Dust by Slade Arthur

Author:Slade, Arthur [Slade, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dava Enterprises
Published: 2011-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Harvest was in full gear.

Robert was helping his father, piling the sheaves into stooks, while the threshing machine growled fifty yards away, a big metal monster that devoured wheat. It hissed and banged and breathed steam and spat the kernels into a pile.

This was harvest, and that was a word that needed a capital H—it had meaning and weight. The start of school, meals, even sleep—nothing was as important as Harvest. This was the first time he had stayed home from class. His parents had always said he was too small, but his body was now growing into a man's, and they wanted him there.

Which was nice.

Robert was sad about missing the first two weeks of school, because sometimes they studied other countries and history—and even Mrs. Juskin couldn't make that stuff boring. He was happy not to see her, though. She was a plump spider, sitting at her desk, waiting to sting any student who didn't pay attention.

For Harvest he had to get up early and work hard and long, until it felt as though his body would fall apart, that everything inside had been sweated out and he was nothing but a shell. Then the sun would go down and they would go home to a deep sleep. Harvest was a demigod with special commands to be obeyed.

Maybe building the pyramids had been just like Harvest—work that had to be done. He pictured row after row of slaves, their brown backs sweating as they hauled giant blocks of stone up half-built pyramids. The sphinxes sitting like lions waiting for the end of the world. Pharaoh Ramses would watch from his chariot or litter, the Egyptian sun as hot as a forge, reflecting off the Nile.

"It's not the worst crop I've ever seen," Robert's dad said, clapping a hand on his son's shoulder. Robert had to run the words through his head a few times before he understood them. His dad watched Uncle Alden and the three hired men work away at the fallen wheat. They were threshers. Threshers. Robert liked the word. It sounded old, as though it came from the Bible. Let us be threshers of men. Or was that fishers?

"It's not as tall as sunflowers," Robert said, matter-of-factly. The wheat was sparse and only reached his hips, unlike the fields he'd dreamed about from time to time, where he would traipse through the wheat, the stalks blocking the sun. But his dad was happy with it, and that was good. His dad had been really happy for a while now.

"We'll get back what we put into it and a bit more. Arnold at the elevator said the price might be going up a couple cents. Something to do with Russia."

Robert nodded. They were talking adult talk now and it seemed more natural. He thought about Russia, a big, majestic country. The Cossacks lived there: fighters and cavalrymen. What was their connection to Horshoe grain?

"We don't have to pay our loan, that eases the burden. Didn't even have to use butter on the tractor's axles this year.

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