regarded him evenly from across the fire, looking wise in his tattered clothing, his beard, his holey shirt and frayed pants, like some river guru in the wilderness, ready to take him down to the river for baptism.
—I am the bread of life, he said.
—You are a blasphemer.
—Let’s partake.
The river moved by. They burned their fingers opening their dinners.
The dry days passed into late August and what little grain they had was harvested by a hired combine and the stalks spewed out in straight rows. Then the baler did its own work behind the tractor, its rolling teeth gathering the rows, the auger and claw carrying the straw to the press chamber where the plunger shook the whole machine with its motion and created a rectangular bale that was bound with two lengths of orange twine and dropped neatly into the field. The hit of the plunger rocked the tractor and swayed him in his seat in a steady rhythm and his eyes were red and worn from the diesel smoke that escaped prematurely from the broken muffler. He thought he would get a spell from either Blair or Elmer, and he thought one would bring him food and water, for he’d been on the tractor since morning and had broken down twice and had repaired the baler both times with tools and bolts found in the baler’s toolbox, but so far no one had come and he now believed no one would. By evening he still baled golden rows on golden stubble and watched his shadow grow longer before him when he moved away from the sun. His vision was filled with the rows shining on the field. He thought he would get most of this field done and quit, but as the long solitary hours grew longer he worked like he needed it and knew he would finish the field. He baled straw in the soft gloaming and was finished when the light was a wash of pale blue in the west. As he drove away pulling the dusty implement he looked back at the clean field and the yellow bales studding it.
Down the darkening lane his lights caught a figure walking ahead and a jolt coursed through his tired body and ebbed away slowly. She swung the empty milk pail as she walked and turned back once to see him approaching. He rolled up next to her and nodded to the wheel well and she climbed up. The night was dry and warm and she was strange on his tractor, a craved apparition appeared to fulfill his longing.
—Coming to steal some milk? he said. I should charge you.
—What will it cost me? she said.
They were close enough that his dusty arm brushed her knee as he ran up the throttle on the tractor, and he rolled the big machine forward. She wore shorts and after setting the milk pail down on top of a piled chain put her feet on the armrest of his seat and scratched at her shins with both hands, providing a good angle of her full thigh. She scratched indulgently, hissing breath between her teeth and grimacing. He looked at her.
—Eczema, she said.
At the barn he led her through the front doors and into the tank room. The last pale light of the day gleamed dully off the silver surface of the big oval tank. He bent at its base to unscrew the drain cap and she stood close.
—Have you done this before? he said.
She shook her head.
—I’ll show you how, so next time you don’t spill milk all over.
He set the cap and its center on the concrete floor with the inside facing up to keep it clean. He tilted the pail under the mouth of the drain and turned the lever a little. White milk gushed out in a twisted stream and made the pail ring. Exhaustion settled over him and he relaxed with a sigh.
—Don’t ever turn it more than this, he said. He looked up the length of her body to her face. This is like a fire hydrant. Much more than this and you’d have a hell of a mess. Knock the pail right out of your hand. Knock you over maybe.
When the frothy head reached the top he closed the lever and set the pail down and screwed the cap back on the drain.
—There you go.
She thanked him and bent for the pail and turned to leave.
—I haven’t seen anybody come get milk in a while, he said. Tom used to.
She looked down at the dented milk can.
—This is the milk you got from your cows this morning?
—Yes, he said, standing. And tonight. But they aren’t my cows.
—Why not?
—I work here. They aren’t mine.
—Well don’t ever sell one for a handful of magic beans, she said. Or maybe you should. She gave a soft laugh, barely smiling, and its oddness was fetching. She was a consistent series of pleasant surprises and he watched her like she was something new and wholly unusual.
—Come in here for a minute, he said.
He moved across the room and opened the door to the milking parlor and waited for her to come through. The barn was dark and cool and blue light fell from high windows that dimmed farther with each minute gone. Their movements echoed. He didn’t bother with the lights.
—Is this where the cows come? she said.
—Twice a day. They never stop coming. Sit up there.
She inspected the milking deck to see if it was clean and jumped up.
—It’s cool in here, she said. Feels good.
He came to her with a small tin box.
—This is a salve medicine we use on the udders when they get dry and cracked, he said. I’ve heard women use it sometimes too, on their fingernails. But it might help your legs. Where does it itch?
She pointed to several areas on both shins, and as he bent and examined them he saw patches of troubled skin, irritated from the assault of her fingernails. Her bare thighs had flattened on the ledge. How tender the skin was where they pressed together he could only guess.
—Stop swinging your legs, he said.
She stopped. Her eyes were like dark teardrops on her face and when he looked up at her he saw in them the reflection of the windows. He wiped the yellow clear balm on each spot and after setting the tin down began to rub it in with his thumbs. His fingers pressed into the limp flesh of her calves. He waited for her to speak, to object, or to say it was enough, but she only watched him with that calm stare that heated his blood so slowly, and her legs shone faintly in the failing light.
WITH THE MURMURING APPROACH OF AUTUMN came the corn harvest. Elmer pulled the chopper through the distant field and Jack and Seth ground the gears of the old woodsided dump trucks and made them belch black diesel smoke to make the switches in time. The trucks groaned up the lane full of crop and rattled back down empty. They dumped their loads under the rapacious gaze of Roydn Woolums, who worked the three-sided earthen silage pit with the loader tractor and with a newborn pride barely contained. He pushed and leveled his self-made mountain of kernel cob and leaf and tromped it down with the heavy wheels. Throughout the day the chopper rarely stopped. As the roaring tandem took the corn several rows at a time small groups of deer bolted from what had been summer protection, bounding across the field as if on springs. Full days of Jack and Seth driving back and forth, Roydn tromping, Elmer chopping,
