Immediately he wanted nothing to do with them—any of them.
Lyle Hogue gave him the job of driving the tractor, pulling the baler and a hay wagon. Bonesy and Jack came with him to grab the bales as they issued from the chute, and they rode in the wagon down the lane to the field. The motor roared in July’s ears.
It was a mild, calm morning. Clouds like moored ships wandered to the left and right, tethered to long ropes in the sky. A pale, pale silver moon four days from nothing hung suspended from a nylon fishing line bank-fastened to the flashing river of heaven. Here and there, diamonds of moisture twinkled underneath the leaves. The heads of the long, thin millet grasses along the fence rows, in the pastures and bunched sparingly in with the clover were red with seeds and, like old men with drooping beards, nodded and bowed to the gentle push from the ground breeze—spirits moving along the ghost trails. The color of the sky itself was blue, blue-air blue. The horizon was adorned with trees, toadstool miniatures that puffed out in animal-shaped balloons at the top. Redwing blackbirds landed on fencepoles both feet first, their black-cloaked wings and tails fanning out in a gesture of a magician flourishing his cape and singing their rolling chirp, a single wavering note played endlessly, the red and greenish blue on their shoulder like a club badge. Wrens, the witch birds, chattered from the thickets. Rabbits scurried out of their way, and pheasants in their oriental plumage haughtily viewed them from afar. July drove, caring for nothing.
The field they worked in was the lower half of an eighty-acre section, the other half planted in winter wheat. The highest place in the hayfield was right in the middle, and from there July could see a house nearly three quarters of a mile away, standing by itself at the end of a short lane. Two small bushes grew in front. He drove in slow circles, feeding the cut hay into the baler, which chewed it and spat it back out in oblong cubes, tied with coarse unbraided hemp, into the hands of Bonesy and Jack, who stacked it up.
Each time July went over the middle he would look toward the house. It held his attention. He saw someone come out of it carrying a loaded basket, set it down and begin hanging laundry from an invisible wire. Shirts and pants, towels, underwear and socks dangled like pleasant memories against the green background. This sight was soothing and each time one of hisround sweeps of the field would reach the several-acre mound in the middle, he would be straining his eyes to see it lift into view in the distance, and each time more laundry would be drying. Finally, two long lines of it hung there, and the picture it gave him was like having a friend. He lived in it when he couldn’t see it and talked to the woman about clothespins, drying time and the little drama of her life.
Then the woman went back into the house and there was only the laundry; and abandoned to him, the pleasant memories turned sour and hung like the truth. He became more and more depressed. Another tractor came out to take away the full wagon and leave him an empty one. He stopped when he could see the house, and Bonesy and Jack climbed down to pull the pin. It was wedged tight and they called to him to back up a little to take the pressure off.
But at that time someone else came out of the little house and stood against the white side, holding something, then walked forward to the clothesline and sat in the grass. All July could see was her long brown hair.
“Hey, back up, July,” said Jack. But he paid them no attention, as if in a trance. They looked at each other and wondered what to do. Bonesy began to climb up on the back of the tractor, but all of a sudden July slammed it into gear and lurched forward, throwing Bonesy off and nearly running over him with the hay baler. “Hey!” they both yelled accusingly. July shifted into a higher gear and pulled the throttle open all the way, heading for the small white house in the distance. Jack and Bonesy ran behind him for a way, bales bouncing off the wagon and the baler banging and clanking in the ruts. He was going too fast to catch. But they continued running, thinking that they’d repossess the tractor when he stopped at the fence. But the fence didn’t stop him. He went through it as if it were made of crepe paper and began tearing through the standing corn, ripping out a strip as wide as the wagon. The next fence didn’t stop him either and he broke off the wooden posts like popsicle sticks. Then there wasa small creek, and he went over that as well, leaving the wagon in it, the tongue dangling behind him. A wheel fell off the baler and he half pulled and half dragged it through the last remaining field before the house.
Betsy Hammond, three years old, sat in the yard holding her doll and saw the tractor coming. She remained sitting as it came closer, right up to the yard and halfway into it. Then she stood up and backed toward the house. The young man climbed from the smoking machine and stood next to the far clothesline pole, staring at her. He didn’t talk, smile or make a gesture of any kind, just continued to stare at
