short. As his stepfather picked up the phone earpiece and stood close to the mouthpiece, Bob could almost hear the clicks of others on the line picking up to listen in.

“Hello!” shouted Ott, probably causing severe damage to the ears of party line listeners.

“Your call to Denver is ready now; I’m ringing it now.”

“Hello, Hank?”

“Hi, Ott. This is Peg. Hank is still at work. I’ll get him to call you back when he gets home.”

“OK. Thanks, I need to talk to him.” Ott shouted, “Yeah.”

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The idea that voices could be transported on number twelve wire all the way to Wray and then on down the line to Denver had never registered with Ott even though he was responsible for maintaining the phone lines that ran along his property line. The line ran along the side of the county road and was a single wire hanging from glass insulators on twelve-foot high posts. How the voices traveled along that wire was a mystery. It was more puzzling even than how electricity would travel along the highline wires that were beginning to be built in some areas of Colorado closer to Denver. There was talk in Washington, D.C. that within five years the government would have REA electricity to all of the farms in the country. Bob was hoping that they would hurry because electricity would change their lives so much. They would have an indoor toilet. Running water. Hot running water for showers. They would finally have bright lights instead of gas lanterns to read by.

“It would be good to join the twentieth century,” he thought.

Peg, his oldest sister, had married Hank in 1943 when Mom had married Ott. “My mother and my older sister were married in the same year,” Bob always said if asked about marriages. Peg and Hank had moved into the house on York Street, the family house, until the family began going off in all directions. Hank was a Nebraska farm boy, who had tried his best to join the Army in the war but who had been found to be 4-F. As a kid, a kernel of wheat had lodged in his left ear. He had not complained until the pain became severe. The doctor found that the kernel had sprouted and broken the eardrum. Peg and Hank had married just before Bob, Beth, their Mom, and new stepfather had moved to the farm outside of Wray. Bob remembered one

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thing about their courtship. Every evening when it was time to do the dishes, Hank would call.

“You go ahead with the dishes and I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Peg would say, running to the phone in the living room. But the call went on and on, usually until the drying and cleaning up was done.

Hank was a plumber by trade. Like Ott he was a born and bred farmer, and both of them could fix most anything mechanical. Neither talked much, and around the farm equipment they worked quietly in an unspoken bond of knowledge. One of the early lessons they passed on to the boy was, “If a man made it, a man can fix it!”

When the phone rang later, one long and one short, Margaret picked up the earpiece and answered with a normal “Hello.”

“Oh, hi, Hank, how are you getting along? I’ll get Ott for you.”

“Hello!” he shouted. “Hank, we had a hell of a hailstorm this morning. A real gullywasher. Lightling and rain and then hail big as golf balls! Took out most of our wheat. Can you come next week and help me get the combine ready?”

Bob noticed the “lightling.” For some reason his stepfather could not say “lightning” and instead always said the “l” for the “n”. Maybe it was some pronunciation he got when he lived in Arkansas. “Arkansas” was a funny word too. The state was “arkansaw” but the river was “ark-kansus” - spelled the same but pronounced different. “English is a funny

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language,” he thought. He remembered what his English teacher, Mrs. Diss, had told him. She had said that an English writer, named George Bernard Shaw, had put up some money to anyone who could come up with an improvement to English spelling that would eliminate the confusion. As an example of the confusion in English pronunciation Shaw had suggested that we should spell “fish” ghoti -- the gh from “cough,” the o from “women” and the ti from ”nation”. “I’ll bet the money is still waiting,” he thought.

“See you on Sunday then. Yeah.”

Most people ended a phone call with “goodbye” but Ott always said “yeah.”

“They can come up on Sunday,” he said, putting the earpiece back in its cradle and giving the instrument one last look of contempt.

“Oh, that’s nice, honey. It will be good to see Peg and our grandson. I’ll bet he has grown. Hank will be a big help in getting the machinery ready. What all do you have to do?”

“We’ll have to put pick-up teeth on so we can lift the straw off the goddamned ground and save some of the wheat. What a mess. It was lookin’ so good, too. Probably thirty bushel to the acre wheat for once, and then this. We could have cut in a few days too. Damn, damn, damn.”

On Sunday after church, Peg and Hank and Dick arrived at the farm. They had been coming up for harvest anyway, and the hail just brought them a week 86

early. Dick had grown. At three he was talking, running about and mimicking his dad. That meant he used swear words in every sentence, and though he had trouble with ordinary words sometimes, he never mispronounced a profanity. He used a made-up word “boppy” as a kind of placeholder for any word he could not say. Within a short time he came running into the house after being down by the shop with the men to report to his grandma.

“Granddad’s goddamned boppy broke down!”

“What, honey?”

“Granddad’s goddamned boppy broke down!”

Mom looked at Peg, and they both laughed.

Granddad’s boppy was the old pull type combine that they were trying to get ready for the harvest. During the winter Ott had replaced all the drive gears that ran the separator and the fans with V-belts. This had meant a much quieter machine and eliminated the need for a lubricating oil drip system that had distributed oil to the chains. They were giving the combine a shake down cruise when one of the belts had come loose.

“She’s running good,” said Hank. “The V-belts make a hell of a difference.”

They had to adjust all of the belts for the correct tension. Together they tested them all and tuned up the

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machine, which was much quieter because of the rubber belts.

