Pale Harvest. Braden Hepner

leaned back on his heels, and squinted wisely at the man.

      —You own this place? he said.

      The man shook his head.

      Heber nodded.

      —I wonder how much money a place like this pulls in of a week. Do you know?

      The man shook his head again. Heber chuckled.

      —Can you speak?

      Heber looked at Jack and flashed his strong teeth. They left the man and walked outside and the hot wind moved around them.

      —Summer storms, said Heber. You feel the energy?

      —I’m tired. I got to milk in the morning.

      —You know how much money I make laying brick?

      Jack looked at him.

      —Take what you make an hour and times it by four and you’re still not there.

      Jack grunted.

      —I can get you a job any time. Does Blair know the calendar year? Does he know what minimum wage is? He pays Captain Dipshit over minimum, don’t he?

      —Probly.

      —What are you doing?

      They climbed in the pickup and shut the doors.

      —What are you doing? Heber said again.

      —I’m working. What do you want me to say?

      —I want you to tell me that you believe something’s coming your way, that this is some means to some better end.

      —He’s only told me that those things’d be decided once the old lady passed on.

      —That’s vague, said Heber. As if it will take care of itself. If you do not want to lay brick with me there are plenty of jobs here in town.

      —Farm work is better than desk work, said Jack. He started the truck and backed into the street.

      —You know, you’re wasting away the best years of your life.

      —No, I don’t know that.

      —Best advice I ever got was to spend my youth like I’d die at thirty, said Heber. My best years are behind me, and I can’t believe how fast it went. You live to maximize the moment, you spend more time doing than considering, than balking, and you’ll have fewer regrets. But if you dally, why then you’ll spend the rest of your life thinking of what you could’ve done.

      —I haven’t lived a dull life.

      —But you’ve become complacent. Stagnant. You’ve stopped living. All you do is work. Where’s the opposition you used to entertain. Where’s the excitement. You brood too much lately. Blair’s a wily old fucker. I’d just have other options if I were you. Let’s do a business together. Once upon a time you wanted to. We could be masons. I can teach you.

      Jack grunted.

      —I need you, said Heber. I’ve been saving, but it’s taking too long.

      —You want to spend a little money to get us something to eat? said Jack.

      —Take us there.

      They rode in the pickup on clear streets beneath stoplights. On occasion a tumbleweed blew in from the desert and rolled across the road with the wind. They turned in at Beto’s and pulled up to a menu of ill-lighted and drab dishes.

      —A good choice, said Heber. A good choice, my friend.

      The wind hit the truck like a shoulder and whipped it with a few hard raindrops as they ate their food, but that was all, and in the sudden lightning the rolling clouds above them looked like the serried underbelly of a great beast. There was energy in the storm, but no rain.

2

      THE MILKING WAS DONE EARLY AND IT WAS DONE THE same, those stark hours of darkness just before dawn the barest of all. But they were changed for his thoughts of the girl. When they were finished he drove them past the McKellar house and was struck with a mood as from a dream, a nostalgic emotion from that same nameless range. Blair began to hum some old love song, supplementing it with fragments of half-remembered lyric.

      It was the twenty-fourth of July and they were back at the barnyard just past eight o’clock. The thermometer on the barn neared ninety. They walked to Elmer’s lawn where they sat in the shade of the short pine trees and waited for Elmer to come out of his house.

      —If you ain’t going to the celebration this morning you ought to gather up the pipe from the lower field, said Blair. Bring some up to this field here where we could run it from both ends. If we don’t get rain it won’t be enough to run water from one end to the other in one line.

      —I could. Or I could just take the day off.

      —And do what?

      —Get the hell out of here.

      —You member when I used to clean up a tractor and drive it in the parade, and you’d sit on my lap up there and throw out candy? When’s the last time we did that? Must of been when we bought the Thirty-Twenty, and how long ago was that?

      —Long time. Cause I was young enough to let you talk me into sitting up there with you.

      —Careful, boy. I could still whip you and put you up there with me. Roll through the square now, the two of us.

      Blair spat soundlessly and said, You fix that old John Deere yet?

      —They’re all old.

      —The Thirty-Twenty.

      —The smoke pipe?

      —It’s rattling like hell and killing me with diesel fumes.

      —Am I supposed to weld it?

      —If you can get to it.

      —What if I can’t?

      —Then get to it anyways.

      —I’ll take it to the co-op.

      —No you won’t. Milk prices are low. If you can’t get to it with the welder use wire.

      —Listen, said Jack. Is the farm paid off?

      —No, the farm ain’t paid off. I wished it was.

      —The tractors?

      —They’re paid off save for the new loader. About time for anothern though, soon as one of these older tractors gives up the ghost. Take your pick from the Thirty-Twenty and the little one there and then we’ll be back in the red. It’s a never ending cycle, I tell yuh.

      —Where do you see it in the next year or two?

      —Oh hell. It’s hard to make a terrible amount of progress in just a year or two. So much depends on the weather and the crops. We don’t have room for much expansion. Land prices’ve gone up some recently, Lord knows why. And with it, taxes.

      Elmer came out and loped toward them with a consternated grin on his face and they watched him approach.

      —Hullo Pa, said Elmer when he reached them. He was already sweating. Hullo Jack. Hot enough for yuh?

      —Jack’ll take the pipe out of that lower field there and bring some up to this one here, said Blair. Run it from both ends.

      —That sounds good. That’s sandy down there anyways. It gets sandier every year, it seems.

      —Farming gets harder every year, said Blair.

      —I need you to help me move that welder, Jack, said Elmer. Better yet, why don’t you just take it over to that east side where the dry cows are and weld that broken top bar. That way I won’t get all sweaty fore the parade. You know which one I’m talking about?

      Jack