Tawny by Chas Carner

Author:Chas Carner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: nature, coming of age, 1950s, animals, death, grief, twins, farming, deer, new hampshire
Publisher: Chas Carner

The plow was held above the ground by the tractor’s hydraulic three-point hitch. Its three blades, polished by so many years’ work, shone in the sun. With a muffled hiss it dropped stiffly to the ground and the tractor groaned as it pulled away. The blades bit hard into the richly fertilized earth. As the tractor picked up speed, it moved effortlessly over the long field. The plow sliced into the ground and casually flipped the sod over into long, straight rows. Robins swooped and scurried across the freshly overturned earth, sometimes stopping suddenly to tug mercilessly at a surprised worm that held on for dear life.

Trey stood at the edge of the field, watching his father pilot the tractor and wondering if he would ever learn to keep the furrows as straight. Both he and his brother had learned to drive at the age of eight. Patiently, their father had taught them the intricacies of clutching and shifting, braking and accelerating. They practiced their driving skills in the early evening after their chores were finished. They had to sit on a Sears and Roebuck catalogue to see over the dashboard of the pickup truck as they bounced over the fields. Learning to drive had been fun for the boys, although in a farming community like theirs, driving at such an early age was not unusual. Some kids their age even owned their very own “field cars” to hot-rod around in. Had Troy not gotten carried away last year and driven the tractor through the garage door, Trey might be piloting it right now, he thought.

Tawny lay nearby, peacefully nibbling on a blade of grass that dangled from her mouth. Two gray mourning doves circled the field. They moved perfectly together, as if tethered by an invisible line.

“Hey, daydreamer, are we going to finish this job?” his mother asked. The two were repairing the bordering barbed-wire fence. Every winter, heavy snowdrifts wreaked havoc with the fences, knocking down posts and stretching the wire until it was limp and useless.

“Sorry,” Trey answered, “I was watching Pa.”

“Your time at the wheel will come soon enough,” his mother said. She knew what he had been thinking.

Trey picked up his bent-claw hammer and fit a wire barb between its tines. He tugged at the wire and leaned away from it, pulling it as tight as a guitar string. His mother used a U-shaped nail to attach it to the post.

His father turned the tractor around at the far end of the field and headed back toward them. The plow glanced off and scraped against a shallow shelf of granite.

“Uh! I hate that noise,” his mother said, placing her hands over her ears. “It always reminds me of someone dragging his fingernails over a blackboard.”

Trey chuckled. “You say that every year.”

He picked up the heavy sledgehammer and thumped the top of a wobbly post. The head of the stake splintered and mashed down as it sunk deeper into the ground. “There, that should do it,” said the boy, testing the post.

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