The brown bunny burst from its hiding place in the windrow a few yards ahead of us and dashed toward the woods. Tractor Driver Bash popped out of his seat, turning to watch the rabbit run. Since he still held the steering wheel, the tractor started drifting across the field.
“Hey!” Uncle Rollie yelled.
Tractor Driver Bash whipped around to look at us, cutting the tractor even further into the field. The nearly nine-foot-tall stack of hay bales jostled, opening like an earthquake, then whomped back together. Add the four-foot height of the wagon, and I swayed thirteen dizzying feet off the ground while my nutso cousin played whip-the-wagon.
Bash jerked right and accidentally bumped the gas lever forward at about the same time a wagon wheel thunked into a rut. It didn’t help at all that we were on a bit of slope. The wagon wobbled and shuddered, and another gap opened up between bales.
I threw myself lengthwise across the closest bale, snatching twine with each hand.
“Get me down from here. I mean, keep me up here. Don’t fall, hay. Don’t fall.”
For a second, everything seemed fine. I wasn’t sure if my bale still was sitting atop the rest of the stack or hovering above it.
Bash noticed my dilemma. “I got it.”
He whipped the Allis-Chalmers back in line, but hadn’t yet knocked the throttle back down to slow speed. The wagon thunked back over the rut, and with all the twisting and turning, tilted briefly onto two wheels before slamming back to all fours.
Half the load of hay stayed with the wagon. I was on the half that didn’t.
“Learn to fly, learn to fly, learn to fly!” I warbled from atop my hay bale momentarily suspended thirteen feet in the air. Then I was riding the bale like a surfboard, skimming across a sweet-smelling, dry green wave of hay bales. I hoped my pants didn’t flap off in the wind. Why hadn’t I asked Uncle Rollie to punch more holes in my belt when I first noticed my jeans getting floppier?
As I recall, I yelled, “Cowabunga, dude!” Bash claims it sounded more like, “Mommeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Bang. Bump. Boom. Oof. Pow. I ricocheted around a bit, bouncing off other bales, before hitting the ground with a thud. The breath exploded out of me. I still clutched my bale as it skidded another fifteen feet across the bumpy field like a snow sled at the bottom of a steep hill.
The ride finally stopped. My jeans stayed on—and mostly stayed up. My tight fingers still clutched the bale.
“Raymond!” Uncle Rollie’s voice came from somewhere. “Raymond. Ray. Take a breath, boy.”
Another, more annoying voice, broke in. “Ray-Ray Sunbeam Beamer, that was Awe. Some.”
Slowly I turned. And sucked in air. I was alive. Bash hadn’t killed me. Oh, but I had some ideas for him. If only someone would pry my fingers from this baling twine burned into them and place them around his scrawny little . . .
Bash zipped around my hay bale. “My turn next!”
“Nicholas. Hush.”
When your dad goes straight for your middle name, skipping right past the first, you know it’s serious. Bash stopped yammering.
Uncle Rollie pried at my grip. “Ray, let go of the hay bale. Straighten this finger . . . now that one . . . and the next . . . Let’s stand up . . . Whoa. Easy, feller.”
I wobbled. My stomach lurched. My ears rang with what sounded like a tractor engine.
“The tractor.” Uncle Rollie barely let loose of my elbow as he swung around. “It’s still moving. Didn’t you stop it before jumping off?”
“Oops.”
They both lit out after the tractor as it chugged across the field, the baler sucking up sections of hay as it cut across windrows and bore down on the creek. Another bale of hay plopped off out of the baler and onto the wagon just as the front wheels of the Allis sank into the creek.
---------
That evening, the three of us perched on the edge of the empty wagon, chewing on strands of hay after storing the last of that day’s baling in the haymow. We hadn’t baled as much as Uncle Rollie meant for us to. After he towed the tractor out of the creek, we had to restack the toppled load of hay.
That’s when he told Bash to crank the engine and finish baling, even though he tried to kill me and drown the tractor. Unreal! Now, we watched the sun fade into the far tree line. Uncle Rollie scratched his belly. “So . . . you two rode cows all the way to Clarey’s?”
Please. It’s been two weeks, almost three since that horrible day. Don’t bring it up again! But Bash, of course, was eager. “Yep. Coulda made it all the way back, too, if Ma hadn’t interrupted.”
“Your Uncle Frankenstein, uh, Uncle Frank and I barely made it past the old Tillett place on our way to the corner store before your grandpa caught up to us.”
My Dad? Did what?
Bash’s eyes bulged. “Wow. That’s so cool!”
Uncle Rollie stretched and yawned. A button nearly popped off the belly of his shirt. “Son.”
“Yeah, Pops?”
“Don’t do it again. Ever.”
“Nope.”
“Pretty good gag, though.”
“Yeah!”
We all sat there, chewing the sweetness off the ends of our pieces of hay. Something still bugged me. Sure, the rest of the day had crawled by with no more wild hayrides, no more rabbits, and no more tractor hops. But why did Uncle Rollie risk it? Finally, I exploded: “Why’d you let Bash near a tractor again?”
Uncle Rollie took a swig from the water jug and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “To tell the truth, I wanted to get your Aunt Matilda to drive the tractor and send Bash to the house to babysit his sister.”
“Hey,” Bash yelped.
“But the boy’s got to learn sometime. I figure if God can be as patient a Father as He is with me, I ought to try the same with my own son.”
Why would God waste His time on tractors? Or Bash? He sure didn’t waste much time on me. Uncle Rollie scrunched the top of Bash’s ball cap. “I reckon it wasn’t God’s fault the way I turned out. The Basher here . . . well, I suppose there is something to heredity.”
“Whatcha mean, Pops?”
“The first time your grandpa let me bale, the tractor tried to climb a tree. Gramps about had a conniption fit. Then he put me back on the tractor. I learned how to bale and about a father’s patience for knucklehead sons.”
Bash chewed his tongue. “But I’m not . . . well, maybe sometimes.”
Patience? I’d been too patient. I nearly felt sorry for the Basher today. He ruined that. I’d bean Bash the first chance I got. Patience. Yeah, I’d get him.
Uncle Rollie slid off the wagon. He rubbed his brightening bald spot and looked around. “Has anyone seen my hat?”
Uh-oh.