After his report Dick ran back out of the house and down to the corral to check on the cows and horses. Bob and Ott had put a single wire electric fence around the cane stacks to keep the animals away from the cane. Bob’s old horse, Babe, particularly had to be stopped. She would unhook the barn door and go to eat her fill. Dick wandered around the corral and up to the fence. Then he could be seen running up to the house again. As he ran into the kitchen he was crying.

“Grandma, grandma, I have to tell you somepin.”

“What is it this time, Dick?”

“Grandma, don’t ever pee on a ‘lectric fence!”

His fly was still open and the tears were falling down his cheeks.

Later that evening everyone sat down at the table for some supper.

As his Mom said grace, “Lord, we thank you for this day’s food,” Bob looked up at his stepfather’s face.

“But we sure as hell don’t thank You for this hailstorm.”

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During supper Ott told a story that he had heard that morning after church while talking with the other farmers on the lawn outside the church.

“Old man Jones was a painter by trade and he used to always thin his paint with water so he could make a bit more on each job. Well, he was painting the Lutheran church last year, and, as usual, he had added some water to the paint. As he was about to finish the job a big ole rain cloud opened up and he watched as the rain washed off the paint. Suddenly a bolt of lightling hit in the churchyard pretty close to Jones and he was sure that God was angry with him for cheating on the paint job on a house of God. “Please forgive me, Lord”, he cried, “give me another chance.”

Jones heard the voice again, thundering from the clouds, “Repaint, repaint, and thin no more.”

Everyone had a good laugh.

After supper Bob sat at the kitchen table sharpening his pocket knife while his mom and sisters did up the dishes. Beth had gone to the matinee in town that afternoon with friends and was relating the entire plot while drying the dishes.

When the kitchen was all cleaned up, Mom got down the copy of Moby Dick and began to read a chapter to the kids. Every night, or almost every night, they had a chapter of a book read to them. They had gone through two Charles Dickens novels and a Jack London, and now they had joined Melville and Captain Ahab on the high seas in search of the White Whale.

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“Call me Ishmael.” That has to be the greatest beginning of any novel I know,” thought Bob. “And the description of the church with the pastor giving a sermon from the quarter deck is like you are right there in the pew.” After a while Mom stopped reading and the three talked about the chapter for a little while.

“Why did they kill whales, Mom?” asked Beth.

“It was their job. They hunted them for the oil which was used in all sorts of ways.”

Beth asked, “Why didn’t they just get their oil at the Co-op like we do?”

“There were no Co-op stores then, Honey.”

“Is Captain Ahab a good man?” asked Bob.

“Well, let’s finish the book before we try to answer that question. OK?”

“OK. It is a good book. Long though.”

“Off to bed everyone. Five o’clock comes early.”

Bob dreamed that night that he was a sailing ship captain. He was standing next to the helmsman looking out over the sea. But it looked like the sea changed slowly, ever more slowly, into a vast expanse of wheat. The color shifted from blue green to gold and the waves rolled on and on toward the horizon. The ship slipped through the waves silently. He looked at the 90

helmsman. It was his stepfather steering the ship through the waving wheat. The sky darkened and the clouds stretched out to cover the sun. He looked over to see the wheel come off in the hands of his stepfather, who dropped it to the deck with a clang and looked up at the sky.

Bob woke suddenly to the sound of his Mom knocking on the door. “Time to get up, Honey.”

Most mornings were the same. Every morning the cows had to be brought into the barn, fed some grain, sprayed for flies, and milked. Get up, get the cows, milk the cows, feed the cows, slop the pigs, let the chickens out, eat breakfast, work in the fields.

As he pulled on his boots Bob was thinking about the camping trip they had taken to the mountains. Hank had built a trailer that held all of their camping gear. And he knew all the roads in the mountains. The trip to Hanging Lakes had convinced Bob that he would return to the mountains again as soon as he could. The Aspen forest was almost as large as the wheat fields in his corner of Colorado.

As Ott and Bob got to the barn they heard an awful racket coming from the manger at the back of the barn.

“Hurry up, Bob, sounds like a cat fight.”

In the manger were two cats fighting and screaming.

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“It’s the Tom,” said Ott, “he’s killin’ the kittens!”

The mother cat was doing her best to defend her kits, but the tomcat outweighed her by twice and had done most of the damage already. When Bob shouted he jumped out of the manger and ran to the ladder to the hayloft, scampered up it and disappeared.

“Look, the kittens are all ripped up.”

“Why would the dad kill them?”

“Don’t know. Just happens sometimes. Before you know it that Tom will be back making more kittens. Maybe he thought they weren’t his.”

They cleaned up the mess and called the cows in for grain.

After chores and breakfast Ott, Hank, and Bob went down to the shop to get the combine ready.

“Here, Bob, you take every fourth tooth off the cutterbar; it’s probably a half inch wrench. Use the socket and the ratchet. Hank, can you solder that damn leaking gas tank on the tractor? I’ll get the pick-up teeth ready to install in the empty spots on the bar.”

Bob found the socket wrench, got down on the ground, and reached under the platform on the combine to loosen the nuts. As he started to remove the teeth from the cutting bar, he saw Hank get some soap from his toolbox and rub it along the bottom of the gas tank on the tractor where the slow leaks were. The 92

soap stopped the drips in a couple of minutes. Hank fired up the gasoline torch to heat the soldering iron.

