A Day On the Farm
"You really wanna know? Cause I'll tell ya if you really wanna know. You'll be thinkin' I'm crazy before I'm done, but I'll tell ya... ifn' you really wanna know."
The day started like any other, up before dawn, breakfast and fuel for the combine. Outa' the window I saw the sun rise above the horizon, no clouds in the sky,
waves of heat pulsing like slow heart beats above the drying wheat fields.
Already the fields are half bare. The twenty two acres out past the barn were harvested last week before the weather started to change and the 40 acres at the bottom of Rocky Point was finished just yesterday, hell'uv-a-place to plant wheat, what with all them rocks that broke three disc blades and the boulders that we had to plant around, too late to dynamite 'em by the time the rain stopped last spring. The plow got stuck in the muck for a whole day before we got the seeds in. But we did it and reaped a good return on our efforts that first year, thank God.
I remember that piece of land from when I was young. We used to have an old green barn out there where we kept the live stock. Paw said it wasn't much good for nothin' else, said you couldn't grow anything out there. I think he was just scared to. There'd always been rumors 'bout that place. Some folks said that Indians had buried their Chiefs under the big boulders, and prayed to their heathen gods up on the hill that looked over the valley, said that some day they was gonna come back and reclaim this land for themselves, at least that is, that sacred part below the hill.
Every morning around 6 o'clock me and Johnny would run out to that barn to feed the chickens and slop the hogs. He was always faster 'n me so he got to choose whatever he wanted to do. He liked slopping the pigs even though they smelled to high heaven. He liked ride'n on their backs. I'd laugh my head off when they threw him in the mud and he'd have to hide from Paw so he wouldn't know. Paw would wack him good if he found out. I can hear him now, "Boy I'll burn your hide if'n you don't keep off of them pigs. Your gonna break their backs. Your gonna wind up kill'n one of 'em, one of these days." Johnny would always be quick to reply, "But paw we're just gonna eat 'em anyways." Hard to believe I always like them hams so good at Easter after smell'n 'em for so many years.
"I know, I know, I'm git'n to it. Give me a minute. I wanna get it straight. It ain't easy to talk about and you weren't there."
I saw the clouds rollin' in long before I got out to the good fields on the other side of the creek. This was where our best grain was grown. We bought this land the year that Paw passed. I remember the tears Maw cryed when we got it. It'd been a dream Paw had for a long time. He was gonna put a road through it to the main highway so's to cut our drive to town by five miles. I've always felt bad that he never got to see it. I went on watchin' them clouds wonderin' if we might just have us a late fall twister brew'n. They was nasty look'n and it's been nasty hot for this time of year. I pulled the choke on the old combine and it coughed to a stop.
Didn't see any rain fall'n as I neared the creek from the Rocky Point side but it was get'n aweful dark, and the clouds were startin' to swirl and boil way up in the sky. As I watched I swear on my Paws grave that I saw a horse runnin' across the sky. It was like the ones you see when your layin' on your back in the grass on a hot summer day lookin' up at the sky and pickin' out shapes in the clouds,... but it wasn't. It was breathin' and glarin' at me with fiery demon eyes. Then out of the darkness I saw another shape. It was a face, all white with dark puffy round cheeks. It looked like the pictures of Santa Claus we used to take with the kids after the Thanks Givin' day parade downtown. He'd huff and he'd puff and his cheeks would billow out and all-a-sudden he'd let out this big bellow, "Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas," but when the face in the cloud bellowed no sound came out, just ice cold wind. It near 'bout froze me to my seat in that old combine. The windows glazed over with frost and my hand got stuck to the steerin' wheel for a second, pulled some skin off get'n em free. I turned on the headlights and wipers and as the Window cleared I could see ice twinkling like jewels on all of the wheat stalks. Down by the bridge I could see the weeds reflected in a thin layer of ice covering the water.
Then all Hell broke loose. Thunder so loud I couldn't think clear, and lightnin' everywhere striking every rock and boulder. Mist rose up after each hit like ghost risen' out of the grave. I forgot about the cold cause the storm froze me solid. A bolt of lightnin' hit the top of the combine and the thunder shook the cab so bad I hit my head on the back of the seat. For a few minutes I was in a daze but as my head cleared I could see fires all over Rocky Point. I didn't have time to do anything but start the engine of the combine and move it over the bridge to the next field so it wouldn't burn up too. I watched as all the grain left at Rocky Point burned to cinders. Funny thing is all the other fields around that one were OK. Not one never burned. It was like someone drew a line around the place, strangest thing. The weather guy on TV tried to explain it. What'd he call it? Oh, a micro... something, blow, burst, something like that. He didn't explain what I saw, but that don't matter no more. It's over and done. Lost all that good grain, though.
Had some scientist from the college down in Lawton come by and do some lookin'. They kept scratchin' their heads and mumblin', looked kinda befuddled to me. We talked and they said something about the soil ph was wrong and there seemed to be salt all through the dirt, maybe all the way down to the bedrock.
Well, All I know is I'm guessin' nothin'll ever grow in that field again. Can't rightly say for sure though, never plan on findn' out.
11/20
Copyright © James Inman | Year Posted 2015
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