Tule Fog Dixon, California

I wait for the heat of the Allis Chalmers crawler’s engine to fill the tarped in space where I sit huddled next to levers, gauges and knobs. The crawler seems to float. The tule fog obscures the ground covers everything, all that has grown and all that was lost. Even the old, worn stone headstones behind the main farmhand’s house. But I am not thinking of that. I need to rip the southeast field. I put it in gear and pull the clutch and then the throttle and black smoke belches briefly. I step on the track brakes gently left, then right to get to the headland and then yank the left track clutch to spin into place. The crawler moves ahead and I push the hydraulics to drop the pointed shanks into the ground. I stand now, warm and look behind at the boiling brown soil, shiny, curls releasing and spilling up. I feel the exact right tug of the crawler’s weight as it lumbers and strains. I work on making perfect, straight lines of turned up soil across the field. Mid-morning, the tule fog has vanished. I had not noticed it go. It will return tomorrow the farmer has told me, blanketing everything again, thickly, covering all while I pass over, turning and raising.