“Aren’t you going to drain the gas out of the tank?” Bob shouted.

“No. Shouldn’t have to.”

“But won’t it explode when you start to put hot solder on the tank?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s cool gasoline down here. But, if it does explode you better get the hell out of here!”

Hank picked the hot soldering iron up out of the cradle on the torch. He spread some flux on the area of the tank that had been leaking and applied the iron to the tank and to the long strand of solder which he had unwound from its circular roll.

Bob got up and walked around so that the combine was between him and Hank.

The solder melted and was sucked up into the holes where the flux had been. Some smoke rose from the tank.

“There we go,” said Hank as he put the soldering iron down and spit on the hot solder. The spit jumped around a bit and then disappeared. “That should do it.”

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Bob came back toward the tractor. “Why didn’t it explode, Hank? I thought gasoline was very dangerous.”

“It is. But in this case there were no gas fumes. It’s the fumes that explode, as long as it’s liquid you’re OK.”

No one said anything about Bob’s having hidden behind the combine, and he returned to the job of removing the teeth from the cutterbar.

Hank hooked the tractor to the tow bar and they headed off to the field of wheat west of the house. The sixteen-foot platform on the combine was heavier now with the addition of the thirty-two pick-up teeth. Ott was on the combine running the wheel that controlled the height of the platform. He turned a wheel that let the platform down to the level for cutting. “He looks like Captain Ahab at the helm of the Pequod,” Bob thought. The combine engine was throbbing, the V-belts were singing, and the cutting bar was sliding back and forth rhythmically. Hank drove close to the fence to open the field of wheat up to the combine. After the first round they would drive on the stubble of the previously cut wheat. Only the first round would require driving on the wheat. “I hope we can get a newer, self-propelled combine soon; then we would not have to lose grain to the heavy wheels of the tractor and the combine.”

Hank was watching the fence line closely to stay as close as possible without running into the fence posts. Ott dropped the platform by spinning the helm. The pick-up teeth reached under the fallen wheat, picked it up and fed it to the wooden paddles of the reel

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that pushed the straw against the cutting bar. Because of the need to cut so much straw the combine engine was laboring to handle all of the material that was brought up to the separator on the conveyor belt. Ott dropped the platform some more.

Suddenly the pick-up teeth at the end of the platform rammed into the ground. The teeth bit into the ground, stopping the forward movement of the platform. Ott yelled from the helm, “Hank! Stop! Stop!” Before Hank could stop the tractor the platform snapped off from the main body of the combine, its broken parts dangling like intestines from a butchered hog.

Once everything stopped Ott climbed down from the combine to survey the damage.

Hank joined him by the hanging platform. “I just didn’t get her stopped in time. I was watching the fence line.”

“It’s not your fault, Hank. Goddamn it to hell. Look at that mess!”

A dark cloud passed over Ott’s face. Bob saw his stepfather take off his hat and hurl it on the ground.

Ott jumped up and down on his hat, swearing loud and frantic swear words Bob had never heard.

“They say only cowards commit suicide. That’s a goddamned lie. It takes courage to leave this rotten place. Why me? What else can go wrong?” Ott shouted.

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He jumped on his hat and waved his arms above his head. Looking up at the sky, where all of the hail had come from, he challenged his God, “Why are You doing this to me? What have I ever done to You? I should never have been born. Why? Why? What do You want from me?”

Bob looked up, halfway expecting an answer. There was no answer. Only silence. A small white cloud drifted in the blue sky. A sundog was visible. In the summer fallow across the road a small wind funnel twisted lazily toward the south.

Bob walked over to his stepfather. “It’s OK, Dad. We can fix it. I know we can.”

Hank got up from under the platform. “She’s not too bad, Ott. A bit of welding; some new bolts. We’ll have her going again before sundown.”

Ott picked up his hat. He knocked the crown out with his fist and put it on.

“Let’s get started.”

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The Three-Day Job

The boy stood watching as the man pitched bundles of wheat onto the belt that went up to the mouth of the threshing machine. He had just been tricked into giving up the pitchfork.

Earlier that morning the boy had fallen through a hole in the hayrack bed. He knew that the man had seen his step-father leap across the conveyor belt to pull him up before his leg got caught in the machinery. The bundles on the wagon floor had covered the hole. He had stepped on a bundle while pitching another onto the belt for its trip, heads first, up to the threshing machine separator.

“Is that a new pitchfork?” he had said.

“Yes, we just got it at the Co-op.”

“Let me see it,” the man had said, and when he handed it to him, he knew it was a trick. He had not wanted to have help unloading the wagon filled with wheat bundles, but the man, Raymond Renzelman, was Albert’s brother.

Raymond had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the way all the farmers did, and the boy watched the brown forearms as he tossed the bundles quickly into the conveyor. His arms must be twice the size of my own, he thought. He was just about as tall as Raymond now but probably weighed about half as

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much. It was July and hot and he had turned thirteen in February when it was cold.

He had not been frightened when he fell earlier in the day. He did not yell for help. He felt slightly embarrassed but not scared. The fear had come later when he thought about what could have happened. Fear was like that, he thought, it came before or after but not during. He had been sure he could get out of the mess by himself. He was willing to suffer a bit of pain to avoid the looks of others. But he was glad to have the help, and after being pulled up he had turned away and mumbled a “thanks” before getting right back to the work at hand.

