Harris and Me Read online

  After haying was done all the hay had to be either stacked or pulled up into the loft to be stored for winter use. Knute used the horses to mow the hay and rake it up with a curved-tine dump rake that left it in piles. Then he used the tractor with a kind of big basket on the front to go around picking up the piles to push into the hay stacker. The stacker had another basket on the front that took the smaller piles and threw them up and over the back to make larger stacks.

  The stacker was pulled up and over by either Bob or Bill, and Harris said when he was small he used to ride them while they were working, pulling forward and backing up.

  I thought it might be fun to do but neither horse wanted me close. I guess they thought I had something to do with Harris jumping on them or shooting off their backs.

  But we had work to do anyway. As the hay came up over and down from the stacker we had to use forks to spread it out evenly and then walk around packing it down.

  Initially, on the first day, it was fun jumping and bouncing in the fresh summer hay. But that only lasted for part of the time it took to make the initial stack. Then there was another stack, and another, and soon it was work, hard work in dusty hay on a hot afternoon.

  By the end of that beginning day of stacking hay I was exhausted and could hardly keep my eyes open to eat the last meal of the day.

  On the next day, and the next, the work ground me down to the point where I could close my eyes and see haystacks looking like huge loaves of bread in the fields. And even jumping down from a little platform inside the barn near the roof to pack the hay so we could put more in became work.

  Haying took a week and at the end of it I was numb. But there came a day when the endless hay at last ended, not a wisp of grass to put up, and Harris looked at me standing by the barn and said:

  “Last one in the river sucks sour pig mud...”

  And we were gone, racing for the river at a dead lope, Harris shucking his bibs as he moved, gaining the advantage because that’s all he wore.

  The river ran past the house and barn, and near where it passed the house there was a bend and a small pool where eddies had cut the bank. It was not deep—four feet at the most—but had a sandy bottom and was clear and cold, and we hit the water running. Or Harris did. I had to stop and take my shoes and pants off.

  While I was doing so I heard a thumping sound in back of me. I thought immediately of Bill and Bob and worried that they were coming to join the party but I turned to see Knute coming, pulling off his bibs and unbuttoning his shirt.

  He was a big man, not fat but wide, and when he got his clothes off he looked as white as paper except for his face, which was burned red.

  Harris was already in the water and I was in midair when Knute went over me and almost drained the pool when he landed. Water must have gone twenty feet in the air. He was going so fast he almost skipped across the surface, and as soon as he came up he grabbed Harris by the arm in one hand and me in the other and started slamming and flipping us around like a couple of dead fish.

  Then he threw us to the side and walked out of the pool and dressed, putting his clothes on over his wet body, and walked up to the house without saying a word.

  Harris came up covered with mud, sputtering, and I looked around the pool trying to understand which way was out of the water.

  “Man,” Harris laughed, “ain’t it fun when Pa plays with us?”

  “Plays?”

  “Yeah. He hardly ever does it. I just wish he’d do it more. I think it would settle him some.”

  It felt like most of the bones in my body had turned to cartilage. At no time during the “play” did I ever have any idea of control over my own body and I had never felt strength like I felt in Knute’s hand holding my arm, or the ease with which he flipped us around. His grip was like a vise connected to spring steel.

  “Settle him?” Knute seemed the least nervous person I had ever seen. He just drank coffee and smoked Bull Durham cigarettes.

  “Yeah. It’s his nerves, makes him the way he is. Worry about the farm and all. He used to play with me all the time. Once he threw me clean over the threshing machine. That was a day, I’ll tell you.”

  “I’ll bet...”

  We were lying nude on the bank of the river, the sun cooking us dry. I kept looking up toward the house and covering myself with my hand—we were in plain view—but Harris didn’t seem to care.

  I lay back and watched the clouds for a moment and wondered how it could be that I was living here now and had been living somewhere else before, and why I didn’t seem to remember so much of the other place I had lived, and wondered if I could talk about it with Harris, when he suddenly swore.

  “Damn.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Tick.”

  “Wood tick?” I opened my eyes and sat up. We’d been seeing ticks all summer. It was now about the first of July and they were almost all gone. Clair once said that the ticks were always gone by the Fourth of July. “So what?”

  “Not wood tick. Fever tick.”

  I scanned the ground around me carefully. “They’ll give us a fever?”

  “Not us, the cattle. It means we’ll have to dip the cows. Man, I hate to dip cattle.”

  “Dip the cows?” I had no idea—as usual—what he meant. “How do you dip cows?”

  But he ignored me and instead slipped into his bibs and headed for the house. “Come on, we got to tell Pa about the tick.”

  At first it didn’t seem that dipping the cattle would be such a difficult thing. There was a large pen in back of the barn with a gate that was usually left open. Feed was put in a trough and it brought the cattle into the pen. The cows came readily enough but there was a bull, a large, flat-sided, black-and-white Holstein that kept pushing at the fence, throwing dirt up over his shoulders and blowing snot.

  “He looks mean,” I said to Harris. “The bull.”

  “Naww. He’s just nervous. We’ve kept him apart until now and he knows it’s time to be with the cows. He don’t like nothing to mess his breeding up. And he don’t like to dip. None of ’em do.”

