Sweet Land Read online

  “Hail can’t hurt you now—” Helmer called as Kenny drove through the gate.

  Kenny held up his hand in a victory salute. “Nothing can hurt me now!” he cried. Over the noise of the swather’s engine he could not hear his grandfather’s reply.

  Saturday, he finished cutting. Sunday dawned clear, but cool. Tuesday came sunny and eighty degrees which cured the top several inches of the windrows until Kenny could chafe the flax between his palms and watch the shiny brown seeds drop into his lap. Now at $26.50 a bushel, he wondered what each seed was worth.

  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were the days that grainmen, and Kenny, dreamed of: clear and ninety degrees with a hot, dry wind from the southwest. The windrows baked in the yellow oven of the field and shimmered away their moisture. Kenny lined up a parade of grain wagons, trucks, and the auger.

  Friday morning at 11:00, two hours later than he had agreed, Jim Hanson came rumbling up the road in his green combine. Kenny ran to meet him. Hanson swung down from the cab. He wore several days of dark beard and a pair of oil-spotted coveralls. He farmed a lot of land, had a lot of machinery, and Kenny often saw his truck at the John Deere dealership in Detroit Lakes. Hanson strode up to the first windrow of flax, hefted an armful, then drew its underside across his nose. He bit into a handful of stems, then looked at the sky.

  “Two o’clock,” he said. “It won’t go until two.”

  Helmer, who had come up by the combine, nodded in agreement. Hanson climbed back into the cab, shut the door, and slumped backward in immediate sleep. Helmer stepped closer to the combine. He looked closely at the tires, the grease fittings. He stared at the pickup reel, then reached out for one of the spring teeth that rattled to his touch. From his pocket he produced a small pliers and tightened the nut. Hanson did not wake up.

  While Hanson slept, Kenny waited and listened to the weather report. It was raining in Omaha, Idaho Falls, Bozeman, and Kalispell.

  At 2:30, Hanson sat up, and the combine’s engine coughed alive. He slowly brought up the RPMs until the combine shuddered, engaged the pickup reel, lowered the great mouth into the first windrow, and headed downfield. Like a great green beetle, the combine swallowed the flax and spit out a spray of straw behind. Kenny ran alongside. Oblivious to the roar in his ears and the grit in his nose and mouth, he watched on the plexiglass window of the grain hopper the rising brown tide of seed.

  Suddenly, as if from the earth beneath, there was a massive thud and then a clanking sound. The combine shuddered to a stop. Hanson leaped down from the cab, threw his cap on the ground, and began to jump on it.

  Kenny drove Hanson home. Hanson stared straight ahead with his jaw clenched. Repairs would take three days. Kenny wondered what a new gearbox cost, but did not ask; rather, he was trying to think of other farmers and their combines.

  “Fucking flax,” Hanson muttered. “Windrows that big, you need that big custom equipment from the Dakotas.” Hanson scratched the beard on his throat. “There’s a small crew I know that should be around Fargo right now, headed for South Dakota. Flaherty, an Irishman, that’s the owner. Maybe he’d detour this way and pick up your flax. He’s expensive, though . . .”

  “I can pay,” Kenny answered quickly.

  At six o’clock that evening, with nearly two hundred dusty, new miles behind him, Kenny located Flaherty’s crew. Ten miles south of Fargo, the four combines were running a staggered front against the last half of a long wheat field. Kenny’s heart billowed with excitement and hope as he closed in on the rumbling, gray Allis-Chalmers gleaners, each of which seemed twice as large as Hanson’s John Deere. He drove up to the motor home parked by the fieldside, where a man, hatless, with coppery hair and binoculars to his eyes stood at the fence watching the gleaners. Kenny’s heart thumped in his ears; he approached the man and introduced himself.

  “Flax, huh?” Flaherty said, again lifting his binoculars to the wheat field. “Don’t see much flax around here. But I dunno, a hundred acres isn’t much for a day’s detour. We’re supposed to be down in Sioux Falls tomorrow.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” Kenny said.

  Flaherty lowered his glasses. A slow grin came into the sunburned creases around his mouth. “Oh, you will, will you?”