Only a few farmers still used a threshing machine. Albert Renzelman had decided to bind his quarter section of wheat and to thresh it because he wanted the straw pile for his cattle. Almost everyone now had a self-propelled combine. One man could run the combine. But there was no straw pile at the end because the straw was spread out on the field in a wide swath or in a narrow windrow for baling later with a baler.

Threshing required lots of help. Albert had six hay racks each pulled by a tractor and a tractor to power the thresher. Four men were pitching bundles from the shocks in the fields up onto the racks to be stacked and unloaded by the men on top of the hayracks. Young boys from eleven to fifteen were driving the tractors which pulled the racks from shock to shock to be loaded. When full they drove to the threshing machine where the man on top of the hayrack unloaded the bundles while the boys sat on the tractors waiting to go out into the field again.

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Twenty years ago, Otto had told him, all of the hayracks would have been pulled by horses and the fields would have been quiet as the bundles were loaded, stacked, and hauled to the threshing machine. Now “horsepower” had a different meaning.

Most of the tractor drivers had come with their fathers. Except for his brother and his close neighbors, the rest of the crew was being paid top wages by Albert for this threshing job. Three dollars a day for the boys who drove the tractors and eight dollars a day for the men who loaded and unloaded or who were pitching bundles in the field.

It was hot. Maybe 103 in the shade and there was no shade except under the umbrellas that were open on each tractor. Eastern Colorado was always hot in July. That was what made the wheat ripen and the farmers’ skin dark and leathery. We are all a bunch of rednecks, he thought to himself, until the necks become as brown as mahogany.

Raymond threw the last bundle onto the belt and gave the pitchfork back to him. Their eyes met for a moment.

“Let’s go!” he shouted to his driver, holding to the front of the hayrack for the ride back to the wheat field. The tractor and rack swerved suddenly and he would have fallen had he not been holding on. His driver had turned quickly to avoid a swarm of gnats. He wondered how gnats were able to stay in a universe the size of a basketball and move as one, bouncing across the land, moving up and down always together and never alone.

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He felt renewed and ready for another load as they pulled up to the first shock. Raymond’s trick was OK, he thought, even if he had felt angry at first. The first bundle arrived and he placed it on the front corner to begin a row of bundles that would be held in by the second row and so on and on until the hay rack looked like a large loaf of homemade bread with a rounded top and complete with flanks that hung over the pan’s sides.

He could feel his muscles. Especially in his back and stomach. Each bundle was picked up and placed quickly in its proper place where it was held in by another and held another in. His mom had said, “Be sure and wear your gloves,” as he left that morning after breakfast with his step-father. And for once he had done as she said. He was glad to have them on now for the oak handle of the pitchfork, though smooth, was capable of making blisters on unprotected hands no matter how tough.His mom thought he would be driving one of the tractors with the other boys, and had suggested the gloves to keep the black rubber of the steering wheel off, but Albert had been one man short, and he had volunteered to handle a rack.

It was almost noon now and he started to think about dinner. The half-hour break for dinner at noon was a welcome thought. “After unloading this one it should be time to eat.” His driver must have realized that too, though he had no watch, for the trip back to the threshing machine was a fast one. Lying on the bundles on top of the load and clinging to his pitchfork jammed into the center, thinking about fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn-on-the cob, he found the jaunt to the thresher soon was over and he started to unload.

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As they washed up for dinner by the windmill there was a lot of talk about the weather and a few jokes aimed at the boys.

“We almost lost you there this morning, Bob,” said one of the tractor drivers.

“Yeah, my whole life flashed in front of my eyes.”

“That didn’t take long.”

Bob’s stepfather laughed as he handed him the towel.

“Did you see any girls?”

“A couple,” he said while drying his hands and arms on the towel, “a couple.”

As they finished washing in the cool water from the windmill the men talked and joked about the government.

“Ever see so many department of agriculture guys?”

“Ever since the war was over they just keep coming to town.”

“Like an army?”

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“Yeah, there’s an army of them all right.”

“I saw three of them measuring my summer fallow the other day.”

“What did you do?”

“I took my shotgun out there and asked them what the hell they were doing.”

“What did they say?”

“They said they were measuring all the fields around so they would be ready when the government starts telling us how much wheat we can plant.”

“So, they were armed with A-sticks and you with a 12-gauge?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have Old Bessy loaded!”

“We’ll soon have more people working for the government than farming.”

“Already do.”

“They have some good programs too. I heard they’re going to be offering us $3 an acre to fertilize.”

“But then they want us to plant less. It don’t make any sense.”“Whoever said the government makes sense?”

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The crew went into the dining room. The women, who had eaten earlier, brought in plates piled high with corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, thick cream gravy, and platters of fried chicken. Bob could see himself in the mirror that covered the wall of the dining room. He tipped his head a bit to show his right side in the mirror. His nose looked better from that side he thought. Then he noticed that Joan, Albert’s daughter, and her mother had noticed him looking at himself in the mirror. The women exchanged a smile and he quickly turned away. He looked at the man who was telling a story.

“So, Bruce was working in the field with Roy’s Deere when he fell asleep in the heat.”

“Who?”

“Bruce, . . . you know, Roy’s hired man.”