  With all the cattle in the pen and the gate closed, a chute was rigged up with board panels and a ramp that led up to the top of a long sheet-metal tank over four feet deep. Inside the tank another ramp was laid that led out of the tank. It had wooden crosspieces so the cows could get footing to climb out to yet another ramp that led down to the ground and out into the pasture.

  The idea was simple. The cattle were to be pushed out of the pen into the chute, forced to jump into the tank, and then prodded up the ramp to freedom.

  “What goes in the tank?” I asked.

  “Creosote,” Harris said, spitting. “Stuff makes blisters come on your skin so’s it looks like you’ve got a sickness. Try to stay clear of it.”

  I made a mental promise not to get anywhere near the tank—completely forgetting the concept of fluid displacement and just exactly what happens when a half-ton animal jumps into a tank of liquid.

  While we spoke Knute and Louie backed the old truck up to the tank and tipped fifty-five-gallon drums of evil-smelling liquid off the bed so they would run into the tank until it was nearly three-quarters full. Clair and Glennis had come from the house to help but stayed well away from the dip area.

  Then Knute stood by the tank and looked at Harris and nodded. “Let ’em go.”

  Harris opened the gate leading from the pen into the chute and stood back as if expecting the cattle to just run and jump in themselves.

  Nothing happened.

  “Aww heck.” Harris climbed into the pen, motioning for me to follow, and—staying well clear of Vivian’s back end—we shooed and pushed on the cows until one of them started into the chute.

  As soon as the first cow was close to the tank itself Louie reached across and grabbed her tail and twisted it over, hard, and the cow made a jump forward that carried her over the center of the dip tank.

  She hit with a splash like depth charge
s going off. Creosote dip flew ten feet in the air and came down on all of us, and I immediately felt a burning sensation where it hit bare skin.

  There was no time to worry about the creosote because while we were getting the first cow going Clair and Glennis yelled from the outside of the pen and got the rest moving to follow the first one.

  It was fast work for ten or fifteen minutes. Cow after cow jumped in the tank, nudged by Louie’s tail-twisting trick, and Knute pulled a mop out of the back of the truck and mopped creosote over the top of each cow as it hit the tank.

  Finally there was only one left—the bull. He followed meekly enough, was almost in the position where Louie would grab his tail when he hesitated.

  I was standing off to the side in the pen, halfway through the wire to climb out. I happened to be looking at Knute and when the bull stopped, seemed to wait just half a second, Knute dropped the mop and started to move.

  I thought I had never seen a person move so fast but the bull was faster. He wheeled around, turning on himself inside the chute, and headed back out with a low bellow that made the ground shake.

  And there was Harris.

  He had been bringing up the rear, pushing the rest of the cows into the chute, and had actually come a slight way into the chute himself. He might have had time to do something, climb out of the chute, run. But he was looking down to step forward over the fresh cow manure that filled the chute and the bull was so fast, faster than even Knute, that Harris didn’t have a chance.

  The bull hit him like a train, driving him back into the pen and down. It was all so powerful and sudden that I didn’t have time to yell, to do anything but stand with my mouth open.

  Knute was over the fence and on the bull in not more than a second. I saw it, saw it all as if it were in slow motion, but I still didn’t believe it.

  He grabbed for Harris, snatched him somehow from beneath the bull’s head, pulled him out and up and threw him over the fence toward Clair and Glennis, where he landed like rags.

  Then Knute hit the bull. I’m not sure where, somewhere on the head or nose. He raised his right hand and brought his left up and clasped the two hands together in one fist and brought them down on the bull, brought them down like a mountain falling, hit him with a sound like an ax chopping a watermelon.

  And the bull went down—bellowed and goobered snot and spit and dropped on his front knees—and Knute stood with his left arm hanging at his side, bent funny just above the wrist.

  He took two steps past the bull to the fence near Clair and Glennis and threw a leg over the wire.

  “Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know.” Clair was rubbing Harris’s chest, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “That damn bull. I told you to get rid of that thing...”

  Harris looked dead. I had seen dead people and Harris looked dead to me and I still hadn’t moved, still stood in the pen by the fence, and I wasn’t sure if I was shocked by what the bull did to Harris or from hearing Clair swear.

  But it was Glennis who surprised me. She stood looking down at Harris for a moment, her hand halfway to her mouth, then she fell forward onto her knees across from Clair and held Harris’s head and made quiet crying sounds and spoke to him.

  “You come back, Harris. You come back now. We don’t want you gone. You come right back and I’ll never whup you again so help me God...”

  Whether it was Clair rubbing his chest or Glennis holding him or just that he couldn’t be killed—which I thought—Harris’s legs moved and he raised his arms and his eyes opened and he looked up at Glennis.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Her hand came up but true to her word she didn’t smack him and in fact her vow lasted a whole day, until late the next afternoon when Harris tripped on the edge of the porch and ripped a strip of blue words that almost peeled paint.

  As soon as he was all right Clair left him with Glennis and turned to Knute.

  “Your arm,” she said. “You hit him too hard.”

