In Open Spaces (33 page)

My thighs ached from working the pedals, and I could feel the hot metal through my boots, as though there were no soles. The engine roared between my knees, its heat drifting up through my legs, through my clothes, boiling my skin until I felt almost feverish. I carried
a jug of water, wrapped in damp burlap, which I stopped to drink from and pour over a kerchief, rubbing the damp cotton across my face and inside my shirt. But the water was warm as tea by noon.

Dust and short stalks of hay settled inside my clothes, causing an itch here and there. These I learned to put out of my mind. Otherwise I would spend half my day reaching inside my clothes to scratch or dig out a piece of hay. I needed my hands—the right to steer and the left to pull the lever that lifted the rake when its belly was filled with hay.

Behind me, Dad and George followed with the team and wagon, pitching mounds of hay into the wagon bed. Their figures fluttered in the waves of heat—bending, jabbing, tossing, bending, jabbing, and tossing. I would trade jobs with Dad later, in the afternoon.

George was a teenager now, fourteen, and whether it was the age or the nature of his temperament I don’t know, but he was still sullen, with a dash of dry humor. He had developed a sudden desire to spend time with Grandpa, his namesake. The two of them were an interesting pair, playing silent hours of gin or cribbage or trudging off wordlessly to drop a fishing line in the river. They had less to say than any two friends I’d ever seen, which was probably what they valued most about each other.

Teddy, at eleven, was his ever-enthusiastic, curious self. Most of his time was spent alone with a sheepdog named simply Pup, whom he trained to do tricks that left us gaping. At one point, Teddy decided to teach Pup to walk along the top plank of the fence around our yard. We smiled, watching him lift the shivering dog up onto the inch-wide plank time after time. She would stand whimpering and shaking, four feet from the ground, take a few tentative steps, and then tumble into Teddy’s waiting arms. But Teddy was persistent, and after only a week, he had Pup hopping onto the fence herself, stepping carefully along the plank, then smiling and barking when she was back on the ground.

As for Helen, the conflict that had occurred between her and Mom had never been resolved. Helen had taken it badly. She would sit, quiet
and tight-lipped, an injured look permanently carved into her face. Bob found himself in the unfamiliar, uncomfortable position of having to speak for both of them. If anyone directed a question to either of them, Helen would turn to him. She only spoke—in clipped, terse tones—to correct him when his facts were confused.

I found her behavior more infuriating than when she had been completely artificial, but the whole situation provided endless delight for Rita, who would direct all of her questions pointedly toward Helen, still looking at her while Bob fumbled through an explanation. Although I understood Rita’s pleasure in this, and I found it amusing at first, I thought it was unnecessary to keep it going for as long as she did. I was worried about consequences for Rita.

Meanwhile, Bob and Helen had decided that the tiny old homestead house wasn’t big enough, especially with her obsession with making a few babies. Bob started building a new house near the river. He didn’t ask for help, although I considered offering. But a few weeks after he began work on it, Steve Glasser became a regular fixture there on the weekends. Unfortunately, by the time Bob finished the house, Steve and Jenny had become cool to the rest of the family. Obviously, Helen had gotten to them somehow, probably placing the blame for the blowup on Mom.

After several hours of driving, around and around, turning forward to check the direction, turning back to watch the rake, the engine roaring until the sound consumed everything around me, it seemed as if the tractor and I were the only things that existed. My mind wandered. I had been daydreaming a lot, ever since the trip to Belle Fourche with Bob. I often found myself thinking about other places, other lives, wondering whether the twenty-odd years I’d dedicated to the precious land around me would ever amount to anything besides more work. I sat in front of the radio at night, listening to news from places I had
heard about but never been to, and I tried to imagine them—what life would be like as an autoworker in Detroit, a teacher in Boston, even a congressman in our nation’s capital. I read letters from Muriel and Stan, and sometimes considered pulling up stakes and moving to Butte, where Stan said he could always get me a job working in the mine.

On this day, I thought of Omaha, a trip that was still fresh with images, smells, and texture after fifteen years. I remembered the delicate, white-faced couples with tailored clothes and rosy cheeks, chattering and walking casually, their gleaming shoes clicking against the sidewalks. And again I wondered what those people did for work, what job would allow someone to spend any night of the week out dining, dancing and drinking instead of resting your weary body. I thought about Satchel Paige and the other players, and how exciting it must be to play baseball for a living. Although I had often reflected back to my tryout, I had made a concerted effort not to do so with regrets. Lately it had been harder.

All these thoughts filled my mind, shifting and jumbling among themselves as the tractor shuddered beneath me, my body functioning unconsciously, steering and lifting the rake, lowering the rake, lifting the rake, lowering the rake, until I suddenly felt a presence very close to me. I nearly fell off my seat when I turned to find George standing on the running board not three feet away. I cut the engine.

“My god, you scared the hell out of me, George.”

“Sorry, I been running alongside of you for five minutes. I guess you didn’t see me.”

“My mind was drifting a little, I guess. Is something wrong?”

He shook his head. “Lunch time. Hungry?” George’s voice cracked. It was beginning to change, and he talked carefully, trying to hold it in the lower register. But whenever it jumped up to the boy voice, he grimaced, as though he’d made a mistake, letting it get away from him.

“Sure. Have you ever known your Uncle Blake to work through lunch?”

He shrugged and didn’t smile, indicating without words that he didn’t care one way or the other. He was just the messenger, and he’d already failed at that by letting his voice break. I stepped down from the machine as he dropped off the opposite side, and we walked toward the wagon, where Dad pulled food from a saddlebag, spreading it out in the wagon bed.

“Looks like we might finish this meadow today,” I said.

“Yeah.” George nodded, looking behind him.

“How’s your back holding out?”