“Oh. So what happened?”

“Well he fell asleep, I guess, and drove into a fence post.”

“I’ll bet that woke him up.”

“Yeah, but he broke the crank off the front of the Deere.”

Most of the men at the table laughed. Those who didn’t laugh got a strange look from the storyteller.

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“What’s so funny about that?” asked Bob’s driver sitting next to him.

“There is no crank on a John Deere,” he answered. “Anybody knows that.”

It was the falling asleep part of the story that he thought about as he helped himself to a drumstick, a wing, and a piece of the breast. It was good chicken. And it was chicken. Everyone knew that Albert shot pheasants out of season and then when Loraine served them they always called it chicken. But with this chicken there were no shotgun pellets in the meat. The government had the season for pheasants set for October when the birds were already tough. The young cocks were best eating in July.

Falling asleep on the tractor was something that happened to him every day since he had been working in the fields. Right after a big noontime dinner and back in the heat of the early afternoon, lulled by the drone of the tractor’s engine, he had fallen asleep a hundred times, his head hitting the steering wheel and him fighting the sleepiness. He would drink water, throw some in his face, sing songs at the top of his lungs, dream about kissing Joan, and think about the danger of falling asleep and falling off the tractor to be sliced into twelve-inch pieces by the one-way. “I should tie myself onto the seat,” he thought.

Getting chopped into pieces. That always reminded him of the farmer south of Wray who had been playing hide-and-seek with his two-year-old son. He had finished the game and sent the boy to the house. He had gone to get his tractor and connected it

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by the long drive belt to his grinder. He started the tractor to grind some wheat, barley, and corn for the milk cows, and the flywheel spun the blades. His son had crawled into the grinder hopper to hide. It was a closed casket service at the Lutheran church, where the pastor said something about the mysteries of God’s ways and His wanting to have the boy with Him. Six months later the father had blown his head off with a shotgun in the garage at his farm.

“So, even if I could marry Joan, maybe something awful would happen to us,” he thought. “Anyway, the reason that His ways are so mysterious is because no one will answer any questions about God.” One day in Bible School as they were practicing the catechism they came to “The Lord thy God is a jealous God,” and he had asked the pastor, “What could God be jealous of?” And the pastor said, “Just shut up and memorize the passage.” He did. But he never paid any attention to the pastor again. At confirmation he performed without error. But they were just words. Memorized words.

He looked in the mirror one more time and saw that Joan was watching him. He felt the blush come up from his throat and turned his eyes to the plate in front of him. He remembered that time last summer when he had bid on Joan’s boxed supper and didn’t have enough money and was outbid. She had laughed and said, “Next time bring more money,” as she went off with the winning bidder to eat the supper at a picnic table in the churchyard.

As the men finished eating they rose and walked outside and most of them lit cigarettes before returning to the field. Looking out over the field he could see that they had cleared about one-sixth of the

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wheat shocks in the morning’s work. The shocks looked like Indian teepees standing about a rod apart in rows. But they were homes for mice and small birds, not for Indians, who had hunted buffalo and antelope across these fields that were now outlined with barbed wire fences and gravel roads around each section of land.

The remains of an old Soddy were visible from Albert’s yard about half-mile away. It was only about seventy years ago, he thought, as they drove the rack out into the field for the afternoon of threshing, that the Army had fought with the Cheyenne and Sioux at Beecher Island.

Roman Nose had been killed at that battle. He had gone to the site three times and found it much more exciting than the Hopalong Cassidy movies that were shown in town on Saturday night. The Indians had surrounded a small company of soldiers, who retreated to a small island in the Republican River and lay behind their dead mounts to fire at the Indians. Roman Nose had charged to the island unafraid of the white man’s bullets, only to be struck down.

Two of the soldiers had been sent to try to break through the Indian lines on the first night. One was captured almost immediately. The Indians had tortured him for several hours during the night. His screams drifted across the water to the soldiers on the island. The other made it through the lines but had to hide in the daylight. He had hidden in the carcass of a buffalo throughout the day and then pushed on when it got dark. Bob often thought of that young soldier hiding in that buffalo all through the hot day, walking and running the forty-five miles to McCook alone with his fear. “The fear of being caught must have been stronger than the smell,” he thought.

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“He must have grown up that day.”

The afternoon went by quickly. They hauled four more loads to the threshing machine before quitting time. The haystack was growing bigger and bigger with each load. In the morning they would move the threshing machine so as to build a second haystack near the first one. He wondered what it would be like to be alone with Joan behind that haystack and to kiss her and to feel her body against his.

After supper the boy went to his bed on the front porch and turned on his radio to listen to “The Shadow.” He heard the first five minutes.

* * * *

He stirred in the bed. “Did Mom call me or did I dream it? It must have been a dream. I’ve only been in bed for a short time.”

But when she came back and called out, “Get up, Bobby, it is time to get ready for breakfast,” he knew that it was not a dream. He tried to shake the sleep out of his eyes. He wished his mom would stop calling him “Bobby.” He would remind her after breakfast.