  Knute nodded. “I wasn’t thinking. The thing broke—worst time of the year for it.” He turned and looked at the bull, which was still down on the front end and making spittle sounds. “I hope I didn’t kill him. He’s a good bull.”

  Clair turned to Louie. I had never seen her say anything about work to anybody except for when she talked to the cows when we were milking, but she had a hard part in her voice now that made it clear things would happen just as she said.

  “Find me some boards and cord to make a splint. Right away. Then you start the truck. We’ve got to fetch Knute to the doctor in Pinewood to straighten his arm. I’ll be driving. You stay here and get chores done and we’ll be back tonight.” She turned to me. “You’re going to have to help Glennis until Harris can work...”

  I nodded. The look on Harris’s face—which I suspected wasn’t real—indicated that he probably wouldn’t be able to work for a while.

  Louie came with some pieces of lath, which he broke in two-foot lengths, and he and Clair made a splint around the break and tied it with cord. Knute stood quietly all the while, watching them with interest but no sign of pain or discomfort, and I truly think he was more concerned about the bull than he was about his arm.

  As soon as the splint was on, Louie started the truck, Knute got in one side and Clair the other, and they drove off, the four of us watching them leave.

  We were not to see them for two days and I thought by the end of the first day I would die.

  When Clair said help Glennis I had no idea how much work it would involve.

  Glennis and Louie milked and I had to run back and forth with the full buckets, pour them into the separator, turn the separator, and then when milking was done, clean the barn with a shovel that slid down the gutters to scoop them out.

  Then I’d cool all the milk and cream, feed the chickens, move the cows back out of the barn into the pasture, then up to the house to peel potatoes for Glennis to cook, and wash separator parts while she was cooking, and finally sit at the table in the light from the Coleman, trying to stay awake until Louie was done feeding so I could get some.

  And all the while Harris was near me, holding his ribs and stomach, wincing dramatically, instructing me.

  “This way, scoop the stuff this way” and “You’ve got to spread the chicken feed out, you dope, or they don’t all get some.”

  By dark I couldn’t see and pretty much wished Harris had been killed by the bull, which had gotten up just after Clair and Knute left and seemed none the worse for wear.

  On the second day it was harder. We just went at it all day, one job feeding into the next without a break until dark, and Harris still didn’t help, which by this time had me furious.

  We were in bed. Or rather Harris was in bed and I was about to fall on mine and go into a work-induced coma.

  Harris moaned. “I think my ribs are broken.”

  I said nothing, lay with my eyes closed.

  “That bull hit me hard.”

  Nothing. For a long time, silence. I was in agony, my muscles on fire. Every bone in my body ached.

  “In fact I’m thinking I might not be able to do anything for a week or so, what with rib breaks and all...”

  “Harris,” I interrupted.

  “What?”

  “If you don’t help tomorrow, I’m going to kill you.” I was surprised to find that I meant it. Completely. And it must have shown in my voice because after a long pause Harris sighed.

  “It must have been the way I was lying. I turned a little and the pain is gone.”

  “Good.”

  10

  In which I discover love only to have

  my heart broken and in revenge

  I fry Harris’s business

  I didn’t know I was in love until it was all over and it was too late to do anything about it.

  Knute came home with a plaster cast on his lower left arm and everything went back to normal. He worked as hard as ever and the only change seemed to be that
he held his morning coffee with one hand instead of two.

  Love started at the Saturday night dance. Somebody else had burned out or was sick or had run out of money or something—it was never exactly clear to me what had happened, and there was always something happening that required Saturday night dances—and we went to town as we usually did.

  I had done this several times now and knew what to expect. I still didn’t fit in very well, didn’t know any of the other kids, so as soon as I got inside the beer hall, while Harris was fighting—and he fought every single time we went to the Saturday night dance—I got an orange pop and sat at a table in the corner until the movie started.

  Usually nobody bothered me. When Harris was done fighting he would come inside and get a pop and sit with me and then we’d go in and watch Gene ride and shoot. Or Harris would—he never tired of Gene riding and shooting. I soon grew bored with it all and on this particular night I was leaning back a bit on my beer crate not looking at the screen but at the faces of the other kids in the room.

  There were fourteen or fifteen of them, ranging in age from six to thirteen or so. As soon as hard puberty hit they would be out dancing or in the front of the saloon necking, and the cutoff seemed to be twelve or thirteen.

  I couldn’t believe they never got sick of the movie and I was watching them watch when I felt somebody doing the same thing to me and turned to see the most beautiful girl in the world looking right at me.

  She had wide blue eyes and blond hair in braids that hung down her back, and she smiled and didn’t look away when I looked at her and I thought I would die.

  It was that sudden. I had seen movies where they talked about love at first sight, movies my mother made me sit through, and I was certain that’s what was happening here.

  I turned away, could feel myself blushing savagely, and wished I could just crawl away. I decided in fact to do just that and made my way to the door and out into the dance room where the music was whanging and whooshing away.

  It was probably all a mistake. She hadn’t really been looking at me, I thought, and took an orange pop and went to my little corner table to watch the dancers.