CHAPTER 19

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“Virgin soil is broke with a sulky plow,” Silas told me. It’d been a week since Moses found water, and now I could finally turn to figuring out the farming. “It’s heavier than a regular plow, breaks it up better. But you’ll need two horses to pull it. You’re lucky there’re no trees and stumps on the place. Should make it a little easier.”

We were outside the tent listening to Moira chattering with Casey inside. Two plow horses. So far the only animal I owned was Mule.

“Where am I gonna get the money for horses?” I raked dirty fingers through my hair.

“I’ll lend you a plow and my animals if you’ll promise not to work them more than a few hours a day and treat them well.”

“You don’t have to do this, Silas.”

“I know that.” He nodded toward the tent. “But they need you to make a go of this place. Just take my offer.”

I broke my first ten acres – the homestead agreement said ten acres the first year – watching the grass turn into huge lumps of earth, the plow skidding off when it hit hardpan, throwing me damn near off the seat. But I’d bring the horses back and start again, and slowly it was done. Each night I fed Silas’s horses up good, brushed them down ‘til they shone. He trusted me with them. Nobody’d ever trusted me with anything, let alone their workhorses.

Each evening Casey waited at the tent door, excited to see me. Moira would have him fed and ready for bed so I could play with him a little. If I was honest, I’d have to admit I missed caring for him myself. I’d done it ‘cause I had to, but losing it made me sad, a kind of space opened up. I didn’t belong any more, not in that spot where a woman lives in a kid’s life. But it was right she was caring for him, the truth being I was too busy keeping my head above water with the farming. He was better off. Moira was a strange bird, but Casey seemed to like her right from the beginning, so I wasn’t about to complain.

Made me wish for Taffy though. She’d trusted me. I’d fought for her and won. And now spent all my time wondering if she’d have been better off if I’d lost. Here was Moira, alive and making a life. If Taffy’d stayed home, there’d have been shame, but she’d be a mother, maybe a wife. Or – maybe her father would have sent her away and she’d be like Moira, in some crazy place between a home and hell.

Being busy was a relief, saved me thinking too hard about it. After breaking those first acres, the next job was to ribbon the soil into furrows for seeding. I had a little money saved from the honey-wagon pay, and spent it to buy a used furrow plow from two brothers a mile east who looked at me like I’d just walked out of the bush. But no matter. It was the first piece of equipment I’d ever owned. Every time I went by it I had to stop and walk around it, running my hands over the wooden handles like they were thighs on a woman, testing the fine edge of the ploughshare.

In the field I gripped firm and followed behind, watching the blade ripping the clods of earth into tracts of mallow black dirt. It was finally real. Until then I’d just been a kid playing, pretending at being a farmer, the neighbours grinning at each other like there was a joke between them and I was it. But the plow made my chest swell, the fresh smell of dirt mixed with spring air kicking winter from the lungs, throwing out the dank stuff of the old winter shack that had got into my veins, chasing the events of the harvest out of my bones. My own place. My own air.

Silas had let me borrow a horse again, this time a lone furrow horse that knew more about plowing than I did. Nelly walked exactly so as to keep the furrow straight, needing hardly any guidance from me. After three days, it weren’t so exciting as it was boring, and I got to excessive thinking. Silas had warned me. The politics of plowing he called it, too much thinking leading to questions, leading to meetings about marketing, freight rates, elevator organizations. He’d got himself into a grain growers’ association, was getting involved in local politics. I didn’t know what any of it meant and didn’t give a fug either.

Truth was I felt like I was drowning in the little I’d learned and everything I hadn’t yet. A few potatoes at home were one thing, but acres of wheat, well it made my chest tighten up again at the thought. I was doing everything Silas told me, but feeling like a blind man doing it, reaching ahead just far enough to touch the edge so I didn’t fall off some sort of crazy road I’d started down. And I still had to get a house built.

Silas was the only one to help. He seemed to enjoy giving advice, teaching me. The others grunted answers, looking like if they said more they’d be giving away some kind of secret that might just put me ahead of them. I learned to ask without getting excited, to keep the hope out of my voice, asking like their answers didn’t really matter, like I didn’t run home and borrow some of Moira’s paper to write them down so’s I’d remember when the season was right. Some of the men spoke as though I were addled, their wisdom wasted on me, but they still went on, enjoying the audience that usually gathered. They were the real assholes. But it all helped, the tidbits coming together so I began to understand the theory of dryland farming, even if the details were still a little murky.

Moira didn’t appreciate any of it. Walking her around the plow, I’d point out its furrow depth and width, how much I expected to be able to get done in a day. She didn’t seem to care, nodding even when I knew she hadn’t heard a thing, hurrying back to the tent the minute she could escape.

“Yes, that’d be a good idea.” She nodded when I announced it was Red Fife wheat we’d be growing.

“They say it needs a long season, but it’s early yet.”

She was looking right past me, not listening.