Every breakfast that he could remember since they had moved to the farm six years ago had begun with oatmeal. Then came bacon and eggs with fried potatoes served up with plenty of cocoa and toast. He could not remember eating like this in the city. He could not remember much of the time before the farm. All he had clearly in his mind was the scene in the

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kitchen with his mom and dad shouting at each other and then the blood. He had been standing in his pajamas peeking around the corner when his mom took the pipe off the front of the combination range and swung it at his dad. The blood pushed out through his dad’s hair. His dad had just looked at his mom and walked out the back door. He had not seen him since. Some time later his mom, his little sister, and a step-father, a man who worked with his mom at the Gates plant in Denver, had moved to the farm.

His mom never talked about that night.“Thanks, Mom; that was real good.”

“Mom, you called me ‘Bobby` again this morning. You’re not supposed to.”

“I’m sorry, son, it’s hard for me to remember that you’re not my little boy anymore. I’ll stop, though. I know you don’t like it.”

They got in the old Ford pickup with the wrinkled fenders and drove the one mile to Albert’s farm. Otto, the boy’s step-father, farmed this half-section for his dad. Paid him one-third of the crop for rent. “Grandpa” had fathered ten children, three of them born in a dugout Soddy, and Grandpa and Grandma now lived in town while those children farmed. He spent most of his time in town now, but drove around to his farms to tell his children when to cut wheat. After church one Sunday while the women were setting up a picnic table in the back yard for a family pot-luck dinner, Grandpa had said, “Things do change. We used to eat in the house and go to the bathroom outside.”

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Joan had been there, at the picnic. He could see her now. She had looked pretty that day.

His fingers were swollen and seemed to be permanently shaped to fit around the pitchfork. He placed them around the pitchfork and waited for his driver to hook up the tractor to the hayrack. Farmers always unhooked the tractor from the rack or implement at night and drove ten yards away so that the two units were separate in case of a lightning strike. Once hooked up, he swung aboard the rack and they headed out into the field for another day of pitching, stacking, unloading and threshing.

After the first dozen bundles his muscles loosened up a bit and the pain in his hands and forearms lessened. Pain was something to be gotten through, not avoided. He had watched as Otto, shirt off, arms stuck right up into the cow, worked for two hours to help deliver a calf that was in the breech position, until finally he had got the calf turned around and the front legs pulled out with a rope tied to them. The cow’s eyes had rolled back in her head and she had cried with pain. Last year they had lost a young heifer that got into the cane field and ate green cane until it bloated. He had been the first to see the heifer with its belly blown up triple size panting for breath. They had tried to relieve the pressure, first by pulling the tongue out and then by cutting into the belly. The gas that rushed out smelled like rotten silage. But the heifer died. Strange that cane, which was a perfect cattle food when dried, was absolutely deadly when green.

He thought of their dog, one of the dumbest dogs in Colorado, who had followed him to the field when he was cutting Milo with the mower. Gee had run all around, chasing mice and birds, and finally had run

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in front of the mower and had his pads cut off on two paws. He had picked him up and carried him back to the farmhouse. He was afraid his step-father would shoot the dog. But instead he had looked him over, called him a stupid son-of-a-bitch, and rubbed cow teat grease on his wounds. A few days later Gee was hobbling around, chasing things again.

One of the good things about farm work was that you had lots of time to daydream. Only part of you was required for the labor. The other part was able to roam all over the place. He had won many races that way. And caught lots of passes. And made love to all the girls he could think of. He was a singer, a dancer, a football star, an Olympic miler, a poet, a scholar, a war hero.

At one point he noticed that everyone was working in unison and that everyone seemed to be a part of a team, not talking, just working. He felt it. As he caught the bundle in mid-air and flipped it into its place on the last row of bundles, he could feel that the next one was in the air and on its way up to the pitchfork, which was back in just the right place to receive the bundle with a minimum of effort. The man pitching from the ground had established a rhythm that he easily matched and the two of them worked as if they had been following a script or a simple football play that had been drawn on the board for the freshman team.

Football was, at its best, a game that gave him the same feeling. When everyone on the offense was in sync, and all knew and did their assignments, then the result was a feeling of teamwork ; it was as if the team were just one being with an intelligence directing its parts in a unified action. But that was a rare thing. More often than not someone forgot his blocking assignment, or jumped offside, or was late in responding to the snap of the ball. Maybe that is why I 110

like running better, he thought. In a race it’s all up to you. You are alone on the track and the results are yours. But this was fine too. The bundles came up to him and he placed them quickly on the growing load, one after another after another butt end out. Once loaded his driver turned the tractor toward the threshing machine, put it in road gear, and they bounced in to unload.

The morning went by quickly. He had been Gene Autry, Gene Kelly, and Alan Ladd, but had never missed a bundle. He had been to Europe, flown an airplane, and caught several game-winning passes, but he wasn’t tired anymore. Dinner time came and the crew all washed up by the windmill for the meal. Today it started with fresh string beans from Loraine’s garden. He told a story at table about a freshman in high school who had gotten into trouble for taking off his shirt in home room to offer it to a girl who had complained of the cold. Most everyone laughed and some knew he was the freshman and Joan was the girl. Most of the older men had not gone to high school. They had to help on the farm as soon as they were old enough, and schooling beyond the eighth grade was rare in those farmers. But, to a man, they could hunt, repair an engine, brand a calf, dehorn a young bull, castrate a pig, build a barn, and fix almost anything that broke. They went to church every Sunday, had no use for Catholics, or Negroes (but he did not know that yet), or homosexuals (and he did not know that yet, either), and were proud to be Americans. Several of them had fought in the War, and those who did not had been excused because they were farmers.