  Kenny nodded. He realized that Flaherty was about the same age as his father.

  “This must be quite a field of flax, then.”

  “Sixty bushel,” Kenny said.

  Flaherty laughed. He raised his binoculars again. “I’ve been shakin’ grain for twenty years, and I’ve never seen flax run even fifty.”

  Kenny suddenly remembered the newspaper article which he had stashed deep in the glovebox of the pickup. He retrieved it and handed it to Flaherty, who fished reading glasses from his pocket and blew away their dust before he read. “Well, hell,” he finally said, “I’ve never yet seen a newspaper could figure bushels. But the pictures look good, yes they do. And you’re this gambler fellow they’re writin’ about?”

  “Yessir,” Kenny grinned.

  “And you want to gamble on Flaherty?”

  “Yessir,” Kenny said.

  By three o’clock Saturday afternoon, Kenny began to think he had gambled wrong. Flaherty’s combines had not arrived. He wondered if Flaherty had trouble, gotten lost, or lied to him. Kenny’s grandfather sat at his kitchen table so he could see down the road to the west.

  “He’ll come,” Helmer said. “If the man said he would come, he’ll come.”

  But the combines did not come Saturday, nor Sunday morning by the time Helmer had driven slowly off to church. Kenny paced the living room. He listened to the 10:00 AM weather. Rain in Billings and Valley City. He cursed but in the same moment heard trucks. Flaherty’s combines, like a caravan of circus elephants, appeared out of a dust cloud from the west. Kenny raced outside to meet them. Flaherty stepped down from the motor home. His eyes were as red as his new beard shadow, and his hands were stained dark with oil.

  “On the last forty acres, whatever could go wrong, went,” he said, looking over the flax field at the same time. Without waiting for a reply, he walked quickly into the flax. He ran one arm underneath a windrow, the other arm over the top, and hefted the grain.

  “Be damned,” he said, a grin coming over his face. “I’m in the wrong business. Ought to be growing this stuff instead of shakin’ it. Unload those ornery critters,” he called to his men, “we’ve got a real field here.”

  Kenny started to speak, but Flaherty turned away to direct his men. He looked back at his grandfather’s house. The two porch windows were eyes, the door a mouth. He called to Flaherty again, but at the same moment a combine roared alive, and his voice was lost. The crew released the combines from their tether-chains, then lowered the ramps. The combines slowly crept toward the ground, then formed a convoy pointed toward the field. As the last combine touched the ground, Kenny saw his grandfather’s truck pull into the yard and then come toward the field. In his dark suit, Helmer walked slowly to Kenny and the combines. For long moments, Kenny met his grandfather’s eyes. Then he ran in front of Flaherty’s combine and blocked the way.

  “We can’t do it,” Kenny shouted.

  Flaherty leaped to the ground. “What the hell you talking about?” he said. “I’m telling you, the grain is ready.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Kenny said.

  “So what the hell is it then?”

  “It’s Sunday,” Kenny said slowly. “This is my grandfather’s land, and he doesn’t farm on Sunday.” The other drivers climbed down and stood behind Flaherty, who turned his gaze to Helmer.

  “Sunday?” Flaherty said. “Old man, are you nuts?” The other drivers laughed. “You’ve got a field of flax like this one, with rain no more than a day away, and you’re worried about Sunday?”

  Helmer met the men’s gaze in silence.

>   Flaherty looked away and ran his hands through his hair. “Goddamn but I’ve never run into this before.” He turned to Kenny, pulled him aside. “Look,” he said, “Sunday don’t matter to us, it sure don’t matter to the flax, and it probably don’t matter to you. So why not take your granddad back to the house and fix him a cup of coffee or something? We’ll take care of the flax and be on our way. And in a few days he’ll forget all about it.”

  But Kenny could only shake his head. “I gave my word,” he said.

  Flaherty’s red-rimmed eyes flared wider. “Look, you hired me. I’m here. If you want me to wait, I’ll wait. It’s not my flax. But every hour we sit here will cost you the same as if we were rolling.”

  “I’ll pay,” Kenny said.

  “Bunch of fruitcakes,” one of the drivers muttered.

