The Work of Wolves by Kent Meyers

Author:Kent Meyers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 0156031426
Publisher: Harvest
Published: 2004-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Stacking Hay

CARSON SPUN THE CASE TRACTOR in a tight circle, straightened it out, shoved in the clutch, slammed the transmission into reverse, and let the clutch back out, all in one continuing motion. As the tractor backed up, he lowered the bale prongs on the three-point hitch until they were sweeping through the stubble two inches off the ground. He backed up to a big round bale of hay, slid the prongs under it endwise, shoved in the clutch, pushed the three-point hitch lever up to lift the bale off the ground, shifted the transmission into fourth, and carried the bale forward to the stack he was building. There he repeated the whole process in reverse, backing into the stack, dropping the hitch, and driving forward, leaving the bale. Then he set off for another one.

His father was using a Farmhand fork on an old International M to build the second and third layers of the stacks, Carson establishing the base and his father finishing. Carson was a couple of stacks ahead, a quarter mile separating the two tractors in the field. He shoved the last bale into place on the stack he was building, then slipped the Case into neutral and let it idle, watching the M move across the field, a bale nearly as large as the tractor itself hoisted in front of it. The image he'd been seeing again and again interposed itself before his eyes: Magnus's hand striking Rebecca's face, thick fingers coming from nowhere, her head jerking sideways.

That image had been in his mind when Earl called about Greggy Longwell. Carson had listened to Earl's perfunctory description of what had happened, but he found it hard to pay attention.

"Guess that's what we expected," he said when Earl finished.

"You guess that's what we expected?"

"Never was much of a chance Longwell'd take it seriously."

"So things are going according to plan? Is that what you're saying?"

"I need to think about things some more."

"I guess we do. I got to go think right now, you know?"

Carson didn't know what Earl expected from him. Was he supposed to apologize for Greggy? Tell Earl how bad he felt? Greggy was a bigot, and he'd behaved like they thought he would. Carson had never wanted to go to him in the first place. Or was Earl just responding to Carson's listlessness? Carson tried to recall the anger he'd felt when he first recognized what was being done to the horses. But the image of a hand striking Rebecca's face—her startled, hurt expression, her hair swirling in chaos under the blow—kept interposing, and he couldn't recapture his former concern for the horses. This other despair overwhelmed it.

He'd left the house after Earl's call and found his father replacing one of the hydraulic rams on the Farmhand parked near the Quonset shed.

"You got anything goin on tomorrow?" Charles asked.

"What're you thinkin?"

"Hay needs stacked."

It was the job he'd told Rebecca needed doing the Saturday he'd gone to work Surety, hoping she'd ride with him. And she had, and they'd gone to the Elmer Johannssen ranch.

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