The sun was straight overhead. It was hot. No clouds in the sky except for one thunderhead way off to the west towards the mountains. Sweat rolled down his back as he loaded yet another rack of bundles for

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the thresher. The pitchers were hitting the water bag each time the tractor moved. It was a canvas bag hanging on the back of the tractor and the driver filled it from the windmill each time they made a trip to the machine. As the bag sweat it kept the ground water cool. “Water in -- water out,” he said as the water bag was handed up to him on the half-loaded rack.

Just about three in the afternoon a breeze kicked up and the thunderhead which had been alone in the western sky suddenly started to move, growing bigger as it came.

“Looks like a storm coming.” Within minutes the sky was dark and the clouds were building and swarming like angry bees. And then one of the pitchers saw it. “Look, over there in the southeast; there’s a funnel.”

And there it was. The long black swirling funnel of a plains tornado. It looked to be thirty miles away and bouncing up and down as it came to touch the earth with its powerful kiss. Once last year he had been in the field working the summer fallow when a pencil-shaped cloud had suddenly started moving toward him. He had stopped, turned off the tractor and run to a ditch where he lay down close to the earth and prayed that the pencil would not find him. That storm had taken out a barn three miles from where he lay in the ditch. And it had driven wheat straws into fence posts. He had heard of that before but never believed it until he saw it for himself.

This one came and went in minutes. There was a sudden cool breeze and the temperature dropped about twelve degrees. The wind picked up and then it was

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gone. The sky cleared and the sun shone again. Everyone in the field was trying to figure if the storm’s center had been anywhere near his place. But no one said anything and the work went on.

At exactly four o’clock Loraine and Joan came out to the field in a pickup and delivered a sandwich and a drink to everyone. They had bottles of cold Pepsi for the boys and cans of cold Coors for the men. Bob slid down to the ground from the half-loaded rack and took a bologna sandwich and Loraine handed him a Coors. He looked at her and she smiled at him. He took it and the opener, and cracked the top of the can in two places as he had seen others do. “Take eat,” he thought, and “Take drink” as he took a bite and a sip of the delicious cold beer.

The cold can almost hurt and he put his glove back on to hold it. The beer was bubbly and as he swallowed it he could feel the bubbles on the back of his throat. A bite of sandwich, a drink of beer. Good together. He felt a little light-headed. It felt good. “Take drink,” he said out loud as he brought the can down for the last time and handed it to Joan. “Thanks.”

Joan took the empty can. Their hands touched for a moment. She did not look away from him.

“That was a scary storm, wasn’t it?

“Yeah, I was afraid it was going to drop down here.”

“Those funnels are dark and give me the shivers.”“Me too.”

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“Are you going out for football this year?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if I’m good enough to make the team.”

“You never know until you try.”

They worked until eight o’clock that night and drove home as it was starting to grow dark. He was in bed and sound asleep by eight forty-five.

* * * *He woke on the third morning without being

called. He was up and dressed when his step-father came in from milking.

“Ready to go, Bob?”

“Yes. I am up, hungry, and ready to go.”

After breakfast the two got in the old truck and drove the mile to Albert’s field. There was no talk. Bob watched the sun rising in the eastern sky. You could already feel its heat. When they arrived the tractors were being checked and fueled, and Albert was greasing the threshing machine. Albert pushed the grease gun onto each zirk and pumped the handle forcing grease into the bearings. Bob picked up a grease gun and started to help. It was easy to tell where Albert had been, for the fitting would be clean and have a bit of fresh grease hanging on it. He had always liked the smell of bearing grease.

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“Thanks for the help. We will finish today,” Albert said.

“It’s gone fast.”

“Time has a way of doing that.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“What are your plans for the fall? Are you going to play football?”

“Yes, I am. I’ll be on the team.”

“Good to hear. Joan says she wants to be a cheerleader. You’ll probably see a lot of each other.”

The rest of the crew arrived and the boys started their tractors and hooked them up to the hayracks by backing carefully up to the hitch and directing the drawbar just into the double metal “u” of the hitch. If you were good enough you could back the tractor up, slip into the hitch, and then lean down and drop the pin into the hitch and through the drawbar without getting off the tractor.

Raymond came over and said, “You should go off to the west and we’ll go to the east there where the steep hill is.”

“No, that’s OK. We’ll get the hill.”

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Once they were hooked up Bob and his driver headed east to the field. Bob thought of the wheat fields of theirs that were just about ready to cut. A good harvest would mean they could get a newer pickup truck during the winter. It would be fun to watch his step-father negotiating with the car salesman for the best deal. Last year he had heard his dad tell a salesman that if it were true that the Buick he wanted to sell him was a car so good that it would not depreciate, then why was it nine hundred dollars less than new in just one year? He wanted to remember that for the time when he was ready to buy his first car.

There was a smoothness of motion to his work on the third day. He moved more slowly but also more surely. He was no longer fighting the pitchfork or the bundles. The fork fit in his hands. The bundles went where his mind placed them. The morning went by quickly, and, before it seemed time, it was time for dinner.

“Are you two finished? You better get home now. We are about to close for the night.”The two former Marines got up from the table, made a last pit stop, and walked slowly and with slight limps out into the night.