Shrug. “All right.” He answered softly, as though that would help keep his voice in check. “For an old man,” he added.

I chuckled, but decided not to subject him to any more of the torture of conversation. We walked silently, kicking up dust with every step.

“Dad, you ready to take over for me after lunch?”

He nodded. “How’s the tractor running?”

“Fine. No problems at all.”

“Looks like we’ll finish this meadow today,” Dad said.

I smiled at George, who almost grinned.

We polished off the bread and leftover fried chicken in a few jaw-grinding minutes, gulping warm water from a jug to push the food through our dust-dried throats. Then Dad and I rolled cigarettes and smoked, sitting in the wagon bed, swinging our legs and gazing out at the prairie.

“You checked the wheat lately?” I asked Dad.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid to.” He chuckled, his head wagging back and forth, and took a long pull on his smoke.

Because we now had a tractor, we decided to take a chance and try the first wheat crop we’d planted in several years. And although we did get a little rain, we weren’t sure it would be enough to support the
crop. It looked as if harvesting the wheat might be a waste of time. Dad let out a long, high-pitched sigh, smiled up at the sky, then put his arm around George’s shoulder.

“George, my boy, if you can help it, any way at all, find something to do with your life besides living off this godawful dusty country. Sit behind a desk and count beans or stand in front of a bunch of hayseed kids and scribble on a chalkboard, but don’t be a rancher.”

George kept his eyes out in the distance, and they narrowed just a little. Then he frowned up at Dad, squinting into the sun. “I want to be a rancher, Grandpa.” His voice broke on “want,” and he immediately dropped his eyes to his boots.

Dad opened his eyes like someone had just brought him a birthday cake, and looked first at George, then at me, then back at George.

“Did you hear that, Blake?” He turned his eyes back to me. “This poor misdirected kid wants to do this for the rest of his life.” He took his arm from around George’s shoulder, shook his head, and rested his hands on his thighs, turned inward so that his elbows stuck out like wings. “What did we do wrong? I never slipped up and told you this was fun, did I?” Dad smiled at George.

George blushed and looked straight down at the ground. He shook his head. “Nah.”

“Well, that’s good.” Then, as if it had just occurred to him, he turned to me. “Blake, you never told him this was fun, did you?”

I snorted. “Not a chance.”

Dad nodded, pinching his lips together.

I could tell that despite the show he was putting on, Dad was damn proud that George wanted to stay on the ranch, and it made me kind of proud myself, even if I didn’t understand it coming from a kid who’d been through what George had.

“I love pain,” George said, deadpan.

For the rest of the afternoon, George and I hefted hay into the bed of the wagon while Dad manned the tractor. When the wagon was full, we pulled the team around to a stack Dad and George had started that morning. There we pitched from the wagon onto the stack, piling the hay higher and higher, until our forks fell short of the heap, when we started another stack on the opposite end of the meadow.

Late that afternoon, I noticed a cloud of dust in the direction of the main road. This wasn’t unusual, except that the cloud lingered for the next couple of hours, moving slowly across the horizon, as if the vehicle causing it was only going about three miles an hour. It moved much slower than a team of horses, or a tractor, even in low gear. I pointed the cloud out to George, and even he was intrigued, glancing from time to time for the rest of the day. There was one explanation for the cloud that frightened me, a flashback from a few years ago. Locusts.

Dad finished raking the meadow around seven, and rather than move on to the next meadow, he came back and helped stack what was left.

“Did you notice that cloud moving along the road, Dad?”

“No, what about it?” He looked toward the road, shielding his eyes from the setting sun.

“It’s been there for a couple hours, creeping along.”

“Really?” Dad reached back into his shirt and scratched his back, pulling a stalk of hay from inside. “Hm.” I saw a hint of fear creep into his eyes. “Well, let’s finish up here,” he said, turning his back to the cloud.

We piled the last of the hay onto the top of the stack about an hour later and flipped our forks into the back of the wagon, stretching our stiff backs before we climbed up, Dad driving, George and I in the bed, and headed home. The sun was just shy of setting, and the heat had let up. I tipped the jug to my lips and savored the wetness, even though the water was almost too hot to swallow. I passed the jug to George, who drank, then replaced the cork before passing it up to Dad.

George shook his head. “Whew, that’s hot,” he exclaimed. “Like drinking from the kettle.” He shuddered.

Back at the barn, we watered and fed the horses before walking back toward the house. I noticed the cloud still floating from the road. It was a mile or so from our house, and I was relieved to see from closer up that it wasn’t dark enough to be a locust cloud. It was obvious from this distance that the opaque formation was nothing more than dust.

“Look.” I pointed.

“Hm,” said Dad, who I could see was also relieved. “You want to drive up and check it out?”

I thought. “Nah. It should get this far before too long. Besides, I’m hungry.”

George looked disappointed.

“You can wait fifteen or twenty minutes, can’t you?”

We went inside and washed up; then the three of us went to the living room and stared out the front window, waiting for the cloud to come up over the last rise. Rita came in from the dining room and stood behind us.

“What are you guys looking at?”

“Well, we’re not too sure,” I said. I pointed to the cloud and told her that we’d been watching it for a few hours.

Teddy ran up to the front door, with Pup right behind him, carrying something in her mouth. Teddy pointed down at her, obviously telling her to stay, then he flew through the front door. Pup dropped her treasure between her paws. It was a gopher.

“What’s going on?” Teddy asked when he saw us staring out the window.

I explained, again pointing out the cloud. And it was only a matter of minutes before Mom’s curiosity was piqued, too. We all stood gazing out the front window until we couldn’t stand it any longer and went out into the front yard and gathered in a bunch, looking in the same direction, as if we were waiting for fireworks to start.