• Chapter 6 •

Mac feels that he’s done a good deed, and when Lee comes over the following afternoon he senses that he’s about due to be called upon for another. But his son doesn’t come right out and ask. Instead he tries to get a rise out of him.

“Darlene tells me you’ve been out running errands for your new neighbours.”

“You might want to try it,” Mac says as he pulls on the handle of his La-Z-Boy so he can sit upright.

“Anyway,” Lee says, “Darlene was wondering if you’d care to come out tonight for Garth’s birthday supper.”

“How old?”

“He’ll be twenty-five tomorrow. And speaking of tomorrow, have you got anything planned?”

“Nothing special.”

“I was wondering if you can work down the Narrow-leaved Hawk’s Beard on the Benson half? I’ve got to get at the lentils up home. Turn the swaths to dry them out. If I don’t, the lentils will mould. Never thought I’d see the day we’d have too much rain.”

“You want me to run your new outfit?”

“I started this morning. Made two rounds, then hit a rock and busted the frame on the cultivator. Had to bring it home to weld. When you come out later this afternoon I’ll show you the controls. They’re a bit complicated, but I’ll write out the instructions for you.”

When Mac got married, with his father’s help, he bought the Harrington farm where Lee and Darlene now live. Tall elms line each side of the lane all the way up to the barn. And what a barn! One thing the Englishmen did was build barns. This one still stands up straight and tall as the day it was built.

It seems that old Harrington must have designed the yard to suit the barn. The tree-lined lane leads to a ramp right up to the broad doors, at one time the entry for a team of horses to pull a hayrack into the loft.

Three vents on the hip roof rise like steeples on a church, each one topped with a black horse weather vane. Proud, is what you’d call this barn, from a proud time. Proud, like Mac’s first tractor, his John Deere D, stored in one of the empty stalls. He restored it himself, and he takes it out every fall to drive in the Duncan Harvest Fair parade. These old tractors are more like icons now, things to be polished up and worshipped.

Mac has made sure to arrive early enough for his lesson on operating the 9420 John Deere. Lee’s at the fuel tanks, loading the tractor up with two hundred gallons of diesel. Mac’s old D takes thirty.

“I’ll finish this,” Lee says. “Then I’ll have you drive it over to the shed to hook on to the cultivator. See how you make out. Just climbing up into the cab might be chore enough for you.”

“You want me to work that field tomorrow or not?” Mac says, grinning. He’s used to his son’s Irish wit, inherited from his mother. He’s got the height and lean features of his mother too. Peggy used to dress like a cowboy movie queen, like Dale Evans. And here’s Lee: cowboy boots, blue jeans, silver buckle as big and round as a saucer, plaid shirt, handkerchief around his neck, black hat on his balding head. Not even fifty, and he’s got much less hair than his father. Less hair and more stress, when you have to pay a quarter of a million dollars for a tractor.

Just as Lee hangs up the storage tank hose, a semi drives up the lane with its air horn blasting.

“Looks like Garth’s made it home,” Lee says.

He’s the real cowboy, and he drives his truck as if he’s mounted on a quarter-horse stallion.

“Hi there, Gramps!” he says, bounding out of the truck and waving his hat.

“We’ll hook on later,” Lee says. “Let’s go up to the house and clean up for supper.”

Darlene keeps a spotless house, much as Peggy did. She meets them outside at the porch steps.

“Boots off!”

Just like Peggy, Mac’s Irish washerwoman. Darlene is forever offering to come in to clean his house and wash his clothes, as if Peggy left her with those instructions. Maybe she did. In her white denim jeans and red silk shirt, the mother’s dressed for her son’s birthday. She doesn’t miss a trick, right down to the silver buckle at her waist.

Garth automatically sets his boots on the boot rack, and hangs his hat beside his dad’s, on the antlers of the deer head mounted above the kitchen entry. Unlike his father, Garth has a full head of coal-black hair, and a hang-down moustache that he must be fertilizing to make it grow. A lump of chewing tobacco shows in his cheek.

“What’s for supper, Mom?”

“Go wash your hands, and get rid of that wad in your mouth.”

“After supper Dad’s driving the outfit to the Benson land,” Lee says. “He needs the practice. So you won’t have to go, Darlene. I can bring him back.”

“Not only practice,” Darlene says. “He needs a haircut, too. Can I give you a trim tonight, Grandpa?”

“The price is right,” Mac says.

One thing about Darlene, she knows how to command. People fall in line before they know what’s happening, and then they don’t mind because she’s already got everything done up to perfection. Just like this birthday supper. She’s set the table with Peggy’s Wedgewood china with its tureen filled with wild-rice soup, and the platter covered with Chorniak Farms Black Angus T-bone steaks, barbecued medium rare, and one for Mac that’s well done. She’s baked a carrot cake with cream-cheese icing, decorated with a circle of twenty-five candles, and in the centre she’s stuck a chocolate rodeo bull and rider.

“Let’s at it!” Garth says. “What do you say, Grandpa?”

“Happy birthday.”

“Quick on the draw,” Garth says. “What’s in this soup, Mom?”

“Wild rice. But keep your hands off. We’ll say grace first. Lee? Can you?”

“You can stay seated, Dad,” Lee says. “Let’s just bow our heads. Thank you, Lord, for the good food Darlene’s prepared for us tonight, for having Grandpa here with us, and for having our son here at home for his birthday. Thank you for everything. Amen.”