“They say it can’t be beat for hardness of kernel and flour strength.” Not really knowing what it all meant, it still felt good to know the right words. “If we can get it planted in the next couple of weeks, we should be okay.”

“That’s good then.”

Following the plow was hot and sweaty, and I was thirsty, lips dry, mouth full of grit. Spitting hard, I was suddenly mad. What the hell did it matter what Moira thought? I didn’t need her blessing. Only it was nice to share things, tell someone about the day, about the decisions running around my head, like saying them out loud would make them good. But to hell with her. I couldn’t make her care. The next day I would go to town and pick up the seed and then begin to sow. My lungs almost hurt from spring air laced with the smell of fresh dirt and horse manure.

All at once I was on the ground with my nose in it, and my head pounding hard where the handle of the plow had knocked it. The furrow horse was looking back at me lying there gasping. She snorted and stomped her foot, impatient with the delay my broken skull was causing.

“Oh shit.” I rolled onto my side.

Silas had warned me to watch out for large rocks heaved up by the frost. “If the plow hits ‘em, it’ll buck like a son-of-a-bitch.” He’d thrown his arms around wildly, his head tilted forward, eyebrows furrowed like my field. I’d laughed. “Don’t laugh, you bugger. I’m warning you. It’ll throw you right off your goddamn feet, or worse.”

Judging by the pain in the side of my head, worse had happened. I got up slow, holding my head to stop the world spinning, and went to unhitch the horse from the plow. The harness dropped off her shoulders and head.

“Go home now.” Slapping her hard on the rear end, I lowered myself to the ground to wait for help.

“Probably a concussion. But if you didn’t lose consciousness, you should be all right.” Moira sounded pretty certain. Nelly had run straight home to Silas’s place and he was there when she rounded the corner. He guessed the rest and found me, brought me home and dumped me on Moira’s tick. My tick. She pressed and prodded, and once she’d cleaned up the cut, poured a little antiseptic on it, making me yelp so loud Silas raised his eyebrows. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“Don’t be a baby now. I’ve seen a man lose a leg and complain less.”

My ears grew hot. “Well it still hurts like hell.”

“I know. Now just hold still.”

She started stitching and I sucked in my breath real hard to keep the tears back.

“Are you sure there’s nothing more?” I held onto my head when she was done. “God, it’s pounding.”

She shone a taper in my face again. “If you cracked your skull or hurt your brain, your pupils would be huge and you’d be vomiting and falling asleep.”

“Oh well, sorry then, Doc.” I glanced at Silas, who was amused at something. “What?”

Silas scratched his head. “It’s just you’d think a guy would be grateful he wasn’t about to die.”

Though the pain was shooting behind my eyes, I laughed and couldn’t stop. “It must have been funnier than hell to see it. One minute I’m daydreaming about what a great farm I’m gonna have.” I swiped my hands over my face. “And the next, wham, I’m in the dirt. Great farmer!”

Silas and Moira started to chuckle.

“Poor Nelly. Couldn’t figure out what happened. Probably thinking...” I lowered my voice, “... ‘What’s the poor bugger doing down there?’”

No one could speak for laughing. Slowly I got up off Moira’s bed and made it to a chair at the table. Casey woke up hollering and Moira went to get him.

“So you learned something from your old man, eh?”

“I guess so.” She looked back at me with raised eyebrows.

“We could use a doctor around here,” Silas said. “Berkowski’s in Ibsen, but he’s so busy he doesn’t get out to the farms much. Sometimes I don’t think he wants to. I know lots of families...” He frowned. “Well, the doc just didn’t get there in time.”

“I don’t know.” Moira shook her head and rubbed her huge belly. But I could tell she was thinking, her voice getting excited. “I’m almost due now. I don’t know how much I can do.”

I couldn’t believe she was actually considering it.

“I’d drive the wagon. You wouldn’t be alone.” Silas was rubbing his hands together, the idea blooming right up there in front of his eyes. Moira had her head cocked to the side, picturing it too. I was looking from one to the other, getting mad.

“Wait just a minute,” I said. “She’s supposed to be helping me, remember.”

“How much help do you need?” said Silas. “As long as Casey’s looked after. You’re a grown man. Fend for yourself.”

Moira gave a short laugh and I glared at her, turned away and then couldn’t help myself. I turned back. “How the hell am I gonna get any farming done if she’s running all over the countryside playing doctor instead of watching Casey?”

They both fixed me with a stunned look.

“Oh don’t worry.” Moira’s voice was bitter. “I won’t be playing. I’ll be right here with you, being the good little dollybird you ordered.” Her look made my balls wither. She stormed outside, Casey looking after her surprised.

Silas was watching me real careful, but he didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking, what the question hanging between us might be. Past the throbbing in my head, I knew he was right. I could manage. But it wasn’t right him coming here and starting things that messed with my life. It wasn’t right. I turned away and heard the tent flap fall closed behind him.

“Shit.”