That night after supper the taller Marine fell asleep quickly in his friend Bob’s spare room. The two had been apart for many years and were taking full advantage of this visit to remember their shared past and to lie about it together. He dreamed. He had been dreaming more than usual lately.

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Sometimes he was just an observer of another’s actions and sometimes he was a first-person actor in the narrative. Often he could run the movie over several nights and pick up where he had left off. Tonight he dreamed he was a story teller. He was the story and the teller:Coming abruptly upon a wide, green meadow after the long climb up the first range of mountains was a welcome surprise for the man, and the restful view that it provided was soon reflected in his face as he gazed over the luscious grass and yellow flowers that covered the reddish-brown earth like a protective and decorative carpet. He sank wearily to a sitting position and took a long drink from the Army surplus canteen which had banged at his right hip all the way up. The water, cool and refreshing, was the first he had drunk since starting up the trail early in the morning. The sun was almost overhead now although somewhat to the north, and its autumnal warmth eased the stiffness which started creeping into his legs after sitting down. “Getting pretty soft,” he thought as he rubbed his legs with his hands. He looked out across the meadow and saw a deep forest continuing on the opposite side running comparatively level for about a quarter of a mile before it started a gradual and then increased rise toward the distant timberline. The meadow itself was peaceful; the quiet punctuated occasionally by the chirping song of a sparrow. Other than the birds no life was visible from his vantage point and he was content with the solitude and quiet. His perspective shifted and he saw himself: A large muscular fellow carrying a few extra pounds around the middle – pounds that were the result of a good diet and plenty of life.Looking across at the woods on the opposite side he noticed a strange rock formation which resembled a funnel, the narrowest part of which formed an entry to the woods. At the entry there looked to be several very

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small pine trees about a foot in height. The meadow itself extended to and over the both edges of the rise to which he had ascended and seemed to stretch laterally in both directions to the mountains adjacent to the one he had just climbed. It was perhaps only three hundred yards from where he had emerged from the trees to where the funnel led into the next growth of trees. The meadow was much like a wide piece of ribbon that had been laid across the crest of the hill and had somehow prevented the trees from growing and allowed the grass and flowers the luxury of bright sunshine. He noticed the almost complete lack of rocks and the analogy of the ribbon as meadow made sense. He lit a cigarette, and inhaling deeply reflected on the hike and the reasons for being here. He was sure now that he had made the right decision by tearing away form the family and driving all through the night to arrive in the foothills to be alone. His family had been so kind and so considerate of him and the children after his wife had left him. But their consideration was becoming cloying and he knew he had no right to force himself into their lives just because he had fucked up hi own. He thought of his wife with a strange mixture of hatred and injured pride. Theirs had been a normal marriage, bred on romantic love, nurtured on responsibility, and killed by boredom; but still her leaving him hurt his pride and had caused him discomfort and hardship. The children had to be taken care of, he had to hire someone to clean the house, and he had to compete with other men for someone to sleep with. Her affair and leaving had caused him nothing but trouble. He had to assume certain responsibilities which he had been blind to for years. Enrolling the kids at school, filling out the endless senseless forms that came home from school, helping with homework, and the weekends, oh god, the weekends when he was all alone with all three kids. He felt he was a combination

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circus master, court jester, and prison warden. It had been three months now since she had left and he had hated her more every day for the trouble she had caused him.He field stripped his cigarette butt and in so doing remembered the many field stripped butts in the Marine Corps. He rose and attached the canteen to his belt and started across the meadow toward the rock formation on the opposite side. The symmetry of the formation seemed to draw him toward it, although there were many directions to fo to reach the woods on the other side of the meadow. He had walked only a short distance when he tripped over a rock hidden in the long grass and he fill to the ground cutting his hand on another , a sharper rock, as he caught himself with his arms outstretched in front of him. Hidden by the grass there were all sorts of rocks.He licked the blood from his hand and was angry with the hidden rocks for slowing up his travel. He made his way more carefully now for he was aware of the danger. In a short while he arrived at the opening of the “funnel” where the rocks at the entrance were only about two or two and one-half feet in diameter resting in two straight but converging lines almost meeting a short distance inside the first rows of small trees. He noticed the rain swept smoothness of the rocks and their strange red colour. There were o rocks underfoot inside the funnel and he stopped and stood looking into the woods beyond the mouth of the funnel. There was a fairly well defined path extending from the grassy edge of the woods gradually rising into the taller trees. Somehow the rocks on each side of him, although small offered a feeling of security and protection and he had the strange feeling that he would like to stay within them forever.The longing to remain was overpowered by a thrust, a force that pushed him forward toward the mouth of the rock structure. He hesitated to leave the security of the

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rocks seeing that the path beyond, though defined, was strewn with the small white rocks that had hurt him in the fall in the meadow. But through the opening he went and his legs brushed against both sides as he came through and took his first steps on the path leading upward toward the forest. The small trees on both sides of the path could not be over half a season old and they seemed to be struggling against the grass for living space. The sun was warm and the grass inviting and the hike and the strange feelings when coming through the funnel had tired him and he lay down and slept for he was comfortable now as he had not been for months. In the morning he woke rested. He got out of bed and went down stairs to join Bob for coffee. They were going to walk back to the VFW after they had breakfast and read the paper. They should get there about lunch time.

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