“Amen,” Mac says.

At sun-up in the morning Mac is at the field. He gets out of his truck, then walks over to the tractor. With his farming background, he knows not to start the engine without checking the oil. It’s a good thing that they still put the dipstick where a person can reach it. The new John Deere has tires that are higher than Mac’s head. What if he had to add oil to the engine? He’d need a twenty-foot ladder.

The sun blinds from the east horizon as Mac seats himself in the cab. It’s a simple thing to turn the ignition key. Lee said it won’t turn over unless the gearshift’s in park. So many things to remember. He reads over Lee’s printed instructions.

The throttle lever’s a red knob at the front of the right armrest. There are four black knobs for the hydraulics. The paper says that number one lifts and drops the wings on the cultivator. Number two raises and lowers the entire unit. Number three controls depths on the air seeder. Number four lays out the field marker to show the width of the sprayer. He doesn’t have to bother with three and four. There are more gimmicks than he can shake a stick at. Behind his right shoulder there’s a monitor with a touch screen; something to do with hydraulic oil temperature and rate of flow through the hoses. Laptop computer hooked up to the Internet at his left armrest. TV monitor above the front window to show what the tractor’s pulling behind.

He reads through the instructions a second time. A diagnostic computer on the corner post display? Shows miles per hour. Engine revolutions per minute. Lateral hitch positioning…that prevents an implement from getting too close to a potato plant, if somebody happened to be growing potatoes. Programs that show where the field needs fertilizer, where the weeds are and how much chemical is needed from the sprayer nozzles to kill them. A GPS that can tell you how many miles to Timbuctu, and give you the directions to get there.

Lee has the steering wheel set too low for Mac’s liking. He meant to tell him last night, but there was so much else to think about just getting the outfit here. He steps on a floor lever and the steering wheel drops smack on his arthritic knees. What does the paper say? There’s a side lever to drop it one notch at a time?

The tractor’s running at low throttle. Mac pulls the first knob and the wings of the cultivator spread out and down. He pulls knob number two, setting the shovels into the soil. He steps on the clutch and puts the tractor in drive, shifts up the red throttle knob, and the outfit’s moving. He turns a knob, the field cruise control, and sets the driving speed for the full-mile length of the field. He reminds himself that when he gets to the end he has to step on a silver button on the floor, a knob that looks like a dimmer switch on an old Pontiac car.

Normally on a morning like this Mac would have noticed everything; the lay of the land, the identity of every species of weed to be tilled, any new ones he’s not seen before, a hawk soaring overhead; but this morning his attention is narrowed to the tractor’s operating instructions.

Earlier this spring Mac wanted to try out the air seeder.

“I don’t think so,” Lee said. “You’ve done your time. Enjoy the time you’ve got left to realize that there’s more to life than just farming.”

Yeah? Doing what? He had always been around to help put the crop in, but Lee figured the 9420 might be just a little too technologically challenging for a man Mac’s age. Especially pulling an air seeder.

This is no big deal, Mac thinks. Just a few blinking lights and buzzers he might not have had on his old D, but he doubts this machine will last nearly as long. Mac’s generation pioneered mechanized agriculture. This 9420 wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the work done before to pave the way.

He heads in a beeline the full mile, not completely relaxed in case some buzzer might go off. There’s always something blinking on the control panels…numbers flashing on and off. He notices a problem only after he gets to the end of the field and steps on the dimmer-switch button to take the tractor off cruise. While he’s doing this he figures he’s got everything licked. He cuts back the throttle, shifts into park, and it seems that all tension eases. But then all hell breaks loose.

He looks behind to see the job he’s done on the field. He’s blackened the ground a full mile, but it’s not a nice and even strip. Yet it’s not the bad job that captures his attention. The cultivator captures his attention. The right wing of the cultivator is all askew and in the air. Clinging to its shovels is the mangled tin and plastic of Mac’s half-ton truck. The cultivator has dragged his truck all this distance like so much trash. He turns back around in his bucket seat and stares at the TV above the big front window. There it is again, the wreck as ugly as a dead lobster up there on the screen.

Black knob number one? He pushes it forward and back, forward and back. Bounce the wings up and down. He watches the TV monitor. Forward and back, forward and back. Can’t he shake the damn thing off? Mac scans the horizon, afraid that somebody might see this. And isn’t it just his luck! God, it’s just his luck! Anybody but those assholes! It can’t be! Pete Scarf’s Dodge Caravan!

Pete, Nick, Jeepers and Sid all climb out. Mac won’t get out of the cab. He won’t climb down. They walk in a circle around the outfit. Nick scratches his head, his fingers buried in his thick and curly hair. Jeepers simply stares, and then his cheeks wobble as he delivers his standard exclamations, “Jeepers, jeepers, jeepers.” Pete yanks down on the truck, as if he could pull it off the shovels. Sid throws his head back, laughing, almost falling backwards.

“We were looking for Abner’s moose,” Nick yells up to Mac. “Have you seen them around this morning?”

“Good Lord,” Sid yells. “How the hell did you do this? I should have my camera.”

“Camera?” Mac yells back. “I’ll camera you if you don’t shut up. I don’t need a camera. I need my twenty-two rifle.”

He wouldn’t shoot them, but it wouldn’t take much more for him to shoot himself.