  “—get some shut-eye, anyway,” another said as they turned away.

  Flaherty strode into the motor home, slammed the door, and then there was silence in the field.

  That night Kenny lay in his bed upstairs, his eyes open, listening, waiting. The sound that he knew would come fell like a whisper on the shingles, at first so faint that Kenny mistook it for the rush of his own blood in his ear against the pillow. A steady patter. Then a drumming. Rain. Kenny rose from his bed and went to the window. In the yard, under the white glow of the mercury yardlight, the combines shone wetly like great blocks of ice.

  The rain continued Monday and Tuesday.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” Flaherty said on Wednesday. He was clean shaven now, his face puffy from sleep. “You’re not on our regular route. And we’ve got to be in South Dakota. Maybe somebody else . . .”

  Kenny nodded. He felt older, harder, like some part of him had turned to wood or stone. “How much do I owe you?” was all he said.

  “Just for Sunday,” Flaherty replied.

  Kenny wrote the check. Flaherty looked at it, then across to the flax, and finally to Helmer’s house. He suddenly cursed. In one motion he crumpled the check, flung it down, and ground it into the mud with his boot. Then he turned away and waved his convoy down the road.

  Thursday the skies cleared, but only for the afternoon. Friday and Saturday the rain came again. The windrows of flax rusted brown, and from their wet weight began to crush their supporting stubble until they lay shrunken and flat on the cold, soaked earth. The rains and mist continued for the next two weeks.

  “It’s going to clear up,” Helmer would say every day. “There’s still time.”

  But Kenny had no words for him, or for anyone. He continued to visit his grandfather in the evenings; they read in silence. He was glad his grandfather spoke no more or less than usual. But often in the early mornings, on his way to the french-fry plant, Kenny saw his grandfather walking along the windrows of flax, poking at them with a fork, stooping to heft their weight. Once at sundown the sky cleared briefly. The orange light slanted harshly across the now-sprouting windrows, and Kenny saw his grandfather standing motionless, far out among the pale green rivers of fire.

  September, however, brought Indian summer. The sky cleared, and the sun shone hotly for a week. The flax rows dried on top. If the windrows could be turned to dry their undersides—a hayrake might work—there was still a chance for a partial harvest.

  Kenny quit welding again and readied the rake. On a Wednesday, along with four neighbors who had shown up uninvited with their own tractors and rakes, Kenny began to turn the flax.

  Still sodden underneath, and heavier than any hay, the flax wound and webbed itself around the reel of the rake. Every few yards it had to be cut away with butcher knives. The rakes’ drive belts began to slip, then smoke with the smell of burning rubber. One by one the neighbors’ tractors turned away from the windrows. Kenny continued. The drive chains began to chatter and slip and grind away gear teeth. On the steering wheel, his left hand felt wet inside his glove. He saw that he had sliced through the leather with the butcher knife. Suddenly the main chain parted and flopped. Then, at last, he too pulled away from the flax.

  He drove toward Helmer and the other farmers by the gate. Helmer waved with his fork.

  “Go back—keep going!” he called to Kenny. He waved for the neighbors to turn around, but they looked away.

  Kenny got down and walked to Helmer. “It won’t turn,” he said.

  But his grandfather shook his head. “It’s got to be turned. When it’s turned, then we can get that red-haired man to come back. With his combines he can—”

  “No!” Kenny suddenly shouted. He grabbed his grandfather by the shoulders and shook him violently. “It’s finished, over, over, over, over, can’t you see that?”

  But his grandfather would not look him in the face. His eyes were welded to the windrows of flax. Kenny left his grandfather there in the field. He could think only of going to bed, of retreating deep into his quilts. He did not want to speak or even think of anything for a long time.

  Kenny awoke, sometime after dark, uncertain of the time. Moonlight shone in his window, and he stumbled toward it to look outside. He thought of Flaherty’s combines, wet in the white light. But as he knew it would be, the yard was empty. The only visible movement was some animal far out in his field of flax. Suddenly Kenny cried out as he realized the figure in the field was his grandfather, on his hands and knees.

  He raced down the stairs, shouting to wake his parents, and ran barefoot across the yard into the flax.

  “Grandpa—” he called, nearing him.

  Helmer turned his face to look. A black course of blood ran from his nose across his cheek. Beside him lay his fork.

  “Few more hours, maybe,” his grandfather breathed, “have it turned . . . get that red-haired man back . . .”

  “No—” Kenny cried. He grabbed away the fork, seeing for the first time that his grandfather had turned by hand nearly a quarter mile of one windrow.

  “Yes, must turn . . . ,” Helmer breathed. He struggled to his feet and caught the wooden handle. “Let me finish. Please. Want to finish this tonight.” He pulled against Kenny. Suddenly Kenny was holding his grandfather, feeling his woolen shirt wet with sweat and his old heart shuddering inside his chest.

  “You’re a good boy, Kenny,” Helmer whispered, and kissed him like he used to do when Kenny was small. Kenny tasted his grandfather’s blood. But then Helmer slowly pushed him away.

  “Stop him—” Kenny’s mother cried from behind.

  Kenny’s father stepped forward, but stopped at Kenny’s command.

  They watched. Helmer, one forearm clutched across his chest as if to hold his heart, again drove his fork into the grain. Staggering against the moonlight, he slowly worked his way downfield into the dark.

  Sheetrock

  What first attracted me to This Old House was the sound of a saw, or “soar” as Norm Abram says it, which always reminds me of President Kennedy, the way he talked, the long scarves he wore, the way the wind puffed at his hair. I was doing dishes when I heard an electric, hand-held, 7¼-inch blade, circular saw, the kind every carpenter uses. I cocked my head, leaned forward to look through my kitchen window. Up and down the street. Nothing. No one sawing. Just houses, all prefabs like this one, that peter out where the hills begin, and a couple of oil rigs sit like black teeter-totters on an empty playground.

  My subdivision sits at the west edge of Minot, North Dakota. No construction has ever gone on here. These houses came on trucks. You’ve seen them on the freeway, half a house on one lowboy trailer, the second half on another trailer behind. The factory staples a big sheet of white plastic over the open middle of each side to keep out road dust and birds, but wind usually tears away the plastic and you can drive alongside and look right into the living rooms, the bedroom. Jim, that’s my husband, says hitchhikers are attracted to prefabs. If the plastic doesn’t tear by itself they’ll cut the
sheet, just one razor slit, to get inside and ride. Some prefabs include furniture, like a couch, a kitchen table, a TV-stereo combination, a queen-sized bed. The factory staples the furniture to the floor where they think most people would like it (later, if you want, you can move it) and Jim once saw a bum riding along at sixty miles an hour stretched out sound asleep on the davenport, his hair flapping in the wind. Anyway, when the two sides of a prefab arrive at the job site they’re slid onto a concrete slab, then power-nailed together whacka-whacka-whacka. Houses like this one, there’s nothing to saw.

  Still, in my kitchen I kept hearing that faraway whine of a circular saw. I let my hands go quiet in the dishwater. Listened. The sound was like the flip side of a siren. When an ambulance or a fire truck wails by you can bet somebody’s dead or hurt, their house is burning, their luck’s gone bad. When you hear a carpenter’s saw—hear that high, steady calling—you know somebody’s life is on the ups.

  Which made me look around my own kitchen. The dark, wood-grain paneling. The bowed, plastic strips of floor molding. The muddy white linoleum split here and there, cuts never stitched, from dropped kitchen knives. The cupboard doors with vinyl peeling at the corners like spiked hair. I didn’t grow up in a house like this one. Our house was nothing fancy but it was all wood and it didn’t come on no trailer.

  I grew up in Golden Valley, which is now a part of Minneapolis, on a street with two rows of identical one-story houses all built by Mr. Jenkins. He started with one house, sold that and built another. As soon as the subflooring was down and the plumbing installed he moved his family in. His kids coughed a lot from sheetrock dust, but my father said sheetrock was just chalk and paper, the same they use in school. Every night of the summer Mr. Jenkins’s saw was the last thing I heard before I drifted off to sleep. Once my mother complained about the sawing. “That’s the sound of progress,” my father said, and rattled his newspaper. It was the 1950s then.